Karkarov

Maybe on a second playthrough. I see no point in using made up characters who have nothing to do with the story for a original game when I have the option of picking people who actually have a impact in the world itself and lore. It is in there purely for the twinks who have to have the "best of the best" party.

The fact that you could challenge her at all is a change of the Planescape lore. The reason I never played Torment to this day is that I was very into Planescape as a campaign world and used it as my preferred setting when I was DM'ing. They changed a metric ton of crap with the setting in general. In the real setting the Lady of Pain was never, ever, supposed to be seen other than from extreme distance if at all. She also most certainly never engaged in "combat" and in fact even seeing her from anything other than extreme distance was considered the be the equivalent of walking under a ladder, having a black cat cross your path, and breaking about 500 mirrors in roughly 30 seconds or less. As in, people who saw her up close always ended up dead. Sooner rather than later normally. Either way I don't want to go into it. I could talk all day about the things that game took liberty with from the actual setting. Sure you can. The whole "God" thing could be some trick by an egomaniac who has a tad too much power going on, for one. Or someone could deny Gods in the same sense that we have people that deny the moon landing, or that the world is round. Or you could have both. Or some third thing. Yeah and people who deny the moon landing and say the world isn't round are also idiots and or downright insane. I don't think anyone wants to have a main character who is basically a moron. Maybe if they want to put in a joke NPC it could work.

Sort of a silly point to make but sure, sometimes being good should have a cost to it. But the same holds true of being evil. Maybe doing the right thing cost you an eye because you leapt in front of an arrow aimed at an innocent bystander.... But not saving them may piss off a companion who is fairly moralistic and it is just one small step towards pushing them to leaving your party. Or maybe the person you saved actually would have rewarded you in some way, but being dead, it isn't going to happen now. Good should not always be the "hard" path, doing the right thing should not always have obvious and extreme penalties or rewards. Just like being evil should not always be easy, and should not always have obvious and extreme penalties or rewards.

I still find it funny no one seems to think there is a middle ground. I almost always play a character who "follows no diety" in these types of games yet my character never "hates" religions, bashes the gods, actively works against them (unless they have to), or has some idiotic concept that they are "not worthy" of being worshiped. You can understand and respect something, understand why someone else follows it or worships it, but simply choose not to do so yourself. It doesn't always have to be some inane man vs god nonsense. In other words, if the devs can't swing not worshiping a deity being left to player interpretation with enough open ground to take it in any direction you want.... then they shouldn't implement it in the first place. Not worshiping a deity should not auto equate to being a fanatic who hates the gods.

Here is your problem, this is how Apple handles it. Apple also says to the consumer "this is your hardware and it isn't negotiable". Their solutions simply don't work outside of their own hardware. There could be people who want to play this game on 5 year old (maybe older) pc's with who knows what kind of monitor, people who will play it on multiple monitors, people like me who use a 40+ inch HDTV as my "monitor", some people may even run their pc through a high end projector for all we know. It is not as simple as you are trying to make it sound. Forget about considerations like OS compatibility (people still use XP, yeah I know), graphics solutions, and everything else. Myself for example... until online video streaming reaches a point where we can go beyond 1080p (this isn't happening ANY time soon) there is literally no point to go to a retina monitor, higher resolution monitor, or anything else. You have to realize that as of right now even video capture devices save insanely expensive top end professional grade hardware can't even capture 1080p at 60 frames yet to begin with.

More npc's even if they just have canned dialog add a bit of believability to the world and the cities. So sure, do it. But they shouldn't go out of their way to spend time on something like this, though I expect it wouldn't be that hard of a thing to get done.

You should have preset equipment but it should be based on a number of factors. First off class, if they go with "multiple question" backstory stuff that should factor in, and lastly as others have said if there are weapon specific skills that should matter too. That said that doesn't mean you should just "have" it all. Take NWN2 for example where the game technically started with a tutorial, or Dark Souls where you started with your armor but you found your weapon and shield as you progressed through the Undead Asylum. You don't have to hand it all to us outright in other words and some gameplay or story segment could explain how we get it.

The murder mystery assassin quest in Oblivion is still one of the best quests that the ES ever had, would be great to see something similar but different in PE.

If they have been adventuring with me that long they already have a cut of the loot via the gear on their back and the levels they earned. Yes they should get to keep whatever they have in their inventory or on their person as gear. Yes systems should be in place that prevent you from "stripping" a companion, like you can't change their gear unless it is by equipping them with a new item of same or higher "level". They made it work so companions wouldn't put on lower level gear in fallout 3 and NV they can do it here. Just take it a step further. And if you don't like it there is always the "Khalid" approach. Bears have to eat too you know.

Oh course it is linear, the objective is get in the stronghold. You can't complete the objective without actually entering the stronghold and by definition that forces you to go inside. If that is too linear for you I suggest you stop playing RPG's entirely. Nor does anything you say have any bearing on my point. All routes lead to the "objective" being completed but had different rewards or penalties based on what you did. Just the EXP was the same. Want to make combat not an option? Ok, what's your point? So you can't "fight your way in" you had to do something else. You should still get the same exp regardless of what path you choose. Whatever options are left still have different benefits and penalties. So stop taking everything to the inth ultra literal degree and instead focus on the actual point. Exp is just one way of rewarding the player and all these different playstyle options already have enough separating them in method, "cost", efficiency, and result that making exp different too is just not necessary. Also for all these people going on about power gaming, all rewarding one method more than another does is.... encourage power gaming. Something they already said they don't want to do. Making one option give more exp than another option in a RPG based on objective based exp rewards is not a good idea.

