evdk

Sounds like Fallout. Worst game ever, would not bang buy. And if the mustache is a Deadshote style porn 'stache I will pledge 20 bucks more, guaranteed. It's pretty debatable. I don't give a damn about character customization, especially not in an isometric game. I have better things to do than to play with nose shape sliders. Cutscenes are useless time sinks, give me text narration boxes. More than enough.

I want to play someone who's able to enslave entire nations with necromancy.

I'd like to see something at least remotely original / not often used, like the crazy fauna and flora in Morrowind. Other than that I am always partial to snow and ice.

Not one mention of Khorinis? For shame. And for people mentioning Oblivion: Just no. Imperial City was a disgrace design wise, content wise and lore wise.

They probably have interns for that.

Possibly depending on the influence stat that you might have with that character (if that is present in the game).

While the idea itself does indeed sound very tantalizing, it sounds like something that would be hard to use outside of very situational situations. Perhaps if the game supported something equivalent to a Knowledge Arcana check, or perhaps a Knowledge Religion check from D&D it could be something used in an out of combat scenario as that check rather than a separate spell? Play Arcanum. Be amazed.

Levitation. Can be done in a context sensitive manner a la QfG.

Don't your first two sentences basically contradict one another? Lets say a developer like Obsidian wanted to write a story and include something that a significant subgroup of RPG players dislike in their glorious new RPG. Would you spew your hate and vitriol on their moronic idea or would you accept that its a stupid notion that everyone should be able to enjoy games in any way they want? Cause it seems to me your opinion is suggesting "I should be allowed to spew hate and vitriol on any idea I consider moronic and that would make it so I couldn't enjoy games in the way I want". Or am I missing something? Obsidian said they are going to make an old school game in the vein of BG and Fallout. People are coming in now and requesting features that would look well in DA. Damn right I am going to spew hate and vitriol on that. There are games that cater to their need - they are all the AAA titles being produced by EA and its ilk. PE should be a niche title with a niche gameplay which might not suit everyone and that's alright. What's not alright is behaving like some kind of virus trying to mold even this last vestige of traditional cRPGs into its modern frankenstein-like incarnation. It's been said on this board before but it bears repeating - the "I like games just not playing them" crowd should just go away. They can keep their money here and the knowledge that once in their lives they supported something that was not part of the decline should keep them warm at night, when the realisation that all the AAA titles are **** sets finally in.

Yet it is, frequently, and people generally understand what it means. The idea is that somebody is more interested in being their character (i.e. dress up, house, fake rules, etc) than playing the game. Except that it has no bearing on reality and untrue. It would be like refering to all people of a certain ethnicity as thieves because "people understand what it means"... LARPing - serious business. Look, I'm sorry I started this - I just explained how the term was used on this occasion even mentioning that it has nothing to do with the real definition.

Moronic ideas deserve all the hate and vitriol they can get lest they somehow take hold. And frankly we should stop with this stupid notion that everyone should be enjoy games in any way they want - this way of thinking has brought us the current generation of "cRPGs" and should die in a fire alongside its proponents. I enjoy RTS games but suck terribly at them. It would never occur to me to demand they change just so I could see the story - I just cheated my way through Broodwars.

What do I care what it means originally? I merely explained the usage of the term in this case - you started dragging real life definition into it.

Except LARP'ing means Live Action Role-Play and someone sitting behind a computer screen playing a game is not LARP'ing. Otherwise you could argue that 5 guys sitting around a table with character sheets and dice are LARP'ing, since that requires a hell of a lot more imagination than playing Fallout or Baldur's Gate. You don't say. Reading comprehension is not your strongest skill, is it?

Drugs, man. It's like drugs.

LARPing is a shorthand in this case for playing pretend in a game, claiming it to be meaningful while the game mechanics do not react to anything you pretend to do in any way - the Oblivion school of "role-playing". It does not have any relation to real life LARP, except maybe to the popular caricature of it.

That's not what knowing English perfectly fine means.

It's good to know that there are no stupid posters on the Obsidian forums - it's all nasty trolls from the 'Dex! Maybe this place should redirect to BSN so we could all stop pretending - the posts are on that quality level already in some cases.

Unless everyone designs a special snowflake.

Define meaningful stuff - completing quests, slaying epic monsters, completing challenges?

Oh, but the Sim-loving audience wants to feel hardcore. This way they can say they played one of the old school hard core RPGs and nobody will mention that they have gutted most of the things that made the game good with their stupid demands. Decline always finds ways to seep back in.

And yet this still is the last thing you should be worrying about.

So it's like playing AoD!

We've been over that, you can't LARP Commander Flash Shepard, Saviour of the Universe while reading a book.

It's 2012. The term RPG has suffered so much definition drift that it might as well mean the Sims.

You have a preset character, so you cannot project your own self into the game as easily as in ME.