ShadowScythe

It's an interesting concept, what I'd be concerned about is how you can do formations that complex with just a party of 6? It seems like something that'd work in a war game but I'm not so sure about a smaller and more focused party.

I love reading Eric Schwarz's blog, he clearly knows his stuff and expresses some really detailed explanations better than I ever could. He pretty much nailed everything I dislike about cooldowns without me realising exactly what it was I didn't like about them. In any case I'd rather deal with some sort of resource management than an artificial restriction like cooldowns.

I don't know what kind of life you live but where I come from your actions are judged by your peers, and past deeds are not forgotten. Telling someone off is likely to anger the recipient and temporarily/permanently lower my standing in his eyes, doing so repeatedly would most likely cause an altercation. That altercation would most certainly influence anyone in our presence at the time, either putting me in bad light or good light depending on if I was justified to tell him off to begin with. Actions in real life have consequences, so why would they not have that in game. What you're talking about is a reputation meter not an absolute morality meter. Reputation meters are fine. FNV did a lot of great things with it and that's what I'd prefer rather than a karma meter.

If this follows WL2's approach then the new tiers won't show up till later on in the Kickstarter. Basically, as funding starts to slow down later on in the month you'll probably get some bridging tiers, especially between $35 and $65 to get a few people to upgrade. It's something of a 'lategame strategy'.

Absolutely tie it to stats. Not just attributes or skills but anything you can come across just by playing the game. Perks, faction reputation, inventory. Stats are one of the main ways character building becomes meaningful and your character's personality actually matters to your playstyle. There are a number of ways to add to dialogue outside of stats such as gathering info by gossiping with NPCs or pretty much anything else Alpha Protocol does but it's all in addition to the stat building rather than a complete alternative.

Why not just adopt a pet (I say this assuming having an actual kid is unfeasible for whatever reason). You'll get a far more rewarding experience than anything a game can give you.

There are certain appeals to playing dress up in an RPG but for me all of that comes secondary to the RPG mechanics. I'd much prefer being able to customise the personality of my character because of the stats I have (my low INT character just grunts and derps, my high strength character easily intimidates everyone and can just make a few threats to get his way etc) rather than 'make up' a personality because the resources were too busy being diverted towards the dress up components instead. In other words, I'd rather express my character through stats rather than their eye colour and hair style because it's far more meaningful to the actual gameplay and story and your ability to solve quests or make choices in different ways. Similarly, to me it's more important that my inventory complements the build I've made (e.g. I'm playing a fighter that values DPS over pure DAM and my weapons reflect this and hit rapidly and repeatedly but not necessarily with a lot of power) rather than how pretty the items look. Besides, in an isometric title many of those details will be lost and your hair style and cool shield and sword will be barely viewable. In those instances you're better off with deeper RPG elements instead.

I asked the first question (If Obsidian gets enough funding will you finally return to the team?) so of course I'm on board with this. MotB is one of my favourite RPGs ever and George Ziets' lore especially the archon mythology (which seemed to have Hindhuism influences, am I right DS3 devs?) in Dungeon Siege 3 was one of the more interesting elements of that game for me. George Ziets, Tim Cain, Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone would be an amazing cRPG dream team.

I'm not entirely against the house stretch goal. If it's just like it is in Skyrim then...bleh, but if it's more like Obsidian's approach like The Sink or Crossroad's Keep where you actually had extra questlines and choices to pursue then it's great. Multilanguage support isn't as important to me personally since English is my main language and all but I can definitely see it as being an important feature for many others and I definitely think it should be a stretch goal, if not one of the earlier goals then at least later on.

I posted this on another forum, it's mostly relevant I think, basically I think the house has to be a lot more relevant to the gameplay and story rather than the Skyrim approach of marrying an NPC and having kids in your little house where you can use the oven to cook bread: "The new stretch goals seem interesting. New races and companions are always good and I hope we get to 2.4 mill to get the new region and faction which to me is the most important goal of all. I'm not as impressed with the house at the 2 mill mark though tbh if it's what I think it is. If it's more like an upgradeable stronghold like Crossroad's Keep or the Sink that provides more quests and additional choices and consequences to the storyline then that's fantastic and I'm all for that but if it's just a house where you can 'cook' and have kids etc then personally I don't really want that. If I wanted to play a game like Skyrim I'd play Skyrim but I love Obsidian's games because of the deep branching quest lines, faction reputations and interrelationships and the ability to actually make choices and consequences that affect the game world and story. Gimmicky things like owning a house and playing dress up inside it are just that."

Non-combat skills sounds promising. I hope it goes as far as Fallout/Arcanum level quest design where you could actually take alternate approaches to every quest or even finish the game without killing anyone. There's something really satisfying about a well developed set of non-combat approaches like stealth or diplomacy that allow for alternate approaches rather than just brute forcing your way through everything. Regarding whether skill checks should show up, I don't mind if it just says [persuade] or [bluff] etc but what I wouldn't want is something like what FNV did where it had [speech 30/50] which makes it way too obvious. On the other hand doing the other thing that FNV did where it had separate lines for 'failed' dialogue checks would be a great way to make it transparent without revealing too much, and the dialogue itself tends to be hilarious.. I absolutely loved that bit where you can fail a barter check with Mr House with a line like "You'd better pay more or your....chip out of luck".

Also aren't Viacom the ones publishing while THQ are just distributing? At least that's what I thought.

Uh oh.

I got Brayko and I didn't need to actively lower Surkov's rep, but he was still pissed at me for blackmailing Grigori so there was that.

Yes Volourn. Every nonmainstream title with a niche but dedicated following is a cult classic.

Not to mention I don't think Obsidian will want to be competing with Wasteland 2 for Donations.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/15/obsidian-missed-fallout-new-vegas-metacritic-bonus-by-one-point/ That article mentions that Fader's credentials included a project codenamed 'Vermont' and the article assumes that it's South Park. iirc South Park was actually Project New York. So is Vermont this new secret project?

She probably should've also requested that they fix Miranda's stupid potato face so that she actually looks as pretty as Yvonne Strahovsky.

I had this issue too...I'm not sure if I really fixed it. I would either restart the game or select everyone and move around until it eventually stopped doing that. Still not sure why that happened.

If Blizzardtivision ever does an Arcanum 2 it will not be the kind of sequel you're hoping for. Even if Boyarsky is working on it.

Sawyer's IP is another Unreal 3 game?

I would love to see something similar to the original Fallout (minus the time limit). A wide open game where you have a fairly simple objective(s) but with several ways to go about this. How you solve quests and the choices you make in the story have consequences/affect the game world and any option is viable in each quest (i.e. diplomats or sneaky thieves won't end up in forced combat sequences). Fallout's scale is also probably the best approach for something of a fairly smallish scope like a kickstarter 'indie' game. In terms of combat I'd prefer Turn based or Real time with Pause (preferably TB though) system with full party control (rather than Fallout/Arcanum's approach of just giving you one character and companions moving on their own). As a story fan, companions having their own arcs with the player being able to influence that (similar to FNV or Alpha Protocol) would also be awesome, but please no romance options. I don't really have any preferences towards the setting as I have full faith that Obsidian can pull it off regardless of what it is, but something outside of the usual fantasy/sci-fi RPG setting would be cool. And this might be too much but a toolset that players can use to mod the mechanics or make their own campaigns would be awesome as well.

Ooft, I'd love to see that.

What kind of quests are re-added with Unfinished Business? Just interesting sidequests or stuff that is key to TNO's character and provides more info on his past incarnations?

The letter is exactly like the GoG.com one from memory and the strike through GoG.com suggests that they're upgrading the site in some way instead.