aluminiumtrioxid

FYI, insulting fellow forum members and using strawman arguments is usually not very well received here. You'll look uncivilized and rather foolish at best. I don't intend to waste my time arguing with someone who is either incapable of understanding written text, or wilfully misinterprets what I'm saying.

Yeah, rewarding sociopathic behavior is so much better and is proven to enhance gameplay in every possible way imaginable. Please. Go and play the Sims or My Little Pony and leave Baldur's Gate to us psychos and sociopaths. Using violence and/or threats of violence as the main method for solving problems should not be encouraged if your aim is to create a believable and immersive universe for actual roleplaying instead of hack&slash action. Mainly because, you know, there are actual consequences of killing other sentient beings in most rational universes. Most of them involve the people whom you have angered by killing their relatives/favorite lackeys/pet dogs/whatever doing everything in their power to make life as unpleasant to you as possible. And, inevitably, some of these quite understandably angry people will be stronger than you (and your party). Integrating this philosophy as a gameplay element is a win-win scenario - those who like combat will get even more combat, while those who choose an alternate way of dealing with the situation can experience the smug satisfaction which accompanies the realization that they had the foresight to deal with a problem before it even became one.

Yeah, rewarding sociopathic behavior is so much better and is proven to enhance gameplay in every possible way imaginable.

But isn't it somehow unrealistic ? Entire race that decided that they should act dumb so they can fool other races, Some kind of collective consciousness would solve this issue nicely. Also, we'd get an orc hivemind, which, frankly, sounds awesome.

^^ Why would this be a problem? Are Silver Fangs not different enough from Silent Striders? Bone Gnawers from Stargazers? Tremere from Brujah?

In that case what is the purpose of having fighter class? Unique soul abilities?

Don't make me laugh.

I didn't like that guy so much. Just replayed BG2 and was amazed how dramatic and overexaggerated his narration sounded.

I'd prefer a Hackmaster (new edition) approach to the D&D-style leveling: every level is significant, yet the whole leveling curve is a lot smoother. For example, your mages gain a new spell level when they level up, but there isn't such a sharp difference between the spell levels. Also, you gain a new hit die at every second level (but you may re-roll the previous result and keep the higher one when you don't gain a new one).

Pfftch... clogging arteries sound a lot more energy-efficient. If I had telekinesis, that's what I'd be going for :D

^^ Works better this way.

"That's not cheating, that's winning."

Or you would need to equip firearms on your fighters and barbarians to kill mages. I believe they will accomplish their goal by offering a multitude of possible builds, thus making every class able to tackle any challenge, if they're specialized correctly. It doesn't mean every class will be automatically able to do everything, nor that certain classes won't be generally more effective at certain tasks.

^^ That was cheating, he synthetized kryptonite beforehand

I like my progress as "slightly better than average --> Batman" (OD&D), not "Batman --> Superman" (4e). But, since it's (hopefully) going to be the first installment of a series, we can assume that this will be the case.

Dialogue puzzles, figuring out what to say to an NPC to get the most favorable results based on information I can get from the game world. (I don't like speech skills, though attribute-dependent answers are cool.)

It's possibly just a physical representation of his power. Or, even better, his soul. Like the wizard's sigil in Ars Magica and M:tAw, this may be somehow representative of his personality... can't wait to have him in my world-domination-plotting, backstabbing, scheming party

On the other hand, it doesn't look very functional. I mean, what can you do with a handful of purple-glowing snakes? Throw them at your enemy? Use them as whips? Light your way in the darkness? I like dark/weird fantasy-inspired magic, but this just looks... dumb.

Actually, that's pretty much the opposite of how you play DAO. You must always have at least one tank and one healer to not get wiped really fast. There is precious little room for variance, since these fill half your party slots. So, I'd prefer if the devs would stay as far as possible from DA and its kind.

Actually, it would be. Since you cannot meaningfully influence your companions' speech skill (even if you could raise it, and there were some moments when they would use it, you could never fully trust them to use it as you would), you must pick it up yourself. Any other noncombat skill (well, crafting, survival, trapfinding etc. most likely, lore not so much) has the same effect whether you or one of your companions have it.

Speech options will be defined by your character's attributes, reputation, race, background etc. instead of having a skill sink which actually does nothing to enhance the gaming experience. I liked Alpha Protocol's speech system which encouraged you to analyze your opponent and actually think about what you'll say, instead of mashing the insta-win button marked [speech]. Similarly, while I bought the persuasion implant in Deus Ex Human Revolution, about halfway through the game I've found out it was a lot more rewarding to "win" the most important conversations by using my skill as a player rather than by pressing a button. Without the implant, these were the most intensive moments in the whole game; using it only reduced the tension, and took away from the experience. So, my point is, having no speech skill but different options dependent on a multitude of factors actually encourages roleplay and immersion a lot more.

I'd like to see Twin Peaks-style sinister weirdness all over the place. Pretty unlikely to happen, though. Perhaps as a sidequest?

Rangers should be good at gaining bonuses against specific enemy types. Not just the usual "+1 to hit", but increased damage, defense, critical chance, resistance to special attacks, etc. Also, they should be able to grant these (at least partially) to allies. Plus stealth (perhaps allowing some kind of ranged sneak attacks), wilderness survival, laying traps, great ranged combat, somewhat weaker melee (against creatures outside his specialization). The usual stuff. Ditch the magic and dual wielding aspects, and make the animal companion at least optional.

That's actually kind of a good point. I'd be happy to see that you'll start losing Health after your Stamina dropped under (say) 80%. Especially since you'll (presumably) have all kinds of neat stamina-restoring powers in combat, thus Health damage can stack up pretty fast.

Wow, the purple-light-emitting, levitating maggots never really caught my eye until now. Awesome.