Shades

How about changing this 'I don't use this, so I don't think it should be in the game' thing instead. Personally I don't use Linux, but know other people do, so I'm glad that Obsidian has announced Linux as a stretch goal for them.

Ugh yes. Especially when cooldowns are on things like potions! I just dislike everything about them. Surely something better can be used. And I know there are cheats to get around the spirit eater curse in MotB, but that might not be what you mean. I don't recall the cooldowns (I have a goldfish memory).

I was just thinking of Ultima myself, though it could get bit unorganized/hard to find things with the way items could overlap. Ah, food hoarding. Hmm, didn't Betrayal at Krondor have a bit of inventory tetris too? Anyway, the IE way is fine with me, though I do like having different bags for ammunition, scrolls and potions.

If I have an inn and my companions take a percentage of the loot I find then I'll expect them to pay for staying at my inn (preferably with whatever percentage of my loot they took) A ship could be fun, both useful for storing stuff and travelling about in! (I'd probably have to force my companions to learn how to sail first though, and it might not be terribly useful inland unless it could fly (ooh! an airship!)) If you had a dungeon you should be able to collect monsters to drag back and toss into it.

You have a game with very little information out on it so far, and it seems to be attracting a fair number of both older and younger gamers. Of course you're going to get some very different expectations about the game. I do not envy Obsidian's current position, you can almost guarantee that no matter what they end up doing/announcing someone will be unhappy about it. But as for the romances, they didn't just spring up over night with Dragon Age and Mass Effect. There were romances in NWN2, MotB, NWN: HotU, BG2, and PS:T. And there are a lot of romance mods for BG2 (and some other games like IWD). So those asking for romance aren't necessarily young or new fans.

That's the Dragon Age way, I'm certainly not talking about gifts. And you would want such a system hidden to discourage taking this option for that number of points and the like. Something like what I mentioned could simply be applied to the romance possibilities. Think of it like this: Some people know/have an idea in their head that they like certain types of other people. Let's say the NPC is like this, so if the PC acts like the type the NPC likes then the more they act like that the more likely the NPC will try to initiate a romance. On the other hand if the PC does not act like that at all the NPC might be completely unwilling to start a romance, but if there were a few things here and there that the NPC liked they might be willing to give the PC a try if the PC tries to initiate something. It would be a way for the NPCs to not have to immediately fall for the PC the moment they talk. And it wouldn't have to be blatant, rather than outright proposing a romance it could just be a matter of trying to flirt with the NPC (not the type of terrible thing that Dragon Age 2 calls flirting), if you're in the highest category they might flirt first and will respond well to such a thing, the lowest they'll reject your attempts to flirt with them (nicely or otherwise, depending on the NPCs own personality), the middle they'll be curious though it might take a bit of work. But I don't expect them to do something like this, it would probably have a lot of problems. Anyway, I'd be happy with something like what they did in Planescape: Torment, and I liked Mask of the Betrayer too (though that had a points thing going on, but I liked the characters).

I agree that romances would benefit from not being all about sleeping together and then being over. And I do like the idea of a player character trying to initiate a romance with some NPCs and getting turned down. I also have no problem at all with tragic romances. I can see a point in also making sure that the non-romance NPCs get a decent amount of content too though. Why should an NPC just get more content because my character happens to be attracted to them? I'd like to see some decent friendships that could be developed with various NPCs. And like the romances, it would be interesting if the characters really had their own personalities, with something to keep track of their likes and dislikes (not the Dragon Age way, more like some BG2 mods). Perhaps... They like fish, you mention fish and it adds one point, you save a dinosaur, they like that and it adds another point, you break their favourite hat, minus a point. And when you come to conversations it'll fall into a range 1-10 means you don't have a lot in common and they'll reject your advances, 11-20 means you have a fair amount in common and they'll accept your advances, 21-30 means you have a lot in common and they'll attempt to initite a romance with you. And they react differently according to how the choices you've made and things you've said match with their own views. But this might get overly complicated to keep track of and write enough dialogue for. But then I'd also like to see NPCs reacting to how you treat them. If you're nasty to them they shouldn't forget it after your first conversation, it would be nice to see them remembering things you've said/done. Even things that may seem insignificant at the time. Thank you! Saerileth's overall story arc (especially in Throne of Bhaal) is an absolute gem of storytelling, and made you realize exaclty what it was like to romance a paladin, especially with the emphasis on LAWFUL Good! Ugh no, please not anything like Sarelith. It's just my personal preference, but I do not enjoy dragging a 15 year old plot thief along in my party unless it is very well done.

