Wolfenbarg

If the game (or expansion) end up with a good toolset, then multiplayer would be kind of great. I wouldn't use it in single player, but I'd probably join people in other quests if there's a NWN type of community making modules for the game.

I don't find it surprising at all. You can't underestimate how much people love Smash Brothers. The differences between Melee and Brawl weren't massive, but the former was undoubtedly a superior game in terms of skill matchups and is still a tournament standard. Minute differences can be huge in competitive games, so anticipation over how they're going to do the next game is going to be significant. I didn't use my skips right, so Broken Age and Star Citizen ended up topping Watch Dogs and Dragon Age on the bottom of my list. Kind of a weird setup.

That's... not true. You're blaming a problem from all choice based games on one type of that category. For example, in Mass Effect you have Shepard in all 3 games, but that doesn't stop the fact that in order to keep endings from spiraling out of control that consequences are basically removed from a lot of your actions. When you start a new game, everything is still in the same template. In Knights of the Old Republic, you can choose whatever you want but are left with a canon ending in the sequel. Choices carrying over means both an ending and the beginning of the next game have to retain as much continuity as possible. Choices not carrying over gives you the freedom to have more options in an endings while needing a canon ending for a sequel. Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect have choices carrying over to a similar effect while one has the same protagonist and the other does not. I really don't see how you came to this conclusion. Baldur's Gate isn't more interactive than Fallout because it has one protagonist. It's actually LESS interactive, because each game has to lead into the next instead of each one being its own contained unit. In my first Fallout playthrough most of the settlements were wiped out by mutants. That may not have carried over in a sequel, but it doesn't matter because the effect and its impact on me still happened. Games with continuity have to retain continuity.

It's not about cramming too many games into one, it's about the kinds of decisions developers have to make. If they run into a situation where the party encounters and resolves a scenario with something truly divine or supernatural and they decide to back out because that kind of escalation of scope would rob from a sequel, which is meant to ramp up the scope, it just kind of steals from the game. Baldur's Gate was a publisher backed title planned as a series. It's perfectly fine that they didn't have Githyanki or Beholders running around in a low level campaign while they were more liberally introduced in the later games. However, for a single title that isn't guaranteed to even be a minor success, the idea of making those same kinds of decisions doesn't seem very wise. This isn't a DnD campaign. Everything has been designed with this title in mind, so hording those things away unless they really just don't fit is just sequel whoring for the sake of it.

There are a lot of games with bad pathing. I rarely run into situations in games with a top down perspective where I don't ask, "WHY WOULD YOU GO THAT WAY?!?" at least once. I replayed Fallout recently and was kind of shocked in awkward maps when my character would go exactly where I said. I'm just used to games, old and new, screwing this up.

I concur. This isn't Grand Theft Auto V, 2 years + a couple months should be more than enough time to learn unity, get what tools you need, and put the game together. So while I don't mind it being delayed past April I will be very... disappointed if it doesn't arrive sometime in December. That said it is sort of strange but most of the vocal backers think it would be okay if they took like 4-5 years and cite companies like Blizzard and such as good examples. No offense, but Blizzard takes 5 years to make a game that is nothing but a rehash of a game they already made with new graphics slapped on. I really wouldn't point to them as a good developers. For comparisons sake it took Blizzard somewhere around 5 years (probably longer, they just aren't honest about their dev cycle) to make Diablo 3. It took Grinding Gear Games 3 years to get Path of Exile into a public beta that has now seen real release. Bear in mind... many people will also tell you Path of Exile is the better game, and it was made with a dramatically smaller team to boot. So yeah back to point... please aim for 2014 devs at least get the year right. Blizzard is a bad example because it's clear that it doesn't take more than 3 years or so to finish a single player campaign. Most of the time on their games goes into designing multiplayer systems and balancing them. There's hardware concerns like with servers and they have their matchmaking systems which double as DRM. If they made games like they used to where multiplayer was just a fun little addition and not a primary focus of play, then they'd turn out games as fast as most other developers.

2008 - Left 4 Dead 2009 - Left 4 Dead 2 2010 - Alien Swarm 2011 - Portal 2 2012 - Counter Strike: Global Offensive 2013 - DOTA 2 Still waiting for that year they "don't release something". There are only 3 games on that list that people were really clamoring for, and only one of them really required the resources of a triple-A developer. They play like a small timer in games despite arguably being the PC's answer to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. MOBAs and Source shooters are the realm of startups right now. Even if they do it well, it seems like the boatloads of money are going into projects that aren't seeing the light of day.

