AGX-17

If you can't make it concise it's probably not a very good idea. Plus all I see is you're proposing to just bring dice rolls back and proposing a bunch of peripheral ideas that don't actually address the core mechanics of speech checks. You're also making the fallacious assumption that most P:E players are going to be unfamiliar with die rolls and RNG outcomes when that's been the dominant mechanic in video game RPGs for decades, from cRPGs to JRPGs. Fallout 3 blatantly told you your percentage chance of success in a speech check, meaning the mechanics were clearly presented to generations and groups of people who otherwise may not have been aware of the concept. And idea of having to use your Tricorder on every NPC in order to access skillful dialogue options is just stupid extra work. Unless your character is an autism spectrum "new Sherlock Holmes" incapable of reading people's emotions and body language it's a nonsense idea and the sort of wasteful extra step that the old IE games were overpopulated with.

Well, the Conference Call is specifically the weapon of choice because when it hits Terramorphous' eyes (the critical spots on that particular creature,) the shots that fire out sideways hit right in that location, with the spread of a close-range shot, effectively tripling the critical damage dealt. And The Bee is dropped by that Hyperion propaganda radio guy. I haven't tried Terramorphous since The Bee's nerf though, so I can't testify to its current effectiveness.

Sandbox and IE-style don't mix. A sandbox game (à la Minecraft, a pure sandbox, or GTA, a mostly sandbox,) is more about dicking around and making your own fun, not story, companions and combat depth.

Cutscenes are non-applicable. The fundamental concept of a cutscene in gaming is a non-interactive cinematic or cinema-style sequence. Anyway, the idea of buffs wearing off is realistic, but not fun. Last I heard they were leaning more toward sustained buffs similar to Dragon Age's than toward a time-limited buff that has to be recast constantly, because they're using a Dark Souls style system of a certain set number of casts between rests. NPCs don't spam buffs while not in combat so far as I'm aware, especially if they have a limited number of casts and can't ever rest to recover the use of said buffs, so it wouldn't be a likely scenario.

Marriage is a socio-economic contract. It originated in ancient times as a purely economic transaction between two families, family groups or tribes. Things like dowries and bride prices existed and still exist in the developing world based on the economics of the loss or gain of an individual and the economic value placed on that individual. What conservatives think is that legalization of gay marriage means big bad government will storm their churches with the national guard and force them at gunpoint to conduct gay marriages (which is idiotic.) Legalization of gay marriage is about the civil, governmental, bureaucratic rights that come with marriage. It's not about religion, although conservatives want it to be so they can force their social values on everyone else on the grounds that it somehow intrudes on their "freedom" to give other people the same freedoms and equal treatment under the law. Just like how the Catholic church wants to dominate the social behaviors even of people who aren't a part of their church by influencing government policies in various countries. Notable examples like Ireland's Catholic-driven ban on abortions recently causing the death of an Indian woman whose life would have been saved by an abortion. No homosexual, contrary to conservative beliefs, "chose" to be homosexual. After all, if anyone believes it's a choice, I ask, when did you choose to be a heterosexual? Do you make that decision every day? Because it only stands to reason that if it's a choice, both options must be equally appealing to you. Homosexuality is a natural occurrence, it has been seen in many species (the most noted example being in sheep, with an even higher rate of homosexual behavior than is known in humans.) From a biological perspective, yes, it is not a "correctly functional" sexual orientation in that it does not, under natural circumstances, result in reproduction and the propagation of the DNA code driving the behavior. Besides, modern society and science have overcome those hurdles in several ways and more are being developed as we write (there is active research into allowing two women to reproduce sexually through artificial means.) And sexual reproduction is not the only method of reproduction. Asexual reproduction came before sexual reproduction, after all, and there are species of amphibians and reptiles capable of Parthenogenesis, which is when a female produces offspring without the involvement of males. While the resulting offspring are genetically identical to the mother, they are still a propagation of her DNA. This occurs in situations where there is a lack of males in the environment, thus allowing for the preservation of the mother's DNA through time, until such a time as sexual reproduction becomes available as an option again. After all, it's better to reproduce in any way possible rather than have your genetic lineage die out, from a natural biological perspective. Even more bizarre/interesting is the fact that there are some amphibians which can change their sex in response to environmental conditions (a severe imbalance in sexes in the community,) with males becoming fully-functional females and vice-versa. All that said, the fundamental issue is that of the law and the rights granted by the law for wedded couples. It's about human relationships and the rights of individuals to certain benefits exclusively restricted to marriage as a legal institution, not a religious institution. I would agree, and while I'm not a fan of governments involving themselves with the headache that is marriage politics, as long as being married is the standard for couples it should be open to both homosexual and heterosexual couples - with both being provided the full rights and privileges that this conveys. Like I said, the fundamental issue is the legal institution of marriage, not the religious one. Anyone can get "married" religiously, with or without an organized religion's involvement, but the government grants certain benefits and rights to people married under the law. A marriage under the law can be undertaken even without any form of ritual ceremony or religious hullaballoo. It's about those legal rights and benefits. Because one of the US government's primary roles is to enforce/guarantee compliance in contracts made between individuals and/or groups of any kind (be they businesses, community groups, private clubs, corporations, governmental bodies or any other that can legally make a contract,) the institution of marriage naturally falls under their purview. Besides, the government's involvement is implicit when you use the term "marriage politics." After all, if the government weren't involved, gay marriage would have no hurdles to overcome (except possible hate crimes perpetrated by social conservatives,) and heterosexual couples would have no special rights or privileges granted to them under the law.

