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Any other women want to be immature and overreact? Wow. So if a woman reacts badly to the representation of her own sex in a game and to the male gamers who want it like that, it's immature overreaction according to a male. That's so facepalmingly stupid on so many levels....

I have 2 names I reuse for all my SP games; that said, I'm not a fan of the forced surname. Also, I'd answer the poll seriously, but I really couldn't resist your last choice.

I wish Josh would've given the actual number for the extrapolated size of Baldur's Gate at 1080p... Now I'm really curious.

Eh. They're aiming for an early-mid 2014 release with an actual logistics plan, so that's right around where it should end up, even giving a couple more months to iron out bugs (I'd expect end of 2014 no later). This is a weird topic.

I love finding about the behind-the-scenes stuff for development.... Coolzers. Thanks for keeping it transparent (within reason). P.S.: I'll keep whining for more art in the style of the first painted Sagani too. FULL TRANSCRIPT courtesy of mine typing (can't guarantee 100% accuracy, but it's as close as I could make it)

Yeah, I was talking about your "direct weapon blows to her vital areas" bit. 'Cause fur is supposed to do that. Dungeoneering shouldn't involve cloth either (mister Aloth pinstripey pants). And Forton, good lord. Funny you didn't mention them, though. I guess it's pretty obvious Forton's design has absolutely nothing to do with titillation for anyone...

Actually, since the definition of trolling is posting to deliberately provoke, then yeah, an unpaid volunteer Obsidian moderator was in fact clearly trolling, especially given the concurrent existence of the other troll-laden threads. (Though I do find more amusing that he can't tell the difference between metal and cloth in redirecting blows. At least a good troll would get into the specific material mechanics better.)

When I think of "gear dependency," I think of the MMO eternal hamster wheel grind. Character progression is essentially the same as gear progression. Um, yeah--none of that. PS:T was the least gear-dependent IE game that I can remember, then BG1. I suppose the trick to avoid a strong gear dependency implementation is to ensure a narrow range of effectiveness. That is, the strongest weapon I remember in BG1 was a +2 sword, and you start out with +0 weapons. But the level cap in BG1 was, what, 6-8? Then BG2:ToB went up to level 40-ish with weapons that ranged from +0 - +6. You don't even get armour to switch out in PS:T and there were few switchable weapons. I hope Obsidian balances for this such that there's interesting gear around--perhaps more reliant on additional effects--but it should be significantly less of a focus than the actual class build. With crafting, perhaps we can keep our old gear and just incrementally upgrade when we feel like it--that's something else to balance as well, huh. As a side thought, I hope the level cap, if there is one, doesn't fall into a level bloat trap because this is supposed to be the first of a franchise, and it'd be kinda silly to have levels that compete with MMOs (level 90? meh).

Well, they are using new tech. While they're ignoring elements that create substantial debugging complexity (e.g. multiplayer), this is still the first time they've used Unity.

Actually, we didn't pay for it already. All KS funds are supposed to go to the base PE game proper, and the expansion is supposed to be developed with post-ship funds. At least that was the last I heard from somewhere... This, I think, was to separate the expansion from the bad feelings about "day one DLC" where stuff is actually cut from a base game to be resold later.

Well I hope they don't go Dr. Seus on us and start inventing Kervuvles and Snerzes and Snaups. Nah, they wouldn't. I forgot to add that it would be cool if they avoided virtually everything in the D&D bestiary, but that probably wouldn't go over as well. I'm reminded of fairies in Jo Walton's book Among Others. They were described as being very much different from the typical notion these days--"Not all of the fairies are beautiful and actually most of them are ugly and not humanoid shaped at all."

When I think of Obsidian coming up with "fun and varied" monster types, I definitely don't think of any existing myths/tropes in our world... Unless there's some major subversion going on.

Why would the animal be "evil," though? Obsidian is moving PE away from the "good/evil" bit for their sentient races, so it makes less sense for an animal, reacting instinctively, to be "evil".... Just sayin'.

I don't want either of those in. But if they do make it in, then I want some interesting subversion/twists, and absolutely none of that Twilight garbage. Garbage.

People who spout without reading all the history and reams of arguments.... no right to ask that question.

I'm liking Avellone's view on this whole thing. I want subtlety, the spectrum, not the easy cheese targets, and no lame psychotic-evil types. Curious. Also taking bets----by 2014, we'll have Romance Thread pt. 48.

There's some discussion here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61478-immersive-journaling-concept/

What I would like to see is the PC being more involved on multiple levels precisely because there are so few companions compared to BG and we expect them to be quite deep. While there may very well be absolute breaking points, it would make sense that the PC could have a closer relationship to one than the other, or has a strong enough relationship to both that there's a 3-way conversation, or having the ability to arbitrate a deal of some kind (hey, that could open a quest or something), etc. And even if there are absolute breaking points, they need not come to blows--one companion may very well just leave, but in the "I'm going home!" method instead of forever, so you could go back to convince them to rejoin if you get rid of the other companion. I think interparty tension is realistic and necessary when they all come from different backgrounds with different personalities, but there are more nuanced ways of doing it....

What are you saying? Just don't close the browser. That's right--I only visit once a day. Honest. How the hell do I have over 900 posts? If you don't like forums, skip them entirely! Go to http://eternity.obsidian.net Though to be honest, I liked the Kickstarter updates because those were always emailed out. I don't suppose Obsidian could do an email newsletter....

It also had the fetch quests to become a mage that was made exactly for the purpose of testing your patience. In fact, most IE game quests fell in one of two categories, fetch or kill. Sometimes both. If you remove fetch, you are pretty much reduced to kill type quests. There have been a few exceptions (body guard and escort type quests), but they have rarely been more interesting than fetch and kill. I remember that mage quest! It was brilliant. Besides fetch and kill quests, there's the deliver/inform class of quests too ("meet & greet" as a subset), but I don't remember too many of those in the IE games as they're always used as transitions. Escort quests--I don't remember those in IE games at all, huh. I have never heard seasoned CRPG players deride or prefer an entire category of quests (I mean, kill quests can be boring as hell too); it comes down to "Depends on how it's implemented/written/designed," which is why all the answers so far are basically neutral in "feeling" to the category. I've certainly enjoyed a number of so-called fetch quests, so your "truth" is patently false. It can be done well--and what you keep ignoring is the fact that in CRPG quest programming, there are only so many categories of quests that are even possible. Cutting out the umbrella "fetch" ones is extreme. And DA2 as an example? Heh So you don't like them, fine; skip them all.

You can't discount them altogether. There are only so many feasible quest designs in a CRPG. It's entirely possible to create interesting, layered, multi-chain quests with twists and/or interesting background story and differing consequences, but which still fall under the "fetch quest" umbrella.

Besides which powergaming kind of comes naturally with replays. And since I expect PE to have a lot of replay value...

I think at $4mil Obsidian should hire Apocalyptica instead. Yeeeahhh. Far more epic, vast, reaching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJumvqm0qqo

What's this anti-power-gaming mechanic you're talking about? (Citation, I mean? I don't remember reading anything about that, but maybe I'm thinking about power-gaming differently, dunno.)