No one was talking about Planescape's ending, just Planescape as a game. As an individual title, it's exceptional. It doesn't have expansions or sequels, it wasn't built with franchise ambitions, and its title character wasn't ever supposed to be the hub for a large number of adventures. It was a solitary title, and yet it's still remembered very fondly by a lot of people. That's really what Pillars of Eternity should be. There really are no guarantees that we will ever get another game in this world. What if the game has problems launching? What if it isn't very good? What if it doesn't sell enough and they have to go back to Kickstarter? Will the next Kickstarter be as successful without a strong proof of concept? Shelving higher level content for a sequel when you know there's going to be a sequel is fine, but they really don't.

But what do you use massive financial success to do as a game developer? Make bigger and better games, typically. Unless they've just continually scrapped builds for Half Life 3, it's hard to tell what they're actually working on. They have enough money to hire staff beyond the people who keep DotA 2 and Steam running.

I agree with not adding save states into sequels. I'd rather have my actions be massive and sweeping and non-canon than totally safe and carry over. Not a perfect example, but remember the Wall of the Faithless? It couldn't be torn down because of franchise lore reasons, but the dilemma of its existence was the center on which all of Mask of the Betrayer turned. At the very least, the game let you go full devourer and go to war with the gods who set up that system in the first place. That kind of ending is brilliant for a game of that type, and I'd definitely rather have that option. Basically I'd rather have something timeless on its own like Planescape than another sequel factory where we all voice varying levels of disappointment over how elements are changed or didn't pan out as they were promised. That can be fine and works better in gaming than any other medium, but those timeless singular titles don't come often enough.

I think making decisions based on a potential franchise in this first game would be a massive mistake. They've already said it's going to try to match the scale and tactics of Baldur's Gate 2 with the storytelling of Planescape: Torment, so I'd be pretty disappointed if it's just some low level adventure like Baldur's Gate (and I loved Baldur's Gate). They should do whatever is necessary to make this the best it can possibly be as its own self-contained adventure. Thinking of the overall franchise when designing titles is why Dragon Age has really failed to live up to its full potential. If people are afraid of them showing all of their tricks in the first game, they can just make the quest in Eternity 2 of a different type. If the first is about a change you undergo and the ramifications of it, then a sequel could have stories about warring factions, being trapped in a strange world, something distinctly extra-planar like PS:T, or any number of things. Knights of the Old Republic is a good example of how having a different type of goal with a different character can make for a good sequel. Both games throw out everything necessary to tell their story as well as they can. Also, keep in mind that we didn't back a trilogy or anything. We backed a single game and an expansion. Restricting encounter design could just hold this game back.

Exorcising or making an appeal to a ghost to remove it would be pretty cool. Even the original Pokemon games managed to make that effective.

Some amount of level scaling might be necessary depending on how open the world is. In Baldur's Gate 2 you have class related quests which had encounters scaled by level. This was kind of alright, because you'd be pretty annoyed if you went to do the cleric's quest and ran into a bunch of beholders on the other side of that bridge that were impossible for you to defeat. The game told you to go there in your pathetic state, it shouldn't punish you for that. On the other hand, the main quest probably shouldn't have scaled encounters quite as much as it did. If you went through the trouble of completing every side quest in Athkatla, being rewarded by facing crazy ass golems that require +4 crushing weapons in Suldanesselar is really irritating. Now if quests encounters are more like Fallout or the first Baldur's Gate, then scaling as little as possible would be preferable. As for the dungeon, I think that's one place where there should be no scaling at all. That's a true progress or build measurement.

The darkspawn lair in the Deep Roads in Dragon Age: Origins was pretty much nightmare fuel, and it's the kind of stuff that used to be reserved for undead. Now they're basically used as trash mobs for certain sections of a game without really designing in the elements that make them scary. I remember in Diablo 3 when a bunch of zombies popped up in a bar and the bartender just kind of goes on doing his thing and says, "Zombies are bad for business" or something equally ridiculous. There's a lack of inspiration, I guess. There's also a conflict in game design theory that people stopped wanting to deal with them. In order to really make something scary, you have to disempower a player. You have to give the undead abilities which have no simple counters. Level drain, disease, instant death, intelligence drain, and whatever other effects there are to make you feel powerless are pretty much completely unfair. They become very frustrating to play against when done improperly, and even when done well they can still be a complete chore and lack a certain kind of fear factor. Atmosphere is more effective, but that requires a certain creative vision or a budget to really make it feel real. You have to rethink design of maps or even entire sequences of the game to tailor to enemies that aren't necessarily integral to the game. We've seen undead done well despite not being a main focus, so now seeing them done without all the thought and care that goes into making something creepy, it's just disappointing.

I actually wouldn't mind an "all is lost" type of setting, just as long as it isn't the same story we've seen over and over again. Instead of trying to save the world, trying to survive or solve a personal struggle would be interesting. Something the people at Obsidian are good at is taking something we're used to and either deconstructing it or doing something new entirely.

So when you select a character and look through more abilities, where would they pop up? Would they take up the dead space on the left? If so then functionally it seems like it would be better to put the portraits on the left, though it would be... uglier. I have to say it's a very beautiful mock-up. Nice work.

