oldmanpaco

I had a house in Skyrim. Very memorable experience. No I kid. Can you imagine?

It worked in the Ultima's and it can work today.

I agree. Forced companions are just as bad as not enough companions.

I'm not panicking. I said in the OP that they devs needed to clarify things before the drive is done. This whole secrecy thing is tired and old. Are they saving the facts for their exclusive interview with PCGamer? Is PCGamer even still in business? Because if they are not then MCA and Josh really need to rethink this strategy.

It's been pointed out that maybe they always indented for 8 companions and now that they look to be assured of reaching several million in backing they put them in there for show. But 8 is sure better than 5.

5 Companions + 1 PC= 6 man party. BG1: 25 Companions BG2: 17 Companions PS:T: 7 Companions (but they were all awesome) IWD2: 15 Companions

The Freedom Force way is better I agree. And I'm not saying that BG/PS:T/IWD are the only way to make an RPG. But wasn't the whole project pitch about making a new IE experience? Truth in advertising people!

Who else likes when non-active party members get XP? It allows me to experiment with party make-up, instead of being stuck with the same guys throughout the game or being forced to tediously grind if I want to level an unused guy. Also, I have no idea where you're getting these conclusions from. Like I said the stink of Bioware. When you can only have 2-3 companions in your party this system is the comprise.

No but Bioware infunces all current RPGs. And not in a good way. Fantastic opener. Really likely to make people consider your points with an open mind. What can I say I copied a post I made at the codex. Then they were less than forthcoming about building on the legacy of the IE games weren't they? Your right it doesn't sound like BG. It sounds like Skyrim. Or Oblivian if you roll that way. The party size is an issue. The IE games had 6 members. The 6 member party was iconic in RPGs before the decline. I'll give you this one. I was just trying to stir the pot. But without them clarifying what (before they take our money) the soul mechanic will be I will have my doubts. Remember the last great game they made was MotB almost 6 years ago and the lead writer on that one is gone.

I know Bio makes what they make and I'm not here to argue the pros and cons. But limited party size, group camps and convoluted magic (DA, ME, KoTR) are what they do now. And the DA magic system had about 40 spells. BG had about 300.

Those bastards. I hope they burn in hell. BRB calling my lawyers about getting my money back for false advertising. See you get what I'm saying! I had a house in Skyrim. I had a stronghold in BG2. Can you tell the difference?

Nothing in my post was made up. When i had an opinion I stated it. 5 companions. House for a camp. Souls used in the magic system. All that is confirmed and none of it bodes well. I 100% want to be wrong. Maybe some information will come out that will prove me wrong. I hope so. But shouldn't that info be provided before we give them money?

This is going to slow down big time. They are kind of letting the core base down by pandering to the biodrones and those people are still in middle-school or stay at home moms. Not a lot of disposable income.

I canceled my pledge after reading the stretch goals. I'm not normally a hater (as the kids say) but the stink of bioware is all over this project. 1) Only 5 companions. That means you need to take them all with you if you have a 6 person party. Worked in PS:T but that was a RPG unlike any other. 2) Only 5 classes. Unless there are 'kits' like BG this limits the diversity of the party and NPCs. Best option is like Diablo with skill paths to differentiate the players. Oh joy. 3) They are not even man enough to call it a stronghold. They call it a house. Maybe we can have tea parties there. 4) They say companions can stay relax at said house. This implies a crappy 'camp' mechanic, small party sizes and ****ty everyone gets XP even if they are not in the active party. 5) The whole soul crap is gong to be incredible forced. Without knowing anything about it besides it having something to do with the magic system I can tell it's going to be a construct shoved down our thoats. 6) The magic system is going to be stupid. See number 5. Right now I'm afraid they think the IE games just means isometric perceptive. Jesus have they even confirmed it will have painted 2D background? I really hope I'm wrong but right now this is not the BG/IWD/PS:T we were promised. And if anyone says that I am just guessing right now you are correct. I would loooooove for Obsidian to actually tell us what they are planning. Am I completely wrong? Am I right? It's not like it's some sort of state secret. The W2 Kickstarter was about 100% better at communicating what they were trying to build. Obsidian seems like they are playing those of us who want another IE experience.

I wan't even trying to troll you buddy. Just saying. I hope they have dwarves as well.

And that's the problem with DA and too many MMORPGs. I like having a fighter class, a barbarian class, a berserker class, an archer class and a sword master class and any others. I hate it when a Fighter A is just a few skill selections different from Fighter B. Variety people.

They need to do an update and clarify what sort of game mechanics they will be using. The more I think about it the more uneasy I am getting.

Jesus christ Volourn how do you have time to have 14.5K posts here and another 15K at the Codex? I mean really!

Unless they have been blowing smoke up our a$#es it should be a class based system. That's what all the IE games they were talking about had. Of course since they have revealed incredibly little about the game mechanics it's hard to say. For a party based game I hope they have something like D&D 3.5.

So in the very vague intro video and KS info page the Obsidian people refer to the IE games many times. They say they want to make a game like that but what do they really mean? Are they just pandering to the crowd who misses those games? Are they going to take our money then ship out a isometric DA2? This is from the website. What makes these games what they are? 1) Top down Isometric perspective with hand draw backgrounds. 2) Specific character classes who all had roles. 3) Vancian magic system. 4) A 6 person party where no member was forced on you. 5) Only people running with the main characters got XP and no base camp. People have lives after all. 6) Distinct Divine and Arcane spell schools with hundreds of spells. One thing the W2 KS did was make it very clear what we would be backing. So far Obsidian has been very unclear. For a typical studio produced game I understand when they leak details out slowly. But they are asking for money right now for a game that is almost 2 years away from release. I would like some guarantees this is what they are talking about when they throw the name BG and PS:T around. And I have to say all this jibber-jabber about souls is highly discouraging. Sounds like a very Bioware sort of concept.

I liked the different strongholds for different classes approach of BG2. The one-size-fits-all approach of NW2 didn't really do it for me.

I personally hope they are able to incorporate gay elves, slutty pirates and mages who will swing whichever way you need based on your gender choice. Just like BioWare!

I say the romances should be like the ones in the 'Romantic Encounters' mod for BG. That was some epic writing. Or Saerileth. Read this review and tell me your not intrigued. [saerileth] has a well-developed personality, and romancing her has been more fun that it ever was with the Bioware NPC's . . . . all in all, this must be one of the best mods for BG2 that I've ever tried, especially because I enjoyed the quests that came with her. --Grunker

There have been sooooooo many classless games recently that I'm tired of them. I want my fighters to be fighters, mages to be mages and thieves to be useless.

Morality and Alignment are for chumps. All that matters is what you do and what others know (or believe) you to have done. In a perfect system there would be flags for decisions you make or people you kill. Then when interacting with a NPC only the actions they care about would be checked. The actions would have to be weighted to the NPC as well. A crime lord isn't going to care as much about a murder as a priest. But the priest will care more about any charity work the player has done. It's a simple two dimensional array holding all the flags points and outcomes. Not hard to program but difficult to balance I suppose.