twincast

If I know the language I always want to experience the game/film/book in its original version and I'd encourage everyone to follow suit, but the reality is that many people don't have the necessary language skills, don't trust theirs enough or in a baffling showing of anti-intellectual reverse-snobbery don't want to have them. Ignoring that market is plain stupid. Every game that wants to have international success needs to be released in English, Spanish, French and German. That's very much a fact and they're all covered, so that's fine. Especially for this genre I'd consider Russian and Polish secondary, Italian and Norwegian tertiary, and Hungarian and Greek quaternary. Turkish, Arabic, Persian and Indian pose a number of questions on viability that are beyond me to answer. (That said, most Scandinavians are perfectly fluent in English, so that kind of scraps Norwegian from the list of necessity.) ---- Regarding professional translations: I can only really speak for German ones, but boy do they tend to be terrible. And that's the most famed foreign language dubbing industry in the world. (At least to me US and JP are both without peer in dubbing of respective domestic games and animation, yet at the very bottom when it comes to dubbing foreign products, so especially from each other.) Hollywood films (both live-action and animated) and major Hollywood TV series usually get great voice actors (and great illusion of lip-synch), but especially TV series (due to their length) accumulate a number of glaring mistakes in the actual translation, turning the German lines utterly nonsensical just because somebody couldn't be bothered to look up a word or expression. (Ironically often inherently hard to translate wordplay is handled about as good as can be most of the time, though.) Anime for any and all ages and US animated series aimed at mid-teens and below (as well as the inherently cringeworthy Disney Channel sitcoms) are (at least since the anime boom) without exception saddled with terrible dubs. The Disney comedies sound like the infamous shopping channel dubs (think porn dubs minus the moaning) of old; British TV series fare only marginally better and minor Hollywood TV series are somewhere between them and their major Hollywood TV series brethren and sistren. And every single animated series (US and JP) has a number of utterly terrible voice actors, in most cases the majority of the characters. And most of the time they can't be bothered to consult anyone on the proper pronunciation of Japanese names. (German is much closer than English to Japanese phonetically, so in theory the accent should be much reduced instead of sometimes even worse. I've made my peace with odd vowel lengths and would transcribe Japanese consonants differently if I had my way, but the standard is what it is, looking it up even once wouldn't be hard at all. The "j" more often than not being a German/Latin one instead of an English/Japanese one I can at least understand, but in the unbearable atrocity that is the German Naruto dub they even pronounce "ch" neither English nor German, but French! WTF?) Only Detective Conan ever was reasonably close to being a good dub. The actual translations seem fine most of the time, though. Now, regarding games: Like many books the basic translation is fine most of the time, but the (usually unnecessary) translations of proper nouns (organizations, places, characters) are almost always beyond cringeworthy (and/or merely semi-correct). (Hello there, Thedas.) The voice actors however, no matter whether it's a German game or a foreign one, are -- occasional German voice actors of Hollywood stars aside -- from the same talent(-free) pool of emotionlessness as the TV animation dubbing brood, even in the most (oddly) acclaimed translations. (Hello again, Thedas.) Well, that's more steam than I meant to let off, so TL;DR: Text translations tend to be good (and easily correctable), but foreign language voice dubbing tends to be bad, so I'm happy that they IIRC only mean to translate the text. ---- Heh, during my college exchange year I took an "Advanced English" course for some easy credits; most could hardly speak it (and nobody had the slightest idea what soap operas and talk shows are, the originally planned topic of the course being American TV) to the visible frustration of the (mid-30's female Japanese) teacher. That surprised even me. And Japanese live-action dubs are for the giggles. Anyway, I sadly don't see it being a viable market anyway (not that I wouldn't appreciate PE acting as some kind of forerunner). South Korea? Well, they oddly prefer pay2win grindfest MMO's, but at least it's got a PC games market. China even more so, but trying to sell your product in that environment? Good luck. So, of the East-Asian countries I'd go for Korean first and foremost. As for South-East Asia? Lots and lots of people, but also lots and lots of poverty and (partly thusly) no idea how big the local gaming markets are.

