Infinitron

I'm curious about this too. It would give a general idea of how much PE could potentially cost to make, and could alleviate any fears about how far the $4 million raised from Kickstarter can be stretched. The Baldur's Gate games had budgets of around 4-5 million dollars. Icewind Dale was probably cheaper. Not sure about Torment.

You wouldn't have to implement any special interface. My post was kind of a joke - many of the conversations in the Infinity Engine games already worked this way. It's nothing new.

OP: Alpha Protocol used timed conversations because it was trying to emulate a cinematic style befitting its console-style, cutscene heavy, third person perspective presentation. You have nothing to worry about.

How about conversations that aren't in real-time, but the world outside the conversations continues to progress in real-time while you're in them?

Yes, this is the only good argument against per-objective XP. Although it's really more of an argument about what such a system implies about the game's design in its totality. I think that Obsidian was not planning to make a BG1-ish open world game, but that the larger-than-expected budget they received may make that feasible. So you may have reason for hope.

Oh, ye of little faith. You're comparing PE to ME2 and ME3? If you're starting from the assumption that this game will be mediocre then why even pledge?

Yep. It's about survival. I think the mindset of "I must get XP for battles" comes in part from the fact that combat in games these days is so damn easy. So you need XP to make that mindless busy-work worth your while.

Use mercenaries from the Adventurer's Hall if you want more.

I feel the best "romances" are the ones that are established before the story begins. Let's say NPC X and NPC Y are married. What stresses does their relationship go through as they adventure with you? How does it affect them? That's interesting and worth exploring. How did they meet and fall in love? Meh, I don't need to experience that. Not in detail, anyway. See: Sun and Jin in LOST, or Adam and Megan in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

They should have provided more context when describing planned features of the game. Too many times people misunderstood and jumped to incorrect conclusions.

This.

Anybody who is interested in seeing how a game with "non-combat powergaming" plays is encouraged to check out The Age of Decadence demo: http://steamcommunit...ls/?id=93102452

Furries, in my forum? Josh Sawyer has confirmed that he wants to make all types of weapons and armor genuinely useful, so you have that.

It will probably work until the weekend.

You'll know the game has changed if you see a company developing multiple medium-sized projects simultaneously - sort of like Sierra On-Line's business model in the late 80's and early 90's. Feargus said:

Well, Dragon's Eye in Icewind Dale had a community living in it. Sort of.

Incidentally, I'd love to see feudalism actually dealt with in RPG. It would be a lot of fun to have a questline involving picking sides between the stereotypical overmight subject and his liege lord. Sort of a Henry the Lion versus Frederick Barbarossa scenario. Well, Ferelden in Dragon Age was sort of feudal, but other than the Landsmeet section you never really got to interact with it. And even then not so much.

Most traditional fantasy settings are actually culturally more similar to the Renaissance than the Middle Ages anyway (international travel and trade, large cosmopolitan cities, de-emphasis of feudalism in favor of absolute monarchy)

Regardless of what one thinks about romance in particular, it amazes me how resigned Patricke Weekes was to his own mediocrity in that post. I wonder how he feels about what he said there now, five years later.

Josh Sawyer on romance: http://www.rpgwatch....hread.php?t=953 And just for fun, here's Bioware writer Patrick Weekes' somewhat amusing reaction to that: http://www.rpgwatch....98&postcount=32

So is OP

Read Josh Sawyer's posts again.

I hope you realize that what's going to happen here is that you'll get your kill xp, but it will be ridiculously, meaninglessly low - just to provide Obsidian with a fig leaf to cover over the design philosophy they REALLY want to accomplish. Luckily, the OCD crowd doesn't care how little xp they get. They just want to see those numbers pop up.

Yes, of course my argument is an oversimplification but then again, so was yours. I agree that both mechanics can incentivize players, but which is more effective?

The following was not written by me. Aeschylus said: