Littlefinger

I'm sorry, but could you be more specific? What mechanics and gameplay elements are you talking about?

Something tells me Obsidianites do not bug their games on purpose, or care little enough to just leave them there. So yeah, I support the notion of less publisher pressure meaning less bugs.

I always had a weird fascination with polymorph spells. Truly, a fate worse than death.

What about making the bonuses freely selectable? For each dollar given to the project, a backer receives a certain amount of credits - a one-use currency, which he or she will be able to exchange for the differently-priced bonuses he'd like to receive. Then again, I'm pretty sure that's almost impossible, or at least is out of Obsidian's control.

I could never take video games books too seriously, even when they're written by competent writers. I've read a few Blizzard novels, as well as works related to Mass Effect. To put it shortly, I was not impressed at all. I'd much preffer a 'Mass Effect'-like Codex library, with snipets of information added to it as the game progresses. Seems more efficient, I don't now.

If there is one thing I hate about the game so far, it's the map. Very generic, very forgettable. And yet, it's not a very important aspect of the game. Sure, it does have an effect on what story could be told in it, but in the end of the day, it's a trivial problem, one writers should have little problem adapting to.

Quality writing, memorable music and a battle system that's both fun and not a pain in the ass to use. A well thought-out inventory system would also be a welcomed feature. Lastly, a good character development system free of silly, useless skills (i.e. +2% chance to cause poison damage for neutrally-aligned characters for 5 seconds). Bad controls? I'll manage. No state-of-the-art graphics? I couldn't care less. Voice-overs? Can do without them. Bugs? Meh, I'll play the fully-patched GotY version anyway. Romance options? I don't mind them, as long as the game allows me to befriend male characters without banging them. Housing? I'd much prefer a cozy roadside inn with a secret base of operations. Also, please, no unlockable difficulty settings. God, I hate not being able to take up a challenge right from the start.

Maybe it's the minimal gameplay time? As in, skipping all optional content, just doing the main quest? Then again, you don't hear developers bragging about "at least" so-and-so hours of gameplay, it's always about the estimated time for all the content. So maybe that's just it - no pointless running around, no unnecessary interaction with NPCs, just an estimate of how long it takes to bee-line through all the areas and dialogue lines?

The quality, of course. Take New Vegas, for example. A good game, yes, and pretty long, too, but hardly something I'd play more than once. And yet I've replayed Gothic - a rather simple, short game - over twenty times, even when knowing every corner of its world by heart. I think it's obvious which game I value more. The quality of the game is important, but the quality of the experience is even moreso. Community patches will fix the former, but only the developers can provide the latter. And that's why Obsidian should concentrate on the quality of content first, and the quantity of it second.

20-40 hours would be nice. Maybe 60. 80 might be overdoing it. But in the end, it's all down to quality versus quantity. And replay value. Can't forget about the replay value. If backtracking does not feel like a chore and exploration is not pointless, I can see myself sinking over a hundred hours into the game, immersion and all. Heck, I hear there are people who played Fallout 3 for over 300 hours... on a single play-through.

Listening to the ideas and suggestions of the fanbase is fine as long as it's just that - listening. If Obsidian finds something they like, they should implement that, but as soon as listening to the fans becomes pandering to them, the project is compromised to become a mismatched pile of conflicting ideas.

Woah, 2D? I was only aware of the isometric perspective, but I imagined the game would still be 3D, with rotatable camera. Sorry, bro.

Personally, I don't care much for facial costumization. ~8 preset faces with a few haircuts is entirely enough, methinks. Take Morrowind for example - limited character customization, yet loads better than the hundreds of sliders in Oblivion, Skyrim or, I don't know, Mass Effect (I just used the default maleShep anyway). As far as clothes go... well, it all depends on how close to the character the camera will be. Again, Morrowind is a good example: armors over shirts, separately equiped gauntlets and pauldrons... this allowed for quite some freedom in customizing your character's appearance. So as long as the customization does not go as deep as choosing nail polish, I'm good.

More party member mean more of everything: the world will have to be bigger, the town will have to have more population, the battles will have to involve more enemies... all of this means higher processing requirements, and if Obsidian is planning to make the game accessable to people with less powerful computer systems, it would mean the graphical quality of the game would have to be decreased. And before anyone says that graphics don't matter: I'm not talking about decreasing the texture resolution or smoke effects, I'm talking about less different models, less viewing distance and less animations, and that's not something I would like to see omitted. 3-4 party members, main character included, are enough in my books. I'm more of a quality over quantity sort of guy anyway.

KotOR II had a basic cape mechanic. A very much appreciated change from the original game. Didn't seem too complex, yet it was enough. Frankly, I'm more interested in seeing less clipping issues rather than OMGSOEPIC cape physics.