Umberlin

I see what you mean, though, oddly, I don't think it was the environment that made me like Oblivion less. It did have some nice new features, No I think it was actually the level scaling that really killed it for me, to the extent that even turning the difficulty high up . . . well, there just wasn't much challenge. And that's because I separate the idea of challenge from the idea of tedium. To me just giving monsters more health, making them do more damage, that sort of stuff . . . it doesn't make a game more challenging for me. It just makes it feel more tedious. Maybe that's just me though. I always felt like better AI or new AI routines, different tactics and abilities, different sorts of creatures with new tactics and group moments, enemies becoming more evasive where appropriate using hit and run tactics . . . and more . . . those sort sof things being added in and changed out at different difficulty levels is far more engaging. At least for me. I know I can't speak for everyone. I really can't agree more, it's not the only great one out there, but it had no lack of moments where I had to just stop and admire what they'd done visually. Exactly! Morrowind was a game that blew my standards away when I first played it. And that's just it -- Sometimes it feels like people are too afraid of even trying to defy standards. I agree; strangeness for the sake of strangeness is trite, sometimes reprocessing standard tropes and laying your own perspectives on them is enough, but why be timid and scare yourself into castrating your imagination? Morrowind simply wouldn't have been possible if Michael Kirkbride busied himself with normal fantasy staples. Sometimes the cow just jumps over the ****ing moon, you know? Over the moon, as in something amazing and unexpected, unusual, happens? I think I know what you mean. I definitely didn't mean different 'just to be different' I believe in 'different but fitting and contextual' if that makes sense.

You know, there's only one character I recall having enjoyed a romance option with, and that's Viconia from BG. And it's for this exact reason. She was bat****. I remember it being extremely difficult to tell when I was warming up to her, and when I was just pissing her off. And even when I pissed her off she seemed to enjoy it. I had to be careful with every line of text; sometimes my affection would be well received, but if it just wasn't in the cards, she'd fly into a godless rage. Sometimes she was actually pretty compassionate, and she shared a few tragic stories with you about her past life...But I remember a few times she'd be in the mood for some hot campfire thrust-sessions, and then threaten to murder me if I ever touched her again at the end of it all. So gloriously unstable. And the closer to her you got, the more unpredictable she would get. Never really found any other romance options, in that game or in others, to be quite as interesting. I always liked having her along regardless of the romance, she was just fun to have around. I can't disagree with the reasons, regardless of why one has her along, she was entertaining and that's what mattered. A good character. What's the saying, "Keeps you on your toes" right? Keeps life interesting.

I came here to say this. I would really like to see old people as playable characters. I agree, on the other hand if they don't actually let you play them as old, if the story never really is built for an older character and treats you like a young start up for too long? It feels off. The option, I'd love it there, but it can't just be there, the story needs to support it, or, more importantly, not contradict the choice you made.

Only if they're done well. Well done capes and cloaks I'd adore. I've played too many RPGs where I had to just plain hide them using an UI option or else just not wear them at all because they looked terrible, or, even if they looked nice, were animated terribly.

Honestly while good voice acting can make a game's story and character, bad voice acting or even off voice acting can break those things just as readily. I'm actually all for the days of just text and using my imagination to give the character dialogues voice.

While I appreciate this post and others like it can we please return to the original topic of the Types of romance and references that people would like to see rather than the old have/have not debate. Edit: If you wish to continue that discussion please post here: http://forums.obsidi...ny/page__st__60 I apologize. In terms of types of Romances? Hm. If they're going to be there I'd like to see them be.. not up front, or front loaded, if you catch my meaning. Regardless of type, it shouldn't be obvious up front what was in the cards, what you find beneath the surface of a character as you get closer and closer to them should be less predictable and I never want to see a character and go, "He/She is 'the' love interest" in terms of some obvious character pushed on you unless you utterly beat them with a stick to make them go away. But the particular types? Eh. I don't want that obvious one that just fawns all over you. That's annoying, at least it is to me. In fact I'd almost like to see a character the had a negative relationship with you, at first, slowly, and I do mean slowly, over the course of the 'possibly' become an ally, and then 'possibly' become a friend and, if achieved, 'possibly' be a love interest. If, and I stress if, your choices and actions are something they're okay with but not unless, their moral compas being a very hard wired one with no room for variation. On the other hand, I'd also sort of be interested in a romance option that was, in a way, the opposite, but not in that they're instantly drawn to you. Rather a sort of character whose moral compass allows them to overlook your actions and choices if they like you and you treat them well. Someone that's willing to stand by you, regardless of your choices, accept your choices and go with them, if, and I stress if, you earn their loyalty.

