Elerond

In my opinion it would do only good for game use existing archtypes for races, because inventing arctypes which we have never seen before is hard and time consumptive and rarely till produce anything really new and especially anything forth all that work. Much faster and easier route is take existing archtypes and give them some twist what makes your world to look different from other fantasy/sci-fi/etc. worlds. But on the other hand I don't want see another Forgotten Realms which have absolute everything what you can or can't think about and then more, variety is good but some time it can go over the top. One thing what I wouldn't want see is that races are divined to good, bad and neutral. I think every race should have different agendas and philosophy, which gives them to different perspectives and ideologies about good and evil. And every race of course should have good and bad apples (those who live full on for race's ideology is good apple and those who broke this ideologies are bad apples) . Addition for that every race should have several different nationalities, which can have different ideologies, for example human nation 1, elven nation 2 and orc nation 5 could have nearly similar philosophy about life whereas dwarf nation 1,, elven nation 1, succubus and incubus (or demon) nation and human nations 3, 87, 177 have similar belifs, philosophies and agendas. And some factions in game could consist from these groups with same ideologies (of course same ideology don't always mean peaceful coexistence, as nations who see them better than others probably have very volatile relations with other nations with similar beliefs). And it would nice to see also nations like Australia or USA where old European nations dumb their lesser criminals and other folk which nation leaders didn't like and where all fortune hunters go find their luck or market towns like Venice, L

I support voice overs if it's in same level what it was in baldur's gates and PS: torment. An example from character which I liked most in BG1. (Video includes all his voice over lines from the game) House/stonghold/castle/etc. where you can store your goods and companions is good to have, but not necessity. Romances are think that add depth and play throughts to game if they are well writen, but if they are same carpage what most of the modern urban fantasy books are full of then they can only give bad rep for the game. So my opinion is add them if you feel that you can do decent job with them, but don't force yourself to write them, because that probably don't end well. If you think that you can do great job with them, you should be resticted to write any and reason for this is above-mentioned modern urban fantasy books. What comes to Bioware(EA) cooperation, that is stricky question, because Bioware is full of talented persion, it is big studio with great recourses, but is also part of EA and so cooperation with them also means cooperation with EA and that means that Obsidian must struck some kind deal with EA which profits EA as big corporations don't usually do things that don't profit them some how. And one must also take count that Bioware has now bad rep with many old school rpg fans, which may or mayn't be deserved.