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From a marketing perspective, the timing was a little off, IMO: The announcement for the 2.2 replacement should have been done at the same time as announcing the Linux decision. I suspect, from the practical standpoint, that Obsidian was probably trying to hammer down specific details for the localization so they couldn't announce the Linux 2.2 replacement until those preparations were in place.

Some people are missing three key points about localization here. Because this is a stretch goal, that means the translations will pay for themselves, and they're only in addition to the substantial content already slated for that level. There is no waste. TEXT translation. This means the game is essentially subtitled and spoken in English, which saves a lot of money compared to translated VA work, as mentioned by others. I prefer my video in the original language with English subtitles as well. Oh, and the third: Once those other non-English speaking players hear of this, of course more of them wil be backers, which is a good thing all around.

I'm glad to see some international localization; English is my main language but not my first (lost my first ), and opening new markets is a good idea. Interesting human fighter guy in the sense that his armour is so normal. And now I will thow a tiny prayer... please no boob plate, please no boob plate, please no boob plate, please no boob plate, please no boob plate

I agree with you in that the first time I saw those, I thought they were very cool. But after the dozenth time? Uh, no. The problem is that those spells broke the rhythm of combat too much, the same way the slow-motion stupidity of certain kill skills in DA:O broke the flow of combat completely. Why is combat flow important? This is a real-time-with-pause system, and ripping combat control from the player in the middle of that can be very jarring. I think PS:T could (barely) get away with it only because combat itself was rare in the game, or could be made so at least. It would be far better to have neat spell animations in the 'live' battle. Cut-scenes, IMO, should only be used like they were in Baldur's Gate--to show major storyline events (chapters, but dunno if PE will have "chapters") and NPC interactions far away from the PC. The close of a battle using a very high level, rare spell could be a major storyline event, for example, but it should never be all the time. I classify PS:T's spell cut-scenes in the same genre as modern action-RPG talking NPC heads (where the NPC says the same sentences when you try to talk to them about something else, and you cannot fully skip that). It's flavor for the first couple times. After that, it's annoying and impedes replayability. The only way this would be tolerable is to add a system option to completely disable such things. But that's added, unnecessary work for minimal flavor IMO--I'd much rather Obsidian add more NPC chatter and opined fluff conversations.

http://www.gamesindu...n-pubs-and-devs Edit: Geez, the forum is not nice to me when I'm on my tablet. You mention the possibility of porting after ship; I'm not sure how the business model works with that, so I'll remain neutral on that particular point. But definitely not as a stretch goal, not after the interviews.

To be honest, I don't think there's anything to worry about with the devs at Obsidian in their track record for meaningful dialogue options in re good/evil/everything beyond. Out of the Obsidian games and the prior Black Isle games listed in their pedigree, have there been any blatantly binary good/evil games or games that didn't even offer the choice? So the first section of the poll is rather meaningless to me. A better wording for the second poll would simply be "Should your ALIGNMENT be visible to you?" (I'd say no, but I'm less ornery about this than companion loyalty because my own character should not be black box to me.) There was the general reputation number in the BG games, but I'd definitely like to see something much more relativistic and nuanced in PE, varying by culture, etc. This is an 'external' variable, though--in terms of alignment, if you want an externally fluid alignment based purely on your actions or statements, then PS:T did it right. You always started out with no alignment. The hard-coded alignments in BG never even came into play until... As for stats/abilities... except for Hell in BG2, I can't think of any other game that does that by alignment. (?) It made more sense in PS:T when you couldn't use certain items requiring an alignment, and I wouldn't mind either way if something similar to that was implemented under the "soul" ideology somehow.