I've been meaning to make a thread about this for days. I'm game for pretty much every number, size(s) and kind(s) of pantheon(s), from simply nonexistent to actively interacting. The only thing I demand is that they are properly thought through. Pantheons are families. Too often creators of fantasy worlds forget that or (even worse) only pay lip-service to it with some fragmented relation(ship)s sprinkled throughout. And most importantly make the names of all* members of each pantheon believable to be of the same language (not saying culture as there's been quite a lot of borrowing of a couple of deities going on between neighboring (or even not so neighboring) peoples without full-blown conversion even when they shared few to no common backstory). There's some considerable leeway (based on theoretical different declensions and possible basis in another language for any given god), but when creators have no solid grasp of the matter, names often drift into the ridiculous, so please no X-means-evil names in pantheons that otherwise don't use X's (of whatever pronunciation) for example. Also, using real world names isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but don't just throw a Baldr or Apollon or two (let alone both) into your pantheon of Moradins and Lolths. Stick to one or the other per pantheon. *Well, some Roman deities amaze with their main names being decidedly Greek (with slightly changed endings), but that's fairly unique and honestly not too jarring in most cases since the two languages look even closer related to each other than they actually are. IMHO only (much changed, but originally Persian) Mithras really sticks out, but then again, they always thought of him as foreign themselves.

Erm, yes? I don't really see what the point of your post was.

Ah, yes, races. I'm a firm believer in staying with the basics before you venture into creating (often over-the-top) other races. And please, evil monsters are fine, but no "evil races" or "monster races" in the common sense. I am not at all a fan of how D&D went through a thesaurus for dwarf, elf, dead body, dragon etc. and gave every one of them a unique design that often didn't even match up folklore at all. Hobgoblin; 'nuff said. The result: Creature overload. <rant about monsters and magical races in European folklore deleted for your reading pleasure> What I'm getting at is that they can go wild on undead and beastly monsters for all I care, but I only want one humanoid species each of dwarf/gnome, elf/fey, troll/ogre and ettin/giant and maybe orcs and goblins for big and little "brutes" and fairies and/or titans for bipeds that are more forces of nature than creators of culture, with the differences in portrayal in real-world regions handled by giving them roughly according cultures in-universe (which mechanically would be sub-races). When it comes to "original" races, I prefer equivalents to (D&D3.5's) plane-touched (primarily of the elemental kind, but in this single case predominantly good ("divine") or evil ("demonic") races are fine as well). Insectoid races wouldn't fit the setting IMHO, but I've got a huge soft spot for biped cats and lizards in fantasy (not so much in sci-fi). Can't think of much else. As for races from other cultures/traditions: The Mediterranean mythologies are mined way less for RPG's than one would think. Satyrs and nymphs would be cool, but other than that? Not too keen on minotaurs and centaurs (both originally demonizations of foreign cultures) because of their extreme chimeric nature, but if the devs want to implement them for NPC's, the more power to them. All others I can think of are either unique monsters or small groups of them and only really lend themselves to being monsters in a fictional universe as well. Hmm, harpies would be fine as either monsters or a cultured race, but again not really apt for use as PC's. The jinn races of Arabic folklore and Islam (specifically ifrit and marid) would work, but then again, they're basically just elementals. Succubi and incubi of Christian superstition are cool, but only really work as special demons, so again NPC-only. India basically only has the naga to offer, which are a cool variant of the dragon archetype, but as PC's? I'm heavily tending toward nah, but at least they'd be easier to implement than quadrupeds and winged people. I suppose you could base a race with multiple pairs of arms on Indian mythology, but I'm not sure whether I'd like that. Japan? No kappa, thank you very much. Tenngu? Again, winged, and I'm not particularly fond of them, either. The other roughly humanoid creatures that aren't undead/monsters are all either variants of the basic ones or animal (or dragon) spirits that can shapeshift into humans (usually young women or old men), so not really usable either. I'm not too sound on the rest of the world, but all other examples (that aren't clearly unique monsters or deities) I can think of are either generic nature spirits or (usually shapeshifting) animal spirits.

Tentatively yes on the former, definitely yes on the latter.

