KenThomas

Topics like this aren't going to be the last we'll see of the entitled whining. When you pledge to support this project you do so with the full understanding that you won't have access to the finished game for almost 2 years. They obviously believe they're going to get better quality feedback from the people who have invested more into the game. The people who have pledged 20 dollars aren't going to put a lot of effort into making sure that things work. They'll basically go "this sux fix it" (intentional improper spelling and punctuation) and the forums will be filled with negative diarrhea. Also, they want to reward the people who have given more to the project by allowing them to be part of the design process. Also, the number of backers at those tiers likely fits the size of beta testing pool they want to have. Those are just off the top of my head and they seem completely obvious.

It all comes down to how the idea is executed. The same people saying "no" could be like "this is amazing" once they see the implementation. This topic is about blanket judging something without knowing anything about it beyond the merest of surface characteristics. Essentially, prejudice. When you have a discussion like this it's based on all the associated baggage of your assumptions and what you know about how firearms work in OUR world. This game doesn't take place in our world, so essentially this topic is about nothing whatsoever.

I actually think that Boone was a totally capable NPC. If you mean you want them to make decisions for you, for the record, Riker always deferred to Picard's decisions. Having one person make decisions is necessary for things to function. I also thought Lanius made a great right hand man for Caesar but having him in charge would've been disasterous.

That sounds fantastic. Seriously. I haven't played BG2 since it came out but I remember it having a fantastic storyline. Time to reinstall.

I'd really like to see more involved romances in story driven games. Being promiscuous in a game is uncomfortable. I'd like if my character got deeply involved with one character even up to the point of marrying them. Perhaps a child or children could show up as an NPC in a sequel, and their morality could be roughly based on yours in the original game, ie good/neutral/evil. Perhaps as you get more attached to your love interest or get married, then dialogue choices start popping up along the lines of wanting them to stay out of combat. You start compromising your choices between them and other NPC's because they're more important to you and the other NPC's start to get jaded and lose some faith in your leadership. On the flip side of that if you don't start giving special considerations to your love interest, perhaps they feel unappreciated and leave you or they stay with you but because you're putting them in harms way they may die in combat. I tried to suggest this part elsewhere but my presentation was terrible. I think that with how much older the average gamer is today that a mature game can finally start to touch on some of these issues which would be realistic considerations and consequences. I also think that doing it right could be tremendously rewarding. Edit: that said, I'm with most in that if the dev's don't have good ideas for how to pursue romance in that particular game context, I would also rather not see it at all rather than just some cheap fantasy shag.

You do realize I'm not talking about turning the game into The Sims right? They'd be npc's like any other and I don't even think a child would factor into the first game at all other than possibly having your love interest pregnant at later stages of the game. In a possible sequel the child would then be an NPC. It's simply storyline and narrative, not micromanagement and diapers. Geez I really didn't think it was that bad of an idea for a game, having to make a choice about whether or not to protect your love interest or the possibility that you've produced a child. I think it would make for interesting dialogue options. I understand though that you guys read this and probably think "eww introduce mundane family life? No way". That wasn't what I was proposing at all. I think my communication of the idea was a lot worse than the idea itself. I also suspect a few people didn't bother to read the post, they just looked at the title and then responded with their knee jerk reaction. ie mr "adopt a pet" who, if he'd read the post, would've seen I've got 3 kids irl so this isn't about filling some kind of void in my personal life.