Take away the evil options and automatically play a hero? How boring! Besides, one person isn't everyone. I'm sure there are plenty of people who do play evil characters that would appreciate some well thought out evil choices in the game. I'm not going to suggest depriving someone of certain choices simply because I don't pick them in my games. I really don't like it when games make the assumption that I'm going to be playing a good character. Because I very rarely play a good character. Most of my player characters have been varying shades of neutral (mad or otherwise), and I do like trying to explore the different choices offered on subsequent playthroughs with a new character (good, evil, or somewhere in between). Planescape: Torment is a perfect example of evil done well, I'd love to see something similar to that in terms of choices about what we can do. Besides, I've seen no mention of being so short of cash that they'll have to cut out a whole chunk of our player choices because of it. If they were I'm sure there would have been a stretch goal saying 'Reach this goal for more player choices!'.

I'm not too concerned about classes since we'll be getting at least five. What I would like to see are alternatives for classes other than thieves/rogues to unlock things as you could in the Infinity Engine games: a thief picks locks, a wizard has knock, a warrior can bash things. Obviously not the exact same things, but basically spells that open locks and being able smash locks instead of always needing a thief to pick them. You could even get creative with it. Perhaps different spells may work better/worse (freezing, melting), and maybe the same goes for trying to smash things with different kinda of weapons (a dagger may not work as well as a hammer). (Why yes, I did get frustrated at the Dragon Age 'only rogues can open locks' thing)

I would love to see an entirely new fantasy world complete with new and interesting races to go in it. However I think those saying that people are more familiar with/used to the usual fantasy races do have a point. So if we do get the usual elves and dwarves (and as elves are mentioned I'm guessing we will) I hope they will have some great twists and differences from the way elves and dwarves are usually portrayed in fantasy settings. And hey while it starts off with 3 playable races the stretch goals add more don't they? Which indicates that there are indeed more races even if the base three are humans, elves and dwarves.

5 Companions + 1 PC= 6 man party. BG1: 25 Companions BG2: 17 Companions PS:T: 7 Companions (but they were all awesome) IWD2: 15 Companions Wait, Icewind Dale 2 had 15 companions? Funny, last time I played it had none, you made your own companion characters in the Icewind Dale games. What version of IWD2 were you playing? And as for BG1... Most of those companions while having great voice sets and potential, had very little dialogue through the game aside from a tiny bit of banter with each other. Certainly quite a bit less than what the BG2 companions provide. If anything your numbers show that the more detailed and dialogue-heavy a companion is, the less of them you're going to get in the game. Also, five classes (to start, more if they reach the stretch goals) is more than the three you got to pick from in the Dragon Age games. I'm happy to support the Kickstarter because I've enjoyed the Black Isle and Obsidian games I've played. When we're given more information it should be easier to start forming a clearer picture of this game, I bet even Obsidian didn't expect the Kickstarter to reach its goal as quickly as it did.

I say expansion packs all the way, and only expansion packs. The problem with DLC is that, as we've seen with Dragon Age: Origins, keeping track of all those DLC decisions and getting them to transfer over properly into the next game seems to be a serious pain. Often DLC seems to be very small and because they're sold apart from the game they don't really mesh well with main storylines. Expansion packs fit together well, continue the story, and have a lot of content in them that doesn't seem stuck on. But mostly I'm just old fashioned and love to have something that I can actually buy and put on my shelf.

Augghh, so many things come to mind! I certainly agree with something Planescape or an Isometric turn-based rpg. I wouldn't mind something like NWN2 graphics-wise but with more freedom in terms of character face creation so the player could tweak things more. Other than that anything in the Forgotten Realms (or any other D&D setting) could do. But most of all I'd love to see some new IP. Planescape and Fallout really stand out because they don't fit with your usual fantasy or sci-fi setting. I'd love to see a type of fantasy that isn't all orcs, dwarves and elves (how about unique races for a unique world). And I don't mean just grabbing an existing culture and making a fantasy version of that (though this can be done well sometimes), I mean completely making everything up. It would be so nice and refreshing. I really liked how colourful the spirit creatures were in NWN2: MotB. The way that you worked your character up from such a low level to practically being able to take on gods in NWN2: MotB and BG2 really gave a sense of your character progressing. And the way both those stories tied to the players character personally (I don't get this whole thing against 'chosen ones' some people have, they can be used to create very good and immersing stories). Would definitely like to see something focusing on dialogue, character interaction and player choices in dialogue too. I dislike the way a lot of games seem to be trimming down on what the players character can say these days. I don't care about the players character being voiced, I want the freedom to actually make my own character, not have it decided for me. Bring on the interesting and intricate plots that can actually surprise and shock you. Also: Choices that aren't plain black/white or good/evil. I am a big fan of neutral options, or being able to sneakily have things both ways by double-crossing people. I've been interested in the idea of a science fiction setting with magic for a while too and how that might work. But there are so many different ways you can go with making up something new. As long as it was an rpg where I could make my own character I don't think I'd be able to resist trying it. (Whoops, I ramble)