Dianjabla

Voted no, but it wasn't easy. My first reaction was "More stretch goals? Oh hells no. Spend your money on polish & QA." It does kind of worry me that $4.1M isn't that much to spend on a game like this. Hell they're not even having animated sequences. Not that I can remember more than 4 of them from BG2/ToB anyhow. Maybe 2D rendered ones like the between acts of DA2 (not in the same art style obviously) would be cheaper than 3D rendered? I dunno. I'm rambling. I blame the pain killers. Anyhow, I started reading the thread and particularly Obsidians responses on other sites. Thanks Sensuki, I'm with you, I'd like to know more first. I'll admit I'd love to have MOAR CONTENT. Who doesn't want more content if it's only an option if it doesn't detract from what's there? But then I read that BG had 26 companions and BG2 had 17. I couldn't remember that many so I looked it up and I realised I'd only ever used half a dozen of them between the two games... And while I can see that having a companion for each class makes a certain kind of sense, what if you don't like or worse can't stand the character they made for that class you need? So I'd go more wilderness over companions. I guess the real crux of the matter is, I've already spent more than 3 times what I ordinarily could on a game because I wanted this genre to come back. But... I really don't have more to spend. So I can't really vote yes to more stretch goals when I'll not be contributing to them.

I am so glad I backed this. This stronghold sounds like it's a good balance of fun and a pain in the backside.

And yet, none of those infinity engine games had item durability or crafting beyond scripted events... Just saying. I'll not mourn the loss of item durability or that I probably would've ended up putting limited skill points into crafting on EVERY character just to avoid the gold sink and your-item-needs-repairing time sink it seems it would have become. Instead of something more interesting or at least more suited to their character or even just something else. I think I get what you're saying in that the mechanic could have changed the way we make our characters and our teams. I just don't necessarily see it as a good change. I am willing to admit that it might have been an interesting mechanic, and the way I envision what was described is not what Josh & Tim et al had originally intended. But they asked for feedback, so honest feedback was given, and this is the decision they've reached (at least partly) as a result and now we'll never know. What I am happy with is that the team at Obsidian had an idea (that from the sounds of it they weren't 100% sure of) and they asked us what we thought, and they took our response on board in their discussions, and that the whole process can happen BEFORE it's too late to change. These guys have made a lot of really good games. I'm pretty certain they know what they're doing and any fan feedback on how to make the game is tempered by the fact they actually make them for a living, have done for a while now, and have to consider in far more detail "what actually makes a game fun for as many people as possible" than many people who just play them would.

Crafting sounds good, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect I'll just be ticked off by item degradation. That's one thing I hated about Diablo, Oblivion, Fallout 3, etc - constantly needing to repair equipment I didn't think I'd even used that much. Oh look, after that expedition I'm actually poorer than when I started it... Yay? At least they won't break completly. There will no doubt be one NPC whose sole purpose becomes all kinds of crafting - that's what happened to Sand in NWN2. Maybe there's an enchantment that dramatically increases item durability, or better still, maybe there's an item degredation toggle in the game play options? Like FONV had with the thirst mechanic. There if you want the challenge, not a requirement if that's not what you call fun. It's not like I play games for any bearing on reality. Then again, I may find myself pleasantly surprised and it actually ends up being fun. We shall see what we shall see.

I personally had a lot of fun doing solo runs through the BGT as a F/M/T. Got a little insane in ToB, took a lot of prep to survive in places. Yet to try it in IWD. I also enjoyed making a party of tripple class characters (FMT & FCM) and running through the saga that way. I would dearly love to have multiclassing in PE like there was in BG & IWD. But game mechanics might not support it. Pitty.

I like the return of the aesthetic of the old UIs, it really helps set a tone. Compare DA:O with DA2 for a jarring change in that respect. I know they needed to make it better for people playing on TVs or whatever, but DA2s UI kinda felt like it belonged more in a scifi game than a fantasy one. That said, the mock up probably could do with some tweaks. Definitely does need more room for effect icons for characters. In ToB I had more effects than spaces for the icons in some battles. Zed's idea on fixing that seems ok. I have pleanty of horizontal room to spare and if I want to look at the pretty back ground, I hide the UI. The ever popular customisation request might solve some of that, but a customisable interface is quite likely to lose the aesthetic feel pretty quickly. A right click radial menu like in ToEE done right could do the same trick in allowing you full access to a spell book etc. It's also getting further away from the feel of the original which is one of the stated goals I personally hold dear. How far form trumps function I leave to the guys making it to decide. I also like the suggestion of being able to break the game balance and have all the NPCs in the party at once - it was fun to lead a small army in NWN2. Although only for a short while. Path finding became an issue (Fight ALL the dungeon) and battles got boring after a while. Have it totally invalidate any iron man mode or whatnot, that's fair - just don't hard code the party size. Anyhow, to that end and so that summonables or temporary NPCs can be accounted for, at least a scrolling list of characters or if customisable, being able to drag that element some where it will fit?

