AGX-17

I liked F3 in spite of its flaws, but its flaws are many and glaring. The atmosphere and world design really carried it. The combat was... passable as an FPS (sniper rifle scope still bugs me, you have to aim high with a hitscan weapon,) but gained a lot more novelty fun through VATS, albeit in exchange for challenge. But, ME3 was an original IP in the hands of its creators, creators who had already fumbled narratively on the second outing, so it was to be expected. F3 was one company buying up another IP they had no history with and changing it irrevocably. Now, I learned from Oblivion was that whatever writing talent they had at Bethesda during the Morrowind dev cycle is long gone or suffered severe brain damage, but I was still surprised by just how bad the writing got at points in F3. I wish they would read what people say, and learn from their mistakes, because it seems as though Bethesda is an echo chamber of bad designers and writers supporting each other without criticism. That or they are flat-out delusional. They constantly hype "freedom" as the defining aspect of their games, but it's geometric freedom to proceed in any direction not blocked by mountains, cliffs or invisible walls, not freedom as in player agency and choices. See the Thieves' Guild questline in Skyrim if you want to see just how twisted their idea of "freedom" is. It's merely the freedom to not pursue a questline, the narrative within is entirely linear and the player has no say in what happens beyond whether or not to proceed, and the NPCs will wait patiently for the player's return forever. NPCs make all the major decisions for the player, and when the player actually does have some say, they're literally limited to one "BUT THOU MUST!" type of dialogue option.

Just nitpicking, but the current thread title is a little confusing. Because, well. It's kinda obvious there is *some real science* in Wasteland 2. Because, well. That's not really hard. No, it is not obvious that a game with giant rainbow colored robot scorpions (with laser tails,) has real science in it. "SCIENCE!" is not science. It's a fictional trope. And where? Provide evidence of this claim. The burden of proof is on the claimant, not the respondent. People who know about/are interested in science and how the universe really works care. Would you have noticed if they bothered to be more realistic? Your response gives me the impression that you don't care and aren't interested, so haven't you answered your own question in that case? This is a valid issue for those of us who are interested in the sciences, because the more you learn about the universe, the more obvious it is that most Sci-Fi is actually Space Fantasy, complete with Space Magic. It wouldn't be difficult for a sci-fi writer to just say "this takes place in a different universe with different laws of physics," but most sci-fi writers know so little about actual science that it would never occur to them.

I don't see any reason why there can't be swarms of NPCs who just don't give a **** what you're looking for. What are we talking, dozens? hundreds? thousands? The more there are, the more "alive" the city will feel, but at the same time once you get close to the hundreds you can't expect anything but a randomly chosen canned response from 90% of those NPCs. Not on a technical basis, but on the human limitations of the game's writers. If you've got your writing team devoted to complex dialogue trees for all 600 NPCs in your super city, you've got an entire writing team not writing quests, companions and the main narrative.

Why not? Aren't you bored by the fact that every single game must have a predictably happy ending? Because your poll is loaded/rigged and regardless of the results or number of voters you will present it as "100% of Obsidian forum voters don't want a happy ending, Obsidian!" Not every game has a predictable happy ending. Multiple titles from my favorite Japanese game series, Super Robot Wars, have apocalyptically bad endings available. As in the actual universe is destroyed, all of your characters die in sorrow, all of the other characters in the universe die, etc. Game over, start a new game cycle (aka new game +) and try not to make the same decisions that led you to destroy the universe. And this is a Japanese game series. Admittedly, a thinking-outside-the-box series, but if someone in Japan can do it, anyone can. But the point is, it's not mandatory. What's the point of player agency if there's only one mandatory ending? If someone wants to aim for "the bad ending," let them, If someone blunders into it, let them learn from their mistakes if they want a better outcome. But it's not really an RPG anymore when player agency no longer affects the outcome. That's why you can't be taken seriously, Obsidian has always made player agency a priority, giving you choices to make and making them feel significant and real. Where does that go with a rigged game where players can't win? Hell, now that I think about it, on the Western side, Mass Effect 3, for all its flaws, grants the option of allowing the Reapers to go on their merry way genociding all sentient life. I'd hardly call that a predictable happy ending. Would you?

That's a loaded title, because it assumes micromanagement can be fun. I guess there are managers/sadomasochists out there in the business/Korean competetive gaming world that think it is, but I also think humans (especially the ones being micromanaged by the aforementioned MBAs,) don't think micromanagement is fun or can be fun. But it also appears as though what you're really referring to is tactical positioning rather than micromanagement. In my experience, if it's a game such as an IE classic it's not really micromanagement because it's a small team tactics situation. Controlling up to a half dozen characters is decidedly different from controlling and producing hundreds of characters as well as building and maintaining the support infrastructure and resource supply lines for those hundreds of characters in realtime without pause. It's a misnomer to call RTS games Strategy games, because success hinges on reflexes and micromanagement, not actual strategy or strategic thinking.

