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Wow, I completely forgot about that cutscene. (edit) Though I suppose even when I did play SoA->ToB, that never occurred to me probably because I just thought they were other high-ranking Bhaal followers at the time. Or something. I love foreshadowing; I think it's one of the best literary devices in existence and tells me the author knows what s/he is doing for an intellectually complex tale, and I appreciate that. That said, for games, I think it's better to build storyline narratives that don't follow the book series model too closely: It's great to have the same world, close time periods (no "50 years later!" things), your same character, at least some same NPCs, same lore and historical memory built upon character actions, but a completely contained storyline within the body of the game itself. The problem we have here is that absolutely no one knows just how successful PE will be at retail to fund a quality franchise. You cannot efficiently plan across sequels with that kind of restraint--authors don't have this problem anymore because everyone can easily self-publish literature these days. If Obsidian can avoid overt foreshadowing in a given game and then maintain and respect "memory" in future sequels and expansions, I think it'll be fine. *By "respect memory," I mean the author(s) must not do the Evil Retcon upon major story and lore elements. That immediately destroys credibility and cheapens the entire narrative quality.

I'd like a cohesive world and characters like in the BG series myself (importing and everything), with independent storylines in the sequels. So my main concern is how each of the games' endings will be handled--I definitely want closure for each, that is. It would be hard to plan for a 2-parter or trilogy or even more without taking that into account.

The only level of quest marker acceptable to me in a game like this is an NPC saying "You'll help us? Great! My village is here. Let me mark your map." And that's it. Of course, that's not actually a quest marker; that's a map unlock. The onus is on the game creators first and foremost to write quest descriptions that don't cater to below the lowest common denominator (i.e. people who can't read).

For many of us who'd rather not see "romance" in games, it's not a matter of your cultural assumption of "prudishness." It's a combination of technical limitations, social expectations, and the resources available to PE. In fact, it seems to me that the obsession with getting romances into a game is far more childish, because the people asking for romances seem to believe it's the highest form of affect while failing to understand it's only a part of the entire umbrella of "love." (Besides the fact that "romance" is the only subset of love that leads to sex. ) There are plenty of other classes of affect that don't make it into games, even the other types of equally compelling "love"; so why only request one most commonly caricatured in mass media? Now, if there were 18 NPCs (like in BG2) of considerable depth like PS:T companions... 9 could have "romance" paths... 9 would have their own character content... I doubt there would be as much controversy over this as there is now. Because, guess what, we have only 8 companions in a party of 6. Then the issue I described in other threads comes down to-- |=====general character content=========|Y/N romance = Y|-------romance content-----------| versus |=====general character content=========|Y/N romance = N| That's my concern. There has to be equal content no matter what "path" a given NPC development goes down. This is generally not the case in game development, in my experience (and yes, I've tried out a number of different game romances in my day out of morbid curiosity). Once again ( ), here is my proposed mechanic for perfectly parallel and exclusive "Y" paths that cover everything, described briefly from a preceding romance thread. The following examples are situated from the companion's perspective. It's very simple! Y = bottom main branch is the starting point for all companion interaction Main branch: get-to-know-you (This really should take up the bulk of the companion interaction over time; then we can get to specialization!) Left branch: romance Right branch: bromance/womance Left branch: younger sibling Right branch: protege Left branch: older sibling Right branch: advisor Left branch: younger sibling Right branch: romance Et cetera. Huzzah! No one ever gets more content in choosing one path over another and both paths are equally deep, meaningful, and immersive.

I'm sure there will be some dolt who comes along and says Avellone is a terrible person to not understand love, but I don't think that's the case; as a writer, he's fully aware of dramatic presentation and literary devices. Romance for most people who claim they want it in a fictional setting is merely a dramatic plot device, not something that represents a real human interaction: The best loving relationships are actually not dramatic and conducive to Disney-fied excess, ergo not worth writing about in fiction. Interesting but true. Great interview. Sawyer gives great information about mechanics design, Avellone about dialogic and narrative content. This bit is interesting: Yeah, I didn't agree with the interview question; and I think Avellone underestimates just how many people appreciated that interesting lopsidedness in the game because no other game managed to do that. Still. I think it's rather telling when a good number of people love PS:T despite the weak combat. Edit: Oh, LadyCrimson. It took me forever to type and post that because the forum/thread/something was being incredibly ornery. No more romance discussion, gots it. I'm surprised the other one hasn't been locked yet, heehhh.