Conference Call + The Bee is the standard solo method for dealing with Terramorphous.

As ususal, lockbashing makes any lockpicking skills worthless. Furthermore, a broken lock is less likely to open than a functional one.

Where'd you get the idea that the possibility exists that there would be no persuasion-type skills present in P:E? It's practically a given that lying will be an option provided in dialogues, how is a rogue supposed to be a rogue without the ability to lie to people?

Literal humor. Por-traits. "Poor traits." I hope we don't have a "poor trait" system. Fun with syllables. ^_^ I think you mean "puns."

Welp, I'm out.

No, those simulations were a niche genre for a specific niche of "military enthusiasts." The only person I ever personally knew of who owned any of those "Jane's X" programs was a friend's "Real America" dad in the mid 90s.

The first one was a real horror game, and as has been mentioned, it's been getting less horror and more "space marine" action with each installment thus far.

They've already stated that they intend low level spells to stay useful and relevant as the game progresses.

Yeah, during certain times of day you can pass through Black Mountain without running into Super Mutants (but you can run into their impotent Indiana Jones boulder, good job Havok!) and there's also a wild cliff-hopping path around its left/west side. You'll be noticed by Deathclaws, but they won't be able to get you and either way you'll end up at REPCONN when you're done. Good choice for science/EW/lockpicking majors (Doctorate program in lockpicking. Didn't play Fallout 3? The wasteland is lousy with institutions of higher education!) Of course, sometimes the Deathclaw Alpha Male spawns on the road while you're heading to Black Mountain/Neil's Shack.

Presumably somewhere in between. I doubt you're ever going to be intentionally railroaded.

The locations visited are close to the inn. Adventurers would need to rest after exerting themselves. Both are actually believable. The inn-keeper is spreading stories to get adventurers to come in the general vicinity of his/her inn, I think if it is presented as something that got out of hand for the inn-keeper(like the inn is just too busy) would make it even better. A snake-oil salesman would also be quite funny, especially if his potions actually ended up working(unbeknownst to said salesman). But like I said, the adventurers are going to know the Innkeeper lied once they get to the destined treasure and find nothing. If this is just some bumpkin country inn the adventurer is more liable to just rob or kill the innkeep than to pay him more money. Snake oil salesmen were nomadic by necessity, because when people found out they were being cheated, they tended to want justice or revenge. An innkeeper is tied to his inn, he can't just pick up and move the inn 500 leagues away once everyone knows he's a swindler. At any rate, the idea of being cheated or scammed isn't really a source of humor for the player who is being cheated. Unless the player is strange and likes being cheated out of something of value.

Well, only if you break a solemn oath. So, basically the enemy of rogues everywhere. I wonder what their mortality rate will be in the game world. And whether or not rogue players will be stalked by an unkillable adversary which ambushes them at random locations like Nemesis in Resident Evil 3.

I don't recall saying that. And I don't consider FotNS a great and deep anime. Entertaining, yes. But greatness is not a label I give out lightly. It's your thread, only 5 pages long. It's not that hard to look back at page 3. Whatever, it's your can of worms. You get to clean up the mess. Read it again and you will realise that I have never said that explicitly. Altough I see how you came to that conclusion. Not that I regret framing it that way. That's an awfully roundabout way of confirming what we already knew. Anyway. This obviously isn't for your benefit.

I always prefer rogues, and warrior in that game is actually "tank," because offensively they're worthless, and you already have Aveline who's tailored specifically to be "The Tank." Male warrior was dull, female mage was alright, female rogue felt the most "right." Male rogue just looked and felt weird (way too bulky to be some agile/sneaky type.) The guy who played male Hawke didn't deliver the more rogue-oriented lines very well. He's definitely more of a "noble" voice than anything else. And Hawke should have gotten some kind of unique individually-based skill tree (varying by class,) like all of the companions did. Specializations don't count.

