AGX-17

Alignment works as a retroactive summary or judgement of a character's behavior, but not as an inherent definition of character. No character should have their choices pre-determined for them.

Well, if it's a good enough idea for Josh Sawyer to back, it's a good enough idea for me to back.

Druids - throw henges made from stone Rangers - shoot arrows but with spirit etc.

Being good and being evil should both have pros and cons. I'd imagine "evil" choices would lead more to immediate material rewards while "good" choices might lead to more spiritual or community rewards. i.e. Doing something good for some impoverished village won't net you any gold or badass weapons, but it might gain you favor with some deity, faction or community from which you may derive some benefit in the future, be it gameplay or narrative. Taking an evil route in the same scenario might net you otherwise unattainable loot of exceptional quality, favor with some less altruistic deities, etc. In general, being good should not be about getting material rewards, it should be about adhering to your character's moral/ethical beliefs. If it were up to me, making the world a better place would be the righteous hero's reward, and seeing happy, prosperous people living freely in peace as a result of his/her efforts would be reward enough. That probably wouldn't be enough a reward for most players, though.

I honestly don't think systems in Skyrim can be considered exploits, because it's no different from past Elder Scrolls games. Bethesda seems to build their systems with min/maxing and powergamers in mind, rather than roleplayers. One old screenshot of a 4chan post from the days leading up to Oblivion's release is floating around out there, in which a guy talked at length about using those mechanics to make himself a weapon so strong he killed the unkillable end boss of Morrowind with one hit, crashing the game, at which point he declared he had just beaten Morrowind for good.

Unless you're going to do something like allow the protagonist to start this new cycle retaining all knowledge and memories of the previous run, thus allowing them to dramatically alter the story through their knowledge of the events to come, no. It is a concept that originated with JRPGs as far as I'm aware, earliest use I know of is in Chrono Trigger, to allow you to access new endings (i.e. fight the end boss at the start of the game, win previously unwinnable fights, etc.) It's only in a situation where it has narrative uses like CT that it has any real value.

I'm not aware of there being lance or pike sheathes. Additionally, if you're carrying a lance or a pike it's not exactly concealable in any way. This isn't Darklands 2, so there's no need to go overboard with cosmetic realism. If you must, just get a squire to carry your gear for you. But given the propensity for lethal fights to break out in towns in RPGs, it doesn't sound like a great idea to take off all your combat gear, hand it to your squire to pack it on an ass or mule, then desperately scramble to reverse the process when one of the fabled enemy Adventurer teams comes to town looking for trouble. For trouble with you, specifically.

"Hey guys, here is this thing which exists, and with which we are all familiar. Let me say some things on the subject that have already been said before." That's the vibe i'm getting here.

There should be a cap, raise it with expansions maybe. But you should have to go out of your way to reach the cap (i.e. just doing the main storyline would leave you underlevelled for the endgame.) I've played video games with "no level cap" and it just gets ludicrous. Nothing really has any meaning when a mage-type character has HP in the millions.

That is giving Skyrim way too much credit.

Oh come on, I've already played that card more than once in the monk thread. Not that it's an invalid position, as it is one I share, but we exhausted that argument in the aforementioned.... Monk Thread.

Unthinkable, not unthinking. I mean, yes it's unthinking because an abstract concept cannot think. And yes, actually, it is rather unthinkable. If a woman in Renaissance Europe wore an early 1900s bathing suit in public (the woolen, extremely modest in comparison to today's swimwear kind,) she would be ill-regarded and her reputation would be ruined if she wasn't already known to be a prostitute. Even then it would be unacceptable, intolerable and result in severe reactions from the community. If you want unrealistic, immature titillation, play Dragon Age 2 with its fully integrated breast-bouncing physics. Which, as far as my history knowledge goes, was largely the result of the Catholic Church's influence and western religion and society standards. There is no reason to assume those things held true in Project Eternity. Especially as there are at least two major, conflicting deities with diverging standards and followers. Likewise, I imagine namy of the druid-like groups (if there are any) would be less ashamed of showing their flesh. I also recall playing with a female character in table top who travelled around with little to no armor (she was a high dexterity bard) who was an escaped concubine of a killed king. The logic of "where do you holster your weapon?" was answered with "Why holster it, if people are hardly ever going to notice it, anyway?" (Our DM conferred a distraction bonus to both enemies and friends when scantily clad). Out of combat she tended to wear some armored robes, easily removed and used as an improvised trip weapon. And yet PE is based on Renaissance Europe, as has been officially stated multiple times. The Catholic Church was not some militant buzzkill squad patrolling for brazen hussies desperate to run around dressed like fetish models (which, for the record, I am rather fond of, but I recognize that a medieval fantasy land is neither the time nor the place,) the standards of dress in Europe had been established before the Catholic Church had dominance. The Roman style of dress, in robe or togas, had been established in Roman provinces in modern France and Britain, and Northern Europe is, how do you put it... COLD. Humans have this little problem of being warm blooded animals that evolved in a dry, hot african savanna, leading to an amount of body hair incapable of conserving heat in such cold. So copious amounts of clothing are required to survive the winter. Yes, some pagan tribes went to battle in the nude, but that was to prevent the filth of their clothing from entering any wounds sustained in battle. "My sexual fantasy involves a woman exposing herself in public, please put it in your game, I'm going to make up stories to justify it because I am too embarrassed to admit my sexual motives. See? I made a character like that in a TT RPG so it's valid!" Is not a legitimate argument in favor of your proposition. If you want Obsidian to twist themselves into knots to justify skanky women in skanky outfits like every other Oblivion or Skyrim mod, that's your perogative, but it makes no sense and it doesn't fit Obsidian's ethos for the game as far as I can tell.

