Wintersong

Still waiting for someone explaining to me how a chainmail bikini works to protect the navel of the woman. May be magnets in the shiny parts that protect the soft parts. Bonuses based on sex are bad because they hurt butts. Race based bonuses on the other hand not. Why not? If I want to play a human Archer but humans don't get bonus to dexterity but elves do, according to some people, I should feel obligued to play Elven Archer because they get a bonus to dexterity. The thing is, the bonus to dexterity for the elves just reflects the tendency of elves to be more dexterous than humans. Genetically (natural selection or whatever) the average elf is more likely to be more dexterous than the average human. But that doesn't mean that there aren't any humans that are actually more dexterous than elves. That doesn't mean that I cannot make a human Archer and have him be good at it. Drow in D&D 3E? All had +2 Dexterity and -2 Constitution. Males? +2 Intelligence (favored class? wizard). Females? +2 Charisma (favored class: cleric). Why the differences? Female are dominant and strong willed (blind zealots of their goddess) and males get the intelligence thingy (cunning? male fighters need intelligence too?). By the way, no one cries because male and female drows got different racial bonuses based on sex.

A dwarven female soul that remembers her previous life but that currently inhabits a male elven body that lives in a racist and sexist human society. There, Obsidian, I just gave you a companion idea. For free.

True, lot can happen yet in this new decade. :D I forgot about Dead State because I didn't actually back it (bad timing) but it also looks promising. I saw today a new old-school RPG (or maybe two) by Brenda Bradwaite and Tom Hall in Kickstarter. And many more (hopefully) will come in the next years, Kickstarter or not.

Are you sure? The Banner Saga, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns... maybe we are lucky and Top 3 RPG of the decade actually becomes a real challenge.

Having a solid visual design that goes beyond "nudge to horny people and fashion models" is about improving the game. Immersion is important in RPGs and having females wearing armors designed to "sexualize" them while men wear "realistic" armors does not help. Chainmail bikinies for females? High heels for melee female fighters? Law of physics defying boobs? But don't worry because you won't see epic codpieces, chainmail manbikinis, batman suit with nipples and stuff like that. One would say that if you are using fantasy as excuse to get silly armor (that "looks cool" but is not really functional), you would do it for both men and women. But noooooo. I didn't see anyone complaining that the movies of The Lord of The Rings didn't have Éowyn in chainmail bikini!!! And it's frakking fantasy, baby!!! On the other hand, we had that retarded Hollywood elf... Ah... He would much rather have us as bosses is not exactly "Pledgers decide". That would be a very very bad idea. They must listen to all of us (no matter our view points in the different topics), but they should remain in charge. They are the professionals. They are the ones who will be working their asses off writing characters and dialogue, coding all the game mechanics, creating all the art assests,... and playing all those pre-alpha and alpha builds that allow them to see what works and what doesn't work. If along that road we can help them to get rid of bad stuff and improve stuff, cool. I don't remember anyone asking for a Disney RPG. Did someone ask for non boobplate for political interests? I don't know. Probability says that maybe. But certainly most people didn't ask that for political interests. But keep living in your fantasy world where apparently, we have tons of threads and posts about how racism must not be in the game, how there shouldn't be discrimination (social or of any kind) and stuff like that. Next, in Obsidian Forums: "A new move by groups with political interests hits the forum! A group started demanding that leather armor should be made of leather!!!"

Having all the answers in one group only would also be good. There is no real need for them to be in different groups.

Guns were developed in PE because they pierce the usual magical defense (a veil or something) that spellcasters use, forcing them to wear armor. So certainly arrows (bows) have not much success against certain enemies.

All ammunition should be limited. I never ran out of arrows in BG, altough I'll admit that my Archer ate arrows really fast.

I hated all those lockpicking minigames in Mass Effect. Not really a fan of action combat like in Bethesda's games. I do suck due to lame reflexes while my character, which happens not to be me, in theory should be at least more competent than me in those skills that I don't really have but him/her supposedly has. Taking the decissions about what weapon use, which items, training of new skills, conversation choices or combat tactics, is ok to be controlled by me (it would be some kind of movie if not!). But stuff like swinging the sword and such? My character is the expert one. I do agree with the knowledge/intelligence of my character limiting some of my options though, like in conversations for example.