To distill Josh's comment about "realism" and mechanics-- --For me, verisimilitude in a game is a cohesive world-building lore held together in a subtle webbing of mechanics and player interface. When either the mechanics or player interface encroach into the world in more metagamey ways, I don't like it: Game "realism" is essentially immersion, and there are certainly different ways to both make and break it. Day-night cycle--I'd love that. I'd love to see quests and critters and stores behaving within a proper day-night cycle (immersion). But if the in-game cycle was too long or too short and messed with player ability to control their reaction to time (for example, I'd want the option to "wait" through the in-game clock instead of being forced to "rest" for 8 game hours), that would be bad. Scantily-clad warrior women is immersion-breaking because it's aimed at a certain type of player (metagame) rather than being mindful of basic combat immersion, at the same level as an average human dual-wielding two 2-handed war hammers. A minimap with automatic quest markers is very metagamey and infringes into the world quests far too much. etc.

Yeah, until you come to the next difficult lock, then the next one, then the one after that, and the one after that. Next thing you know, the mini-game has clubbed you to submission and you're off to check Nexus for mods to let you just bash that lock open with one hit. Or... I make another smart choice and increase my lock picking skills so that I can open those locks more easily. And I will really appreciate the increased ease with which I can open those locks, because I better understand their difficulty. Except the point of the marginal flexibility in Sawyer's terms is that it's the difference between a choice before you at the moment versus a strategically poor choice made four levels ago. The "choice" you're talking about is only always after the fact, after an absolute failure with no possibility of a choice at the moment it matters. This is the distinction he's making, and one I agree with. Unless you're keeping notes for a second playthrough, but that's pure metagaming as well. There were non-marginal shortfall crutches in BG. For example, permanent gear that gave upwards +20% thieving skills, potions that gave +45% thieving, blah blah--I assume none of you used those items if you're against "marginal shortfall crutches" the way these lockpicks are being talked about, right? I think the permanent gear bonuses in particular are a bit overpowered and undermine skill leveling choices even with a "soft shortfall," though.

Love the thought that goes into the earlier design stages.... I suspect this will be the juiciest stuff. Then the actual development, well--grunt work, lots of minutiae and technical stuff, not necessarily worth actually telling people about that. I have to wonder what the updates will look like after this brainstormy design time. Also: Throwing in obligatory whine for more art in original Sagani painted concept pic. P.S.: Great face paint LOL

Do you not recall Baldur's Gate? It had a game speed option that radically affected how fast everything in the game moved and acted. It's substantially harder to play on a higher speed with only manual pause because you need quick reactions and you need to know what you're doing. I'd like to see difficulty modes that embrace features like higher action speeds rather than just giving mobs more damage and more health and calling it a day. As for your comment that the game only moves as fast as the player . . . not in combat, it doesn't. And 90%+ of the game difficulty is usually anchored in combat. Can't see how this'd suit a toggle? Turn off all auto-pause, for starters. I don't remember that setting at all, and I don't remember exactly what settings were discussed in the modes Update at the moment either. It could be worked into one of them, I'm sure. I just prefer to think of "difficulty" in the tactical sense, which means much better enemy AI and removal/increase/decrease certain elements (like multiply spell cooldowns by 200%, lower stamina regen rate by 50%, etc.). Requiring faster player twitch reaction is not tactical difficulty in the slightest. That's what I couldn't figure out at first, but it sounds like just that--requiring faster twitch reaction. Edit: I'm sure it would be more "difficult," and as a difficulty setting I suppose that can't be hard to implement when we're talking about timed events of some kind. It's just not tactical.

I'm having a hard time conceptualizing how "speed" can be reduced to a toggle option for an overhead tactical party game unless it's only as a function of pause removal--which would never happen because that's such a key feature of these tactical party games. Are you saying something like 5 attacks per "round" versus 10 attacks? And this doesn't apply to the storyline quests since you choose your "speed" based on what content to actually do. The game itself always moves as fast as player. If you play "fast" without autopause or manual pause, then go for it?