How about "Dear god no. Kill it with fire." As an option? I'd vote for that. Also trollolololol.

Why all of them at once and none? Maybe, if you're doing away with a pen & paper based system and are going to a real time system, you can do away with the relative simplicity of the 2nd Ed Rule set where armour values move up & down by units of one, end of story. Maybe, if you want a little realism, heavier armour makes you move slower, but absorbs and/or deflects more punishment depending on the type. Maybe armour doesn't need a simple progression of one variable determining just how good it is. Maybe if you had to account for things like deflection value (ie will they hit at all - AC in D&D parlance), damage absorbtion/reduction, maximum dexterity bonus (which would affect more than just combat and might involve bulk as much as weight), speed reduction (strength & dexterity would play on this as well) and well, minimum strength to wear. Maybe you don't need to have certain bands or tiers of armour that are all the same. Maybe one set of leather armour has slightly different stats than the next style. You're not limited to a range of 10 to -10. As an example of unenchanted armour, chainmail, although it possibly has better deflection & damage absorbtion than a leather jerkin, would also reduce your speed, take a higher strength to wear and reduce your agility on the field. But if you're not all that agile to start with and you don't plan on doing antything more fancy than hitting things, it's not so bad. That said, a suit of properly fitted plate is better in almost every respect than the chainmail, bar the price, and thus the availability. So how about different materials and or enchantments? Leather made of certain monsters may be better than chainmail or even plate. Chain made from a certain alloy might make it lighter, enchantments or some such may make a suit of chain better in many ways than plate. Please, by all means, don't leave it as just chain +1. Give it a variety of effects to varying degrees. Smaller deflection or damage absorbtion bonuses combined with weight reduction and decrease in required strength and increase in max dex bonus could make it a more viable build. Scale mail from a certain critter might change all these, but give a bonus to some kind(s) of resistance as well, making it far better than just those values. And don't forget shields. Then again, maybe all that would make it too complicated, and it runs the risk of becomming the constant gear swapping to find the best mix & match of a diabloesque title. TL;DR - Maybe you can abandon the familiarity of the notion of 2nd Ed armour progression in the same way as having the game designed from scratch to be RTwP abandons well, D&D. Maybe a larger range of armour with each type having a range of pros & cons is something we can cope with. Maybe never looking back on normal AC8 leather armour after you got something better is ok after all.

You know, if the NPC says let me mark it on your map, let it appear on the map. If you're given explicit directions, mark it on the map. In an isometric game that's not a sand box like oblivion etc, there really shouldn't need to be the compass with points of interest marked out.

Like the Journal in BG2. Divided into chapters, you can view the entries as Quests, Done Quests and generic Journal entries, and then each of those can be sorted by name or date. The entries are written in a manner that lets you see who gave it to you, what they wanted and where to go if known so there's no wandering blind. Also, there's a portion for you to make your own entries and edit them. I would really love to have that back. DA2 & ME3 are good examples of how NOT to do a journal. A section that lets you read all past dialogues would be good, but possibly difficult and or tedious to find what you wanted. I'm sure Obsidian would think of some kind of search or sort function to fix that if they thought it was worth putting in.

Yeah, no thanks. Hunger & thirst mechanic can be left as an option for expert mode, and not even compulsory then. Actually, leave it off altogether and concentrate on making fun stuff instead.

If you hadn't been Gorion's ward, so very very much of the story would have to change - up to & including lots of Throne of Bhaal - that it would practically involve creating a different game. If you mean different origins that all lead you to witness the same event that is the premise of the game, then that would be interesting. I enjoyed that a lot in DAO. Given the number of race/class/culture combos we've got, it could be more effort than it's worth for your origin to be that involved. TOEE had different opening vignettes based on your party's alignment, but given that it's just you to start with and no alignment system, that could be out too. As for quest inter-dependency... A few linked like that might be ok, but I'm pretty sure that at least one of the developers is against timed quests. Unforeseen consequences of methods used to complete quests on the other hand...

If I wanted that, I'd play an MMO.

Until I RTFM I couldn't say, but likely anything that lets me be whirling twirling blades of death or a whirlwind of fists, feet, elbows knees etc Depending on how multiclassing's implemented (if at all), a probably a F/M/T. Dual scimitars? Why yes, but only because Drizzt had the best weapons available early on...

I'd have multi-classing in the same way as BG1&2, & IWD. Provided it fits with their class system. Multi-classing ala 3rd was kind of horrible.