Umberlin

I can't disagree with anything here, and that the StarForce point looks at it in such a way shows they have a good grasp of the situation, unlike . . . some persons out there, especially some of the major game Publishers in the industry. That said . . . StarForce isn't usually a name I like to see attached to a game I've purchased. Still, there are plenty of DRM forms out there that punish the player, and that's not just a viewpoint, that's first hand experience, to the extent that some forms have rendered games I've bought unplayable. The result is that I've become extremely choosey about which games I'll even think about buying, all the way to, some Publishers, I just don't buy from at all anymore. Ever. No matter how good a game looks. Fool me once, and all that. EA gets a lot of flack, and my experience with one of their attempts at DRM, which sent me to their tech support, was a week long venture, under which their tech support gave me one of the most grating, frustrating and humiliating experiences I've ever gone through in trying to do something so simple as playing a game. I did, eventually, get to play Mirror's Edge though. In the end, I agree with the portions about supporting Obsidian, I just caution against certain types and extremes when it comes to measures taken. Given backers, essentially, could have a copy of the game for as little as, what was it . . . 25usd? I can't imagine the full price being very out there. Agreed. Respectable. Good post, thank you for submitting it, even if I don't agree on every last point.

Who is a pirate in this case. We can buy extra copies to give away, but we've paid for those, so I assume you mean actual copies you've made of the game, in which case, I agree. You shouldn't be replicating the game yourself, and giving it away. That's less about enabling pirates, and more about the individual just doing something they shouldn't. Right, and those are available through GOG. Well . . . I'm not entirely sure what to say here. Steam is a great DRM service that manages to reward players. I don't disagree with its existence, I even like Steam, quite a but, still . . . I won't say you lost me, but I can see where it would lose some people. I know people that can't stand steam, despite it rewarding the player. The one time activation could work, I don't know. I agree, with the other point wholly, I'm not a fan of always on DRM either. Especially for the, "well, what happens if something happens to you, the developer/publisher, or your service, what happens to my game? Well, Valve way back said they'd unlock the games on Steam if they ever went under. It remains to be seen if they'd actually do that, but, when other people bring in always on DRM, I rightly wonder what might happen one day, if I'll lose access to my game entirely. Especially with the automated responses, it can be outright infuriating. I think they had it right, without a doubt.