No thanks, I don't need the option to steal the blacksmiths candlesticks or firewood like in ES games. All three of your options are bad. You should have just had option 4, "Like every Infinity Engine RPG did it".

Why shouldn't it? Objective, break into an enemy stronghold. You can stealth your way in, fast talk or bribe some guards, maybe even get through based on character affiliation with a specific faction or just overall fame, lastly maybe you just kill everyone who tries to stop you. No matter what you did you broke into the enemy stronghold, same objective, same exp reward. The difference comes in the path you used. Fast talking might have required a bribe, so it was simple, easy, and quick but cost you money. Stealth may have been time consuming and "tough" but you got inside without losing anything and maybe start off in a better location to proceed with your goals. Faction rank or fame had to be achieved, likely you earned a lot of money or privileges in the process which are their own rewards, and you probably had to spend more time playing up to that point on side content. Combat probably makes the whole process tough going once you get inside and may see you wounded or in a bad starting position for future goals in the stronghold, however you got yourself some loot off those dead guys didn't you? Each path already has plenty of risk/reward mixed in to result in very different situations and overall player status without exp ever entering the equation.

I am always amazed by how people consider not worshiping to equal not respecting. If you are going to include an option not to worship any specific deity then you need to leave it open enough that the player can swing it how they want. Not respecting a force that you know exists and is capable of killing you on a whim seems downright... stupid.

Reasonable realistic looking armor and weapons is fine, basing it on real world historical groups or figures isn't. This isn't medieval Germany, it is PE and they need to go with their own design concepts. It would be nice not to see a sword bigger than the person holding it in one hand though.

What kind of nonsense did you just type? The kind that implies the thread is sort of stupid. Someone made them a one sided deal, they said no, it happens.

Wow this thread is so monumentally dumb I don't know what to say. Either way regardless of who the Publisher that made the offer was it is unlikely and known Developer would have accepted the deal.

Fair enough but the point stands. In fact backgrounds are by far the most intense of the things this thread asks for. It is fairly simple to do this for a one off avatar pic or ui elements. In fact they have to do it for ui elements anyway so they will accurately scale at the multiple resolutions we will have today. Anyway it is a fine idea and more power to Obsidian to try, but they should focus on making the game good today first before worrying about how it will look on a new monitor in 10 years.

Yeah, having a hide-able UI would be really nice and truthfully shouldn't be all that hard to implement.

Well are we even sure any race gets actual racial bonuses yet? If races are getting them then yes they should give humans some type of bonus too.

How can I say this.... No. This isn't an mmo, we don't need to bring mmo conventions into it.

Uh have you ever actually played Deus Ex? It is the grandaddy of alternate approach games. Or are you one of the people who pretended none of that was in the last game because a few boss fights were forced combat? Either way there are plenty of RPG elements in Deus Ex and it follows basically the same EXP model as PE so makes for a fine comparison. Also I think you missed the entire point of the post. I am simply stating that, no, the power gaming "paradigm" has not moved away from combat. I went on to say that even in a objectives based reward scheme like PE many players will still choose to resolve things through combat and not stealth or other means of bypassing encounters. Many players actually prefer combat regardless of EXP rewards presence or lack there of. I am all for their objectives based system and coincidentally am totally opposed to anything that would give one method of "resolution" more exp than the other. Like I said, you should be rewarded for how well you play and what style you use to accomplish your goals. You should not be rewarded based on whether or not you used one preferred method of beating an encounter. All playstyles should have the same reward at least from an exp perspective.

Finally breaking free of publishers only to immediately sign with the devil afterwards? Sounds like a worst-case-scenario to me... A publisher getting involved is a clear sign that the game was a big financial success, so big it can't be ignored. That is a good sign for the genre and it's long term viability, not to mention Obsidian's fiscal future. Them coming back to kickstarter is not. Self publishing is more expensive and time consuming than what many posters seem to think it is.

If your definition of "triple A" is cutting edge graphics, huge multiplayer focus, tons of licensed music, and a boat load of voice acting then... no 4 million isn't anywhere near enough for a "triple A" experience. If your idea of "triple A" is a great game people love to play and still talk about today years after it came out like Fallout 1-2 well I think Fallout 2 only cost around 3.5 million or so.

In a well made and balanced there will always be a level cap because you will simply run out of ways to gain exp. If they ultimately plan to make a PE:2 and have you carry over characters than a PE:1 level cap would be a good idea. If they don't then I see no reason to insert a cap beyond only having so much exp out there to get.

No you tend to disagree on the idea that this game is a real combat simulator. Real combat doesn't involve fireballs, elves, dragons, swords that emit lightning, or magic armor. There are plenty of real combat simulators out there such as the Mount and Blade games. Uber realistic combat doesn't work well in a fantasy rpg, because nothing about the setting is uber realistic nor is hyper realism the point of the game or the combat. Over half of this threads suggestions are just needlessly complex and make the simple act of stabbing a dude with a sword considerably more complex than it needs to be for Project Eternity.