Fooine

To me, realism is important when it comes to world-building. I want to encounter cultures that are the believable product of that fictional world's history rather than just quirks. I want rivers to flow from lakes and inner seas towards oceans. I want moutains ranges where tectonic plates should meet, not sticking out of nowhere. I don't want tatooine-style sand dunes deserts in the arctic. So yeah. I guess I expect some realism when it comes to anthropology, geography and the like. World-building, y'know? Although realism is such an ugly word. "Consistency" might be better suited, as others suggested. But when it comes to details such as fighting, magicking and watching the awesome deeds of people living in that world? Rule of cool, baby.

I think that any companion should have a reason to stick with the PC. I mean, this here guy is a detective; he's got a job, he's got a life, why would he leave all that to start adventuring with a guy he just met five minutes ago? Because that stranger just helped him with a case? Not a good reason, just split the reward and go back to detectiving. I think what's more likely is that there will be an "investigation" sidequest that will tie in directly with the main plot. You're investigating something or someone, and you run into him doing the same for different reasons and you can choose to assist him. The resolution of that quest ends up raising more questions than it answers, and so the detective decides to stick with you at least until his own investigation is over. BAM! An overarching companion sidequest appears, just like that. (Unrelated: this companion announcement makes me want to start a new Arcanum game as a charismatic gnome wearing a suit and top hat, striking a balance between magick and tech by using guns and mind/divination magic (because we're roleplayers here, not min-maxers). Y'know what? Scratch that. Let's have Avellone play that character.)

It one thing to point out that some people were rude and being a**holes. (They were) But apologizing for the internet? That's taking white knighting to a whole new level.

To those saying "what if I don't want to build a stronghold?". I believe Josh stated at some point that in his mind, what makes a stronghold different from a mere house is that a house is just a place to hang out and store gear, while a stronghold has a more strategic importance to the plot (a la Crossroads Keep. And yes, I understand that BG2 strongholds weren't really like that. But BG2 is old. Things change, guys). So I highly doubt that the stronghold would be an optional task to undertake only if you feel like it. Integrating the stronghold to a city could make sense and be quite awesome, actually. I wouldn't go quite as far as saying that we'd build the city, but what about establishing a faction within it that becomes central to the plot? We've been told that alignment would be implemented as a reputation system like in FNV, so it's safe to assume that several factions vying for power and control will be integral to the story. Why not become one of these? And for people who want class-based strongholds, this gives it a coherent form. Will your faction be some kind of university/center of knowledge? A League of Merchants? An order of warriors fighting for good and virtue? A guild of thieves and spies? A new church? I don't know. I think there's potential in there.

Yeah Alvin was cool. At some point the party was pretty much dead. Then Alvin came back, sat in front of the camera, chatted with the audience a bit and the next thing you know, party's back in full form. Oh and people were pretty creepy about green shirt girl. Thinking about it, people were pretty creepy about all of the girls, actually. I can believe that some joined sarcastically after the creeps first went insane, but that doesn't excuse the "stretch goal: boobs" comments. Let's try to show some decency as a community, okay? Let's... let's just leave green shirt girl alone.

This makes me think of how some persuation attempts were implemented back in Arcanum. For instance, you could try and get past the guard at Bates' estate by pretending to be an old friend of the inventor. To do so, you'd have to carefully navigate a dialogue tree without blowing your cover story. For instance, you'd get caught in your lie if you mentionned Bates' mother (he's an orphan), being an old university buddy (Bates studied among the Dwarves) or the like. However, I don't think there was a way to actually have this kind of biographical info prior to meeting with the guy (If there was, I always missed it). It'd have been great to have some biography of Gilbert Bates lying around somewhere, to teach you these details. Then, navigating the dialogue tree would be based on information gained from the world more than save-scumming/meta knowledge from a previous game.