It would dilute the narrative, IMO. The "point" in progressing through narrative-based games like BG or PS:T (okay, the latter was special) was the story. Mechanics, exploration, interactions--all of that is important, but the story is what holds it together. And all good stories, like books, have endings. The way a game ending is implemented significantly frames the strength of the story: In something like Oblivion, the storyline is an afterthought because the "point" is open world exploration, something you can continue to do after the main storyline. So to turn it around: What would it harm to expect players to finish up loose ends before going to the end-game?

Oh, right. Well, that's completely impossible on a technological level. The 3D rendered backgrounds are being individually hand-painted for a 2D iso look. There are no tiles (unless Obsidian decides to use them, which I think is doubtful).

It really doesn't sound like he'd design a mechanic that was easy to abuse, at least; we're talking about a guy with significant high-level system design experience, not your average GM either, who's able to infer statistical player behaviors in terms of abuse and choices better than pretty much anyone on the forums here. I don't think any respect implementation should be easy, certainly--maybe you lose a whole experience level. (Realism is also never a good argument in game design, and Sawyer recently responded to that assumption directly). I think this is ultimately fine as a difficulty setting or part of a mode. And I honestly don't see respeccing as a major way to "change the odds"--rather, I see speccing as a way to match player styles on the average. But I can certainly see the min-maxers trying to switch everything up. Edit to add: In-game tutorials are another beast (with several threads discussing the pros/cons--more controversial than I thought). But I agree that a lot will depend on how simple or complex class skills and global skills end up being; D&D has a looooot. PE may not.

You don't read very well (i.e. at all). Answer Sawyer's ideas on implementation.

Some interesting viewpoints about attribute roll/point-buy/etc. from Josh Sawyer. Context: personal playstyles, game saves (he uses stat rolling as an example) -- this post has to do with content balancing Context: Thread "roll,point buy,or both for ability scores" for NWN2 Apparently I'm in a quoting mood today... Edit: Whoops! And somehow after reading so many posts about the general topic of stats, I forgot the main question of the OP. Awesome! (Fixed vs. increasing)

That is exactly why it defeats the purpose. The entire purpose of the dual-health system is so you can have multiple fights per day at full fighting strength. I'd say a very significant purpose of the dual-health system is more to balance the high-level per-rest resource management in strategic and tactical combat for all classes instead of spellcasters only. Both the stamina and spell "refractory period" mechanics serve to allow usefulness in any individual combat situation, but overall, the health bar combined with lack of healing mechanic (spells, potions) is the lynchpin design to balancing resource management, at least the way I interpret Sawyer's proposals. Mechanical synergy is elegant design... * Health = rest only (all classes) * Stamina = per battle, regens up (melee/ranged classes) * Cooldown = per battle, times out (caster classes) * No real healing spells/potions in the traditional sense

This is a dumb question. If you failed a combat situation, then reload and try a different combat tactic--something all players (except those on Trial of Iron) should do as second nature. If it's really too difficult, then lower the difficulty setting of the game. We already know Josh's stance on the topic; he would allow respec, but not make it insta-easy.

It wouldn't matter if random landscape enemies gave no xp if they had loot. And the more powerful ones like, oh, Firkraag had epic loot. Random exploring areas: I remember finding that one wilderness area in BG1 with those petrifying lizards; my party was way too low-level so I ran away, but it was great going back later just to clear the place. There were no quests in the area that I remember, but given the discrete map mechanic, having areas like this with "low content" still lends a great exploration feeling.

From the Known Information thread:

Also keep in mind that Sawyer is a particularly big proponent of interesting player choices--trees simply do not allow for this, being more restrictive in a linear sense per "specialization" and requiring developer valuation for traits/talents/whatever instead of player choice. No matter how one cuts it, trees require finite starting and ending points with non-overlapping paths. Since Obsidian has already gone on record to say the classes (and there are so many of them) will allow for substantial flexibility, a tree-based implementation would seem to defeat that purpose. I just don't see it happening for PE, anyway...