There is role-playing your character. And then there is "being played by the numbers." Two of my friends, a married couple, are hardcore PNP role-players, noncrunchy type; I introduced them to PS:T first and then Baldur's Gate, and they enjoyed them both (they played one character, where the husband controlled the sprite and they both decided on dialogue options and metagame items). When DA:O was first advertised as the "spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate," of course we were interested. I started playing the game first and whenever visiting, watched them play their own character as well. By this time, I knew about the companion meter and said in all seriousness to them, "You should put a post-it note in this corner because the numbers that pop up are stupidly distracting. If you pay attention to those and are OCD in the slightest, you'll start trying to reload every party NPC conversation to get the highest score. Don't do that! Just role-play like you normally would." "Nah, it'll be fine." So at some point, they tried talking to one of the new party members at camp. It went something like this: First score was lukewarm, like +1. Wife was disappointed and asked hubby to reload. Second score was barely better, only +2. Reload. Third score was actually negative. Reload. Fourth score was 0. Reload. Fifth score was +1 again, I think. At this point---they (mostly the wife) weren't paying as much attention to the dialogue itself than the leaps they could make for higher scores among dialogue options. They definitely weren't playing the character they had crafted before starting the game, complete with backstory. I was facepalming in the background, naturally. The husband I could tell was getting frustrated too. Then the wife started to suggest he reload again, and he turned to her with this funny expression. He and I said nothing. She stopped and seemed to think about what she was actually doing. "Oh, uh... I'm doing what you said, aren't I?" After that, I could tell their interactions with party members tended to be more resigned; if staying true to character, of course you wouldn't get everyone to agree with you all the time for the highest 'like' score. But seeing the negative scores or whatever defintely doesn't feel good either. Text dialogue in those classical IE games were the only way to build character (with the help of partially voiced lines), so we know it's entirely possible to carry personality and emotion in text (PS:T included narrative descriptive bits too). And because text with partial VA flavor is the only way to interact with NPCs and party members, it stands to my reasoning that this particular aspect of the game should be more "realistic" in implementation, such that it doesn't encourage metagaming. Sigh, pause, hesitate, use hedge words, shout, nicknames or diminutives, honorifics, insults, short narrative descriptions of nonverbal items if necessary, etc. Otherwise, explicitly scoring the companion interactions cheapens the entire immersive effort.

We don't need that! we have the dialogue screen to show us some descriptions regarding what the companions' faces may (or may not) betray during all those moments you are affecting their "loyalty" AND said descriptions should depend on your Perception/Intelligence/Wisdom stat (or whatever makes sense in this newly developed character system). Agreed--any indication on the UI is, IMO, metagaming with a crutch and immediately immersion-breaking. We can get plenty of emotion and character in the text, especially with Avellone involved. Players only need to pay attention. The only possible exception I can think of, due to the isometric design, is the portrait itself: The portaits are the only face representation that could reasonably, I think, also carry facial expression for nonverbal states/moods. (Color-coding anything isn't a great idea in UI design because a significant minority are color blind.) This would require some dynamism in implementation, preferably very nuanced, but I'd tolerate it since we have no way to see nonverbal cues besides text narration otherwise. Of course, having only the latter is still acceptable to me. An on/off option would be okay. I still think the visible point meter is pathetic, though.

Practical. I think MMOs in general have to be designed around that concept due to the nature of the medium, to boot. If that involves being sent to a different city and fetching an old bottle of wine and a pair of beaten boots from a house infested with giant poisonous spiders, that would be great. But I get to punch the crazy prophet in the end.

While I appreciate phat loot, I really do not want the game to be burdened by excessive itemization and then become gear-based. I get enough of that in MMOs--where, sure, you can trait/whatever your toon a certain way, but ultimately the gear you wear multiplies your power and you can't participate in content comfortably without all that stuff that dropped from whatever boss in that other instance blah blah. There were rare pieces of high-quality loot in the old IE games but the paper dolls were fairly limited. TNO had, what, a few tattoo slots and a weapon slot, an eyeball slot, and a ring slot or two. BG had boots, 'main body', 2 rings, necklace, cape, head, weapon. D&D effects being +# or something on each piece--I'm not sure I want to see that. If the item mechanics in PE are more fluid than D&D, we could see some great creativity and individuality in the stuff we get and wear, whether or not there's a limited form of crafting (or basically have someone else do it for us, like a smith or enchanter). I find numerical bonuses a bit boring, but that would be the easiest to implement. I haven't played DDO, but from your description, I would hate for EVERYTHING to be magical to be useful. MMO mechanics really do not belong in a SP, either. Practically speaking, I'm waiting to hear from Obsidian what they have in mind as a base structure for that gear itemization. Personally, I secretly hope that all the gear is mundane but useful at base level with ability to continuously upgrade your favorite pieces (like enchanting a family heirloom piece or attaching that awesome gem you got from killing the boss gronk). And most importantly, all of that should be reasonably attached to the 'soul' idea since that underlies PE.

