Chippy

Apologies for not knowing/remembering how many party members there are, but it always seems that I don't replay games enough to get all the interactions and banter, so what if (story allowing) we could gather them all at an inn or the stronghold and sit them down for a chin wag? Maybe in designated chairs or something (hopefully it wont start to resmble an AA meeting). It usually seems as though there's a trigger of some kind anayway and various reasons for missing it, so maybe for banters and interactions missed this could be done?.

About loading screen tips (which were really immersion breaking for me in BG2, but got used to them) I'd prefer not to have them because I'd rather stare slack jawed at the art, or if they must be in, have the option to be there for at least 5 seconds before the area loads on a fast hard drive - because it's really immersion breaking to get 1/2 way through the tip, the area loads and the OCD kicks in while I'm racking my brain to remember what chapter of the manual the tip was related to, which means I'm not concentrating and get an arrow to the face, which is probably what the tip was all about anyway and likely related to a rule I knew about already. Just saying. Because, you know, that stuff is important.

If there was a method whereby I could erase the past ten years (maybe take a few games with me) but generally go back to the positive view I had on where RPG's would go, I think PE, Planescape Numenera, and Shadowrun Returns are taking me back there. I might have to stand my character by that waterfall for a while, but I actually think the stink of the past decade is starting to wear off. You guys are solid, and I'm getting all misty.

Swearing - when implemented appropriately - can be hillarious. Annah walking into the upper ward was totally unexpected with her "...also known as..." comment. So was thinking of a range of swear words unique to PE, like 'Taffer' was in Thief.

Dialogue/accent/tone/culture and lingo according to surroundings; maybe alot of work, but if your thief is entering a ball or fancy dress party with face masked, they should have the appropriate manner and dialogue to pass off as a guest, or getting caught in the slums without knowing the proper (jig?) and lingo used also being a problem.

Was just thinking that one of the few things I liked about Skyrim was the Stormcloak missions (where you helped them raid a crypt or assault a castle, etc) it would be great if the crafting skill was taken into account and I had the option to equip those guys with better stuff - in true RPG fashion though, so maybe it would advance my reputation with the faction, or even within that scouting party if their leader was corrupt. Getting a bit detailed now. Maybe even just give them some gold to upgrade their gear - likely the sort of thing a cleric, monk paladin would do.

I like games from most genre's (they seem to be difficult to categorise these days). I'd consider Shogun 2: Total War and Assassins Creed series more 'roleplaying' games than Skyrim, and Warhammer: March of Chaos to have more RPG class mechanics than ME:2 (omitting dialogue). I've always wanted large scale battles in RPG games, but to look at some comments on the BG:EE forum, it seems people are afraid of it becoming an RTS if you introduce that type of scenario and suddenly BG's playstyle has become Warhammer:40K Dawn of War?. If I had to prioritize one consistant thing in all my favourite games; it would be player identity - either aspiring Shogun of Japan, Ezio, Garret, a Transformer, Tukaram (Blade of Darkness), a newb patsy Vampire, Mechwarrior 3's pilot lost behind enemy lines (now that was one game where voice over's were done well - Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper came second), all the RPGs from Obsidian and KOTOR2 (which went places with the protagonist no one has dared before). Even the facesless cyborgs from the Syndicate games had more visual style and character than whatever any of my Elder Scrolls characters have been. Might be missing a few here and there Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex pulled of the spy really well, but every game had a player tone and went with it. That's why I think it's important to keep your character in a setting/game (your alter ego) because I've personally only got one.

If there's any gathering of stuff for crafting, it would be great to hire flunkies to do it. Although it would be equally cool if player skill could determine the quality of gathered stuff - like spot/search/crafting to extract ore in a better manner for that special weapon. So being able to choose would be great.