If there have to be character levels I'd want to have twenty to forty of them, but on a nice little moderate curve (think pre-Industrialization population growth). While I want to be able to easily wipe the floor with enemies that posed a proper challenge in the beginning, I don't want to be ridiculously overpowered by the end. For many a reason (believability of the world, primarily). And especially considering that Obsidian have stated that they want to follow the adventures of our protagonists through additional content and/or sequels I seriously doubt they want to either. It's totally fine in other games, but not in a proper deep and mature RPG, please.

You just spectacularly missed the point. There needs to be a trade-off, so It ought to impact combat progression. In turn you get better at avoiding combat. Win-win for everyone.

Well, females and dudes with too much estrogen. No difference. I would suspect young males with too much testosterone, too little social skills, and a need for back patting and instant gratification to be the loudest group. But as said above, the only ones I know of that has systematically analysed behaviour is Bioware and they are unlikely to share their numbers. The loudest (and shallowest) group? I've got no doubt about it being (mostly male) immature teens and frat bros. But most who state that they want/enjoy it are definitely mature (and/or adult) males and females. Probably slightly more females. As for who enjoys them? Both sexes of all ages equally, I'd say. "More compelling" is utterly relative/subjective.

Bull****. You got your "change of usage" backwards (aside from the crazy fandoms). In its "proper" use cults, sects, religions and spiritual movements are all one and the same, only differing in size at best. All have a varying amount of brainwashing and sacred rights and a mix of bene- and/or malevolence. That in games and pop-culture in general cults are usually evil cults and that whatever class you went to focused on that narrower definition doesn't change the actual meaning of the word. Otherwise there would be no need in almost all of those cults being classified as evil cults. Words can gain new meanings fast, but they lose old ones rather slowly, especially when the new one is merely a narrowing (or broadening) of the original definition.

For a world to feel real there have to be people below the age of 16. And either all NPC's have magical armor or (preferably) none of them. Giving children special protection just screams of preemptively pandering to the Concerned Citizens™, something this project (like most its Kickstarter-funded RPG brethren) explicitly aims away from, so it'd be a major disappointment if they caved in in any way, most definitely including this one. I doubt they are planning on releasing retail versions, so foreign market copies getting screwed shouldn't be an issue either. I just couldn't play the Fallout games and Skyrim without mods that (re-)introduced the killability of children and I'd prefer to be spared the hassle and for quests and reputations to actually (be able to) use the opportunity to tackle the issue to its whole potential in a mature way.

I don't particularly need slavery to exist, but it's interesting and if it's there lore-wise I expect to at the very least see it in-game -- the more depth, the better. (Albeit it being roughly High/Late Middle Ages at least serfdom should be a given.) Anyway, I have no reason to doubt them delivering this.

I'll chime in that I too love all the updates so far including most of this one, but I'm not too keen on every character having to have both combat and non-combat skills. For all intends and purposes the XP you spend serves as an abstractor for the time spent to learn a skill. I want to decide whether I spend my time 50:50 on combat and non-combat training or not. Weighing the costs of different kinds of abilities differently by way of implementing a full-blown point-buy system within each class would IMHO be best. And just to be clear, getting XP for completing quests is great and combat-heavy XP gain (as well as gameplay) all the time sucks, but I do want to be rewarded for every successful action of mine, be that killing an enemy or sneaking past them. Of course that would need some system to avoid exploitation. Maybe XP for every room cleared/passed and once you got that you get no more XP from enemies in that room? Now that would solve these problems and also grant greater immersion, so I'm totally behind this. Although it does add another layer of potential balancing nightmare. Hmm... making Quest XP universal spending points would work, but if the bulk of the experience gain comes from finishing quests that would defeat the whole purpose of splitting it up in the first place. So, maybe divide the XP you get from quests between Combat XP and Non-Combat XP percentually depending on how you solved the respective quest?

