Wolfenbarg

I do agree that there should be some kind of noticable effect. If you solo PoE or play with a custom party, the madness associated with being a watcher isn't present in the game at all. There are no dreams, stat effects, and the abilities you get aren't very game changing or have any downsides themselves. If that's part of the story, it should feel like part of the story from a gameplay perspective regardless of whether or not you take their companions. It should be like Mask. You have some lite effects no matter what, but the more you use watcher abilities (which should be more unique/powerful), the worse your nightmares get... Provided that's still part of the story in the next game and they don't go a different direction with watchers.

I completely disagree. Companion quests shouldn't be so simple and fast paced. It fleshes them out. If I couldn't take anymore of Durance's bull**** because he's such an insufferable bastard, I could kick him out. That's my relationship with Durance. If I am enamored by some of the qualities I see in his dialogue, I'll keep him around, try to gain his trust, and maybe eventually gain some respect and understanding of him as a character. If it's too easy, those options don't really end up existing. I actually wish more characters were like Durance. Having people you trust/like around vs having a certain combat effectiveness is a big choice, and makes playthroughs unique. They're also carrying some heavy baggage. It fits their characters.

1. Items - This has got to be one of the biggest issues. Good and unique items were one of the big reasons old school RPGs worked. Finding a completely unique and badass weapon gives identity to characters, can create new build opportunities, and lets min-maxers do their thing. The only weapon I can even remember from Pillars was The Disappointer, because it was pretty funny in flavor and in my attempts to make it viable. Nothing much stands out. 2. Encounter Design - There are just too many trash mobs. The game takes a nose dive in the fun department after Raedric's Keep and then just keeps getting worse. In Baldur's Gate, there was a big shift toward more difficult party vs party combat after Nashkell. From the bounty hunter party when you leave the mines onward was brutal and memorable. A game like this should really push you until you understand the mechanics. I felt like I was getting crushed and needed to learn everything fast after Raedric, but from then on I rarely felt like encounters forced me to really explore the mechanics deeply. Even on normal difficulty the game should feel dynamic. 3. Side/Main Quest Links - I liked the side questing in Pillars, but it feels too separate from the plot. I mean the second act works quite well if you ignore the stronghold and mostly stay in Defiance Bay. The story and potential side quests are pretty linked, with a lot of information about the world being given out while you're also unraveling the mystery behind the Leaden Key. After the second act though... it just doesn't gel anymore. Everything feels separate and spread too thin. It's all kind of off the rails until you initiate the endgame.

I feel like Caed Nua along with Twin Elms were ideas that worked much better for a kickstarter campaign than as an actual general design template to start from. It sounds great on paper, but in execution the game didn't need more things. It just needed lots of polish and focus on the things necessary to make it work. The stronghold wasn't necessary and doesn't feel like it adds optional functionality. The strongholds in BG2 all had useful things about them, but most importantly they could give you great loot or some fun stories. They also give class identity. Caed Nua doesn't really do anything aside from adding an epilogue. I think even if they kickstart a sequel, they really need to keep a tighter leash on big content decisions like that. The game would have been unquestionably superior if Od Nua and Teir Evron were moved to Defiance Bay.

You have to remember the scale of time Thaos is alive in, as well. Current society is in something of a renaissance period, while he's still thinking of the world in the same light as the savages who were burning infants and covering themselves in their ashes. The current playing field levels mages, animancers, and priests with soldiers wielding firearms and merchants. Even with Engwithan ability to create gods, the Engwithan masses were depicted as being just as ignorant as the uneducated Dyrwoodans living outside of the city. There's an enlightenment going on, it's a very different time. That's for Thaos' part, at least. But he's operating in Woedica's interests as well. She's just covering her ass, as well as covering for every other god out there. Any act which could prove their existence as constructs would undermine their position. Those terrible acts he spoke of were to serve Woedica and the gods. It's a defense of the status quo, even if that defense leads to even more damage than would have been caused if the initial secret had been leaked in the first place. You may call it illogical, but it's such a fundamentally human thing that you can track similar patterns of behavior to many disasters or crises in the real world throughout history and in modern times.

Well I run it on an HD 4000, and it's not exactly the most fluid experience. I see videos with a smooth frame rate and turn green with envy. I'm not sure exactly what it's running at, but I set the cap at 30fps and rarely reach that in combat. If it does run, you'll have to endure some extreme choppiness.

Vampires can be awesome. I consider Blood Omen to be one of the best examples of storytelling in a game, though the actual gameplay kind of sucked due to intense loading times.

We might get something in the form of DLC Storm of Zehir style. Or maybe they'll put another team on that kind of game after they finish up on other projects. I doubt something will surface soon, though. I think we really need to see this game work before they make announcements to try something else in the IE style.

Star Wars is almost immune to good storytelling. The basis for its creation seems like such an easy task (just redo the monomyth and swim in teh monies!) and gets ****ed up beyond belief almost every time. What we experienced was the exception. Bioware made the first game and even they obviously don't give a crap about the story, the lore, or the license that they created. Did the people in the planning phase for writing and lore get forced into it or something? Contrasting the craft of the game designers with the writers is kind of painful to see.

They're all Salarians now.

You'll know there's an announcement in this thread if there are like 6 new pages between when you last checked and now.

I notice that you seem to have played New Vegas but didn't include it on your list. This game has the same project director, while Avellone's development isn't nearly as prominent. It's not guaranteed to not be to your taste, but it's certainly a possibility. And I don't see this being distinctly different from the Infinity Engine games in terms of combat style. That's what people wanted from it when they backed it. It will certainly be modernized and not have the AD&D ruleset, but still... making something similar is kind of in the territory.

Well... they are announcing at GDC and not some bigger venue like VGX, E3, or PAX. While I'd like to see the bigger announcement, I don't really expect them to do it here of all places. Not enough people are watching to build a hype machine.

That's... exaggerating. The Bioware hate has become so intense because they had three games which were started basically on the same cycle (DA2, ME3, and TOR) which happened after the acquisition and basically followed a very similar template for what their goals were. A lot of people hated those, and they landed one after another with no room for Bioware or EA to adjust for the backlash the last one received. DA2 was a dud, but they were too far in Mass Effect 3 to make sure that didn't garner a similar response, and The Old Republic isn't even a similar type of game so you can't adjust for expectation at all there. Basically, Bioware has been in the dog house for the last couple of years, while Obsidian's stock has risen significantly with gamers. If DA3 is more in line with typical expectations, then everyone will go right back to singing their praises, even on this board. Aaaand I've never heard that last one before. Unless that's the joke, that's just way beyond the realm of reality.

Well on the speakers lists, it says he speaks tomorrow. The other speaker I could find was Justin Bell, who I don't expect to make the announcement unless it turns out to be a rhythm game.