MReed

Yes, that works. You know, with 100% certanity, that a volcano is going to erupt directly underneath the village in exactly 2 minutes. If you companion kills himself in that time, you know, with 100% certanity, that the volcano will not erupt. If it erupts, everyone that is in the village will die. The companion in question has a teleport spell, but it is only sufficent to take him (and up to 5 other people) out of harms way. He doesn't want to die, and will use the teleport spell on himself if you refuse to go along with him. He also isn't willing to leave you (or the rest of the party) to die and save villagers instead. What do you do? Note that if you do nothing, the companion will save himself and leave you to die -- he doesn't want to do that, but under no circumstances will he save villagers if you refuse to go. I strongly disagree with you -- there really is such a thing as a no-win scenario, and exploring it via games is certainly viable. However, most game publsihers agree with you, so this type of scenario is unheard of in games. I also expect that the vast majority of the game playing audiance agrees with you as well...

Yes because I can already see a fantasy world Fox News reporting on "Homosexuals and how they summon dragons to kidnap your children" Obviously, you didn't see my earlier post (it was, admittedly, a while back). If there was a 50-50 breakdown between homosexual couples and hetrosexual couples, this would have signficant impacts on the meaning of the word "family" -- namely, 50% of the couples would be childless barring some sort of intervention (adoption, seeking a partner of the opposite sex, etc.) and the hetrosexual couples would need to have large families to maintain population. Exploring these ramifications would actually be quite intersting, in my mind, but I can't justify the time spent on addressing these issues if it takes away from the core gameplay / story. Thus, I would prefer to simply ignore the issue altogether (and have all potential romance couples be bisexual, and nobody thinks that's unusual).

I think it is fair (and possibly interesting), however, to provide a case where the only way to save the villiage is the involuntary sacrifice of a companion. If you choose not to do so, then there would be consequences from that action (namely, relatives / friends / allies of the villagers aren't going to be at all happy with you).

I agree that this concept is something worthy of exploration in a game. All the games that I've played make the "good" choice the no brainer choice -- any sacrifices that you might appear to make are nullified or more the compensated for down the line. In particular, I'd like to see: * "Doing the right thing" locks you out of signficant amounts of content (say, 3-5 quests worth). * What the gameworld / society considers "good" doesn't agree with modern morality -- and chosing to side with modern morality is treated as "evil" as far as the reaction of the game world is concerned. * The gap between the reward for "good" behavior and the actual action is very long (30 - 50% of total gameplay time), and the consequences are immediate. To provide a concrete example of how I would like to see this work, the PC is in an area where slavery (non-race based -- criminals (petty and otherwise) are enslaved instead of being incarcerated and they are prevented [via magical means] from having children). Nobody (and I mean nobody) in the area is interested in changing this. If the PC insists on advocating "freedom for the slaves", then nobody is going to support him/her in this quest except the slaves -- who, keep in mind, are all / mostly criminals. Since most potential quest-givers are slave owners, this creates a real problem for the player. Much later in the game, however, the PC would find another society that doesn't believe in slavery of this sort, and if the player did remain consistant in his/her beliefs they will treat the player as something of a hero. This won't necessarily result in extra quests / XP / loot, but it probably should (in some minor way -- not enough to fully compensate for the missed quests / XP / loot). If being evil has negative consequences, then there should be situations where being good also has negative consequences, and that's something that no game has explored.

If monsters in an area have a consistant set of immunities, and if these immunities are justified by in game lore, and if it is fairly obvious to an observent player that these opponents are coming up, I don't have any problem with "specific" immunities of the sort being discussed here. As several people have pointe out, this adds to the strategy of the game. It also makes decisions about what equipment to sell / buy more difficult, as a sub-par weapon might actually be useful in certain circumstances, which helps with the chronic "gold problem" suffered by RPGs. On the other hand, if the primary effect of this is to make an average player quit / reload / go buy some weapons of the correct type / fight the battle again, then... No, specific immunities are a terrible idea. Having a preferred and a backup weapon for normal, day-to-day adventuring use, with a third weapon being required in very specific, well defined, well warned circumstances is reasonable -- expecting the player to carry a dozen backup weapons is silly, and makes inventory management far more difficult than it deserves to be. While a minor point, it is also annoying to continiually switch from one set of weapons to another -- especially if switching needs to be done in the middle of combat, depending on what foe you are facing. Generally speaking, I favor resistences over simple immunity as this allows for the party to overcome simple encounters with "oddball" monsters via brute-force, but still requires proper equipment to overcome more complex encounters.