The only problem with that is the stupid retcons made the Citadel the AI core of "the Catalyst" which controls the Reapers and which could have controlled the Citadel without Sovereign's involvement to begin with. But didn't. Because Mass Effect has poor story writers. As if that's news. Keepers, but there's never any instance of them aiding the Reapers beyond maintaining the Citadel. The biggest plot hole/bad writing choice there is the way they made the Asari declare that nobody is allowed to explore the entire citadel or investigate the origin of the Keepers (or even monitor their behavior,) where they come from or how they keep the Citadel operating.

This was never an accepted/announced Stretch Goal. What's wrong with portraits? It's not like a customizable 3D character facegen would have much value in an isometric combat game, and I'd like my character to have some sort of face. And for the people who don't like any of the available portraits (if they have them,) they could just get a mystery silhouette portrait or something. And what bearing does this have on traits? How would portraits make a trait system "poor"?

ENB is not "a must." Contrary to its psychotic russian creator's psychotic rants, it doesn't really make the game look more realistic, and very few of the modifications to it do the same. Many of them make the game look a lot better, but most of them give you a big performance hit even with a high end gaming rig. It's not well-optimized and Bethesda's engine isn't really capable of handling that sort of runtime modification, either. Changing dual wielding would require a good deal of animation work, I'm not aware of any mods that have done that. Most of the balance/combat mods really just up the damage dealt by both player and hostiles. Most of the magic mods buff the damage and allow the damage of the offensive spells to scale up with the skill, which makes magic a lot more viable. The only mod that I consider a true MUST is Morrowloot, which makes major enchanted and top-tier armors and weapons uncraftable (but still upgradable and enchantable,) and removes them from levelled enemy gear and levelled loot containers and places them all in specific, unchanging locations (and on NPCs,) in the world to make exploration and dungeon-diving worthwhile for once. It also makes pickpocketing more vital if you don't want to go around killing major NPCs. http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1412-morrowloot/ It used to be on the terrible Skyrim Nexus site, but the creator removed it or it was removed.

Blighttown is easy. You go down, then straigh, you jump, drop down, go right and save. You continue on until you reach the end of the way, drop down, go trough a cave, drop down twice, the go left and drop down and repeat that until you reach the bottom. Then you go right and save. You continue right, kill a Red Phantom, continue on to a trader and then continue up to a cave with spider web decor. You go down, summon the phantom, kill the boss, ring the bell and warp to the save. You go right and then up until you reach the exit. All done. Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny, joker. Now what? Do I have to fight that stupid giant demon obviously meant for lv 300 players or hoof it all the way back to the first bell to get to Sen's Fortress? I like the look of it, no way to say anything concerning gameplay. Backstory is obviously kind of derivative of Fallout, setting is obviously inspired by Chernobyl, which is more realistic than Beth's Fallout 3, anyway. Definitely has the look of STALKER, but that's probably more because that's what everything looks like in the region. Level design looks more dynamic and varied than F3's. I figure it'll play more like a proper shooter than F3.

...Ignoring the issues: A. who would mummify a spider? B. can a spider even be mummified? Mummification precludes the presence of maggots. Furthermore, maggots have medicinal uses, they can and are sometimes used in modern medicine to remove necrotic tissue from wounds. Yes, I am defending the honor of maggots. A. Some interesting sub-culture that reveres spiders. One we've not seen before. That's why it's different. B. (From the Monster Manual) -- Mummies defend tombs and other sacred places against intrusion, striking down foes with a deadly rotting disease. This is a fantasy game. Infestation of Maggots is listed as a Druid spell. And so for variety, instead of Mummy Rot, I put that spell description there. Most diseases in RPGs are handled with similar effects or state changes. It was just something different, that's all. A. Fine, you'd have a point... if not for B. B. You just ignored my point entirely and culled a definition of mummies from something that is not involved in P:E in any way, both by choice and for legal reasons. Because you can't actually address the idea of whether or not a spider can be mummified. Answer: no. What does mummification entail? The removal of internal organs and bodily fluids. How does a spider move? Hydraulically. Its legs are moved literally by the movement of blood through them. That's why they curl up when they die, the blood pressure that extends them is gone. Finally, Project Eternity is not Neverwinter Nights. Don't cite outside sources from other IPs as though it were "canon" evidence to support your claim.

...Ignoring the issues: A. who would mummify a spider? B. can a spider even be mummified? Mummification precludes the presence of maggots. Furthermore, maggots have medicinal uses, they can and are sometimes used in modern medicine to remove necrotic tissue from wounds. Yes, I am defending the honor of maggots.