Yeah, Obsidian listen to this dude! Chainmail bikini and boobplates for women!! Men can stick to full realistic plate armors, of course. Which is what is usually done in these cases. I also make sense if I take things out of context. @Lord Balgeron: I'll stick to Amentep's answer. Also, chainmail manbikinis or bust!!! @Obsidian: I demand swords that look good. Make them huge and without edges (edges don't look cool enough!!!). Also, add some spikes along the whole blade for epicness!!! But keep it working like a normal sword, eh? I just want it to look good on my character and, as you know, this is a fantasy world where people uses magic against monsters.

Did Obsidian explain how the laws of physics in PE allowed the boobplate to be realistic for the fantasy setting in which some use magic to fight monsters? (Monsters that may or may not use boobplate and may or may not also face mundane attacks from fighters and such) Because I do have the feeling that mundane stuff like metallic armor works basically the same as in our world. Artistic license aside. And pandering to stuff like "I want to look pretty, damned be immersion.". Or fantasy for children like Harry Potter. Maybe Obsidian keeps reading feedback by the backers that take the time to post about the topic, in this case, of cooldowns, and they decide to reconsider because the arguments given are really solid and can fit the design of the game. Or maybe not and they won't fold like a beach chair to the avalanche of QQ.

If your desire for delayed consequences is due to "save scumming", that's not a good reason for this planned single player game. But of course, I find amusing that people need Iroman mode to accept the dead of their character and not load an older saved game. What forbids them from just deleting the save file themselves if the character dies? The same thing that prevents them from making back ups of their Iroman mode save file: nothing. In any case, I was (maybe foolishly) considering as a given that actions would not only have inmediate consequences in PE.

I'll trust Obsidian and their experience as game developers. I do prefer a stamina/resistance/mana/soulpowah system as limiting factor but whatever. Vancian system sucks anyways. D&D 4E with dailies and by encounters is not the end of the universe. I cannot remember D&D Next right now though, so I won't comment about their new mixed system.

Fanatsy running wild without any constraints is no different than a fairy tale like 3 Little Piggies. Or Harry Potter's magic system/society. Halflings are basically Hobbits just that D&D couldn't use that Tolkien name (as far as I was told). And altough over time they have gotten some different genetic branches, they are still hobbits.

Is it really necessary to quote the whole conversation? It's not that difficult to edit the quotes, you know.

"Too much" is quite subjective but I do understand the idea. Random player says: Anything that goes beyond "combat" and "some story", impacts negatively the players' levels of fun. Every game mechanic of the game should be designed to allow you to have awesome combats and some interesting liners by NPCs, and nothing else should interfere in such wonderful activities. We need a pet system like Torchlight so we can send the pet to sell the loot!!! (http://www.penny-arc...omic/2009/11/4/) Or like in Torchlight II, it can buy potions and scrolls for us too!!! Also, give me pointers in the map andover my character's head so I don't have to explore to reach my quest locations!

Actually, I personally feel that the "female characters have less strength" idea is not correct. True, on average, males are stronger than females. But it doesn't mean a female hero should be average . But that's just my opinion (and knowing some physically strong women and emotionally wise/intuitive men ). Physically, men and women in our reality are different. Starting by having different sex!!! Then, supposing some "stereotypes" as bonus/penalties based on sex for the humans in PE (or any other race that has a biological history of segregrating tasks), we could have (as example): Males +1 Strength/+1 Constitution and Females +1 Dexterity/+1 Will. The system has some minimum and some maximums, like minimum for each stat is 3 and maximum is 18, having a 10 in each stat being the baseline for the common human (or whatever race). The fact that some women can be stronger than men and some men can be wiser than women is because not everybody is born as a baseline common human. Yeah, the may get the racial bonuses but their stats may not need to be all 10s (being a PC, he could use roll 3d6 for each stat, or use some kind of point buy system...). The "average human" does not really exist (or is extremelly rare) anyways. So those racial bonuses are nothing but a "tendency". If you score a 14 in Strength with a male (after bonus) and I score a 18 in Strength with a female (that has no bonus), the tendency in our cases is not true. But in the general picture of PE, your male may be true to that tendency and be stronger than most of the females of your male's race. One of the groups with issues about having bonuses based on sex are munchkins/powergamers that deny their nature and say that if females have less strength than males, they would feel forced to not play female fighters because they would be at disadvantage. But hey, the one writing played NwN2 as main a female Fighter/NeverwinterNine dual wielding longswords (that require quite the dexterity score) that had like 14 Intelligence and 12 Charisma (and invested in skills like Spot or Tumble). Yeah, I think my character had like Strength 14 at level 1. Any munchkin would kill me for such bad build. I don't care one way or the other about bonuses based on sex though. I think that they are nice in the same way as racial ones but I won't lose sleep about them. More on topic, I have read many times that people don't want their sex choice to impact the game (lets keep romances out of the equation...) beyond the proper recognition of the PC's sex in the conversations. Hopefully, that doesn't include having social issues in a fantasy world with societies that are not real. So much for "roleplaying" if not.

