Tamerlane

And how does it work with skill tags? I remember being confused by Baldur's Gate I where you want to get into the bandit camp and you can say something like "Let me join you!" So I basically thought that my character was sincere and not lying. Thus, how about: "Let me join you!" [Lie] "Let me join you!" [Truth] i dont think it matters if it is a lie or not. the result will be determined by what you do after you "join". Let me join you! you act like a proper bandit and go along with them, you get result A you backstab them at the most opportune time, you get result B you fail to be convincing as a bandit, you get result C no matter what the reason behind joining, you asked to join them and you did, in order to get to the result you seek I'd say it matter skillwise. If you have to use a bluff skill, your bluff could fail. Other than that, I think your proposition is a bit too complicated. What if just joining me gives me certain reputational points that I didn't want to have in the first place? Just because the game doesn't differentiate between sincere joining and the lie? As has been said, there are no conversation-specific skills (though skills and attributes can still play in to combat). Besides that, if you lie to someone about joining a bloodthirsty bandit group, why wouldn't you get "is a cruel, bloodthirsty bandit" reputation? Wasn't that the whole damn point? If you don't want people to think of you as a bandit, you probably shouldn't be pretending to be a bandit.

... What?

New Vegas sold fantastically, no? I'm not sure if it outsold 3, but if it didn't, then it was very close.

That is certainly the best solution and it was discussed before. The only reason, I can imagine, for seeking another way is the overall complicity of this idea, which makes it unlikely to be implemented. I disagree on the experience penalty, however. Isn't it pointless? Fighter is already penalized in said situation as he does not get the bonus. Unless he is less suitable for this kind of job than paladins, wizards, clerics or any non-rogue characters, I see no reason to double this penalty. Such actions should have more dire ramifications for paladin-like characters. Loosing all abilities would suffice... There are no morality requirements for paladins or clerics (or anyone - PE does not have an alignment system). Fighters are not inherently anti-stealth, and giving characters EXP rewards for playing "to their type" sounds boring as heck.

ME3's multiplayer was legit the best part about it and I have no god damn idea how that happened. It's like that small part of the game fell through a portal from a bizarre alternate universe where great multiplayer-focused games are getting watered down by cynical, shoehorned single-player campaigns.

I'm curious about what the game's option menu is going to look like now. If you don't use Expert Mode, it sounds like there'll be a beautiful, giant, ****-off wall of toggles. It's like a tax on the low and craven. That $10 would be with ~$7000 if they'd invested it in bitcoins instead.

PST had great looking stuff, but a lot of their 3D work (including portraits) was... uh...

Edair lookin' smug as hell in that picture. Aw, yeah.

It's an illusion, Michael.

D&D needs to make "Cruel Sassy" an alignment.

I think the difference is that D&D's alignment system was meant to say "This is what you are. You are lawful neutral." whereas this is meant to say "This is what people see you as. They think you're a ****."

What am I, a person who reads things?

Seems like a natural extension of their work with Alpha Protocol. This is A Good Thing.

Partial voicework, as with Baldur's Gate. They haven't said anything about the translation of the voicework, but I'd be shocked if they didn't.

Yes. Death is a toggle. Maiming only is default. Are we sure about that? For some reason I had it in my head that a character with health but no stamina is immobilized, but not strictly unconscious. Now that I think about it, I have no idea where/when/if I actually read that.

It's just you. It is entirely just you. You have wandered into a field, abducted a calf, painted it gold, and now you're wondering why nobody is coming to worship it. Most people don't give a **** about how other people play videogames.

The problem with do-it-to-improve-it (aside from feeling even more grindy than conventional levelling; hello casting "detect life" every 30 seconds in Oblivion to grind Illusion) is how easily it pigeonholes you. You took an aggressive approach early in the game? Well, you never get to use stealth now because your Hitting Things With Sticks is level 10 and your Sneaking By Things With Sticks is level 1, and by now all the NPCs have Detecting Hidden People With Sticks level 8. You avoided most combat with stealth and diplomacy early on? Hope you never wanted to win a fight in the mid-to-late-game. Tamerlane, I see your point. And I agree with you OTOH, it's up to developers to design majority of the encounters throughout the game in such a way that they can be 'resolved' by means of both brute force (warrior heavy playstyle) and stealth/diplomacy (rogue/mage heavy playstyle). That way the problem which you mentioned would never occur, the player would never be forced to switch his [kill'em all] playstyle into [drop'em silently 'fore the know what's commin'] or [talk'em down] playstyles and vice-versa mid-game It was just a suggestion. It's most certainly not a perfect mechanic but it has some merits. It is flexible and caters for exp distribution according to the preferred playstyle, provided however that the majority of the quests can be completed in more than just a single manner. Also, in my previous post I stated that "this kind of mechanic needs certain safeguards to prevent exploits like: press "sneak" button and leave the game running for 3h to max your character abilities." I think we both agree on that. But the problem then is that then you would have to make the challenge level extraordinarily low to allow people to actually mix up their approach. There is no "designing encounters" at that point - either the fighting is so easy that the talky, sneaky people have a chance and the fighty people aren't challenged, or the talky sneakers have no chance so the fighters can actually have a real fight. Or... or I guess you just scale everything based on how the characters are built, but... well, that would be terrible. Also, I should point out that fighting is not "the fighter thing", talking is not "the rogue thing", etc. Anyone can fight well, albeit often in very different ways. Anyone can sneak, though some dudes are inherently better at it. Anyone can talk and there aren't even "social skills" (though various skills and attributes do come up in dialogue).

The problem with do-it-to-improve-it (aside from feeling even more grindy than conventional levelling; hello casting "detect life" every 30 seconds in Oblivion to grind Illusion) is how easily it pigeonholes you. You took an aggressive approach early in the game? Well, you never get to use stealth now because your Hitting Things With Sticks is level 10 and your Sneaking By Things With Sticks is level 1, and by now all the NPCs have Detecting Hidden People With Sticks level 8. You avoided most combat with stealth and diplomacy early on? Hope you never wanted to win a fight in the mid-to-late-game.

No, tekno, you don't get it. You are playing videogames wrong!

I dunno, Kark. I'm kinda enjoying the... whatever the hell this is.

I think "play it through, even if things go badly" would be a lot more popular if the loss of companions affected the narrative in any significant manner. But... well, it doesn't. Lose Boone to a bunch of nightstalkers? Boone is never mentioned again until the epilogue. Grace gets smashed by a construct in the Modron Cube and you don't have Raise Dead? At best you'll get a line from Annah mocking her and that's it. "I've spent twenty hours with this character and they just died and they ain't coming back" should be a pretty ****ing big thing to accept, but it's not really reflected in most games that allow companion permadeath. Not the Infinity Engine games, not the Fallouts, not Fire Emblem, not Valkyria Chronicles... ... and I can't blame developers for that one bit. "Doing it properly" would be a large amount of effort for minimal gain.

Hey guys, stop playing games wrooooooooong!

Now I'm imagining people completely naked underneath their armour. Getting electrocuted would be the least of your issues then...

... See, this is one of those weird scenarios where I know the meaning of each and every single word you used, but I have no idea what you're trying to say.

By default, party members who fall in combat receive long-lasting injuries the decrease their effectiveness for some time. There is an optional difficulty setting that adds on permadeath.