JediMB

You'd have a point about the crotch armor if it was actually shaped like the reproductive organ it covers. The problem with the boobplate is twofold: 1) It looks silly to have the armor formfittingly wrapped around the breasts, or even used to "enhance" them. 2) It would serve to direct blows towards the user's sternum, rather than away from the body.

I've been thinking that I simply won't recruit more companions than my party can hold, so as to avoid having people waiting for me in some dumb camp. I can always recruit differently on my next playthrough, after all.

Having some sort of "Prelude" or "Origin" where you get to organically determine your character sheet could be a cool alternative to being able to edit it manually. That said, Fallout 3's prompt that let you edit your sheet again just as you left the Vault was horribly immersion-breaking, so that either needs to be presented in a more immersive way, or there should be a switch you can flip in the game's settings to disable the prompt and just go with whatever sheet your choices have generated. And, of course, there has to be an option to skip the prelude entirely and just go straight to the character sheet and then jump into the game.

Achievements per se is nothing I feel strongly about either way. That said, if the game mechanics support it, an achievement system where completing certain challenges will unlock new options or bonuses for future playthroughs can be pretty cool. The challenge goals should never be about grinding, though. They could be about, say, locating all four [legendary set of items] spread out in the far corners of the world, or killing specific boss monsters, or completing quests in obscure ways... and the achievements and their descriptions shouldn't ever contain spoilers. EDIT: Also, no stupid and annoying ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED pop-ups that ruin the immersion. If the game has a log where system feedback (like combat damage and skill check results) is shown, a line about the achievement could just appear there. EDIT: An achievement could also just be an unlisted quest, ending with an experience point reward.

With a mixed system, it would be cool if your items were worth a little bit more when traded than they'd be if you simply sold them for currency. That's usually how "trade-ins" and such work in real life, since merchants always buy low and sell high, and benefit from getting more merchandise to sell to other customers. That said, there should of course be limits for what any given merchant considers useful merchandise. You're not likely to see a jeweler accepting your attempt to trade in a pair of old boots.

Yes, but I will admit... only briefly. Tried Planescape: Torment for an hour or two and absolutely loved it, so I plan to return to the game very soon. (I just want to finish Divine Divinity first.) Also tried Baldur's Gate in multiplayer, and let's just say I think the multiplayer part ruined it for me. I've pre-ordered the Enhanced Edition and will play once that is out.

28 laps around the sun. Too indecisive to pick favorite things. I like variety.

I had some thoughts I considered getting feedback on in the thread, but after this whole creepy mess in the last two pages I think I'll save them for another day. I'm gonna go somewhere else now.

Jim Diamond - I Should Have Known Better ...What? I'm listening to a Best of The 80's collection! (Oh, wrong thread for this?) EDIT:

I guess the next thread needs that additional poll question: "Should BioWare's model serve as inspiration for Project Eternity?" That would be targeted immediately as "biased" and wouldn't possibly help anything. It would probably make things deteriorate faster as everyone quoted just that part as prove of some kind of grand conspiracy to get PE to be a hentai dating sim or some such nonsense. Well, it doesn't really matter if it seems biased or not. As long as people are honest about their opinions, it's the best way to see what people's preferences are. Not because Obsidian should actually pay attention to the results (because they shouldn't), but so we can stop arguing semantics.

I have no problem admitting that I've enjoyed quite a few BioWare romances. But I also generally see them as highly flawed, much too mechanical, and sometimes terribly written. BioWare's approach, while enjoyable enough, is not something I want to see imitated by other developers, and hopefully BioWare themselves will eventually do better as well. I guess the next thread needs that additional poll question: "Should BioWare's model serve as inspiration for Project Eternity?" EDIT: And possibly a "Should romance arcs inevitably lead to sex?" (I've already expressed a few times that I'd prefer it if sex was left out of the game. In part because it would be a "fresh" way to go about it after so many BioWare games, and in part because it just doesn't feel like it belongs in an isometric game to begin with.)

Yes. He is also one of the writers for Baldur's Gate 2 (wherein he is notable for working on the Ascension semi-official revised ending for Throne of Bhaal), Knights of the Old Republic and several other BioWare games. I would assume he's talking because he knows Chris Avellone and wants to have some fun. They seem to be pretty good friends, since they tweet (and retweet) each other constantly. They had a particularly amusing thing going with the hashtag #HardToWriteForEasyToLove Well... that's what happens when a small group of individuals come into the threads and insult anyone who doesn't share their point of view, often with strawman arguments. It pretty much inevitably leads to arguments that then go on until a moderator closes the thread to let the involved parties cool off for a while. Some time later someone starts a new thread, and the cycle begins anew.

