PsychoBlonde

Why does it have to be only those two options? I'd rather have a system where: 1. Quest entries are usefully grouped in a quest log, which is not the same thing as the "journal". 2. Each entry is topped by a very brief "this is what I need to do next on this quest" blurb, such as "should talk to X in Ytown" or "hmm, need to find sword somewhere in forest of Doom" 3. For every "step" in the quest (and maybe some other things that aren't specifically quest related, like "visited Ytown for first time" or "gawd what monster was that!" or "found this old book with interesting section, copying it down" or similar), you get a brief blurb of text appended to the journal about it, so your journal is actually a chronological record of what you did when. This would make it very quick and easy to place what you're doing right now if, for example, you stop playing the game for a few weeks, but you would also have a comprehensive journal that could record your entire journey. I'd like it even more if different character classes/races got slightly different journal entries for doing different things. That could be very entertaining to read.

I'd appreciate it if conversation text and combat text aren't all squidged into the same window, also, so that if you get into a minor fight you don't have to scroll up 85 pages to figure out what the heck that one guy said before the fight started. But having a text combat log really does help with situations where you suddenly implode and have no idea how or why it happened. It's nice to be able to go back and see, "oh, those 400 archers ALL SHOT ME AT ONCE" or "ahh, spell crit" or SOMETHING. I can live without it, but given the choice I'd rather have it. Also, please let us set how verbose we want it to be.

Yes, because it makes perfect sense for people to be able to fight just as well at 1 hp as they do at 100 hp. It makes perfect sense and is 100% realistic for them to go suddenly from "up and operating on all 6 cylinders" to "dead" because they took 1 more point of damage. It never ceases to amaze me how bad people are at distinguishing between "I prefer this or that" and "this or that is realistic". Reality is not like ANY computer game. EVER.

Generally the most "unrealistic" part of two-handed fighting is when they whirl it around way out of line looking like they're swinging for the bleachers or the green. Then again, I don't consider realism a reason to include or not include anything in a video game. It's not going to be realistic no matter what you do. The reflexes and training of the fighter have a lot more to do with their speed and accuracy than the size of their weapon.

Well, due to some semantic ambiguity this may mean that you can deliver shocks to other people's reproductive organs.

They've already stated that they want the PC to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and "a victim of circumstance" rather than "the chosen one". Although, if you wanted to be a pedant, you could state that they're still chosen--by circumstances. The protagonist is always going to feel somewhat singled out simply because the story is following THEM and not somebody else. At best, you're going to get situations where the reason WHY this person is the protagonist is not stated explicitly and thus there's an implication that somebody else COULD have been the protagonist. Maybe. It's not better or worse one way or the other. It just depends on the particulars of the story.

Oh, sure. Preferring one over the other is totally valid. Insisting that one is the "correct" way because of some "realism" argument is NOT.

Heh I don't think anyone should take this poll seriously enough for it to matter.

So, how do people like to name their characters? I tend to name mine after my PnP characters, so they generally just have a fairly simple first name like Leren or Kimber. I don't mind the thing Dragon Age is now doing where they assign you a last name so everybody (including your mom and your S. O.) can call you by it. Since there won't be 100% voiceover, I would like it if people call you by name in the text though.

Where's the option for "I'd find this kinda annoying, thanks"? Or what about "Fine with me, they should take another party member with them!" I'd like to see this be more of an RP thing than necessarily a mechanical thing, but we're only going to have 8 companions and 5 slots, so it probably won't be THAT big of a problem. Although, what would be hilarious is if when you can the big fighter he empties his pack into your arms and suddenly everyone else in the party is WAYYY overloaded.

I think it really depends on the story, and I don't think one way is necessarily "the" way. If they do put in backstory including siblings, parents, etc., though, they really need to have a *slightly* slower start than BAM YOU ARE ON THE RUN WITH YOUR FAMILY ZOMG NOW ONE OF THEM IS DEAD DON'T YOU FEEL TERRIBLE YOU TERRIBLE PERSON. That was . . . jarring. I think my personal favorite for introducing background details into the game has to be KotOR2, though, where people ask you about your past and you can give several answers. The whole section of Peragus IV was pure gold covered in gold with a side of platinum and diamonds as far as I'm concerned. I'd definitely support having the option to brush off the questions for people who don't want to have their internal story thing disrupted though (Sylvius, looking at YOU). For me, it's all about implementation. Tabula Rasa can be AWESOME. Having a background could be AWESOME. It's just how it's put into practice.

As long as the kid can drag my flaming corpse out of harm's way and force a potion down my throat at the last second before I bite it, I'm in favor of this.

Now I want to have a storyline where you come back to your stronghold only to find that your S.O. has turned it into a bed and breakfast.

So you stipulate that the only thing going on in the entire world is what the PC is doing. If they're off-camera, how do you know what they've been doing? For all you know they went and killed 4,000 dragons and they rightfully ought to be level 50 by now.

