Audiocide

I've actually recently completed Dragon Age, and just started DA2. I'm liking this one better so far. From a strict roleplaying perspective, the whirlwind and miasmic flask abilities are a little silly. I'm not looking for strict roleplaying in this game, since it's pretty much established that this is the best we're going to get in a CRPG. But if I have a choice, I'd pick the 2nd Ed. style of game where the classes had more realistic roles. I don't feel obligated to be the strongest fighter in my party. If I wanted that, I'd have played as a fighter. To clarify: I'm not strictly against special attacks or abilities for any of the classes. Just nothing that turns the rogue into a warrior or a mage, for instance.

I think this game is being made primarily for old school dinosaurs, and to introduce youngsters to deeper RPGs. I don't think they're going for an action-RPG. Have you actually played the Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate series? Fighters did not have abilities you had to press the number keys for. Their combat alternatives actually came from how you leveled and configured them. Torment, on the other hand, wasn't about fighting at all. I don't have anything against WoW or any other game mentioned here. But I'm not looking for that kind of thing when I choose to back Project Infinity on Kickstarter. From what I gathered, it's not what Obsidian is going for either. Why so hateful?

I don't mind the characters being in 3D. That would make sense. Which I'm sure the Obsidian devs are aware of. I'm very excited about Wasteland 2 as well, and the screenshots look great. But I'd have no objections if they went with unique, hand painted backdrops for this project, instead of bland 3D maps created with a toolkit.

In terms of generating content for good cost, 3D has really come a long way. In many ways it's actually cheaper than 2D now (especially with models, though there's nothing stopping a dev from putting 3D models onto a 2D backdrop) They may make 2D art, but 3D grants a lot of power especially if they want the settings to change at all (say an action you do results in a castle taking damage or something). The problem with 3D in such vast areas is that, it will either take too much time and money, or they will have to end up copy/pasting the exact same models everywhere a-la Neverwinter Nights. Neither is very appealing. I don't understand why 3D should be an absolute necessity. I haven't seen it done in a long time, but I'm sure that with modern tools, some spectacular looking maps can be made for an isometric game. Also, castles can also take damage in 2D. 2D graphics can, in fact, be animated. It could probably be made zoomable as well, if they use large enough resolutions.

I think the focus here is to make a great RPG. Neither rotating cameras, nor facial animations would have made Planescape: Torment better.

Also, full voice acting, when done badly, can really ruin conversations.

So, basically WoW? I'd be happy with that. WoW got a lot of things wrong but class design wasn't one of them. That said within the context of a tactical RPG using real time with pause there's a lot to be said far characters that don't need much babysitting. I don't think WoW is an RPG at all, in the strictest sense of the term. In that game, they were concerned about making all the classes pretty much equally useful in a fight, so that none of them felt weak. Take a thief for instance: Why would he have the fighting skills of a veteran fighter who's fought all sorts of orcs, bandits, etc. when all the combat he ever saw was getting in a bar fight or shanking someone in a back alley? It doesn't make sense for that character to have whirling or leaping moves. It does, however, make sense for him to know how to sneak, pick pockets, and disarm traps. He could, for instance, pick the lock on a door, disarm the traps, get behind the most powerful enemy before he's spotted, stab him in the back, and get out while the fighters take over.

I honestly didn't feel that the DA:O characters were all that interesting with the sole exception of Sten. And he had too little to say. None of them felt like an Annah, Dak'kon, Minsc, or Viconia. Mass Effect characters were a lot better, but still felt a bit phony at times. I still haven't played DA2 though, so I can't comment on that.

The appeal, in my opinion, is that the levels don't consist of the same exact 3D models recycled again and again ad nauseum. When you play the old IE games 10+ years later, sure it looks quaint. But the same kind of thing done right now would probably look pretty good. They could integrate 3D models into the 2D backdrop to add little animations and whatnot, and the player characters could be in 3D, but I think hand drawn environments can really add character to every location you visit.

So, basically WoW?