I strongly prefer option #1. While it creates some serious consisistency problems (which should be completely ignore, IMO), it allows you to choose what companions are in the party based on story-based reasons, rather than simply "Chosing anyone else gimps my party". It would really suck to have a companion that you don't like (for whatever reason -- personality, class, skills, etc.) and discover in the late game that you vist that character's homeland and it is obvious there is loads of content for that character that you'd like to see. Anything that involves grinding is a terrible option for me. On the other hand, this is may be a moot point: The # of companions and the maximum party size are close enough that most potential companions will be with you at all time. In fact, if the companions are introduced over the course of the game (vs. all at once, near the start), then by the first time that this issue could arise would be 2/3rds of the way through the game. If you choose to adventure with a 3 person party (when you have a total 5 companions avilable to choose from), then that's your choice, and it is completely reasonable to "punish" (by making the non-active companions lower level) that kind of behavior. But if you are in a situation where the party size cap is preventing you from bringing along everyone that you would like to bring along...

I actually agree with this -- I was only arguing against the statement "There wouldn't be any consequences if bi-sexuality was the default sexuality in a society", which I feel is an absurd statement. And note: I'm not saying that the consequences would be catastrophic, either, just that there would be some consequences that have to be dealt with. On the other hand, "There wouldn't be any consequences if society accepted bi-sexuality and [some of / all of] the player's companions are bi-sexual -- specifically, the ones who happen to be romance options" certainly seems reasonable enough.

Yeap, absolutely (and this type of problem isn't unique to D&D -- it impacts every magic system that I've seen). However... Dealing with these sorts of things takes time and resources away from the core gameplay / story, and given finite resources... Unless the game is about the impact of magic on society, I think it is more or less essential to ignore the consequences of adding magic to an otherwise medieval society. If you ignore it altogether, then the vast majority of players will never notice and the remainder will sigh and accept it -- but if you point it out by dealing with some of the conesquences, then lots of people are going to say "But you didn't account for this" and it will make the game less believable.

Yes, please: In particular: 1) The ability to queue up commands (and create "macros" to cast several spells in a row) to make it at least possible to buff during combat. 2) Along the same lines, most buffs should be ranged (and a big range, at that), so mages can cast buffs on friendly targets during combat without running all over the battlefield. This only applies to buffs that are meant to last "one combat" (or longer) and aren't "caster only". 3) Minor bonuses / benefits for completing "boss fights" (major combats preceeded by dialog / cutscenes) without reloading. On a technical level, this could be implemented by attaching a unique GUID to each playthrough (stored in the save file) and having a "master" save file (common to all saves) that stores timestamps that say "Dialog X for save [GUID] was started at xx:xx:xx." If there is only one entry in the master save file for a particular save GUID, then the combat was done the first time and the "special" rewards are activiated. Absolutely. However, for plot related reasons is is necessary (or, at least, highly desirable) to have the PC lose in combat, and that's fine as well -- just make certain that the combat is unwinable. Infinite spawn of "guards" of increasing power is one way, putting foes in positions where they can damage the party but the party cannot damage them is another. But don't eliminate the option for combat altogether, and don't trigger the "lose cutscene" when the party is clearly winning. FYI: Being blantently obvious about what is happening is a good idea here, as some people are a bit thick when it comes to realizing "There has to be a way to win"... Have to disagree here -- any situation where many / most players automatically reloads the game is "not fun" and should be avoided whenever possible. If there were more companions I might feel differently, but as it is, permemently losing a companion due to "bad luck" is simply too high of a penality. I have mixed feelings on the "drag the body back to be raised" vs. "auto-res" and could go either way. I agree, but his is fairly typical in games, actually. In fact, the only games that I can think of (off hand) that don't make the player decide between combat effectiveness / non-combat effectiveness are the ones that have no non-combat skills to choose. Of course, this does include all the Infiity engine games, so... I doubt that this is worth the effort to implement -- especially given that the direction is very strongly trending towards "pre-rendered 2d backgrounds". Honestly, I'd prefer to just ignore the "guards & crime" issue altogether. 1) Assuming a power curve similar to the one that D&D provides (highly likely), guards should never be higher than 1st - 3rd level, only available in small (2-5) numbers, and so forth. As a consequence, a mid-level (5-7) level party should be able to steamroll the guards to an absurd degree -- so much so that rational guards would simply refuse to attack / try to apprehend the PCs in the first place. Guards (& bandits, for that matter) should not scale to the parties level, ever. 2) I can't see a way to have "realisitc consequences" that doesn't involve suicidal behavior on the part of NPCs (guards / townsfolk) here. Unless the party spends a very large amount of time (several game months) at a single town, murdering and raping the town, I think the most realistic response would be "Lets give him/her what they want and hope that they go away soon". Yes, not including templates for AOE spells is "fake difficulty". Slightly different, but similar: Only offer conversation options if the consequences of that choices are interesting (something that at least some players would play through instead of reloading). If rational players are going to accept a quest (either because it is part of the critical path, or because there is no reward for doing otherwise), then don't beat around the bush -- make the player accept the quest, Yes, this limits "roleplaying opportunities", and better is to offer an alternate quest with roughly equivilent rewards, but finite resources dictates that this situation will come up from time to time.