Spoiler time. Because TNO wasn't "The Chosen One." :D Please keep in mind the Chosen One related tropes of destiny/fate and related discussions on free will. Some people are conflating "I choose my own destiny to be great" or "Other people are choosing me because I'm good at something" with "Something beyond my free will sets me upon a destiny not of my choosing (though I might try to bend it)"--the problem with the former set should be plainly obvious: Every single piece of fiction with a main character that affects his/her world in any way is thus The Chosen One. With enough layering and twisting of the trope, the line can be blurred, though. (1) TNO was a great leader at some point. There was no information whatsoever about his heritage; he did not have special powers. (2) TNO did something bad (he was tricked into doing it by the clattery one). (3) TNO was eternally condemned to the Blood War. (4) TNO experienced regret and was directed to Ravel for a way to become immortal and atone for the rest of his life (and to avoid the Blood War). (5) TNO psychologically manipulates Ravel into doing the spell. (6) Spell is only partially successful. Thus we get TNO at the beginning of the game. (7) That the semi-failure threatens to rip apart the multiverse is a side-effect. ( Transcendent One ain't goin' back, man. He chooses his OWN path! Comment: About #1, being a leader with tremendous charisma/gravitas, where others choose to follow him, does not equate to being The Chosen One. That's no different than saying Obama is The Chosen One--silly, isn't it. So where in the PS:T storyline is there any indication that TNO was given a destiny, or prophesied, or inherited a special bloodline, or even at the right place/right time? There is no "higher power" nor stellar alignment involved at the start. Every single thing that turns TNO's reality was derived from his own choices in a sort of horrible domino effect covering centuries. You cannot say that about Harry Potter or Buffy Summers. And this is just one reason why PS:T was frakking brilliant. That's not to say all Chosen One implementations are necessarily terrible; I think there's a pretty good gradient covering the boringly cliche to nifty subversion. Some reading: “The Chosen One” vs. The One Who Chooses by Naamen Gobert Tilahun The ‘Chosen Ones’ in SF and fantasy: sending the wrong messages by Olsen J. Nelson Postscript: Here's an interesting idea. One basic requirement of The Chosen One trope is that that person is the only one capable or destined to solve some ginormous problem threatening The Blah--what if, in developing our companions in PE, we had to or were able to send one or more companions to address issues outside of the party aegis? And depending on how we developed with our companions, different results would be accomplished. Hmmm.

It's not half-assed if there are only 2 hetero romances. See PST. It's not like the type of sexuality determines the quality of a romance in the first place. Jeez. Fair point, I didn't mean to imply that. The PS:T bits, I thought the romances were officially cut so what was left was flirting or one-sided; I admit I never tried to go down that road with Annah because I find her annoying as hell. Grace was infinitely classier, but that didn't amount to a "romance," biology aside...

For something as complex as companion content that requires 'systemic memory', there must be a way to track it---but I want it to be black box. Visible point systems break immersion completely for me, and I could never, ever forgive DA:O for that.

Depends. Perhaps not modern Bioware style, but from what I remember most of the people writing BGII romance mods were women. Well, they seemed like women. This is the internet after all. Of course, that probably can be ascribed to the general difference in preference for porn between men and women. There is, however, a critical difference between officially mandated canon content and fan-made content that ostensibly serves to fill a distinct gap between official content <-> audience. (To clarify, I mean that there was only the meh Anomen romance for women while the guys got three.)

If Obsidian were to do this, then I'd want it to include all four major options (you know what I'm talking about) in multiplicate (no Anomen-only for women) on top of being very high quality and sans as much cliche as possible ("hapless princess" or "hard-assed bitch" or "slutty evil"--a la BG2). They would need to be vetted by people with social sciences background and both men and women, gay/straight. (Though given FO:NV, I'm not so worried about the latter bit.) PS:T style. Depth. Sex or not--no stupid uncanny valley "real people don't move like that I cannot believe anyone could be turned by this" adolescent idiocy like in DA:O. Please. That's not asking a lot. But honestly, I'd rather Obsidian explore convincing bromance/womance/brother-sister sibling relations more because those don't even get as much good development in mass media, much less games. So my vote is a basic "No, there's so much more general content accessible by the entire audience that they could be working on" qualified with "But if they truly believe can do it without being half-assed (e.g. only 1 het man and 1 het woman) and with PS:T depth, then sure. Impress me." All or nothing.

I disagree. No, TNO is not a Chosen One: He chose himself to pursue immortality for his own reasons. The Chosen One trope stereotypically requires that whatever makes the main character special was beyond his/her control and was not "random." This includes heritage, blessing, prophecy, etc.--some external force. So TNO was not a Chosen One, but he sure was special in another way, and Ravel recognized that. (Gawd, I loved Ravel.) Baldur's Gate was Chosen One... although there were kinda two of them in BG1, and the trope was actually dampened in ToB because you discover a bunch of other Bhaalspawn. I don't think we need to worry about PE because the general plot update already tells us our PC is a victim of circumstance, which I much prefer over touching any of that One claptrap. It would really fall under #3 with a twist--"wrong place at the wrong time" given the update wording.

No, I think the related mechanics would be far too much trouble to implement. Perhaps there might be magical ports, or something silly like Boots of Speed, or a toggle for walk/run speeds, but I don't feel mounts are necessary or enhancing at all for a 2D fixed camera experience.

Oops, did miss this. Should be merged (mod cleanup in aisle 3?) My preference. I liked Durlag's Tower implementation: interesting layered narrative but still optional.