Unfortunately the site went down when I was doing my original post and I didn't copy before hitting post, then I had to leave for work. I'll do my best to re-create what I had earlier today. Many of us as gamers are older now. Last I heard the average age is around 30. When I played Planescape Torment for example I'd already been gaming for years. I'm now a married father with 3 children. I think there is a place for it in todays games. I had a few thoughts on this. I think it would be great if you were able to produce a child with your romance option. There has always been a part of me that has said "these player characters are exceptional. Humanity would be better off if they were to reproduce". Almost all games with romance options treat the situation as though you were in college. You get attracted to someone because of surface characteristics, you have sex with them and you never get any closer so that it doesn't get difficult to see them in combat or you can handle having them die or leave the party. I personally have a real appetite these days for some kind of monogamous romance option. I'd love to see deeper interactions and consequences. There's also a part of me that's made vaguely uncomfortable by the whole bachelor lifestyle that's part of these games. I get the argument about people wanting to play out their fantasies, but I don't find being promiscuous appealing and I know I'm not alone in that. An idea I had is that in the games sequel, if you had a child in the first game, they are now not only older, but also refect the morality of your character. If your character in the first game was good/neutral/evil then the child is going to reflect a lot of your values when you encounter them in the game and the choices they make in their lives. That said every child is born with their own personality and it'd also be good to see them do things you don't expect or agree with, then perhaps later on do something that is exactly what you'd do when you least expect them to because of your influence. I'm sure other aspects would add to the game as well. Perhaps you get into an argument with your spouse when you try to remove them from the party at the player's house about wanting them to stay home and stay safe when maybe they want to be with you and fight at your side. Maybe if you don't handle it well they feel abandoned and eventually leave you. Maybe they're happier if you let them come with you but they might actually die as part of the storyline if you make the wrong choices. Maybe they're pregnant at the time. These thoughts are horrifying and they're powerful. It's also realistic and human. These are some concepts that I think can be explored with a mature game. I also don't think they have to be a developers nightmare. Three possible outcomes instead of infinite ones for the major choices. The child or spouse playing a role in future gameplay without making the game about them. Perhaps they show up or don't show up at a key moment(s) in the storyline. Perhaps they have dialogue written for when you visit them but otherwise isn't a factor. I don't know the details, but I do think there is a place for the theme. I'm tired of game companies taking the safe path and never exploring any of these avenues. These thoughts have obviously been from a male perspective. I'm sure that some of our female gamers will have ideas of their own about the concept.

A few thoughts so far: I have never understood the appeal of Dragons. Are they a throwback to peoples childhoods and being amazed by Dinosaurs? They seem similar. I found the demon in a box in Torment to be much more interesting. You let the demon out of the box, he looks like a huge fat disgusting human symbolizing all kinds of vice. He starts off moving slowly because he's lazy. You throw Litany of Curses at him and get him pissed off and suddenly he's charging after your party members as the fastest enemy you've fought yet. Pure awesome. I would like to see more spins on humanity. I think the most compelling villains are those which are some kind of twisted version of ourselves. Like another poster said, killing wolves is boring. They're obviously filler. If there's one thing I'd like to see avoided, its mindless grinding. I've been finding lately that when I walk away from games is when I realize that I've learned all the mechanics the game has to offer and I'm just being given meaningless tasks and enemies for the sake of having me put more time into playing. I walked away from Kingdoms of Amalur for that reason. It didn't matter what future characters were going to say, i was going to walk up to a pack of hobgoblins or whatever, click that mouse a few times and hit a few keys and destory them with my rediculously overpowered combos and 10 hours later I'd go to the next zone and repeat. With regards to sexy women, I am all for sexy women, just make them.. err. I don't want to use "realistic" because that's so overused its lost all meaning. I'm going to go with earthy or non-photoshopped to get the idea across. One of the appealing things about Megan in Mad Men is that she's incredibly sexy DESPITE her teeth because not only is she pretty in her other aspects, but her attitude is fantastic! The women should look like women instead of caricatures of women. No rediculously long legs and big busts with skinny arms and hooves that make their bums stick out like they're wearing high heels. Personality is also key. I disliked Annah as a romance option in Torment because she was so ingenuine, always saying one thing yet meaning another. That's not to say I disliked the character, it was fantastic writing. I thought disliking her was a strength of the story in much the same way as Fall From Grace was also unappealing because she was too annoyingly striving for purity to the exclusion of all else. It'd be like living with someone who's always bitching at you to embrace Jesus. I did enjoy Morrigan from DA:O who a lot of people hated. She was darkly pragmatic and intelligent. She had reasons for being how she was and she was logical even though she was inflammatory beyond reason. I very much disliked the god girl, lillyanne or whatever her name was in that game. She wanted the player character yet acted so annoyingly aloof without having any justification for her attitude. I think characters with such strong personalities are good writing. In FO:NV I was interested in a whole lot of no one, not because they were written poorly, but because they were written well. The most interesting and appealing NPC as a romance option in that game would've been if Boone was female.

That really bothered me in Mass Effect 2. The logical choice would sometimes be a renegade action for the better long term good, yet chosing that and getting the renegade points for it meant you couldn't paragon convince npc's later.

I like the way you think. 3 posts by you in this thread, all very strong.

