metiman

I couldn't find any options in the poll that fit. I'd be perfectly happy with just a BG2 or IWD system, but I quite liked the ToEE system as well. I'm not bothered by innovative character creation as long as I don't have to use questionaires or tutorials. I hate those. I like to study the manual and min/max in my head for a while before starting the game though. I'm kind of indifferent to starting backgrounds. Perhaps if it was done in a way that actually affected the story it might be interesting. I'm not too thrilled with the idea of your background affecting your stats though.

I don't undestand what you are asking. I played WoW for a couple of weeks before I got completely bored with it. I don't remember anything special about the classes. How do games actually stop you from using an inappropriate class as a warrior or whatever? People soloed mages and sorcerers and maybe even thieves in BG2, althought it was a lot easier if you somewhat cheated and used a dual class character. So it was possible to play without a warrior/tank of any kind. In fact it could be fun, although it was certainly difficult.

Uh. Battle cries. In BG2 those were even worse than the screen shake. I consider the game unplayable with voices on. Absolutely awful voice acting. And that whole "Right away!" or whatever every time you moved your characters anywhere would be enough to make me smash my monitor in in the first 5 minutes if I couldn't turn it off.

@Theomen: What do you mean by "customization"? If you just mean what Torment and BG2 had then fine. Anything more is a waste of resources and pandering to biowarians. If you want a certain look there's always DA:O. Even I liked being able to create a female character with a genuinely beautiful face. If only bioware had spent as much effort on the combat or the dialogue I may have been able to play the game for more than an hour.

I don't understand this fixation people have on dogs and cats. Yes they are cute and cuddly in real life (well maybe not Persians or Bulldogs or Rotweilers), but this is a computer game. A unique fantasy world. A little bit more imagination and creativity would be nice.

I never made any claims about his popularity. I always figured that tweens would love his character and the preteen humor of his dialogue. It's just hard to believe anyone would want that guy. I know people like Jaheira too which always amazes me as well. I just want to kill her as soon as possible. If I were able to torture her in game I would do that too.

Posing as a friend requires more than taking his form. It would require knowledge to be convincing. As far as mages needing to be all powerful because they use magic remember that the enemy mages will be just as powerful and there will be more of them. Your enemies will also have your shapeshifting ability. How will you feel when all of a sudden you can't distinguish your party members from your enemies because they look and act identically...until they attack. If your companions and your enemies become indistinguishable it also means that, to be fair, you would have to lose tactical control over your companions during combat. If you can fool enemies they should be able to fool you too. And being able to move and command your allies would give away the illusion. You wouldn't even know for sure when a party member dies or when you kill your own party member thinking they are the enemy.

A dog or cat would violate MCA's rule about companions being useful in combat.

I don't think Cadegund is going to be the only NPC that can use firearms.

Rather than a mage, you'd probably want an entirely separate class. A shapeshifter. Balancing a creature that powerful may be difficult though.

If you mean perma-death in the ironman sense of not having or not using save games the problem (other than dying yourself and having to restart from the beginning) is that the game may not provide a way to replace your lost companions and if the game is balanced for a full party completing the game may become nearly impossible. Some people are much better players than I am however. If you are good enough maybe you can solo anything. I've soloed BG2 SoA a few times, but I planned for soloing right from the start. I can barely handle BG2ToB even with a full party. I don't think it would be possible for me to solo it. I'd end up just getting killed in the first major battle and then having to reload the entire game from the start.

1. What is so bad about reloading? it's a penalty in itself because you are forced to redo what you just did. Usually it happens when you are in a fight and you have to reload to the start of the battle and try again. 2. Cooldowns have destroyed cRPGs. They are tedious and unfun. Game mechanics should never rely on real world time. Forcing you to go take a break and get a sandwich before you can continue is something I can only take so much of before I just quit the stupid game. The purpose of the game is not supposed to be to annoy me or bore me and that is what cooldowns do. They also make no sense at all. They are even less logical than resting to regain your abilities. The only changes in recent cRPGs that have been for the better are in the area of graphics. In every other way they have gotten worse. In most cases much, much worse.

Actually most of the peeves in this thread seem reasonable to me? What do you object to specifically?

Why are you playing Skyrim in the first place? It sucks. A good first step may be just to avoid awful games from Bethesda and Bioware. If you must play a Bethesda game play Arena or Daggerfall. If you must play a Bioware game then play BG2 or NWN. Balancing is part of game design 101 and those two companies are not particularly good at any part of game design, but are especially bad at balancing. Of course FONV was also way too easy even in the beginning. So I guess it is fair point to raise. Why Obsidian decided to make FONV so easy I don't know. I did find MotB to be challenging. It must have taken me more than 50 replays before I could finally beat Okku and his army and that wasn't even at a higher than normal difficulty setting. So Obsidian does know how to balance games properly and we'll just have to hope that they do so with project eternity.