I didn't back with the e-mail attributed to this forum account, I use a very private e-mail for real money exchanges, so, I don't actually get some of the forum benefits that some of you do. So, maybe it'll mean something when I say, as a backer, that I trust Obsidian's choice to make a no DRM version of the game. As such, I accept, just accept, that there will be pirates. See, here's the thing, how do you really enforce a zero tolerance by all parties for piracy? Some of the biggest publishers with some of the largest budgets have thrown ungodly amounts of money toward hammering out there pirate problem. How does a smaller project, and its fanbase, really enforce zero tolerance? How do they do anything about it? There may be some things, mostly small things, but they're all going to fall under the cover of, "It won't make a large impact." Historically some of the most pirated games out there, are also the ones that pushed hardest against the pirates. I won't say that they were asking for it, but when you draw attention to yourself, there's a certain percentage of the population that just gets ornery. I won't disagree, but I do still caution against making too big a deal of it. I would also caution some of the industry people, especially publishers, that talka bout Piracy the most, as some of the ones that complain about Piracy the most also turn out to be making the most money. I'm not on the Piracy is acceptably band wagon, but I do believe it's a fact of life, and not just on the PC. Enough trips to Brazil, and other places around the world, have revealed nice big streets full of vendors selling Consoles and Console Games that are . . . a little different than the ones you might buy in a store, in blank envelopes and boxes with game names written on them in black ink. While it's underplayed in the industry, in comparison to PC game piracy, it's really not a small thing. So, yeah, I get it, piracy is a real deal and, yeah, people lose money on it, but, again, what stops them? Oddly enough some of the companies that do the least about it seem to have the least problems with it. I won't say it's the only way to go, but the companies that reward the legitimate player, instead of implementing measures to punish the pirate, that just end up punishing the legitimate player, isn't the path I'd take. Yet it's the most common path taken, it seems. Basically, with a no DRM version of P:E coming, I expect piracy. I've put my money down. I'll encourage people to put their money down. I'll ask Obsidian to entice and reward the legitimate player. However, I will never ask people to take a zero tolerance stance toward piracy, nor request something be done about the piracy. I'll never ask for anything that might hurt the game or the legitimate player. In fact, what I'll ask for most, is that the pirate just be ignored, and that the legitimate player get all sorts of cool stuff, which, if you ask me, is far more likely to convince the pirate to actually put their money down too. What's my basis for that? Well, despite Steam, essentially, being DRM, Valve's success with a lot of its games comes from exactly that methodology. Rewarding the legitimate player, instead of trying to punish or not tolerate the pirate - because, inevitably, those things end up hitting the legitimate player harder than they'll ever hit any pirate, if they manage to hit a pirate at all. Which, oddly, got a PC release, as did, strangely, Dark Souls. I have to say I didn't see that one coming. Despite worries on piracy, some of the most successful games out there are still PC exclusives, or, even if they later got a console release, were still massively succesful on the PC prior. You don't have the minecraft craze without the PC, nor all the great games on Steam that have no Console equivalent, that have found success on the PC, despite how much we talk about piracy being a problem. Still, I don't, at all, disagree with your sentiment, at all. I'd prefer people buy the game. I don't want people to pirate it. I just question how much any anti-piracy measures will take. Still, all that said, I'll read through your proposals below and see what I think:

Minigames can enhance, if they're well done, and take away if they're not. I'm pretty sure we've all experienced minigames one way, the other, or both, at some point. As for minigames beyond the usual, 'lock picking mini game' or 'hacking minigame' I think the most common use is the game within a game. KotOR and KotOR II's pazaak, for instance. People's enjoyment of such things, and thus mileage, may vary, and thus resources may be used well, or completely wasted, on the whim of the audience, sometimes regardless of how good, or bad, such a thing is.

It's not relevant anyways, beyond the fact that people can migrate, and migrate in mass, be it fictional or otherwise, and thus mix physically and culturally.

Looking at my past posts in this thread, I do think it's the occupation, of sorts, or at least definitive of the skillset and background/achievements of the character in question. That's especially true in a game like Gothic II, and I think games like that have definitely influenced my opinion on such things. It can reflect their personality too, obviously, but does it have to be definitive of their personality, as in, 'all Wizards think like this' . . . my answer is, 'No', but that's me.

The Wizard, others as well, but especially the Wizard, and anything transmutation-like or transmutation related.

I can respect that. Count me in the crowd that never had trouble moving on; when people died in some of my old games, or left me due to disagreeing with my actions, I just moved on. I didn't reload and try to fix it. Call it the frosting on an already decent cake, or whatever, a nice red velvet cake. o_0 Did you do some of the old Gamefaqs challenges? Like FF:T there was a solo Ramza play through. I loved some of those, and that was just players challenging themselves in different ways, those weren't rules enforced by the game. That's more my speed, setting my own pace. Sorry it turned out that way.

That would require the Chinese person and the European person even exist in P:E, which they don't. European . . . as if Europe doesn't have drastic differences of people, culture and more within itself, be it now, a hundred years ago, a thousand or more.

That's pretty sad. - On the note about saves taking longer to save, or load, or both, I don't really think it matters. Maybe I'm just easy going in that particular respect, saving or loading a game, in my older games, like Quest for Glory, King's Quest and other older PC games, with a free save/load system, I didn't, and still don't, find it to be an issue. If a developer felt they needed to implement such a thing, to prevent people from reloading too often, okay, but, again, it seems pretty pointless. It wouldn't bother me in the least though. What's a few extra seconds? Still, I'd prefer people just learn to control themselves, or, just accept the fact that saving, and reloading, where a single player game is concerned . . . doesn't really matter at all. We have a mode for the people with no self control anyways, so, adjusting the mode that's meant for the more casual crowd, who probably don't even think of things, like this thread's subject, when it comes to games, seems pretty pointless.