It's too bad these guys weren't around when Bioware was starting Mass Effect. Although somehow I doubt Bioware would be interested in not including space magic in their games.

I was interested until I remembered Skyrim's boring gameplay.

very early development they were last seen getting location shots so still a long way off. As much as I preferred New Vegas to 3 I doubt Bethesda are going to let anyone make the main game of the franchise. I would think they would contract someone to do another New Vegas style game. After Obsidian got screwed by Bethesda over 1 lousy meta-critic point I don't think they will be interested without some sort of guarantee going forward. Obsidian's NV leads (Sawyer, Avellone, etc.) when asked, repeatedly, said they would love to work on another Fallout game if Bethesda would have them. Uh... But Bethesda already dumbed down/eliminated RPing systems with Fallout 3. SPECIAL attributes actually mattered in F1 and 2, skill point investment mattered, perks were strategic choices, dialogue and speech were much more robust, etc. And F3 was everything you described Skyrim as, but with better combat. Fallout 3 is designed, like all Bethesda games, for minmaxers and powergamers who want to be the best at everything and max out every statistic (despite SPECIAL being nerfed, not that any of F3's minmaxers know or care about that.)

The reason why you typically have a young protagonist is because you're starting, typically, around level 1 (and from the buzz I've heard PE is going to top out around 12?) How does a 60 year old man go through 60 years of life and gain no experience? And what's the point of an experience system if you start at the maximum level from the start?

Why would Skyrim even be an option? Skyrim is almost the polar opposite of what PE should be. Voted BG. "Resting" isn't doing nothing. Unless you're some kind of spambot program, you have to 'rest' every day or else you'll 'die' from 'exhaustion.' If you were severely wounded, you don't run around doing your morning jog and then go to work like normal, your body will make sure of it with physical pain and what little remains of your reasoning brain would reccomend against it because it will harm your long term survival chances. Every animal that has a brain and a significant lifespan has to sleep.

I'm certainly no Republican, nor do I think in terms of greatness. I'm just speaking some truths here about the region. Europe doesn't really have much say in what's going on in the world anymore. I don't know if you're aware of economists, but the global economy is still hinging on how the Eurozone crisis pans out. Pretty much every economist of every stripe (conservative, institutionalist, marxist,) will tell you that because the EU is collectively one of the largest economies in the world, it matters now more than ever before. If the Eurozone splits into two, if countries like Greece and Spain are ejected from the Eurozone, if Germany relents on austerity and continues bailing them out, if the EU federalizes and gives its central bank real power... That's what macroeconomists are talking about these days. The BRICS countries are bound up in this, too. Remember that the EU is one of the world's major consumers, and the BRICS countries need a market for their resources and cheap manufacturing.

To be fair, if your spell opened a portal to the center of the sun then you'd all be dead.

You just gave me a PTSD flashback from a Castlevania game where one of those was the super side-quest boss stronger than the final boss. That whole nightmare dungeon was Demons'/Dark Souls caliber difficult.

Stopped reading at the second panel because they misspelled "ought." Aught means "all," not something you "should" do or have a "duty" to do. No, Morrigan was not trying to be Kreia. She was always taking a selfish/pragmatic view of the situation. She never challenged you on "morally questionable" or self-serving actions. Kreia challenged you on every choice you made and wanted you to think, learn, be insightful and be self-critical about your decisions, and to avoid thinking in terms of black & white morality.

How is your stealth CQC I didn't ask for this chokehold takedown character going to carry it all? How are you going to sneak up on them if you have enough companions to carry it all? What's to stop them from getting more? They've probably got enough sneak-thieves among them to steal more and get back to business. A gang of unarmed thugs might be less of a threat than a gang of armed thugs, but they still outnumber and outgun a typical civilian. Then why label the thread "on pacifism and the nonlethal takedown"?

A non-lethal approach is fine if it makes sense in-context, but I doubt this context is going to allow a stealth-game styled no-kill/pacifist run to be possible. How do you do a non-lethal takedown on something undead? Or something bigger than a house? This isn't a game about black & white morality (as has been stated multiple times by the devs,) so pacifism is not likely to be a valid aim. Hypothetical situation: Village is being terrorized by marauding bandit types, local lord is at war (and most of the village men are serving in his army,) and can't be bothered to do anything about it. Your "non-lethal CQC tranq-dart takedowns only" character has volunteered to solve the problem. You go sneaking into the bandit camp, you choke them into unconsciousness. Now what? When they wake up they're not going to say "well we'd better leave those villagers alone, that guy who won't kill us is bound to stay there for the rest of his life and make robbing/raping those villagers impossible for that timespan!" You can't expect them to give up their lives of pillage and slaughter because they got knocked out that one night without getting drunk. What do you do, go back to the village and tell the women and children "all is well, sleep with your doors unlocked, your salvation has been guaranteed!" and move on?