On the flip side, others associate manuals with old games where the developers hadn't yet figured out how to make a game that teaches the player how to play, or isn't intuitive enough for the player to just learn by doing. (I do love a good manual, though.)

And playing through romance stories in role-playing games is not the same thing as cybering imaginary friends, so it's not entirely relevant. Plus, if something's creepy or not is highly subjective. It's often a matter of open-mindedness and empathic ability.

For the record, this is a mix of replies to people in the previous romance thread (since that was closed just as I finished typing my post), and replies to people in this current thread. I'll be putting together a proper post about my feelings/opinions on this matter later. I would think that the bigger issue is how EA has turned the RPGs into cinematic, instant-gratification action flicks with minimized RPG mechanics and protagonists that are controlled by the game as often as by the player. I'm pretty sure people who blindly click the top option for every dialogue choice have already complained about being forced into romances with Cortez, Anders and Fenris. Heck, I even recall someone mistakenly getting laid with Zevran, however he managed to do that... Yeah, it's really totally understandable that being consistently nice to Anders leads to him misinterpreting that as romantic feelings, but having the only rejection option being one where your character sounds completely disgusted by the idea is mind-boggling. There should have been a simple "sorry, don't feel that way about you" option. However, I really don't have any problem with bisexuality being unusually common in a fantasy world. It may be statistically improbable by our standards that 4 out of 9 companions are bi, but then what are the odds of both the Warden-Commander of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall both being gay? It's easy enough to ignore most companions' sexualities if you're not pursuing them anyway. What the game suffered from here, just like in many other areas, was writing that conflicted with the game design. For once, they didn't actually make the sex scene the final act of the romance arc, but with the way the game was designed it took your hours upon hours before there was any real progress beyond that point. True that. [On Mass Effect 3's ending] Looking back at it now, I can't claim that it's a particularly good explanation. I was... let's say, rather emotional at the time. But I'm too apathetic about the game now to write anything new, so here's the link: http://www.jedimb.ne...hreeld/#more-43 Err... I thought Jack only told you to asterisk off if you had sex with her in mid-game? Or does that happen if you start her "romance arc" and decide to not go through with it? *shrugs* Either way, Mass Effect 2 did suffer from a horrible lack of friendship paths, cutting all the characters' stories short unless you did the romance. Not to mention how people would accidentally enter certain romance paths, although I never had that problem personally. (Usually it was a matter of always picking the top option in that dumb dialogue wheel to get the romance.) On that note, I hope the passage of time in Project Eternity is clearer than it's been in most of BioWare's games. Besides Dragon Age 2, with its terribly implemented time skips, it tends to seem like they just arbitrarily attach a time frame to the previous games when the sequels are developed. One way to do that, of course, would be an in-game time and date indicator somewhere in the GUI. Or newspapers showing the dates.

I'd think they'd gladly pledge then Perhaps more press coverage is needed in the European countries? For what it's worth, I mentioned Obsidian in an essay involving crowd funding a couple of days ago. I'm afraid to find out what grade it receives.

If the game's writers spoke fluent Mandarin, you'd have a case.

If this was a game for a "wide audience", it wouldn't be needing Kickstarter.

I think you'll have to post a video.

Not even then. No compromising design decisions for the sake of consoles. That's not what I said either. There'd just be a secondary Nintendo-funded team working on adapting whatever the main team creates to work on the Wii U. Note the now underlined and bolded words.

PC versions are priority. They could start thinking about porting the game to Android/iOS tablets and the Wii U once the PC versions are finished and in the hands of the backers. EDIT: You know... unless Nintendo offers to pay for a port during development, but that seems doubtful.

No thanks to durability. But yes please to repairing already broken items, perhaps for crafting purposes.

I'd probably be fine with no voice work at all, but still... here's a suggestion for to what extent a companion character could be voiced: - Introduction : The first lines of dialogue the character speaks when you meet him/her. - Greetings : A single short line uttered by a recruited companion when you walk up and talk to him/her, or end a conversation. - Battle cries : Lines uttered in combat, obviously. - Commentary/Banter : (Optional) Standalone lines uttered by the character upon entering specific areas, and exchanges between companions. Everything else could be entirely text. What voiced lines are there are enough to let you imagine the voice when you're reading the lines, and it'd of course be much easier to have a variety of options for conversations.

Indeed. It would be enough to have a chance for a slightly more exaggerated/violent version of the attack animation when it's a finishing blow.

Swedish, if they'll pay me to do it. I'm cheap. Otherwise, the $2.2M stretch goal is enough.