If not all races or classes have been revealed/set in stone what's the point of making such a declaration? I could just say I'll be a cyborg asteroid farmer at this point. My preference is for roguish classes, at any rate. Is either of those a race?

Name sounds like one of those cutesy Japanese or Korean MMO "all underaged girls with animal ears" type races.

Unthinkable, not unthinking. I mean, yes it's unthinking because an abstract concept cannot think. And yes, actually, it is rather unthinkable. If a woman in Renaissance Europe wore an early 1900s bathing suit in public (the woolen, extremely modest in comparison to today's swimwear kind,) she would be ill-regarded and her reputation would be ruined if she wasn't already known to be a prostitute. Even then it would be unacceptable, intolerable and result in severe reactions from the community. If you want unrealistic, immature titillation, play Dragon Age 2 with its fully integrated breast-bouncing physics.

They cant be that effective. Or perhaps the patrolling is cut short by shrimps on the barbie and Vics bitter.... :D I was sarcastically referring to increased hate crimes against persons of Indian descent in Australia. Native Americans are tangential because the European immigrants to the Americas killed most of them, mostly with disease, and then imprisoned them on "reservations" before taking their children away so that they would be raised "white" in a deliberate attempt to destroy those native american cultures. There was never any attempt at multiculturalism in the US. Every ethnic/cultural group to emigrate here since the Europeans took over has eventually successfully integrated into US society, hence its being dubbed a "melting-pot." But the IMF and world bank are neither here nor there. Those are basically just big loan sharks meant to guarantee the interests of American big business in "opening new markets" in the undeveloped/developing world. And from what I understand, in Mexico and most South American countries, most of the people are mixed-race and pride themselves on European ancestry or self identify as something other than Native, while discriminating and committing crimes against true Natives.

Addressing the OP subject, yes, piracy is a crime, it is codified in US copyright law. It doesn't matter what 4chan told you ("video games grow on trees, developers are rich bourgeoisie pigs living in mansions made of gilded diamond encrusted, gilded ivory-inlaid gold," etc.) You are not a morally superior rebel fighting "the man" when you pirate a game, you're just maximizing your economic opportunities by acquiring for no cost what you would otherwise have to spend money on. Yes, god forbid anyone maximize the efficiency of their spending power in capitalist society. If not for those coupons, that 20% would have gone to poor orphans in Djibouti, no doubt. SARCASM ASIDE, have you ever taken a basic economics class? Economy of volume. It's sales that drive most retail, retail is consumption, consumption is the capitalist economy. Do you have any evidentiary basis for the belief that "honest consumers," are being harmed, or are you just one of those people who has "opinions"? If you "honest consumers" are "honest" and coupon users are "cheaters," why do the manufacturers or retailers of any goods have sales or give out coupons? Penny-pinchers and coupon hoarders have not harmed you in any way, save for the loss of time standing in line.

I had huge amounts of fun in Skyrim, it was very close to what I expected but I agree that Fallout 3 had far more variety, Bethesda's world design high point I think, shame about the sometimes awful writing. The first few dungeons are great, then you start to notice how samey it all is. As for roleplaying, there is practically none. The Thieves' Guild fiasco is the worst element by far. It was obviously designed by a high-level designer since it was clearly immune to criticism of any kind. At least with the Dark Brotherhood questline you have the option of wiping them out if you're playing a hero of justice (or have been attacked by their assassins in the past.) You get no such option with the thieves' guild and riften. And then some NPC sells your immortal soul, possibly that of Lorkhan/Talos himself, to some second-rate Daedric Prince and your only dialogue option is to enthusiastically agree? I don't think Beth should even call their games RPGs anymore.

German multiculturalism: Dead. British multiculturalism: Dead. French multiculturalism: Dead. You were saying? EDIT: Youre an aussie? How are those lebanese gangs and youth groups doing.... :D Don't worry, they have roving Justice Teams of Australian youth patrolling the streets for pakis to beat.

Yeah, I don't know what MCA was thinking with Lonesome Road. It was a great gameplay experience, but a mediocre narrative outing, especially from him. It basically railroads the Courier's history and locks out any possible imagined past from the player beyond "native citizen of the NCR" and decides that he/she is a dimwit or some sort of mental deficient to have traveled through some place, built a mighty new model of civilization there, destroyed it and never remember any of it. And it's been clearly stated by JSawyer on Formspring that the Courier has no form of amnesia whatsoever from the gunshot. And on the game design front, if you can nuke the world all over again but not have it accounted for in the rest of the game? Come on. Avellone must have been drinking too much when writing it.

Being a cyborg is the next best thing to being a sentient, self-repairing, learning machine. So yeah, I'm in.

....Of course it's a photoshop.

It's a magical fantasy world, you can't expect realism. A single shot from a musket or blunderbuss would be incapacitating (with delayed fatality by infection,) or fatal if it was realistic. Cadegund could just blast every enemy in the chest and that would be the entire game. Protect the gunner while she oneshots every enemy smaller than an elephant. Firearms are the reason plate armor and chainmail was replaced by brightly colored overcoats as military attire.

This poll is kind of irrelevant because of the Adventurer's Guild concept, which would allow players to hire generic companions without complex writing, dialogue or story involvement (potentially filling out their party, in a game which is likely to be completeable with the PC alone.) Acquisition of real in-depth companions should vary between story concerns and free exploration and should be spread gradually out. I don't think any companion should be locked out until the endgame, for instance.

A variation I thought of was that helping the invaded citizenry fight back as a kneejerk reaction would not necessarily be the best choice for those people's well-being. Perhaps the invaders would bring down severe, brutal punishment when you leave. Or perhaps the invaders would bring safety, health and prosperity to this occupied territory, and the descendants of the occupied people would think their ancestors were mad to not want to be part of this great empire.