Actually, yes, it is -- in fact, anything and everything that deviats from the way the modern world works is "unbelievable", kind by defination. Each deviation from the standard set by "reality" reminds players that "Hey, this is just a game." This effect can be minimized by providing lore to answer the question of "Why are things like this" and exploring the consequences of this change, but... Is it really a good idea to spend time on explaining why bisexuality is so common that it is the default assumption? And the consequences of this behavior on society would be rather extreme -- the most obvious issue is that half of the couples would be infertile, so childless coupls would be far more common than they are in todays society. The consequences of this would be pretty profound. Some sample questions: * Would these childless couples be happy about this? * Would they "trade partners" with other homosexual couples for breeding purposes? * Would the hetrosexual couples have enough children (need ~4 surviving to adulthood) to maintain a stable population? * Would the hetrosexual couples routinely give up children for adoption to provide children to the homsexual couples? Obviously, a game can ignore all of these issues as DA 2 does, but if you do, then the lack of supporting material will bother some people and you'll get complaints that the game is unrealistic. If you do explore these consequences, you are spending time and resources on something that isn't a part of your core gameplay / plot, and furthermore, you are drawing attention something that is likely to be fairly contriversal (to some of your audiance, at least).

I'm sorry, but none of the solutions in this thread really address the real problem. If you have mana, and mana only regenerates with time (not with sleep), then all you've done is create a situation where the player casts his most expensive spell and... Twiddles his thumb for 10, 15, 30, however long it is until his mana regenerates. This is the very defination of "not fun". The same thing goes for outwaiting cooldowns. It is far better (in my opinion) to look towards mechanics that reward fast (e.g. "no rest") play rather than attempting to prevent rest-spam, which I'm pretty certain that you can't do. * One way to do this is to offer extra rewards for prompt completion of quests (not counting dialog time, though, to avoid speedrunning type scenarios) -- note that this isn't a time limit, but if complete the quest very quickly you get something extra (a small XP bonus, a little extra gold). * Another way to do it is to make quests more difficult (up to a cap, obviously) each time you rest -- basically, the people you are attacking call in reinfroncements. * Still another way is to create unique (not reproducable via spells the PC / companions) effects that are both highly useful (even critical) but difficult to aquire -- if you rest every 10 minutes, you won't be able to take advantage of these effects for most of the combats. None of these prevent players from resting after every combat, if that's what they choose to do, but given that it is a single player game, why should you care?