I think it's fascinating that some people viewed Caesar's Legion as morally gray in FNV. The only reason it kinda looks like that is that their leader is charismatic and completely, utterly convinced of being in the right when explaining his point of view. At the end of the day, the Legion is still a tribe of misogynistic rapist slavers. Forgive me for going Godwin here, but calling them gray because of some positive aspects of their society (crimelessness, etc) is akin to saying that hey, like 'em or not, Mussolini did have the trains run on time and Hitler loved dogs. (Incidentally, it does speak of the quality of FNV's writing when people get fooled into sympathizing with a complete monster. I started a new game the other day and had the conversation with Caesar just earlier today. It is magnificent.)

As far as quests go, I really hate helping random strangers with matters that don't concern me the slightest. Some guy talks to me about that family sword he lost in a faraway thieves den, why should my character care? Who in their right mind would, out of nowhere, interject "I could fetch it for you, if you'd like"? There's a limit to being kind. The best quests, I think, are those in which the player just stumbles into a situation by accident. A really good example of that was the Renar siamese twins from Arcanum. Starts innocently enough as a guy asks me to deliver a message. Being polite, I say I'll do it if I see the guy, with no intention of actually looking for him (Another great thing about Arcanum: the journal listing "mentionned" quests without me feeling as if I've made a commitment). Later I stumble upon deCesare by coincidence, figure I might as well deliver the message, and holy **** he just killed a guy in front of me and now he's holding me in a chokehold accusing me of being part of the conspiracy what the hell is this about I need to know. Then follows just about the best sidequest of any game, ever. It really wouldn't have worked as well if it was just "Hi. Can you find the skulls for me? I'll pay handsomely".

Right, because this game is going to be "Lockpicking: The Lockpickening" I'd vote against the idea, but there's no such option in your poll (EDIT: My bad. There is one, it's just phrased in an ambiguous way). My opinion on this is: I'm all for realism when it's appropriate and non-intrusive, but this really isn't. In a RPG, I'll gladly have the theory of locksmithing be abstracted from the ruleset. Then there's also the implications: if you implement something like this, then you have to apply a similar paradigm to virtually every skill or it'll look out of place. Then you're stuck with a tangled web of complexity for a skill system. Interesting idea in theory, absolutely terrible design choice in practice, methink.

They also created the guy who killed Hitler. Give them some credit for that.

I'm guessing the update is ready to be posted, but they're holding on to it to make us squirm. Every few minutes they're all "Maybe we should post it now... Naaah, a couple more minutes". And then they giggle. And yet when the update comes, we forget about the torture, actually thanking them for hurting us like that. It's an abusive relationship, and we love it.

The idea of drinking a healing potion or casting a spell to heal yourself being unrealistic by real world standards isn't the issue I think. The issue, at least for me, is excessive convenience for the player. Potions shouldn't be so common or so conveniently placed that the player-character never really faces the possibility of death. True, I was mostly responding to the guy just above my other post. But rereading him, I now realize he was also mocking the idea of ultrarealism.

What we know so far: Humans, Elves and Dwarves are in. There have been allusions to the "Godlike", which are somewhat akin to D&D's Aasimar and Tiefling. The fifth unknown race has been described as "truly odd". Personally, I think it'd be interesting to have them be outsiders to the land the game takes place in. I like the idea of a major role in the game's conflict being played by an immigrant who, if it weren't for whatever event happens in the beginning, wouldn't have much interest in being involved. Some people raised the idea of beastfolk and I think it'd be a great fit, though maybe not "truly odd" enough. Bipedal amphibious trader fishfolk from across the ocean then? Nah, that's a crappy idea. Whatever it is they're planning, I'm anxious to hear more about it.

In a world of magic, taking a few axe swings and healing just fine is perfectly realistic. As long as you get the proper help. It's a bad idea to think too much about applying real-world realism in a fantasy world.

The only way I see to realistically implement being the schmuck would be to have an option to cap levels at 1. Maaaaaybe 2. Yeah, I know I wouldn't find it very fun.