I can't see drops being more valuable than more areas in a game like this. This is going to be the kind of game where the world is the story just as much as the plot. Better loot doesn't contribute a whole lot to that... it certainly wasn't necessary in Baldur's Gate.

In your opinion I would say, which of course isn't any more, or any less valid than mine. And let me tell you, that I have very much enjoyed Icewind Dale (the first) to extent of replaying it 3(?) times and then coplaying it twice (with a friend, via lan on holidays). Sure, not in a row, but I suppose it's not the point here. So if that mega-dungeon would turn out to be a game inside a game (imagining IWD like megadungeon inside BG2 here) I'd be more than happy. I didn't hate Icewind Dale (I'm replaying it right now), but it's not well suited to the Infinity Engine at all. There are very good areas in the game, like the bottom two levels of Kresselack's tomb, the bottom 3 levels of Dragon's Eye, pretty much all of the Severed Hand, and others. However, the upper levels of most of the dungeons and even the more open areas are basically all combat. There's no other elements to get lost in. There's no NPC character interaction, there's no side quests, there's no exploration outside of the main areas. All you do is fight. That's very draining in a role playing game.

Well the PC version isn't going to be very intense as far as hardware is concerned. Console fans would very likely be able to play on an available PC. The amount of changes to make a PC exclusive into a console game are pretty heavy. Have you compared Dragon Age: Origins on its various platforms? The console is not a true direct port. A lot is lost and you can tell that a lot of development money went just into make it exist. They'd also have to account for licensing costs and distribution. It would take some very big stretch goals to make that a reality.

When they pitched it, I was thinking it'd be like Watcher's Keep. Seeing just how many levels there are in the dungeon really kind of worries me. There's no way it could possibly be that complex and well thought out without basically being a game in itself. I hope they pull this off. Diablo is mechanically designed to support that kind of gameplay. A majority of the fun of the game comes from killing a whole lot of demon spawn. IE games and games of a similar type don't really support that. Icewind Dale tried it, and it manages to get really boring after just a few hours of play. I wouldn't call Baldur's Gate combat light, but its very deliberate approach to encounters kept them feeling fresh (for the most part) while Icewind Dale was just relentless. If this dungeon ends up like that, I probably won't enjoy it at all. I kind of doubt you would either if you prefer Diablo. Different styles of play make those two wildly different experiences.

Well the combat system is based on PnP with some modifications based on the game they're trying to make, so that will definitely be a bit less straightforward. Then you've got an entirely different writing team which includes Chris Avellone and George Ziets... I'd say it's too early to really worry.

I'm pretty sure they said they weren't going to do anything really arbitrary with enemies needing a very specific weapon type to beat them. Nothing was more frustrating than specializing in katanas and being a complete badass only to run into something which required +4 weapons to beat, and realizing there were no +4 katanas in the game. There isn't going to be any of that sort of crap, so even missing out on good drops from certain mobs isn't going to end your chances at finishing certain tasks. I also think that getting rewards based on your methods is just a smart way to go about it. I shouldn't be rewarded with a sword for talking my way out of a nasty situation. It wouldn't really make sense. It will also make a playthrough feel more unique. Someone who carves their way through will have a very different experience than someone who tries to stealth their way through encounters as much as possible.

I usually play a rogue on my first playthrough of a game, though I'm not sure what I'll do this time. I kind of want to see how the game plays a little bit before I pick a class, though. If something really stands out as being interesting, then I'll probably want to give it a shot.

Obsidian is very much about maturity in their games, and not at the base level with lots of sex and violence. They think the repercussions of actions that would normally be glanced over in other games. When you visit New Vegas you see all the elements of its infrastructure, and can see how all of those elements actually have their own story and fit into the broader spectrum of things. In Knights of the Old Republic 2 you see two competing factions vying for control of the restoration project, and you come to understand the methods of each side and how they represent more than just a good/evil dichotomy, but rather efficiency and ideology. Obsidian is good at these things, there's nothing to worry about in that regard. However, in relation to the video, the distinction between heroic and realistic fantasy is a much more interesting discussion for this game, I think. New Vegas and Planescape tended more toward realistic in terms of what impact you as an individual had on the world, while most of their other games tended toward heroic. If this is a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, it's very likely that this will be more of a heroic fantasy than realistic. But then, I guess that depends on the nature of your particular 'defect' and how it affects you and the world around you.

I don't know if that's even possible at this point. EA may own the rights to make Star Wars games, but they've pretty much left control of the Old Republic universe in Bioware's hands. Not only that, but I remember seeing a fair bit of open disdain for Kotor 2 by members of Bioware. They even censored the word 'Kreia' when the boards launched like it was any old curse word. And most importantly, I don't think anyone would be happy to see Obsidian working with EA. The odds of getting the kind of game we'd want wouldn't be favorable.