I agree that it would be nice to deal with the impact of magic on society, but... Honestly, I don't think you can unless that's the whole focus of the game. You run into something of a catch-22 situation here: 1) Magic is ultra-rare (there are a dozen people in the world that can cast spells) and has no consequences: Either magic is completely and utterly useless (thus, nobody cares), or the people who can cast spells rule the world, or at least large chunks of it. Having magic in such a scenario would be the equivilent of having a carrier battle group at your disposal (with unlimited resupply) being opposed by midevil type technology. 2) Magic is (potentially) common, but kills the pratictioners: Nobody but the insane, desperate, or evil (if there is some way to move the negative side effects to someone else) uses magic. Those few people who do wield absurd amounts of influence -- for however long the magic holds out. 3) Magic is common and has no consequences: Common here means "about as common as doctors are today" -- in this scenario, magic should be everywhere in society. If spells like "Detect lies" / "Detect Evil" / "Charm Person" exist, then trials are likely to be very, very odd from our point of view. All merchents (even the poorest) would have have devices that can detect illusions, and likely invisibility as well. Fights to the death would be commonplace, at least among the wealthy -- after all, just have a priest on hand to cast "Raise Dead" and everything is OK, right? Roads might be all but non-existant outside of towns / cities -- the reason for building roads in the first place was to expidite the movement of goods, and if teleportation is available... #1 results in a game where the PC can't be a spellcaster (he/she would wield far too much power for anything approximating a normal plot). #2 results in a scenario where most players would be unwilling to play a spellcaster, which largely defeats the purpose of having the class in the first place. #3 results in a very, very alien culture -- something that would take considerable time to write up and present to the player. In all three cases, you are spending lots of time and effort explaining something that really doesn't have anything to do with the plot, and that's a losing propsition all around. Fundementally, it is all about budgeting your time and resources: Is it really worth spending time and effort on "background" information when you could just say "Society is more or less like todays society, despite the fact that this is absurd" and getting on with the plot / gameplay?

Everything else has been addressed, I think, but not this, so... The reason for lack of PayPal support initally is very simple: With Amazon payments you are setting up a contigent payment -- a promise to pay a certain amount of money in the future (specifically, at the end of the funding period). If the project doesn't fund, then you don't get charged, and you can change (increase / reduce / cancel) your funding contribution up until the point the funding period ends. Those options don't exist with PayPal -- most importantly, if they accepted PayPal on day 1, and the project failed to reach the funding goal, there would be no way to return the money to the PayPal contributors. This would be awkward, to say the least... Thus, no paypal until the project was funded. Now, of course, matters are different, but I suspect that this is another item that falls under the "We didn't expect it to fund that quickly" storyline. Speaking generally in regards to your other concerns: Kickstarter investments should always be made with the understanding that you have no better than a 50-50 chance of getting anything for your money, and the odds that whatever product is made will meet your dreams is very, very low. If this wasn't the case, then the project would likely have received funding from traditional sources (banks, investment professionals, etc.) in the first place -- after all, that's how these groups make their money. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't participate (I did), but you should do so only with money you are willing to lose.

That's not true at all. also, "Zooming in and out is a must" couldn't take it too seriously after that. I hate to tell you that, but yes, its true -- all of the backgrounds in Infinity Engine games started life as 3D models. Someone even posted a screenshot of an IWD model (in wireframe) in a previous thread that touched on this topic. Beyond that, this is the the reason that BG:EE isn't BG:HD -- the original 3D-models for the area art were lost, so they couldn't be re-rendered at a higher resolution (which was the original plan). With that being said, though, while 3D rendering techonlogy has expanded by leaps and bounds, it isn't necessarily true that it has improved to the point that absurdly high poly counts (that required hours and hours of rendering time back in the 90s) could be rendered in realtime today. I suspect that the state of the art today is "If we spend enough time in optimizing / compromising the 3D source art, we can create something that can be rendered in realtime and looks really good" -- if so, then Obsidian should go with pre-rendered backgrounds. The added options that real-time rendered 3D backgrounds would provide aren't worth investing additional time (that could go towards desigining other areas).

The issue of a "morality system" and "companion relationship" counters are really two different questions -- one talks about how you actually are and one talks about what your companions think of you. I've fanatsized about quite complex systems in the past, involving 5 different measures, all independent: * "Reputation": This is what the "general public" thinks of you (vs. the morality of the region that you are in -- likely "good") * "Morality": This is what an omnicient diety would think of you, vs. his / her morality (almost certainly "good") * "Likeability": On a per companion basis, this is how much the part member likes you. It goes up when you do things that they agree with without prompting, and down when you do things that they don't like. * "Respect": On a per companion basis, this is how much the party member respects you. It goes up when you do things that they don't agree with, but you convince them it is the right thing to do -- it goes down when you start to do something that they don't like, but stop when they protest. "Reputation" is what determines the prices you get / whether ot not the guards attack you / etc. "Morality" is used to determine what power / abilities you are are offered, and (ideally) what dialog options / quests you see (if you aren't already dark, you can't see the "most dark" options, for example). "Likeability" determines if a party member is loyal -- if they hate your guts, then they may leave, be less effective, or generally not be helpful. "Respect" determines if a party member can be corrupted / redeemed (or otherwise changed -- for example, changing a class) -- if you can consistantly convince a companion to substitute your judgement in favor of their own, it is a short step to changing their judgement so that you agree. With all of that being said, though, I don't think this system is a good fit for a "mass market" RPG -- it is probably more appropiate for something like a visual novel or "Choice of..." game. To make it work, you would end up branching each and every companion at least once, and possibly several times, and having to deal with all the potential combinations that might be in the party at one time (for banters / interjections). That's way, way, too much work unless the whole point of the game is a relationship simulator, and I don't think PE is going that far in favor of "deep companions"...

