HangedMan

I'll do it! If someone can't control themselves, you can hire me to control your saves for you! I will ensure you only save once an hour. And if you act up, you will be biffed by a foam sword! And all it will cost you is a bottle of soda.

I'm pretty sure some of the people in this thread would count this as a positive, not a negative.

I don't think you will get a constructive discussion as long as your argument boils down to "anyone who disagrees with me obviously doesn't know what's good for them." (And, seriously, can we drop the 'saving your game is cheating' argument? It's not doing anyone any favours.) I'm still waiting for anyone to explain how saving anywhere will inherently ruin the game, the game design, and everyone's enjoyment of the game. Last time we asked, the response was something like "oh, you can't explain how, but it does". Sorry, but that's not good enough. I'm sorry if I come across as arrogant, that is certainly not my intent. I do feel frustrated as I fear my argument is not coming across; I am after all, using arguments, despite being told that I'm not. Must be bad communication on my part. The argument that saving anywhere will ruin the game is a simple one: You kill the challenge of the game if you can retry every encounter, whether combat or dialogue, because you are certain to always overcome every obstacle, without having to change your behaviour. You don't have to get better at tactics, you don't have to moderate your words to get the best result. You just have to brute force all the possibilities and then pick the one that yields the desired results the best way. Rewards will lose all meaning, since you will always have the best of the best, challenges will lose all meaning, because you will always overcome them so exceptionally well. everything will go your way. always. all.the.time. I suppose that in the information age which is upon us this is the case anyway, where everyone can look up solutions online. In the end I can't prevent anyone from playing how they choose, and I wouldn't seek to. I would however like to find a way to encourage players to enjoy the challenge, rather than seek to breeze through. perhaps coupling mechanics like summoning sickness to difficulty settings is an idea? Only if you sit down and actually take the time to DO THING 1. It doesn't work. Reload. DO THING 2. It doesn't work. Reload. DO THING 3. It doesn't work. Reload. DO THING 5. It doesn't work. Reload.DO THING 6. It doesn't work. Reload. DO THING 7. It doesn't work. Reload. Realize you forgot to do thing 4. DO THING 4. Oh, hey, finally, it worked! Phew. Everything's going my way! Right? Right? It's not like I just failed consecutively or anything, right? It's not like I just wasted an hour obsessing over perfection, right? I'll get better at tactics when playing the game. You know why? Because when I mess something up, I'll soldier on, while learning from the experience. And I do that, even in a game, where I can just click 'reload' and try again. And their are plenty of people with the more-or-less exact same mentality. I honestly have never even heard of people playing like this until this thread, and I've been a part of the cRPG community for ten years. Honestly, it feels like you're basing your argument on what amounts to little more than a straw man "player" that can't control their own actions and has no independence of thought. Edit: Honestly, my point is, I think the whole process of having to reload ad infinitum or backing up your saves in another folder is enough of a hassle to dissuade most people from "cheating themselves out of the experience", or what have you.

I don't think you will get a constructive discussion as long as your argument boils down to "anyone who disagrees with me obviously doesn't know what's good for them." (And, seriously, can we drop the 'saving your game is cheating' argument? It's not doing anyone any favours.) I'm still waiting for anyone to explain how saving anywhere will inherently ruin the game, the game design, and everyone's enjoyment of the game. Last time we asked, the response was something like "oh, you can't explain how, but it does". Sorry, but that's not good enough. I agree, and furthermore, I am still waiting, too. I remember my own round of questioning being entirely ignore.

Honestly, I rather like the idea of just leaving potions as they traditionally are. Make it so enemies can use them, too. I don't like micro-managing things. And that's what all of these systems sound like. I don't want to be having to play this game with a notebook so I can keep track of what ingredients poorly interact with others, or just how much cold turkey my one character will need to break his potion addiction. Which, I know, nobody has said that you'd need to do that. But, it feels like I would have to do, based on the systems. And while that does add realism, it also makes the game more work.

I think working on supporting it would take away from other things too much. I also haven't a clue how you could make good use of the other monitor. And if you do something like having the inventory constantly open, isn't that just going to end up burning the screen, since it's a more or less static image?

On the "my little ponies" to "Warhammer 40K" scale, I want this game to be, about a 6, with some of the more traumatic story events going up to 7 or 8, and the comedic relief moments to be a 4-5.

