Darth Trethon

It's also a lot more complicated than you- by claiming that the alleged rapists are the victims- are making it out to be, but... let's just not go there. Neither case is 100% but parading the issue of rape without considering both sides to get some point across isn't the way. And there are a lot of societal factors that really blur the issue....like clubs and alcohol, the number one passtime of human beings. You know, where both genders go a drink themselves until they black out and then wake up having done things neither remembers. The whole mentality revolving around schoolboy heroics and protecting the damsels in distress is really getting silly.....in more cases than not when it comes to rape allegations a solid case can be made that both are at fault while there aren't nearly as many cases as we think where it actually is what people think it is or the "victim" is throwing a show....hell we live in a society that encourages people to feel victimized rather than accept responsibility and that goes both ways. There is A LOT more to be said on the issue but it ties into other things like culture and religion and so on so I rather not open that can of worms. Suffice to say that no, nothing ever that simple or clear cut. The movie Watchmen(preferably the ultimate cut if you can get your hands on it with the tales of the black freighter) makes a wonderful case for the shades of gray between the wildly held cliche views of good and evil.

The problem here is that you still limit your understanding to conventional soapy norms of good. There are real situations where saving the most actually does mean having to let some die for example and there are a lot more situations with similar notes. The way I see it the problem is a lot less about how people see their own actions....this is merely a symptom not the real problem. The real problem is the broken norms and definitions we have. People are not taught to think and reason but to blindly follow and obey....do this, never under any circumstance do that, etc.......nothing is ever as simple as that and every rule has an exception. The issue of rape is really getting pathetic....all a woman has to do is start crying and automatically the guy is guilty without much of an investigation and law differs from state to state and country to country.....in some places touching the inner thigh automatically constitutes rape and there are a million more complicated and unbelievably insane circumstances where the vilified "rapist" did next to nothing.

Oy vey, putting AC right next to ME. Dem's fight words. I don't follow. He means ME is garbage. The way BioWare handled ME3 and its issues along with their fake choice system mkaes me inclined to agree.

A three point issue comes up when I think of my favorite games Story-Choice-Consequence and the more varied the endings the better but I do not actually like or believe in endings that are bad for the player and I think that all endings should be positive for the player while consistent with his/her choices.

I rather PE not do the labeling for us but rather just give us a wide range of choices with the ending being the sum of the consequences of our actions. When involved in conflict saving the most lives may not mean making all the optimal decisions and may require you to allow certain atrocities to happen or inflict some yourself. This is what got me big time about the new Torment game inXile is pitching up....they have an entirely new way to deal with character and splits it up in five shades without any one being clearly good or evil.

OMG...between PE, Wasteland 2 and now this new Torment game......my life is ruined, I will never sleep again. Also can't wait for the fulfillment site to go up.

No random nonsense in character creation....absolutely not in any way shape or form. Different variations of alterations based on the god you choose are cool IF you get to choose them as well in character creations. The last thing I have the patience to put up with is "Oh hey it's random so you got a green butt......forget about cool hair or horns and so on, you get to have a green ass." Ok let's not make it random. Let's have several aspects for each god-like, but then make it a bunch of checkboxes for on or off. Take out the randomization, but allow different aspects of the god-likes to stay. If someone only wants the horns or the ears, then allow them to do that. Different god-likes should be "touched" by the gods in varying amounts, in my opinion. How about now? Is it still a sucky idea? I'm not too adamant about the randomization, but I would like the ability to choose particular aspects. I like this idea, no problems that I can tell. That way there can be variety between people touched by the same god and one does not have to worry about random bits in character creation screwing up their character.

No random nonsense in character creation....absolutely not in any way shape or form. Different variations of alterations based on the god you choose are cool IF you get to choose them as well in character creations. The last thing I have the patience to put up with is "Oh hey it's random so you got a green butt......forget about cool hair or horns and so on, you get to have a green ass."

Indeed.....for me this will be more like EVERY playthrough rather than just the first. I'm so happy the Cypher class and Godlike race were added to the game. Awesome art by the way though I'm not fond of the weapon.....I'm more into staffs although I wouldn't say no to staff-swords like the ones Dragon Age 2 had....more tactical gameplay and all(no button mashing) but I did like the concept of a wizard staff that cuts just fine when needed at close range.

Hahahahahaha.....that was hilarious, bloody brilliant. I have to say Chris' commentary was pure brilliant.