I'm more interesting in seeing the creation of a convincing rival or a convincing friendship, a real friendship, than a romance. I'm not against romances, mind you, I'd just really like to see concentration on other forms of bonding (or not bonding in the creation of a rival, but, in a way, that is a bond too . . . albeit a competitive one). Rivals I hardly ever see done well, they either come off as incompetent or are artificially pumped up. I need something that feels more tangible in a rival.

I always loved her. She had an almost mother daughter relationship with the Exile by the end, and her ending speach, I don't care what people say, after the final battle was a perfect end to the game. It felt sad and yet complete. - I'm not sure you want a full party of Kreia though. You need people for a character like that to play off of, because it's the contrast and the bouncing of dialogue between these conflicting personalities that makes a character like Kreia complete. Anyways, I wouldn't want them to do Kreia again. I do get what you mean though, someone that compelling? That's something I'm sure we'd all like to see.

I'd much prefer you have a variety of options that are neither evil nor good at first glance, and instead get their meaning by the way the people in the world react to them. Not through a point system that says, "You are evil because have this many points!"

I can agree with that.

The Japanese swords like the Katana, and such, aren't really what I meant because you do see those far too often as well. Think about things you don't see, are Japanese weapons something you actually rarely saw? I definitely meant ancient cultures like the ancient Sumerian and further back, or the the ancient South Americans. The Ancient middle east is a good one though, and I'm glad you brought that up. They had some outright lovely looking stuff. True enough. Well in actual history you had times that it was, and thousands of years of time in which the more traditional armors you see in Fantasy RPGs simply did not exist (obviously some never existed period if we're talking about the truly out there armor/weapon concepts ). And yet people still fought. In different armors, with different weapons, of course, but fight none the less they did. Which is more what I'm getting at than, "I want all the men to be muscled, gleaming with sweat and in their underwear! NOW!" . . . heh.

Think of the green mile. Remember the big simple guy, who often said wise things despite not being very smart? Low int, high wisdom. Not sure about his charisma but I he could pull at your heart strings, but given he likely didn't intend to, that he just did, it probably wouldn't be a result of any charismatic score or social skill construct.

I'm really not on board with this idea that some publishers/developers have in their heads right now that everything needs multiplayer to be considered good, it annoys me even more that some reviewers have actually bought into that nonsense.

Better question, why have the tradition weapons like sword/dagger/etc and the traditional armors like chain/plate in the usual style at all, and not use weaponry and armor inspired by other sources that we hardly ever get to play with? Sure have weapons and armor, but why the usual ones at this point? We have tons of ancient cultures with all sorts of weapons and armor that may not seem practical against plate or chain armor, but . . . what if there were no plate or chain armor yet in a setting's history? What if armor was much different than we're used to in fantasy RPGs, and weapons for that matter. Functional is one thing but . . . what is functional? It's easy to say, "That armor wouldn't actually protect" when looking at some types of armor, but, they were worn and their people's saw success in combat. You go back far enough and some people went to battle in just plain nothing, and the later more conservative cultures went in to battle in a loincloth to prevent what I like to call the Mr. Floppy effect. I'm just curious if the big guy covered head to toe in plate is really necessary in a fantasy RPG when one of the most famous male fantasy characters, Conan, in some of his most iconic imagery, isn't wearing any such thing. I just got done reading the Black Stranger and it really made me think for a few seconds about just what an RPG character would wear into combat if the setting didn't have the usual Long Sword, Plate, Bow, Chain sort of gear.