I think this kinda works better as a survey than a poll, personally... 1. I dunno, how big was Durlag's Tower? 2. For me, the most important thing. I'm not a dungeon-trolling kinda person. The reason why DT was miles ahead of any other dungeon experience I can think of (Watcher's Keep, and stuff like DA:O, and uh IWD I guess) is because the contained dungeon implementation was deeply rooted in layered narrative: Why did it matter to go in? Why are there so many traps and mazes and riddles and things to fight? WK had a basic reason for those items but lacked any depth. Durlag's Tower's story required an attention span and memory greater than a hyperactive squirrel; it added punch to the narrative by punctuating such narrative junctures with dangerous combat or puzzles that tested historical knowledge and/or made contextual sense. Even PS:T had something like a maze-dungeon, though the Modron cube combat was far too formulaic compared to DT. Another reason why DT is dear to me and is, as far as I'm concerned, a necessary diversion in BG1 is because its narrative parallels the main storyline; I'm sure not everyone feels this way, but the slowly divulged, fragmented storytelling of DT painted a picture of the dungeon that made its history and former residents meaningful in such a way that I went back a couple times later hoping that the sad ghosts were freed. And then returning to Candlekeep in BG1 and remembering DT's story? Yeah... 3. Um, that'd be a negative. 4. I'm not interested in a pure dungeon romp with completely arbitrary and meaningless hack-n-slash (I kind of get enough of that in MMO play), also because I'm not sure that type of content fits with the supposed depth planned for PE; nor is a weak "reason" like that in WK any better because it's entry-exit-only while DT's narrative design covered the entire dungeon. If a large dungeon with strong storyline could be made to enhance the main content but not be required, the way DT is for me, I think that'd be great for a stretch.

I want party members to "matter" to the dynamic world content and narrative, and I don't want any party NPC that can be so easily distilled into a 2-3 word description. PS:T's characters did not feel like they could be so easily flattened (except maybe Annah, but she was clearly designed to be that way; Grace wasn't an archetype, while Trias was but nonjoinable, and yet he was still very interesting); I mean, really, what is Dak'kon as an archetype?

Multiplayer/co-op: This option differs markedly from the other two in that developing MP alongside SP negatively affects SP development (Direct dev source), unless MP is not required to be 'decent' and is only tacked on after SP content development, but a crappy tacked-on MP element also begs the question of why it should be included in a SP game in the first place. True, BG had it, but BG never had as much depth as PST and definitely did not have the dynamic character-building mechanics as PST, and if PE's dialogue and reputation/NPC interaction mechanics are anywhere near as fluid as PST's, that's even less reason to consider MP. Adding a MP component also would not open markets as localization or OS support would. Player modding toolset: I would choose "it depends"--I have no idea if the Unity engine games include payer tools or if it's even possible from both technical and legal (licensing) standpoints, so I imagine this availability is entirely predicated on those two items, and a stretch goal can't possibly strong-arm the option. All the mods for the IE games increased the lifespan of those games, so if possible, I would be in favor of a player toolset. Localization: This is conceptually no different from including more operating system options--hinging purely on ROI, accessibility of the game means a base increase in market and thus potential revenue. As a stretch goal combined with other things, I think this is totally achievable without impinging on anything else (besides, it's not like VA must be translated as well; full quest text translation serves essentially as subtitles).

It isn't just a matter of "trouble." A dev already officially confirmed that adding decent MP requires concessions on the single-player side. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE for the primary audience of single-player games; MP is still the minority for the target audience in this case. The exact quote is further up and in the "single-player is our focus" thread. On the other hand, if it's tacked on as an afterthought and doesn't impede the design of single-player content in any way, that's fine with me. He said it might require concessions. Try reading.

It isn't just a matter of "trouble." A dev already officially confirmed that adding decent MP requires concessions on the single-player side. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE for the primary audience of single-player games; MP is still the minority for the target audience in this case. The exact quote is further up and in the "single-player is our focus" thread. On the other hand, if it's tacked on as an afterthought and doesn't impede the design of single-player content in any way, that's fine with me.

I did love Durlag's Tower. The story, puzzles... <3 It was also optional and not required for the storyline but did enhance the last stretch of BG1's main questline (damn doppelgangers - I was rather distressed ). I'm for it.

Ultimately, the modern/dumbing down/newfangled/better/worse doesn't matter. Isometric (and its assumed technical trappings) is part of the original business proposal Obsidian put forth on the Kickstarter: people backed with the full understanding of their intentions via this communique. OP and others asking for 3D zoom camera whatever are basically asking or even demanding that Obsidian renege on their original pitch to the public. There are many aspects of the project that are fluid in terms of allowing appropriate supporter feedback. The fundamental proposal set forth on the Kickstarter page, including changing tier rewards after so many have already backed, are not.