I am incomplete disagreement with #6....replayability should come strictly from story branching and how the player chooses to advance the plot.....FO:NV and AP were perfect at this. The skills you maxed or how many skills you maxed was irrelevant to replayability. I do NOT replay a game to use a bow over a rifle and vice versa, the gameplay is purely a means to an end and it's only fun when I can do whatever the hell I feel like....this goes ten times for the story and branching. I should have all manner of choices in any given situation both from gameplay and story perspective. If I want to kill a group of enemies with a toothpick and then blame their deaths on another group to create a war that ultimately benefits my overall goals I should be able to do that. In a separate playthrough I can maybe sell them the toothpick for their greatest treasure that leads to a lost catacomb in which untold secrets of wizardry and magic have been hidden but I have to deal with a guardian dragon or something and since I no longer have my toothpick I can then maybe kill the dragon with a blade of grass or something.

I'm all about unlimited power for certain classes such as the Cipher who can force his/her will over anyone. At low level then maybe some very powerful boss enemies might have a 1% chance to resist your will while at high level even the gods will be powerless before you. Of course getting to play such a class shouldn't be easy so perhaps only unlock the class after the player beat the game on a high difficulty or something like that.

So you're basically saying that only people who served know they are famous.....you know you're not making any sense right? That DOES mean they are not famous at all...not one tiny bit....because nobody(except those who served apparently) seems to know much about them. That's like me claiming that only people outside my friends group would claim we're not famous....... Not to mention that military groups are the same everywhere.....lots of overinflated pride and chest pounding and shouting how their platoon/company/battalion/whatever are the best eva and worshiping a few past battles that nobody else knows about and so on....so yeah, they ALL look very famous from the inside, if you actually buy into the silly stuff.

If you buy a game to play just once then you have wasted your money and your time on something you clearly do not consider to be worth your attention. The hour-length of the game is irrelevant, if I enjoy a game I will play it quite a lot. Hell I have played some of my favorite games over 30 times each. Generally if I do less than five completionist playthroughs for a game I generally consider it a poor game. Now FO3 and FO: NV I only played about 5 times each but that's more due to length than anything else.....and I'm not done with them. Now don't get me wrong, I KNOW what it's like to be insanely busy with long work hours and no days off for months and months.....I've been there a few times for a few years. But even then, I wouldn't buy a game with the goal of playing it just once.....I would chip away an hour here and an hour there until I was done and then I'd be excited to go play the game a different way and make different choices.

There should be quite a few endings but there should be no "bad" endings in the sense of unwanted outcomes to the player. EVERY ending should be a win for the player with the differences being who the player allied with him/herself with. Best possible examples are FO: NV, Alpha Protocol and KotOR. There should also be at least one VERY shocking plot twist forces you to completely reconsider your allegiances and throws you right into the heart of an epic conflict. KotOR pulled this off splendidly and the revelation was beyond epic. So yeah, there in no point to any "you lose" endings because only two things can happen, either it will piss people off or nobody will experience them and they certainly have no part in any epic game.

Ugh.....where do I even begin to reply to this.... I simply see no way shape or form to defend ME3's original endings because they had no effort put into them. BioWare likely ran out of time or simply said screw it(which seems unlikely) and just hoped people would fill in gaps huge as planets with assumptions that defied even the tiniest capability for rational thought. Let's make this as clear as possible: I would hate nothing more than for PE to have an ending as poorly made as that of ME3. That wasn't a "bad" ending due to content within the context of the story but due to lack of production effort. Ultimately despite BioWare's insisted repetitions that multiplayer development had no impact on single player development I think there's a lot to be said when so much effort was sunk in polishing shooting mechanics and the first game in the series to bring multiplayer was a complete disaster among most players that actually bothered to provide feedback and the game's price was slashed by many retailers within a month of its release. You can disagree with me all you like but I do hope you realize the last thing Obsidian wants for PE is a reception as poor as that of ME3, especially since Obsidian's fans have come to expect well developed stories that make a certain amount of sense. Hell this is THE single reason I spent $198 on PE.....more than I have ever paid for any CE of any game before. Now as far as "bad" ends are concerned I do believe in a couple of important guidelines of sort....unspoken/unwritten rules that I suspect are the underline of success: 1) Even if the ending is bad the player has to win....the KotOR Dark Side ending as an example or FONV Caesar's Legion ending. A lot of really bad/ugly things happen to the world in question but the player is the avatar of evil change and he/she is the one that is victorious when these things come about. Alternatively there has to be a meaningful reward for the sacrifice......dying for the greater good and other such things. But erasing the player's contribution/achievements without any reasonable AND acceptable(for the player not the developer) cause is bound to blow up in their faces in a major way(see #2 for why). Very few have any sort of appreciation for seeing their efforts erased and fewer still have any sort of appreciation for a plot with too many or too big loose ends which just make the game's story element appear to not have been taken seriously. 2) It's of extreme importance for the developer to stay true to its values, especially in a kickstarter funded game where mostly just the true fans of past works of a certain developer are involved. This simply means that they need to meet the expectations they created among existing fans......which in Obsidian's case means very well developed stories with plenty of choices for the player and meaningful branching which essentially make the player be the avatar of change. The reason the ending of ME3 was received so poorly is because BioWare created an expectation for an epic story and single player experience(though with little choice, a lot less than Obsidian's games have provided anyway) so while they tried extremely hard to reel in the shooter/multiplayer fans they completely alienated the existing fans who bought their games for very specific qualities that appeared to have been just about thrown out the window(auto dialogue, even less player player involvement in the story where at least the illusion of choice had been usually maintained before, essentially making the player little more than a spectator and the ending just about blew hundreds of hours of gameplay and made the more dedicated fans feel completely neglected). Simply put this was completely the wrong answers....I'm all for good games to become more popular but NOT at the expense of what makes them good and valuable and different from most other games out there. I WANT PE to be insanely popular but I want it to be appreciated for the kind of game experience and qualities Obsidian is known for delivering without any pretense at being anything else. Hopefully that makes a certain amount of sense.