I'd like spellcasters to be able to effect other skills with their spells - maybe a smith who can use fire based spells and cold based to forge and improve weapons, or a thief who used snap-freeze traps to solidify and shatter enemies (human/mouse trap laced with vertical cone of cold ) that sort of thing. Also interesting if fighters (say: smith) and thieves could just dabble in magic to obtain that. Maybe I'm still suffering from post Dragon Age and Skyrim spell effects, but it seemed the former made an attempt to link spells (which I never needed even on Nightmare) and the latter didn't matter if it was fire/ice; magic was just different coloured fruit to chuck at any enemy for consistant damage. So I appreciate Obsidian wont do that, but would pick building on IE, TOEE spells with more features rather than just creating new ones that do the same thing?. Hope that didn't sound like it came from a prat, but that's my gist of it.

Tried to list the stuff that stood out for me. Apart from stuff that should have been mentioned. BG1: Good: Creating an alter ego in the FR that starts out without being pressured to save the world. Bad: Should have been more reactivity to actual events, eg Iron weapons breaking more. Ugly: Due to implementation of rules, low level classes felt the same (Ranger, Paladin, Fighter) and their abilities were eclipsed by other classes e.g. Ranger > Fighter/Thief, and sometimes spells e.g. Thief traps, Mage spell trap. Icewind Dale: Good: Party tactics, enemies that had specific weaknesses (more than BG) like skeletons vs blunt. Bad: Maybe if fleshed out surroundings a bit more? Like tracking showing sites and details of past battles that could tell a story as well as finding an old journal from a cleric... Ugly: TRIALS of the Luremaster. Some of those puzzles... Planescape Torment: Good: E.VE.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. Anna's ass (and personality), Fall from Grace's background and life decisions (the pathy/cognitive, dignified succubus - if she can be profiled that easily). Just all party members, I could go on. Bad: At the time my prior experience and learning of BG made me expect an inventory as varied as BG (armor, weapons, etc) which initially made PS:T feel a bit stripped down. Obviously the game changed my oppinion. Ugly: Don't know why combat is a complaint, but mine would be that the Nameless One didn't really get to flex his abilities (especially towards the end) maybe a design decision because of limited PC's, but (especially in hell) expected to fight armies when indicated and (at the very end) thought there would be more. Just nitpicking really. IWD2: Good: Character skills effected story. Bad: Some of those puzzles... Ugly: The title was exactly as advertised, so a very specific narrow complaint, but; I could never get stealth to work. Never did find out what was up there. Kinda annoying because I'm supposed to be pretty familiar with the engine. Having always read the manual, assumed a bug?.

I'm not normally one to buy into the nostalgia stuff, but would request a low level magic missile type spell (with the pink colouring from IE games and Warlocks blast from NWN2). There was just something about that colouring that spoke to me.

Just sharing a bit of life experience here, but I worked for 4 years teaching over 5000 high risk offenders from every prison within the major city in which I live, 70% had psychological disorders. In light of my previous quoted statistic, had exactly 2 (verbal/miffed only) incidents during that time. I resigned due to my contempt for the (CRB checked - never arrested) colleagues I was working with who would happily place at risk of harming children offenders with 14-16 year olds, sexual harrasment against female staff (who did nothing because managers could only see misconduct, not a lack of it), steal more than half their yearly salaries from the college, and commit so much fraud and gross misconduct that the daily examples couldn't be summarized in one go. Similiar to another post quoting the military, a significant aspect of 'evil' for me has become what people (in this case highly educated, qualified professional's) could get away with within an institution - behind physical and bureaucratic walls - with no more than a bit of window dressing in place if anyone peeked a bit higher, and beneath this verneer still maintain their social, professional, and personal standing. My point is that there's enough of that crap in real life for me, and I chose to disengage from it - so whatever 'evil' a game contains I hope is done tastefully enough to engage the player.

I went to a professional development session recently held by a psychologist and criminologist with 25 years experience who agreed with points made in both above posts - she mentioned that about 1 in 20 people in any given area are statistically psychotic. Just posted that for what it's worth.

Shogun 2: Total War is one of my favourite games of all time, the combat animations in that are amazing. All this crap you hear about next generation leaps really shows in that game, to see something like that in PE would be ... perfect. Of course, if it costs a fortune then forget it.

