LadySpace

"Dragons" as in rare, magically powerful, incredibly interesting creatures who are defined as being different from gods or spirits by being both wholly corporeal and distinctly nonhuman, thus lending an air of power, menace, and wild wisdom to what would otherwise be a bog-standard "large enemy" archetype? Yes, please. "Dragons" as in big angry winged fire-breathing lizards? Meh, I could go without pretty easily.

I'll just go ahead and throw in an idea: What are the chances that anyone who's bothering to check the forums regularly isn't committed to the games success and to pledging a fair amount? I'd hazard a guess that they're pretty low.

As much as I love violating traditional WRPG archetypes and standards, the danger of creating your own bizarre fantasy world is that it sometimes winds up feeling schizophrenic and arbitrary to many. Archetypes are like well-worn paths through the forest of setting design: sure, you can go forge your own path and find something nice and interesting, but a lot of the people following you are going to wonder why you aren't taking the nice, easy road and question why you went left at that last tree instead of right. Tropes aren't just story-telling standards, they're story-understanding standards, and blazing your own path, while admirable and (from my perspective) far more interesting, can sometimes alienate and annoy part of the audience. Now, chances are that the more conventional WRPG fans, the ones turned off by a race selection screen devoid of elves and populated with insect-men and rock-fairies, aren't a loss we're too concerned about, and I for one would love to see a really creative suite of characters to choose from. Still, it's worth keeping in mind what we sacrifice when we pursue innovative setting elements over archetypal ones. Also, if I can't play as something with at least four arms and a pair of antennae, I may as well just withdraw my pledge right now.

On the one hand, I would absolutely love to have my voice in the game, and I think this would be a great way to get the community involved. On the other, Longknife makes a pretty excellent point on the pitfalls of poor VA work. So I'll reserve judgement for now.

Not a single "DLC only" vote. And publishers wonder why their fanbases are drifting away from their business practices.

I think your optimism is adorable and that we should cherish and nurture it lest the world take it away from you. In all seriousness, 4 million or bust.

I mean, assuming we're sticking with D&D-inspired names for clarity, this is what they'll probably go with: Fighter Ranger Rogue Sorcerer Cleric I'd probably do something more like: Paladin Druid Monk Psionic Bard But that's just because I'm wacky and my ideal character classes don't adapt to tabletop archetypes very well. Also: OMG Disco Bandit! That's what I've been missing from my RPG play and life in general. Maybe a Pirate Florist class as the seventh class for the 1.8 million stretch goal! I can't escape the feeling that you've missed the reference, my friend.

I like the OP's suggestion in principle, but I'm not sure this is the sort of game in which such a choice is a good idea. Frankly, a measured approach like this would work better in a game with a little more Fallout flavoring, one with a point-buy, non-class-based leveling system.

Not sure how I feel about the stretch goals. Ideally, stretch goals should be new mechanics, artistic enhancements, or expansions of backstory and gameworld. Things like lava planets and an orchestral score in Planetary Annihilation or the qualitative "make the world and story even richer!" additions on Wasteland 2. I generally support the inclusion of all of the elements listed, and I love having Mac/Linux porting folded in there, but as stretch goals go, the classes and races and companions... This just sounds like we're Kickstarting DLC.

Extremely important. If nothing else, deep and immersive lore is a great tool for preserving scale; if you want to make a game and its world feel bigger without having to design in dozens of new locations or enemies or quests, expanding and expounding what's already available through dialogue or books is a fantastic alternative. In terms of making the setting larger, I'll almost always go for fluff and details over new monster types or exotic weaponry. That said, what would be ideal (to me) would be a lore system that actually rewards the player for investigating details and uncovering information. It shouldn't be mechanical, though. When lore feeds back into the gameplay, not through stat bonuses and skill buff, but through applicable information that genuinely comes in handy somewhere down the road, that's when the game really starts to feel big and rich and alive. It oughtn't all be useful - again, I love fluff as much as the next nerdy WRPG fanatic - but making "obsessive researcher" as valid a playstyle as "obsessive looter" or "obsessive diplomat" is the mark of a truly great lore compendium. Just my two cents.

A.) You're conflating "fantasy" meaning a genre incorporating counterfactual and supernatural setting elements with "fantasy" meaning a psychological pleasure-space. They aren't the same thing, nor are they mutually inclusive. B.) I don't see any reason why a game conforming to the first definition of fantasy - magic, adventure, danger - needs to also conform to the second. Even if that were the case, why should we stop with what a simple majority of the audience would like to see in the game? Surely it would be fairer if we catered to every player's fetishes, wouldn't it? In that case, I think it's only fair that the male characters be permitted to walk around dressed as Chippendale's dancers. C.) Nobody's talking about requiring fighting women to look like bricks with arms; all we're saying is that having combat armor that doesn't actually cover your entire stomach is moronic unless it also has a lesser coverage/defense score than something that would actually function as armor, and that the latter option needs to be more common and more useful - high-level armors can't all have boob windows. Realism to the extent that it's aesthetically unpleasing is nearly as bad as fetishism to the point of ridiculousness, but that doesn't mean the latter isn't still bad.

I trust them, too, but I also know that frequent fan interaction, updates, and due consideration to outside ideas tend to wind up lending perspective and wisdom to the decision-making process. The fandom should be involved, not in the idea generation process, but in the idea verification and clarification process. Trust but verify, I guess.

I'm not entirely clear on what you mean by this. How do stretch goals not feed back into improving the core product? I mean, the various stretch goals that Planetary Annihilation had definitely contributed to basic gameplay and atmosphere.

How else are you going to get the golem armor in the third game? Clarification: Armor for a golem or armor that turns you into a golem? It's vitally important that I know this in advance. For... research.

Stretch goal: The Cratemaster Class! Able to control all crates within a five-mile radius, the Cratemaster wields the supreme power of randomly-generated cruft loot and occasional gunpowdery death. Through the use of the ancient art of pan-crate-ion, the Cratemaster has achieved enlightenment in the realm of all things related to long-term unrefridgerated storage and transport, and now chooses to use that same wisdom to destroy all who would spoil, damage, or upend the boxes, cartons, and bins of the world. If you've got OCD, you're probably going to hate... THE CRATEMASTER!

I'm brand new here, so I have no clue who we're talking about or what happened to him (though I'd assume it's not a happy story), but as long as it's a cause worth supporting, I'll gladly chip in some money to get him an item or NPC named in his honor.