Well let's look at the first mod you've quoted. Sword Coast Strategems 1. you get to choose all NPC weapon proficiencies when they join 2. you can skip the Candlekeep tutorial and just get the experience and treasure. 3. Reintroduce potions of extra-healing 4. Allow Yeslick to use axes 5. Move Boo out of quick access and into Minsc's pack etc My response? 1. Lets make the NPCs OP than they are. Great stuff. 2. Why not skip anything you like and get the experience and treasure? Hey, I'm too lazy to actually play the game to get the xp and treasure by actually doing it. 3. Potions of extra-healing? Yep, just add all that game breaking and OP items. 4. Another example to make a NPC OP. 5. Yep, another way to make Minsc OP by freeing up a slot. He's already OP, you don't need to move Boo. etc I can list more game breaking and OP way for items and NPCs but I'll stop at five. 1. OP=? 2. I don't remember that feature. If it's there it is 100% optional. I do sometimes use a mod called Dungeon-Be-Gone which does something like that. I assume you are aware that there are various mod options that make Chateau Irenicus 1000x more difficult than in vanilla mode right? If you think the mods are there to make the game easier then you don't have a clue. 3. Huh? Potions of extra healing and much worse are given to your enemies. Not to you. It makes the game much more difficult. But the thieves with nearly infinite invisibility potions make things even harder. So I just don't turn on the potion option. Almost every part of SCS is customizable. So I just don't install the parts that I don't like. 4. If you are talking about the party NPCs then you haven't the slightest clue what you are talking about. 5. Does anyone actually use Minsc? He's annoying as hell and he's not a particularly powerful character. And you don't have to move the rat out of the pack. You can leave him there if you want. It's obvious that you have never played BG2 with SCSII installed and that you have no idea what you are talking about. I've played BG2 + SCS many times with many different options. It isn't perfect but not for any of the reasons you mention. The Demons are way too poweful with their teleporting abilities and other things if you turn that on. I don't. So it doesn't affect me. There are a few other parts that are a bit buggy or that make your adversaries overpowered. There is almost nothing that makes the game easier or makes you overpowered. That is totally not the point of the mod. BTW, you are really missing out. With SCSII installed the already strategic battles become much more so. The enemies do nearly everything that you do. The enemy thieves go invisible and backstab your mages before they can get their first spells off. The mages themselves already have stoneskin cast so that you can't just nail them with arrows or whatever to prevent them from getting off their initial spells. Enemy mages will web your party right from the start or do other smart (sometimes to the point of being slightly cheesy) things. With SCS installed the game is both harder and more fun. Other mods fix bugs and make things work more logically. The OP is 100% correct that modability extends the life of a game. Well at least a game with the kind of replay value that BG2 has. Modding may not have added much to Torment.

If conjurors can summon the most powerful monsters in the game would that not also make them the most powerful adversaries in the game? I can just picture a party of 6 conjurers summoning their own army of ancient red dragons and adamantium golems and demi-liches. Seems way overpowered to me. Summoning spells are limited for balance reasons. Mages are typically powerful enough already. I can't think of many games where they weren't the most powerful class. How about giving thieves back their backstab multiplier instead. They were totally nerfed in 3rd Ed and I haven't heard about them getting back their formerly glorious abilities.

As a rule I'm against minigames, but I found that mechanic mildly amusing in Arx Fatalis. I don't think it's worth much development time. If there is already food in the game and they could code the fishing function in a few hours then maybe, but it's probably not worth the effort for a low budget game like this. I'd much rather see them spend the time on allowing more than one rolled character.

I agree that a dog is kind of boring. But then so are humans.

Ugh. I hated that effect. It was awful. I couldn't play at all until I had turned it off.

I was watching the film Mysterious Skin and thinking about how beautiful the soundrack was. Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie (of the Cocteau Twins) collaborated on the project. I realize that Obsidian could never afford these famous guys. What interests me is the spare, ambient style which might work for certain parts of a Torment style game. The second track is actually from the Mysterious Skin soundtrack. It's called Neil's Theme. The youtube uploader did a slide show from the film Let Me In which I figured was more interesting than the usual album cover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyaq8OTltyQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss6HMV6NtWA

I'm not sure if it has been posted either, but it is my favorite interview.

Uh. What do we know exactly about the Eternity story? I've heard they don't even have much of a story yet. Just a few ideas about it. Making a story is one of the things we are paying them to do and they haven't been paid yet.

Speaking in absolutes when arguing opinions is a good exercise in beating dead horses. But that is just your opinion, right? Not an absolute?

Just realized I forgot about FedEx quests. Or any quests that are not also stories. The bane of cRPGs and what fans of other genres use to mock them. Kill them with fire. Even the word 'quest' itself seems to encourage this sort of game-play-as-work mechanic. Quests should be stories, not tasks. If I do tedious work I expect to get paid and in real money, not in game gold. When my nephew was 7 or 8 he actually liked washing dishes. It was a novelty to him, but then he grew out of it. I can only hope that we have all grown out of that sort of thing.

Wasn't this thread supposed to be about stuff that hasn't been done before?