Now, in all fairness, I really enjoyed the Modern Warfare series. I'm not a huge FPS fan or anything, but they were a lot of fun. Dumbed down RPGs on the other hand... just sad.

And the sound quality. For audio obsessed people like me.

I think having a game like this to play will be its own reward. Assuming, of course, that it turns out to be as good as I hope. But I seriously doubt these circumstances, and the team working on it will result in a failure. I really don't care about the t-shirt or whatever.

I respectfully disagree. A 2nd Ed. D&D fighter can pack a wallop, and doesn't need abilities, talents, or whatever. And a thief is not supposed to go toe-to-toe with a fighter, but backstab mages, poison fighters, and set traps. That's why he's a thief and not just a dual-wield fighter who can pick locks. 3rd Ed. rules homogenized the classes a little bit, but please no mystical abilites for classes for which they make no sense.

GOG is being mentioned because it isn't DRM (for those of us who want our games to be completely DRM-free), and for many and like Steam, you can also have "most of your games in one place". It's just preference. I bought a few games from GOG.com, and I like it. But yeah, I mainly like Steam because it keeps my PC tidy. The only time I can remember having DRM related problems was when I installed games from CDs or DVDs.

Forgive my ignorance, but what's so bad about Steam? I've been using it since Half Life 2 came out, and never had any problems, maybe except failing to start in offline mode when I lost my internet connection. It's certainly nothing awful like Games for Windows or whatever.

True, but seeing that godly rack popping out of the ridiculously tight shirt on the wizened old lady is a bit silly. Or the starving urchin boy who looks like Conan the Barbarian, if you want a male example. I don't mind an idealized player character, but I think NPCs should mostly look like regular people.

I don't mind a level cap, but please don't do the monster scaling stuff as with Bethesda's Oblivion, and a bunch of other games. A goblin is a goblin. At level 15 (or equivalent), I'm supposed be mowing through those weaksauce beasts, not getting killed by toughened goblins or supreme goblins, or demi-gobs or whatever. I think part of the appeal of Baldur's Gate games was that towards the end, you actually FELT powerful. Bandits or simple orcs were not a concern for your character. Sure, there were a couple extra golems in a dungeon if you entered at a higher level, but nothing silly.

And please realistic body proportions for females. DD cups are actually pretty rare, and it accomplished nothing but suddenly make me feel like I'm playing a game meant for a 12 year old.

My only regret is that I could not give more. The timing was just bad for me, since I also have to pay for school in a couple of weeks. I'll try to pledge a little more before the deadline. I honestly had very little hope that this game would ever be made. Isometric view, hand painted environments, a proper interface meant for a mouse and a keyboard, modeled on the infinity engine games I grew up on, made by the very people who created these games? I have been waiting for this for ten years. Thank you.

This is beautiful! Already made my pledge. I'll see if I can go higher depending on the next couple of weeks.

These Wheel of Time fans really seem to have a sort of fanaticism towards the series. I don't know anything about Wheel of Time, but I think refusing to even consider the option that this might not be it is a bit much. I guess we'll see in half an hour what this all turns out to be.

OT: I am so tired of this "don't you say they're facts!" thing that's been circulating forever on the internet. Everything you say is your opinion. This does not need to be stated. (opinion) I don't think this is an Elder Scrolls game (opinion) This is definitely not a Fallout game (fact) 2+2=4 (opinion) This might as well be a Dragon Age game I am not necessarily agreeing with what Tigranes has said, but he hasn't been deliberately misleading. How would this create a misunderstanding? Only a very naive person would never question anything he hears.

I'd donate for one of the higher tiers for an Obsidian project - provided it isn't something silly. But I also think the monument thing is a bit out of place. It can really be immersion breaking. Getting some advance info, playable demos etc. would be really nice though.

That's a little harsh. I've just completed the entire Mass Effect series recently, and after you get over the fact that they aren't hardcore RPGs, those games are seriously good. Still, if BioWare put up this sort of countdown on their site, I wouldn't really care enough to sign up on their forums just to join the speculation.