Personally, I'm hoping the next update will address saving in the game so we can finally move on from this topic. It's been going around in circles for quite a number of days now. Nobody is making any progress.

I hate to come across as elitist or anything, but I do hope it stays PC only. Porting only ever really seems to cause problems, one way or the other.

The fun part of a challenge, to me, is being able to say "Hey, look what I did!" To myself, and maybe, when I am feeling talkative, to others.

How do you wear a photoshopped hat? Does Tim live between the real and the digital world? Actually, as I'm sure you all know, the man is a wizard.

My perspective is that their are some people who are upset because they'll be playing the game in the "wrong" way, as if that's really possible. And they're really concerned about us, and want to save us from the bad-wrong-fun! It's kind of like the street preachers, trying to save our souls, but without the religious stuff.

And how do you justify that from an in-game perspective?

Ship battles would be pretty cool. I'd pay for an RPG ship battling game. But, I really don't think it has any place in P:E.

I don't see how this could possibly be even close to a good idea. Besides that, are you telling me that I'd have to create my character, and then WAIT around for hours/days/weeks while people decide what the end result is? As a social/creative exercise, this could be fun. But not in the actual game.

My main personal point is that I want multiple save slots. I certainly don't think anyone, on either 'side', has suggested that you can't save at all or something. But multiple save slots/files ... where I can choose to save in this slot, play for an hour, then choose to put the next save in a new slot, creating a new file. There are numerous reasons why I like/prefer multiple save files, and most of them have little to do with wanting to "cheat" the game/combat all the time, every 5 minutes or whatever. Anyway, that is what I want, and that is what I've had the impression that the 'anti-save-scumming' folk do not want. Thus, we will never see eye to eye. If I'm wrong on this, please correct me. That's ultimately what I want as well; and the freedom to use those save slots whenever I want, not at certain times and places. And likewise, I have been given the exact same feeling from the "anti-save-scumming" people. Hell, I've even asked for clarification and failed to receive any. Which leads me to believe that that really is what they want, and that I'm not mistaken. So, your idea of fun is to have the game hurt you whenever you deviate from the script? I play to enjoy myself, not to get slapped around by a computer program. If the purpose of any design element is "hurt the player", that is a bad design element. The focus should always be on what the player CAN do not what they're "not allowed" to do. I'm a masochist, and even I agree with you, PsychoBlonde. Hurting the player is a bad design element.

Oh, don't mind me, I love collecting things, too.

I heard that Depths of Peril kinda does that, but I can't recommend it to you, since I haven't enough courage to try it. It's a pretty fun game over all. Plus, it's only like ten bucks.

Borderlands randomness would be awesome, but I don't think it's practical to apply to this game.

Can I print and frame this post? Not before I do!

I quote all of these, because between them all, it's all that I want to see. As for those who do not want a stronghold: Unlike NWN2, it could be entirely optional in the game. You don't want it, go do something else. And from the way donations are still going strong, I'm sure their will be a rather long list of something else's to do.

I only remember him from BG2 and IWD. There was an "Enoll Eva" (Avellone) reference in PS:T... those are the ones I remember. Hmmm, interesting. I need to replay PST, then, because I don't think I ever found that. I think it was a text somewhere, not actually a person. Just a reference to the name spelled backwards. Google is my friend. It's part of your interactions with Nordom. From sorcerers place: "If your intelligence is greater than 16 and you are a mage, then you can order him to increase his introspection routines for 36.000 XP, and +2 INT for Nordom, several pieces of Junk, and the Twisted Gear of Enoll Eva which teaches the spell Enoll Eva's Duplication." Edit: So not actually a person you encounter, just part of the "lore" That's cool. Thanks for that.

I only remember him from BG2 and IWD. There was an "Enoll Eva" (Avellone) reference in PS:T... those are the ones I remember. Hmmm, interesting. I need to replay PST, then, because I don't think I ever found that.

Point buy all the way for me. I can't be the only one who has intentionally made an un-optimized character in NWN2 (or other games) for the challenge, either. But... Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, please, please, please do this. I would love this; so much so, some people might accuse me of having a problem.

Didn't Feargus appear in Fallout 2? And didn't Avellone appear in Fallout: tactics? Personally, I really wouldn't mind if some one on the staff ended up in the game, somehow.