Also, sometimes they roll a 1 and fail in epic fashion. Unless it negativley effects others, can be hilarious.

The odd quest here and there where you retireve something valuable from the quest giver, keep it, and suffer the consequences - like maybe they send out another party to get you.

Don't mind really, I'd rather learn more about the world first otherwise: Me: "Okay, okay! I spent 4 months going to the library, reasearching ancient texts, racking my BRAIN to come up with this idea and...". Obsidian: "Dude we can't put that in the game. It's totally against the lore and completely unbalanced". Me: "Not even that bit about bacteria having souls???".

I was thinking in terms of a character like Grobnar being given a helm of opposite alignment, I wouldn't expect him to then become a diluted character because he wasn't as heavy when placed on a scale with the practical incarnation from PS:T. There are just certain aspects of evil behaviour that jump out of a game as ...misplaced... like suddenly making Grobnar into a child killer similiar to the gnome murderer encounters in BG1/2, or what I hear happened to the protagonist's close family member in DA2. All moot though as I'm confident the writing from Obsidian wouldn't sink to those levels.

Ahh Dungeon Keeper! I think that's what Skeletor did when he got kicked out of Eternia (wonder if Obsidian can use that without getting sued?). Playing that game was like being an evil Minsc or Grobnar. So long as the extrinsically motivated evil path is laced with a bit of humour, I'm game. Maybe Obsidian can be convinced to install a few mistress's in the stronghold dungeon in the event we need to rapidly get some information from some characters... Regarding Tsuga C's post: Percy Wetmore from The Green Mile comes to mind from your Paul Fussell quote. I think it would be pretty disturbing if any game company felt the need to write that tone/character into a dialogue or alignment/personality. Ugh. Even as an antagonist.

The idea of fighting styles is great, I expected other games to follow suit after they were implemented in KOTOR2 (as per weapon styles). Advantages that are significant would be preferred though (I suppose that would mean that if you didn't have it you'd likely die?), so I imagine boy-king leonidas winning against a wolf because he couldn't be flanked, and because he was further up the hill. If an ogre tried the same frontal assault (being taller) then it wouldn't be sparta 30 years on. Or my epic 6 party members attacking an entire army; 2 weapon style fighters holding off the infantry, sword and shield defending the ranger and spellcasters until the single weapon fighter duel's/kills the army general. That sort of thing.

Not massively important to me - but any thoughts on the disguise skill? I was thinking of scenario's like using social skills or just bribe some adventuring newbies to look like me or my party, send them into harms way (let's say I'm sure I'm walking into an ambush) and then while they're being peppered with arrows/spells, get my party into a better position. Or maybe charm/simulcrum/clone spells that could be put to similiar use.

Agree with that and see Bishop as one of the few characters I loved to hate. He then became a pretty unique party member for me because if only the **** has the skills to do the job, killing the bastard doesn't get the job done. I expect Wasteland 2 to go down that route as well, which then opens into the discussion of making party members more like real life relationships - but that's another topic. Leaving Bishop dying on the ground was cool though. Just to clarify I used a 7 letter swear word that became a 4 letter set of stars. I'd wouldn't use that particular word on a forum. Well maybe I would if describing Bishop, but didn't here.

Difficult to revisit this topic without going back into what evil is. I mostly look at evil these days as either what happens when someone has a personality disorder, is evil as the bible would paint it, or just for a joke play like this: Might be getting more evil/practical as I get older though; replayed Witcher 1 recently and just had to skin a main character to get his fur for a mutanagenic potion while the love of his life pined away somewhere awaiting his return, and the game assumed I did it because 'monsters had to die'. Nope.

HATED Sten in DA:O. Thought he might have been inspired by T'ealc in Stargate, but after 10 mins realised he was inspired by that bout of acne most go through as teenagers. Slightly off topic, but Zevran (who was ok) being voiced by that voice actor, and having him do the voices for everyone throughout the first 4 Assassins Creed games has just put me off any further character voiced by that guy. He really wasn't that diverse.

I'd be more inclined to fill this out if I knew what it's purpose was.