Have fun with that stupidly heavy helmet that prevents you from turning your head.

She's a sapient, not a piece of meat! That's extra true in her case. This bothered me to no end in the Mass Effect games (don't get me started on their misuse of the term "biotic,") and it bothers me here. "Sapient" does not mean "sentient." Nothing is "a Sapient" because A. sapient is not a noun, it is an adjective. and B. It means being sagacious or discerning, that is, possessing wisdom. It is not a definition of self-consciousness or sentience, because wisdom is different from those qualities. A sufficiently aged animal with any form of long-term memory could be said to have wisdom. This animal does not need to be sentient to be sagacious. And there can be sentient creatures which do not possess wisdom, as well.

You appear to be defining "selling out" as "making a game using someone else's original intellectual property under license," something which your "BIO" has been doing for over a decade. D&D games, Star Wars games, Sonic the Hedgehog (lol) and MDK2? How is that not "selling out," given that definition?

That only works/matters if you're some clever, manipulative character looking to uh... manipulate the NPC you're talking to in some way. And if I'm not mistaken, the Cipher class that Chris Avellone is extremely excited about seems to be able to effectively read minds or emotions to some degree, which should fit your niche pretty well. What if you're playing some hard-headed righteous paladin of godly justice character? He doesn't care about the "tells" and psychological quirks (as if there was psychology in the renaissance anyway,) of who he's talking to, he's interested in whether or not they believe in his God/dess and to what degree they should be punished if they're heathens.

Without being given a high damage focus it's hard to justify rogue-style clases without rethinking the concept entirely. The only thing that comes to mind for me at the moment is as some sort of skirmisher, in terms of combat, but that doesn't quite fit in a CRPG so much as a strategy/tactics game. Rogues are most commonly associated with non-combat skills once you take away high critical chances, damage and backstab-type techniques. I guess the concept in general is "smooth-talking, dirty fighting," but unless it's a one-on-one fight that loses a lot of value. Besides that, any kind of sneak-thief or assassin is probably not going to be hanging out with a bunch of flashy wizards and shiny knights in plate if they want to be stealthy in any way. But I doubt PE is setting out to redefine the rogue any more than one would try to reinvent the wheel. It's not safe to assume Obsidian intends to follow MMO design as a guide for designing PE. There is simply no evidence whatsoever for that. An interesting if questionable idea would be to, say, have a rogue infiltrate an enemy faction, gang, etc. and then sabotage it from the inside and betray them once the fighting starts, if at all.

Project Eternity is isometric, try looking back at the pictures in my original post and imagine it from an isometric view <3 We are lucky that P:E is isometric, this means that creatures, enemies and everything that opposes us can use much more ground to move and be more versatile and flexible (have more mobility). A Giant Anaconda could slither diagonally into us from the south whilst another is coming diagonally from the north. A Monkey Beast could perhaps harass us, jump in quickly and attack us only to dodge/leap a step backwards. In Skyrim this mechanic (having more "living" enemies and monsters) is more of a difficulty because you've got control of your character from a "First Person" view. I wasn't referring to game design or mechanics, I was referring to the "an army of dragons has returned after a thousand year absence this should be in PE!" idea, which has been used in both Dragon Age (to a lesser degree) and Skyrim (to the extreme.) It's trite, it's unoriginal, it's unnecessary. Obsidian has repeatedly talked about exploring mature themes, "derp here comes the evil dragons army" does not strike me as fitting that intention.

But this is a game designed by humans for today's technology and not for an unimaginable future supercomputer capable of flawlessly simulating an entire universe, so your options will always be restricted to what the designers can create.

Speak for yourself, I plan to record all my experiences with those natives and publish it. How are you going to publish it without a printing press? Obsidian has specifically noted that the aforementioned machine does not exist in the world of PE. Journalism requires mass media to exist. They didn't have newspapers or pamphlets in the time of scribes and quills.

True and I never expected a level of storytelling close to PT - but they made a very rich and interesting background for their stealth game, so interesting in fact that I was a little disappointing that it wasn't used and explored better. I was left with so many questions after the game and that was great - but I really wish they'd dug as deep as they clearly wanted to. http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/10/10