So like Dragon Age of "Go to site 'A', where a dragon is, to trigger the level scaling of enemies and then leave to come back some levels later."?

Starting our own colony there too. Surely out of the scope of the game but I'd love something in the lines of the fortress of NwN2 but with a colony/village. Probably creating your own faction, declaring independence and giving the middle finger to the other nations. XD But maybe out of the scope of the game and maybe only me likes something like that.

First: in the unknown future, for all we know, the materials for their armors can be so good that they actually bother to make "boobplates" and still have them to be so efficient as "non-boobplates". At least as far as being shooted at (ranged combat) is concerned. I heard that Mass Effect 3 has some more focus on melee but I suppose that their melee weaponry doesn't care so much about the shape of the armor due to high natural penetration power. In any case, at least those armors in Mass Effect are not chainmail bikinis. If the materials are in fact so good, then it'd be viable to allow female soldiers to have more "precise" armors (and custom made for boob size?). Second: the problem with the usual "boobplate" is that it doesn't really work. "But it's fantasy" or "It's a game". Yeah, sure. And why deny you the chance to jerk off, right? Or to look pretty when you should be worrying about being effective in combat. Armors that are supposed to be used in combat that really don't work are a kick into the immersion's nuts. And if you just do it to provoke erections (oh wait, should I say "eye candy"?) in some people... meh. Don't get me wrong, a boobplate or even a chainmail bikini can be used in fantasy games but only if: For parades or similar. Worn by ignorants and/or cannon fodder. They are magically enhanced to the point of actually being useful (they posses arcane forcefields or similar that cover the whole user and protect her from the mundane limitations of the real armor). (this only for boobplates) They are made of a really hard material that... well, it doesn't really matter the shape because you are not piercing/slashing the surface anytime now. (this is only for chainmail bikinis) They are made of magnets of some kind that attract the blows, protecting the soft bits. Also made of material such of the previous point of this list. At this point on human sillines, I'm glad when we just get melee (non-DPS) females totally covered in armor.

Well, as any other topic, it's a matter of preference. I wanted to post this as link but the forum insists on media, so I'll have to post this as text: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVbPnDf3TIw

1) Big Goals: I'd hope for mod tools not be up there in the 4M area. Selfish of me, I know, but feedback is feedback. I cannot really add because mod tools and multiplayer are the big guns. But I don't think that you can go wrong with "extra classes and races" though but it seems that adding even more companions based on those new classes could make some writers go nuts... Not really sure if translations really is good idea at so high range. I may be biased as my innerself doesn't believe in getting more than 3M though. I hope ye prove me wrong. 2) Backer Rewards: I like the expanding dungeon based on backers. Make Halaster proud! Proposing extra races? Proposing translations? A video of all the Obsidian team singing? 3) Other Stretch/Backer Feedback? Choirs in music are epic.

I haven't read much DragonLance (and not played the RPG version) but I do remember "Drow/Dark Elf" reference in the first trilogy when refering to some kind of elf undead (purple skin), I think. In another trilogy, one of the black tunic mages was labeled as Dark Elf as some kind of description (alliegance to dark powers?) because physically he was as typical elf as any other.

Seriously? Wow, I feel special now.

100 gold coins = 1 Kg 10,000 gold coins = 100 Kg? 100,000 gold coins = 1,000 Kg? DA was ok with a more tame pricing system. It had some autoconvert coins feature too if I'm right? But somehow D&D seems to assume that PCs must be swimming in gold at some point (altough in PnP, carrying large amounts of coins is not easy, weight or not) while the usual commoner is happy if he can keep a few copper coins in his pocket (if he has pockets!!). Hell, a bard I had used to buy meals for beggars of the city she was in by using a gold coin each day. And in D&D, economies seem to ignore the extra presence of (gold) coins in the market unless the DM is in the mood for inflation game. The real issue with inventory is that a real one is limited by: carrying capacity of the character (Raistlin could carry less than Caramon), and the volume/space of the cargo (100 gold coins may not take that much space but those 100,000 gold coins sure are). I'd give every item a weight and volume value (fraction values are valid). Strength (or similar) limits how much weight you can carry. The type of backpack/mule/whatever determines the maximum volume value that you can carry. Or something in those lines. Not holding my breath for any of that stuff though.