Are they broke? What about the earnings from all the EA Bioware hand-me down projects? It just kept them afloat? Honeslty, yes, I suspect that's absolutely correct. When a publisher advances the money to make a game, they dictate the terms of the deal to minimize their risk. I wouldn't be suprised if, for a typical AAA title, 50 - 75 % of the gross revenue is given to the publisher plus 25 % of the profits. Add in the fact that the developers are likely on the hook (without futher compensation) for any patching activity that they choose to do, and the fact that if they over-run the budget / miss the release date they are likely to suffer additional penalities... Yeah, making games for publishers is a really lousy way to get rich. Keep in mind that you rarely hear about multi-milllionare developers -- publishers, yes, but not developers. This is why. Note that kickstarter has a similar problem, as you are sacrificing future sales by offering the game as an incenitive to invest. The upside is that if it is an enormous success, you do get rich, because you keep 100% of any actual sales that you make. But if everyone who wants to play your game was part of the kickstarter (at the "$20 / get a free copy of the game" level), then you are right back at square one.

You seem to be very confident that BG3 project won't go on Kickstarter. I wouldn't bet against it. BTW, what do you suggest Obsidian do to fund PE? Waste their time polishing old games? I would, given that the Overhaul Games team has already stated that "There are legal problems with Kickstarter and licensed properties". No details were offered, but I suspect that the root cause is the "two masters" problem -- the kickstarter investors have a reasonable expectation that their interests will be represented in the final product, but the license holder feels that they should have final control over the content. Is it impossible to use Kickstarter for a licensed property? Obviously, no, there is at least one of these sorts, but it is pretty clear that Overhaul Games doesn't feel that this is an option for a theoritical BG3.

I'm for romances, in general, but it isn't a make or break factor for me: "Deep chracter developement" is the part that interests me, and romances are merely one way of doing that (and, perhaps, not the best way, although they are probably the easiest way). if romances are included, I would definately like them to be an integral part of the main plotline (although still optional, of course). BG2 did this when your LI (if you have one) is kidnapped by Bodhi, but that's about the only example that I can think of off hand. Plotlines / dialog such as: * The LI insists on leading the party on a dangerous mission to protect you / so you can rest. The only way for the PC to remain in the party is break off the relationship. * One or more characters complain about preferential treatment of the LI (time in the party, better equipment) and the PC has to deal with the fallout. Potentially, this could lead to the complaining charcter permemently leaving the party, although that's rather extreme given the small pool of companions -- however, forcing the player to take the character in the party or provide them with better equipment would work well (measured by $$$ value). * A relative (or former lover) of the LI is part of the critical path -- and they aren't happy about the LI's new relationship. This forecloses some options of dealing with the quest (assuming that the PC wants to maintain the relationship). Obviously, if you don't have a LI, these things would still happen minus the complications. And it is entirely possible that a "friendship" relationship might offer a different set of complications altogether. Either way, it improves replayability and character developement (both of the PCs and the companions), so its all good.

@Hoverdog, you do understand that several of the developers on the Overhaul Games project team were, in fact, on the developement team for BG1 / BG2, right? Not as beta testers, but as developers / writers intimently involved with the projects. These aren't random yahoos -- there is as much reason to believe that they could put together a BG3 (on a purely technical level) as there is to believe that the Obision team could put together a "Planescape 2" or "KOTR 3" assuming proper funding. There are serious political and legal issues that are (in my mind) highly likely to prevent this from occuring, but that has nothing to do with the team involved (and everything to do with the interests of WotC and whoever owns the D&D license at the moment). Now, the value proposition for the Enhanced Editions is rather dubious for the existing Baldur's Gate fanbase, I agree. But: 1) They are hoping to establish that people other than existing fans will purchase Infinity Engine games. For those users on any platform the value is very high, as all the content is new as far as they are concerned. 2) The existing fanbase's incentive to buy is to help finance developement of BG3 -- I view it as a kickstarter where you get the goodies first instead of when the developement completes. 3) To have any chance at all of making BG3 it is necessary to convince WotC that there is a sufficently large market available to purchase a game in the BG / Infinity Engine style. The best way to establishing this is by demonstrating actual sales, and that's what they are trying to do.