Now THAT is armor done right.

Eh, the Russian armor looks a bit silly, but the Conquistador armor looks good. Second part of your post makes less sense the more I try to read it. Need a bit of clarification on that one. What clarification? Silly armor does no good against magic....pretty straight forward. Ciphers control the mind and can effortlessly make the dude slit his own throat, regular wizards can freeze him, burn him, etc.....armor won't help there. And yes both of those armors look equally silly, the more I look at them the harder I facepalm. But do take comfort in the fact that they both look a LOT better than the celtic pijamas.

Do you guys realize how stupid these thing look? Not to mention that in a world full of dangerous magic the silly outfits provide as much protection as a paper towel and make as much logical sense as poking out your own eye.

As I said here I personally believe the Glanfathan will be based on a Celtic culture (based on very little evidence, admittedly) and as such they'd look a bit more like this The Celts were renowned for their berserkers. Definitely, I'm getting strong Celtic vibes just from the name. The artwork posted by Vargr fits the bill This one does as well, it's a rather eclectic mix of various influences. Meh, they look like drunks caught unaware at the bar or in their pijamas(lol at the first picture in the post above) that happened to find some sword/shield/whatever laying around.....hardly epic or worth bothering with. For the most part uncivilized brutes are not really something worth placing much focus on.....yeah they usually appear in minor faction or minor NPCs and perhaps as a companion but not really much worth paying attention to beyond taking a couple of minutes out of your game to kill.

^^^THIS!!! This is just perfect. The more PE's style resembles this image right here the better. Screw realism and screw being historically accurate. I do NOT play games/watch movies/read books because they resemble reality. F reality.....if I wanted that I'd go fall asleep in a history class or watch the news or something.

I'm not too fond of the old man.....him being a monk just makes matters worse I think. So yeah, I'd much rather he be redesigned from the ground up or completely replaced.

I'd highly prefer that this was not the case. Not everyone likes grinding through a game on the highest difficulty levels that force you to use silly exploits/tactics to make it through the game, just to be able to play a race that you're interested in trying out. Also, while I don't mind there being a power differential, I don't think it should be nearly as extreme as you're talking about, and should probably use some sort of system similar to D&Ds racial power system to keep the game balanced. Well....what makes most sense to me is that if a race is going to be called godlike then I expect the game to reflect and in fact have that race actually be God-Like....of course the power implied by the terminology doesn't sit well with having the game be challenging for the player since there's nothing remotely balanced about it....in fact the term godlike instantly throws balance out the window.....so I thought that having the player work really hard to obtain it would be a reasonable solution. Another solution would be to make this race associated with its own difficulty level.....the insanely super easy difficulty where you will never ever die...that way the players know from the start what they're getting themselves into. Either way would work for me.

I think looks should be drastically different in a good way.....they should look as though they are magic incarnate....very good looks with supernatural characteristics like glowing eyes/skin or something along those lines. It should be instantly visible to all. As far as power goes....well, they really should be god-like. Insanely powerful and near damn impossible to defeat even at the lowest character level even by the toughest enemies/monsters the game has to offer. The godlike race should be an unlocked reward for beating the toughest difficulty settings in the game and should reflect that the player is essentially a god in the game. This should even unlock special events and story paths perhaps....it would make a lot more sense for more enemies to surrender or run for it while others would form unlikely alliances with enemies in some misguided hope to take you down(of course they'd still pose as much of a threat as a paper towel). The possibilities here are infinite and I think it would provide a lot of motivation for players to play the really hard settings in hopes of unlocking the godlike race and associated content. Just some thoughts.

This. OP can play Mass Effect 3 if he wants only depressing endings. Plus he always has the option to play in heavy traffic(I know just the spot too)....that ending ought to be pleasing by his expectations I think.