metiman

Let people play the game the way they want. If they want to rest a lot let them. If they want to save a lot let them. You can't really stop that last one anyway unless you go full consoletard with checkpoints and other stupidity. That's not to say that you shouldn't introduce realistic game mechanics like making the passage of time have some meaning and not letting the player put off saving the nearby village from a dragon attack for several years. If he waits that long he should just see a bunch of burned out structures and nothing more. That's not about stopping some kind of abuse. It just makes sense.

Not sure it was Feargus. I'm not even sure it wasn't just MCA. But Torment's skirt was definitely lifted up pretty high and she wasn't wearing anything underneath. Maybe it was like a couple of years ago? Almost certainly not less than a year ago. Edit: Hm. Maybe it was this Tales of Torment thing in two parts on RPGWatch. Here's part two. I'm not 100% sure this is what I was thinking of but it's pretty close. Looks like Brother None did those interviews. I wonder what he'd have to say about it.

The story isn't being mentioned that much, not because it was fully funded at 1.1 million, but because there isn't one yet. This is still pre-pre-production, folks. All they have at the moment are some idea of the kind of game they'd like to make and a few vague Avellonian story concepts. Mute688 is right. This kickstarter is mostly about trust. Trust that they can make the game that we want, but also that they will make the game that we want. Personally I have little doubt about the first. It's the second that I'm not so sure about. There are two factions that have very different ideas about the game they want. What is Obsidian to do about this gigantic rift in their fan base? I think that's where a lot of the unpredictability is likely to come in.

IIRC, back on the Interplay forums Dave Maldonado said he did some/all the writing for the catacombs and dead/drowned nations area among other things. I could be wrong about that, but that's what I remember. Fleshing out MCA's outline of course, but the actual writing nevertheless. There was an interview not so long ago with MCA and maybe Feargus specifically about who did what on Torment and it went into more detail than I'd ever seen before about exactly how the responsibilites were shared. Quite interesting. I don't have a link or anything unfortunately. If anyone remembers the interview I am talking about please post a link.

Dragon Age had exploration? The way I remember it all you had to do was just stand around outside and the faceless damage dealer things, whatever all those identical things were, would warp in to fight you. So convenient. They streamlined out all that tedious walking around. If only they could have just streamlined out the tedious fighting and awful writing.

Never played 1st Ed. That must have been in the 70s, right? I guess TSR must have figured out they were too weak and beefed them up for the 2nd Edition. Then in the third edition to me it seems like they were nerfed once again. That is, until the MMOs came and made them into leather armored offensive fighters.

I don't think rogues should be damage dealers in the MMO sense. That is, they shoudn't be particularly good at dealing continuous damage so that the only difference between rogues and fighters is their armor and maybe hit points. I do think rogues should have something like the 2nd edition backstab though. A single attack that they can make only once in a while when they have succesfully hidden that is devastating. Otherwise who is going to want to bring a thief along? I haven't had a thief in my party since 2nd edition games stopped being made. Before that I used to like them. I sure hope Obsidian isn't trying to balance the characters in terms of DPS like MMOs like to do. That would be awful.

Yeah. I always liked the incantations. It's voice acting though.

I actually don't remember the voice actress. I do remember thinking as soon as I met her how much she reminded my of Fall-From-Grace. This thread is making me want to replay MotB again. I actually hadn't realized that MCA wrote Kaelyn. I think he also wrote Gann. It was quite a few years before we knew exactly who was responsible for what in PS:T. MCA outlined the whole thing and kept a close watch on everything but Dave Maldonado and I think Colin McComb also did quite a bit of writing in some of the most interesting areas. They just started with an outline from Chris. It would be interesting to read who was really responsible for what in MotB as well.

The comments about the Russian distribution are interesting. I hope Obsidian looks into some of those problems.

How do you kill something you don't even believe exists? You could have a group of people that wanted to kill the (presumably immortal) gods, but they wouldn't be atheists.

I see. So they are sort of like different combat modes. I don't think I like that idea. Seems very console-ish. That sounds different from a fighting style though. A fighting style sounds more like different schools or styles of martial arts or something like that.

Since when does MCA post at the codex? I've occassionally seen some devs there but it's exceedingly rare. Annie Mitsoda for instance used to post there occassionally. I think most devs are quickly turned off by the harsh, antagonistic, flamy environment. It's not the friendliest of places. Never has been. It does seem to be kinder/gentler during enticing kickstarters though. I often wish there were a forum pretty much like the codex, but with nicer people. Similar views on which RPGs are good and which suck, but more polite. Game forums in general tend to be awful places though. I've always assumed it was an age issue. The only game forum I've ever really liked was the old Compuserve RPG forum. Not really an internet forum per se though.

What is a stance? How can combat have a style? I have not played KOTOR2.

While I prefered Fall-From-Grace, Kaelyn the Dove was an interesting, well written character. Also Fall-From-Grace had a charisma of 19 and Kaelyn the Dove only had a charisma of 18. So FFG was hotter. I loved when you walked into that pub with Kaelyn and there were guys commenting on how hot she was.

I think it's reasonable to assume that souls are going to be part of the game narrative which hasn't yet been revealed or proabably even written yet. I trust MCA to come up with his own ideas on the subject.

Supernatural powers aren't some kind of cure-all. Not some kind of autoheal mechanic. There are specific ways in which they can be used involving (so far) either spell books or prayer. If there isn't a spell in the spellbook for that particular condition or if there is no specific prayer for it then you'd still have to continue along until you could get to a doctor or clinic or whatever. The answer to every question about this game isn't going to be: Souls!

I think Might and Magic 6-8 had something like that. You could pick the dark path and eventually actually become a lich. I don't have a problem with that idea. Although it might be hard to implement in a game without alignment.

You could have athiest priests but they wouldn't have any spells. The gods power the spells. I think the power is just sort of channeled through the priest. Not a bad idea for a very dumb or insane NPC though. Could be interesting.

If liked both white and red wine, I wouldn't whine about how much I hate red wine. If a kickstarter project promises that they are going to make the best red wine ever, something just like the classic red wines, I wouldn't be expecting white wine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoyPu95yCxw No. If only because it's too expensive and doesn't really result in anything better. The money would be better spent elsewhere.

Maybe this is too logical for people, but have you considered limiting sleep by only allowing it every 16 hours? Yeah, I know it's a totally crazy idea and all.

Maybe they should hire DavidW to test their AI scripting for them.

If you despise 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D and the IE games used those game mechanics then yes I think it is fair to say that you dislike the game mechanics used by IWD, BG2, and PS:T.

Just because Obsidian isn't using a D&D license does not mean they do not want to use similar game mechanics to the IE games. IOW something like D&D 2nd or 3rd edition rules. From what sawyer said yesterday it also seems he is thinking in terms of a spell memorization system, albeit one with a possible cooldowns-as-rest mechanic.