Like many people, I'm a bit concerned about the small pool of potential companions, and the implications that this has for player choice & party size. After some thinking, though, I realized that there may be a still be a way to achive a high level of player choise and a large party size (6) with the small pool of potential companions: Provide all (or most) of the companions with corrupted / redemption / similar plot-lines, and allow these quests to be triggered and completed early in the game (first third of the game). Such quest lines are common in other games, of course, but inevitable either resolve very late in the game or have pratically no impact on the character's actual personality (expressed in dialog). This is due to the branching problem -- if a character's alignment / worldview changes dramatically in the course of the game (and you don't ignore it), then you effectively end up with "1 and half companions" -- same graphics / character, but all the dialog that occurs after the redemption / corruption plot resolves has to be written twice (once for the "good" version, and once for the "evil" version). But given the small number of potential companions such a model might work in this case, and doing so effectively doubles the number of companions available. it also provides lots of opportunity for the player to develop HIS character along the way. Just a thought... Note: I use "corruption / redemption" above, as that's typically how such character changes are described. However, changing a character's class (at the prompting of the PC) might well be modeled in a similar way -- for example, consider a character who starts out hating mages, but the player convinces him that the best way to defeat mages is to become a mage him/herself (fight fire with fire, basically), or convincing a straight "tank" type character that stealth is a much more effective way to achive his/her goals.

Personally, I prefer to play evil when that is an option -- with that being said, however, I generally don't, because very few games make evil choices viable. Given this, I reluctantly agree that it makes more sense to require a fundementally "heroic" / good protaganist who has to make difficult decisions rather than providing half hearted evil support. To provide true evil support, in my opinion, requires four elements: 1) The total amount of dialog in the "evil" path needs to be roughly equal to the amount of dialog offered in the "good" path. This never happens -- if you choose the evil options, you inevitably end up closing off potential quests without getting anything in return. 2) The rewards for the evil path should tend towards money / equipment instead of experience -- a pure evil character should, at any given time, have signficantly better equipment but be at a lower level than his good counterpart. 3) The evil path shouldn't include any examples of the "Ahah, you've given me what I want, now I will kill you!!"-trope. Generally speaking, this doesn't make sense (in PC just did something that the quest giver was unable to do -- attacking him would be rather foolish, don't you think?) and it is done to death to boot. Now, if the PC shows up to receive the reward half-dead things are different, but that's what you get for being an idiot. 4) The player should be allowed the choice to try to ally with villians. This is almost certain to fail (due to branching problems), but the player should be allowed to make the attempt. It ISN'T, in my opinion, necessary to perform excessive branching to support evil, at least with careful plot design. Either have the evil party do (most of) the same things as the good party, but with a different set of quest-givers, or setup the quests so that they can be run either "backward" or "forward". For example: 1) If the "good" quest is to retieve the artifact of doom from the villian's stronghold, then the "evil" quest is to retrieve the artifact of doom from the heroes stronghold. 2) If the "good" quest is to retrieve the artifact of doom from the villian's stronghold, then the "evil" quest is to prevent a party / group of good characters from retrieving the artifact from the same stronghold. Either way, the artifact of doom ends up in the player's hands and the main plot can continue with only minor varations. Obviously, at the end there will be major branch, but that's typical anyway.

Just a note: The maps in Infiinty Engine games (as shown in the screnshot) were pure 3D models during developement, but were pre-rendered (into simple bitmaps) prior to release. If current PCs have the ability to render the source models in realtime, then... Why wouldn't you do that? Just because the background / characters are 3D rendered models doesn't mean that you have to have a floating camera, after all. My vote goes for "Create the backgrounds / character models without regards of the ability to render them in realtime. Once the most complex models have been created, hand them off to the programmers to see if they can be rendered in realtime without modification. If they can't, go with prerendered graphics -- if they can, then go with 3D graphics and a locked camera."