You'd have somewhat of a point if you were speaking about Iceland, but as it stands you don't. Central Americans and Caribbeans are from North America. Oceania's missing, though. i guess europeans are more die hard fans of oldschool cRPG. especially russians and poles. at least they have huge communities for post-apocalyptic games (and cRPGs). In the good old days it was Europe: PC, Japan: consoles, America: mixed. For better (eastern Europe) or worse (North America), times they've been a changing. Because it lies both in Europe and Asia, obviously. Then select according to whether you are from the European parts or the Asian colonies, duh. No other country - save Australia for obvious reasons - got their own option. Why would Russia? Well, maybe because "continent" style poll does not make much sense here? Russia lies both in Asia and Europe, but we are different from both Europeans and Asians. And there's a LOT of diehard RPG fans here. The "region" style will give way more perspective on who is actually interested in this forum. Just saying Other than (remnants of) military bases and the overlying political organisation the vast Asian part doesn't particularly strike me as anything but Asian. And Russia proper is about as unique as every other European region. Doesn't change them culturally being decidedly European, let alone being so geographically, which is what this poll is about.

Well, the core problem lies in priests and mages in classic D&D accumulating a spell selection that borders on the ridiculous while thieves and fighters get ... naught. My solution? Have a broad selection of spells, but don't go anywhere near the hundreds, and give the magic-less some nice useful special attacks, feints, blocks and dodges that make sense. But no D&D4e or DA2 fancy physical abilities that are magical in all but name, please; not ever.

Ah, no, the comment on 4e was a seperate one for completeness' sake. In D&D4e physical skills and magical spells are functionally identical powers on about a half-way point between the two former(ly) distinct categories. Lore-breaking cheap balancing at its "finest".

That's just exchanging one form of ridiculousness for another. (Not that I ever met anyone that didn't think of preparation as still meaning memorization.) As much as I hate 4e, I have to admit that it's take on magic can be interpreted in a way that makes sense. But since it uses the very same for non-magic classes, it's nonsensical in a different way.

To clarify: That D&D-style Vancian casting cramps my play style is annoying, but that's not that big a deal. I despise it because losing knowledge with use makes no sense whatsoever no matter how you spin it. It's about the gamiest magic system there is. Which is why almost all my D&D magic users are 3.5e sorcerers (and most of my P&P magic users aren't D&D). I gotta admit I never ventured far into Arcanum because the microscopic resolution bothered the hell out of me, but that sounds cool, yes. I could very well live with that. Probably the most realistic for (literally) spell-(and/or-sign-)based magic.That said I actually prefer freeform intuitive magic (and am not a fan of ingredients-reliant magic in RPGs), but like I said, as long as it isn't standard D&D, I'm happy. Exactly.IMHO spell effects shouldn't be affected by character level at all, only by the actual stats and even then not too much, i.e. spells should slowly gain in effect (and if anything the cost should slowly decrease, never increase). Meaning at higher levels you can either churn out little bolts like nobody's business or concentrate on a couple of big whammies, or anything inbetween.

I too like this kind of thing in even the most basic way, but what I love is when there are upgrades and I really, really love when those upgrades are actually based on tough decisions between for the most part equally valid, but different options, not just two or three levels of effectiveness v. cost.

Depends on the party size, really. Small party: class-less. Large party: class-based. In general I prefer point-buy systems over classic leveling, but I like both.

As much as I enjoy good romances, I won't throw a fit if there aren't any at all. If they have some however, I do want them to spread them reasonably evenly across sexes and sexualities. (Special bonus points if they also spread them across gender identities and character ages.) 3D cutscenes being precluded from the get go I won't mind there not being any proper sex scenes, but I'd appreciate a couple seconds long 2D romps nonetheless (with some dialog before and after, not during it, thank you very much). (Kind of related, but more an aspect of realism/verisimilitude: If I undress a character I want them to be either naked or at least in underwear. And the environment should react in some way on my character's crazy nudist antics.) And I agree that sex shouldn't be the be all end all of the romance stories. Dragon Age: Origins handled it near perfectly IMHO (other than not even offering to see the sex scenes again after the first time). Ideally there should be casual sex (with both prostitutes and companions, maybe also "normal" NPC's you meet in an inn etc.) and romances that go the whole range from practically starting with the physical fun to being all about courting and building trust for an extended time until the "pay-off". Regarding post-intercourse plots: For starters, I do enjoy love interest abductions, clich

As much as I love the Infinity Engine games, I despise Vancian casting with a vengeance. Always have, always will. Other than that most everything is fine with me. That said, I do not like spells rising in mana cost as you gain experience levels.

I really, really want it to be an even number, ideally 6 or 8.