I'm not a fan of trees the way they were implemented, yes, in WoW. Locked-in and exclusive at the same time, sometimes requiring you to take prerequisite things you didn't want or care about. Feats--I only have a very vague memory of the D&D 3.x rules, so I can't speak to that. I do remember it was far more flexible than a locked tree-path system. Never played Diablo. For class talents, I honestly like LotRO's implementation. You can pick exactly which trait you want from a given line (three lines per class) and get specific set bonuses the more traits you pick from a specific line. You can only slot 7 class traits total, forcing you to choose (which is fine to me). Much more flexible than a tree structure, but rewarding specialization as well. Umm, no trees please....

International law... very interesting. Also explains why so many competitions or prizes etc. from "international" companies apply to the U.S. only. Re: ToS--okay, that's good to know. I wonder if it had changed at some point, but I didn't follow KS closely at all before this. Also a bit different from the pure donation model described elsewhere around this very topic (not beta), but I guess it depends entirely on how the tiers are set up. The most important thing is that KS absolves itself from any mediation, which is the part I remembered most; this means it's up to the backers fight for refunds or get together for a mass action if necessary against the project owners if it falls through (not gonna happen here, I'm sure). Beta--I'd personally wait for the mega dungeon, I guess, because I wouldn't expect that content to overlap much at all with other world landscape quests (factions?), and the juiciest narrative parts should be easily predicted to live at the "bottom" of the dungeon, so to speak. I've done a little enterprise software QA before, and I think finding bugs is actually kinda fun; I wouldn't mind if a mere combat experience is spoiled or bugged out, that is. But the main storyline, major faction quests--I'd guess avoid those, and probably only use the Adventurer Hall mercenaries instead of actual companions. Also, I have my doubts that Obsidian would distribute testing scripts, but I could be wrong.

Isn't the point of Kickstarter specifically to avoid the pre-order legal issue by stating all the backer levels are donations? There was some long discussion about it in one of the Update threads pertaining to international stuff, but I didn't pay that much attention to it--as to specific reward levels, I suppose that could be listed as "gift" for customs, but I really don't know how that would work out ultimately. Legally, there were no purchases. As for a beta key NDA, I suppose Obsidian never intended the keys to be controlled like that, since it now makes no sense after they changed it to add-on (I'm sure Obs has way more testers than they can manage for an NDA anyway); although maybe one way they could've done it was the typical "upon install/run" software license agreements typical of today. Though I have no idea how different countries view those kinds of agreements. There are also different ways to implement an NDA--a software product in the works may still be known and discussed in general, but a closed beta period would still require an NDA to avoid discussion of particulars like actual quests, screenshots, unintended effects that can degenerate quickly into internet screaming, etc. Granted, I've only seen this stepped implementation for MMO expansions*, but the sharing of information needn't be related to a player NDA, as I see it--devs sharing mechanics design and general lore and game features are still very different from someone talking about faction quest chains on the forums, for example. At this point the only control Obsidian can exercise over potential leaks is to control the amount of game available for the beta testing, really. *Example: LotRO's latest Rohan expansion started closed beta with NDA in July while developer diaries talking about specific new game mechanics were published all the way until the NDA was lifted in August.

The mega-dungeon would be a perfectly contained testing ground for mechanical purposes. The only item that Obsidian can't and won't allow for full testing is a full game based on dialogic content (as Adam's quote says), and that's great. With the sheer number of potential beta testers due to their KS add-on setup, I'm sure there will be leaks, and Obsidian probably won't be able to maintain power over an NDA. Even though we know the beta won't be the full game, there's still a huge range of what content would be available for testing--percentage of landscape quests, how much of the mega dungeon, etc. But it's too early to tell, not to mention everyone has a different level of spoiler-tolerance. For people who got a bundled beta key, no point in trying to decide before the late 2013/early 2014 beta period, I'm sure. For people who did an add-on and need to decide earlier whether to convert to something else.... um, well, decide your own tolerance, I guess? And even if more of the game is available than you want to spoil, you could always limit yourself to a specific area.

Those players who come in and keep asking and/or keep dismissing dev reasons for not having MP (or console or full VO or 3D rotating camera)---they failed their INT checks. So many reasons not to do it that "don't like it" doesn't even need to be on the list, all of them published in interviews/dev posts/Q&A, yet these people say "it can't be hard to add even though I have zero experience in game programming, finance, and business management." Lonesome? Then play an MMO.