I'd like them to stay away from the traditional Elemental, Demon summoning and Necromantic sort of stuff we've seen a lot of and make their main schools the ones we see less of. I'd like to see more of the unusual or strange forms of magic that we hardly ever get to play with, or in some cases never get to play with. For that matter even when we have gotten to play with something like Transmutation it's always seemed limited and lacking when it has so much potential for fun.

I'm glad you liked it. Oh there is no doubt in my mind that you're right about that. I'm not sure they're ideas that are actually viable, in regard to the magic implementation on a visual level, it's more about coming up with new ideas than the ideas themselves being what I'd like to see. In terms of story telling? I think I'd just end up producing another monsterous block of words. Sometimes though I think about story telling in games and wonder about emotions and the way in which things are said. You know how the same words said in reality can have drastically different results? I always wondered about how that could effect a game's story. In terms of an actual story I always found mysteries more compelling than competitions, which, most 'go kill the dark lord and save the land' stories end up being. I find the competition with yourself (or your character's competition with themselves, their challenge of themselves to overcome their trials and tribulations) to be more interesting unless a given villain is just 'really' something special. And the evil dark lord is never special, now, a guy (or a girl) that's just opposed to you, whose ideals and motivations are arguably better than your own? Now that's interesting. In the end what if the villain isn't a villain, what if he or she is actually right and you've been wrong all along? Oddly enough the first game that made me think this, even though it didn't go through with it, was Final Fantasy IV (which I played as II as a child). It started you out as the Dark Knight, you killed people, you did bad things and you were responsible for an entire village save one girl being wiped out (until the DS release changed it, and you went back to the town to find people still living . . . bleh). While it didn't go through with the theme I'm talking about, and it was entirely too black and white, it did start me thinking, "What if you were wrong the entire time, and didn't know it? What if it were well foreshadowed but never obvious that you were wrong?" Self discovery is a sort is an important factor in some stories, but at the same time . . . so is challenge, and not 'that boss was hard' challenge, but something that challenges the morals you've been set to believe in the context of the story. It's especially interesting if you really did have a choice all along, and thought the choices you were making were right, up to that point. Anyways, yeah, rambling again.

I just am not sure yet more medieval, germanic and roman inspired weapons armor are the way to go when we see that so often. I'd like to see something inspired by other cultures for once, more obscure cultures, without so much reliance on the usual sword wielding but in plate armor image that almost every single RPG goes with with only the very rare exception. No, I don't mean, "make it anime styled" when I say that. There are plenty of very real ancient cultures with design aesthetics to pull from that are both realistic and visually interesting.

I always wanted body builds for females as varied as the female Olympians. From the smaller petite and often flat Gymnasts to the extremely muscular weight lifters with more modest chests, to the lean and toned runners to the well formed aquatic athletes. Obviously though they shouldn't all look like sports stars, what about the short skinny librarian or the more motherly figure? And, you know what, sure, make room for the busty girl too, that's fine as long as there's variety outside of that option.

Asking them not to listen to the crowd when their video stresses how important our input is to them is . . . odd. I don't think they should do everything we say, but if what we say ever just happens to inspire them, I don't see the harm in that.

I can understand the sentiments of wanting to create 'your character' and look like 'your character' instead of how the game forces you to look. I tend to agree with it as well.

In a way I agree but your 'this' and 'this that look better than 'this' and 'this' look like things I've seen in RPGs over and over and over ad Infinitum, ad Nauseum. I do respect the general sentiment though. I just don't feel like the Sword and Armor we've seen countless times over is the answer anymore. That said, again, I 100% respect what you're trying to say, and I agree that we see the over the top weapons and skimpy plate armor far too much.

Hello, I've been a long time fan of RPGs (especially those by Black Isle, Troika, Bethesda, Obsidian and several others). Have I bought and played every last title? No, but even when a game wasn't to my particular taste I've always respected the work you do