On the contrary, it's a matter of "are we making a game where the player will pick one set of companions and play with them exclusively" or "are we making a game where we want ALL the companions to (hopefully) go with the player throughout the game, just not all at the same time". Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 were pretty much the former sort of game, where you pick your companions in the first half of the game and play pretty much exclusively with those companions in the second half. Oh, you might cycle one or two but your core party is going to remain. Whereas in Dragon Age I was constantly cycling people in and out depending on what I was doing. Nor are these the only two options. They could just flat-out dictate to you who you get when. I, personally, would actually enjoy playing a game like that, cause I wouldn't be perpetually missing out on neat companion dialog because the appropriate companion was sitting back at the base. They could make it so you only have as many potential companions as you have party slots. (Which was very nearly the case in Torment.) And, if you find the idea of companions who aren't in the party getting experience, why aren't you bitching that companions you get later in the game join your party at a higher level? Shouldn't they have to start at level 1 just like everybody else? No? So why is it so hard to grasp that just because they're not in your party right now, that doesn't mean they're sitting in front of the television eating popcorn. Heck, they probably have MORE time to train and perfect their skills than the poor schmucks stuck following your crazy butt all over the landscape. As with everything, it's a design decision. I don't really care what direction they go as long as they understand the implications of that decision and key the game toward it.

I can't vote on this, it'd be like voting "which is more important to you, your heart or your lungs". Ya need both in an RPG, and they ought to be integrated instead of being locked in separate rooms so that the gameplay is just an elaborate method of turning pages in a novel. If you're talking about all types of games, yeah, gameplay is more important because without it you do not, in fact, have a game. Heck, you could define an RPG as an integrated story and gameplay experience, halfway between Bejeweled and a novel.

I really don't care, I just want the icons to be small and distinctive enough that I can use them from a hotbar without having to scratch my head over them. The Dragon Age 2 icons were terrible about this. Well, they got the small part right, but I challenge you to tell glyph of repulsion and glyph of paralyzation apart without pausing the game and getting a mouse-over tooltip. The biggest problem will always be telling the difference between spells that do slightly different versions of pretty much the same thing, because if you have any coherent plan to your icons they should logically get similar icons. So, I submit that the successful icon system is one in which you can tell the difference between Electric Loop, Lightning Bolt, and Chain Lightning no matter how they're arranged. I don't think the ones from DDO quite manage it but they're pretty decent. I'd rather see more than 2 or 3 colors, though. Every damage type and effect type ought to have its own color. They do manage this in DDO and it helps A LOT.

Speak for yourself. Sometimes the fun of gaming is so I can dress my female avatar up in the skimpiest outfit possible and then go punch orcs through walls. I don't think oversexualization is the problem. I think the problem is that it's so ubiquitous there often aren't other options other than Miss Booblicious. I vastly prefer games that offer a big range of variety from the demure to the daring (and even to the silly). And I like it when such options are offered for male characters as well. Granted, I don't expect it to be a HUGE problem with PE because the characters will be TINY. There's only so much you can show (or not show!) on a 1" toon. If you can TELL which ones are female and which are male, I think that's about the best you can expect.

I prefer systems where being "good" has long-term benefits, whereas being "bad" hurts you in the long term. A little pain now (doing people's idiot fetch quests instead of smacking them around) saves a lot later (having to do the end fight with no help). The mechanical benefits detriments ought to pretty much even out. I really detest systems where being a bad dude means you get more lootz, this is just a really simplistic view of what it means to be good vs. bad.

Could you expand on that? A food mechanic would mean that food either heals you when you eat it or you have a "hunger" meter or something. A food role-playing aspect means that you may get periodic quests pertaining to "find some food" or "running low on supplies"--it's not a quantitative thing.

I think this really depends on how it's handled. I would not mind "repeatable" quests like in Fallout 3 where there are just people around the world who will buy a given object, so if you're running short on cash you can just pile up a huge stack of scrap metal. Or, you have someone who will take your wolf hides off your hands and give you points toward crafting training or something. That would be fine. But I don't want MMO style "repeat this quest" options. It should feel more organic, where there's just always a bounty out for bandit ears, wolf hides, etc.

I do like the ability of having a "scout" formation of some kind with one party member decently in advance of the rest of the party. If they allow multiple summons, I'd just like it to be that you get a little icon next to your character portrait that selects all the summons at once, that'd be a lot easier and probably more convenient than trying to work them into the party formation in some kind of logical way.

It wouldn't bother me either way--Obsidian wouldn't be stuck in a position of being slaves to the publisher's whims either way because they'd know they could just walk away if they didn't like what the publisher wanted. What would be REALLY cool is if they could completely self-fund the next game out of the PROFITS from this one, since those same profits won't be inhaled by the publisher. That's how business is supposed to work, after all--you plow your profits back in to the business to produce more and better products. Hand out bonuses to the devs, sure, but keep most of the profits in house as project financing.

The only game I've played where I felt this made some kind of operational sense was Gothic, because you could eat all kinds of things which you could ALSO cook or turn into potions or whatever. Also, it was pretty clear that your health in that game didn't exactly represent your "wounds"--you got it all back if you slept in a bed, and people could beat you up without killing you. I would much, much rather there be a role-playing aspect about food rather than a mechanical one. This is how I run it in my games and it works well, plus you don't have to track the stupid stuff.

ZOMG someone else has heard of those games. They had some interesting aspects, to be sure.