In New Vegas I did two playthroughs. The first one I supported Mr. House because his long term goals offered the best potential future for humanity. The second playthrough I supported Caesar's Legion because that particular form of governance seemed logical in that particular context. Even the part about women not fighting. If I recall correctly, wasn't some of the basis for that particular decision based around the fact that as humans our women carry the babies and therefore losing a woman is potentially losing several people ie not only her but any children she might have in future? What I thought was the most "evil" faction was actually the NCR because it looked like its long term goals put humanity in the worst position of the 3. I would not support them. My third playthrough of NV I find myself back to supporting Mr. House even though I'd started the game intending to try out supporting the NCR. Edit: I should say that I was dissapointed after I finished the game as a legion supporter and heard something along the lines of "despite being a good and moral man, the lone wanderer supported Caesar's legion". After listening to Caesar's reasoning over the course of multiple dialogues, I believed that what he was attempting to do was a good thing for humanity. That was certainly how it seemed it was from his perspective and that was how I approached it. It would've been nice if at the end it wasn't a condemnation of the choices I made as a player which I felt were wholly consistent with a "greater good" mentality. Edit #2: I do however think it's important to note that if Caesar were to die and Lanius were to take over, the end result for humanity would be horrifying. He was in my opinion the perfect embodiment of all the negatives of the Legion with none of the overarching positive philosophy exhibited by Caesar. He was the perfect enforcer and right hand man to keep things in line and keep the machine in perfect tune for Caesar to direct, but absent a benevolent dictator that machine would quickly become a meaningless monstrosity. If Lanius was in charge then I would agree with the ending which tried to tell the player that they'd made a mistake by supporting the Legion, with dire long term consequences for humanity where they were stuck living lives as little more than glorified Tribals for thousands of years.

Not a fan of this idea. It's reminiscent of the old King's Quest games where you have to sit there typing for a while being like "hmm how did Roberta Williams phrase what we both know we already want this character to do?". I prefer set dialogue with set reactions where they can focus on having a good strong story. All that this method of dialogue would bring is getting the same canned answer from 80% of the people you asked and having to hear that repetitive crap over and over again until you finally got to the npc that said something different. Not fun. Cool idea for character generation. With regards to morality however, it is my opinion and something I've noticed from Obsidian before is that they're aware that sometimes the "good" action IS to take action / be violent and eliminate someone or something that if left alive is going to cause a great deal of harm by simply existing. Something I've liked about Obsidian's writing in the past is that morality is relative. Sometimes the "bad" action is the one that brings about the outcome that's the most "good" in the end. I was playing Dark Souls quite a bit recently. One of the things that was great about that game was that a lot of the way your character moved and fought was determined by your armor and weapons. It allowed for tremendous flexibility. I would also enjoy seeing this put into the game. Most games have romance tacked on instead of truly incorporated.

fantastic example. That said, I think they're actually asking the fans what they'd like to see. Intelligent people generally aren't threatened by ideas. I do hope that they take things as "good/interesting suggestion" / "ugh, no way we're doing that" instead of feeling obligated to listen to something that's dumb even if it gets popular support.

This is essentially exactly what I was saying when I pledged on the kickstarter page. I just did it in a more polite and less detailed kind of way. You're right about Dragon Age Origins. It ruined that game for me. The story was cool but I had to stop playing it because of having to do what you describe. My request on the kickstarter page was for them to make the AI at least reasonably intelligent so that they don't have to be micromanaged. That said, I agree that if you don't need to play your characters to be successful that it does remove an element of gameplay, so I don't know if that's a good solution. As I see it, here are some limitations of RTwP: -pausing lessens immersion in the game. It looks strange to see full motion with many things happening at once to everyone being frozen. -As Delterius was saying, its very difficult to know everything that's going on. Margaretha's suggestion is a good one though that this could help be overcome by intentionally trying to give good textual and graphical cues. Nobody wants to stare at the rolls box instead of looking at the characters. It'd be good to know what they're doing by having animations for each action; ie unique animations for each spell. Also it'd be good to see what they intend to do next, perhaps in text or with a little icon so that way if they're going to do something stupid you can change their next action BEFORE they do it rather than having them miss the entire round because you cancelled it. -Having to pause for easy fights is tedious. It would be better if the player only feels the need to pause for difficult ones. -Having to micromanage AI to do things that require a minimum amount of intelligence. I want to respect NPC's for having the wherewithall to throw down an oil slick when the party is being rushed by a huge group of enemies that can only melee. I loved running with Boone in New Vegas. Boone did smart things and had cool dialogue while he did them. It really increased my attachment to the character and made me care more. As a matter of fact I think it would be great if the smarter npc's did smarter things when they weren't being specifically directed by the player and vice versa. I get that they want to do RTwP. I'm not going to try to change that, I think getting them to change their plan could end up screwing up the game they envision royally. Instead I'd like to help them get it right because I've found it to be a very frustrating combat system. In Mass Effect I kind of enjoyed how the npc's would fight just fine on their own but you had the option of telling them to do something specific if you wanted to co-ordinate with them. I hope it will end up being more like that, where hitting pause feels like optimizing your gameplay in specific situations instead of a necessity in basic ones.