Put it how you want it still comes down to the same thing, governing how people, who have no effect on your game, play. The result? The result is still the same. People, who were going to abuse the system, will either find a way around your solution, or find another way to get way they want. Meanwhile, the people that were going to play legitimately all along, were going to play legitimately regardless of what you suggested. As for the no will power people, I don't care, because they need to learn basic self control. I see a fairly basic, tried and true, save and reload system, meant for a game with different modes for different player types of different skill levels already implemented, with no need for your solution. There are modes, like the ironman mode, for people that want a different system. There is no need for further solution.Think about people besides yourself for five seconds, and realize that there are countless people out there, all with real lives and responsibilities of all sorts, and they don't need you playing mommy or daddy for them while taking part in their single player, spare time, no stress, hobby that has absolutely no effect on you.

Whatever is fitting I guess. Perhaps they should be level one. Perhaps they should be your level. Perhaps they should be a level lower than your. Perhaps they should be a level higher than you. Perhaps the level at which you find them should just reflect whatever individual character you might point at, on a character to character, context to context, basis.

Or you could just not reload your game, and save Obsidian the time developing features specifically for people who are stangely paranoid about how others play, save and reload their single-player games that have absolutely no effect on you. This is simple, you have will power, use it. There is no need for anything else, because anything else can be subverted just as easily, put up a wall and the people that really wanted to get over the wall will still find a way. Meanwhile, the people that were always going to play legitimately in the first place, will play legitimately whether there is a wall or not. As for the people with no self control, well, that's simple too. I don't care about people with no self control, unless their particular brand of no self control is the sort that leads to actual real life violence . . . we have a nice prison system to take care of 'those' ones though. Short answer: "Learn self control, get your nose out of other people's approach to their single-player hobby." We have multiple modes of play, already, for people that want different modes of play. Play in the mode that suits you. Get over what other people do.

For the same reason the Wizard throws a fireball instead of equipping a gun and shooting fire bullets. D&D monks do use weapons, even if the list of weapons they're proficient with is pretty short and mostly consists of repurposed farming tools. There are even special monk weapons available (kama, nunchuku, siangham, etc.) which a monk can use without losing his/her unarmed base attack bonus. And even when they did go without a weapon, they still had gear. In fact, if I remember right, you'll find in NWN and NWN2 that gloves, for the hand to hand combat Monk were, essentially, their weapon. This is one of the things that bothers me most when people act like Monks in P:E will mysteriously function without gear, when most settings I can think of used some form of equipment, if not full equipment, for their Monks, be it simply gloves in the armor slot or fist weapon or, as you so rightfully noted, actual weapons like the Quarterstaff. Then, of course, they had access to various exotic weaponry, the Kama, for instance, as well as others, filling melee and even ranged formats.

Well, that's D&D, in the end. In this setting we're already using our souls, so there's question as to the worth or need of material spell components. I suppose that's one of the many things we just have yet to see, more information is coming though - eventually. In my mind Psionics, and Cyphers, share the sort of 'mind mage' slot of classes, and we definitely have that with their use of the mind, their mind (considered exceptional in this setting), being capable of manipulating their soul, and the souls of others. This suggests a mix of magic and mental prowess, so the real question is how that will manifest beyond the few examples we've been given. Can it manipulate a person? That seems highly likely. Can it damage a person? Well, probably, but how exactly is a question that requires much more consideration, as are ideas like the source of its defensive capabilities: "Can it erect mental barriers, or is it highly armor dependant" or support abilities, "Can it heal itself/others or is it going to have to manage that through other means/persons" and even how the manipulative abilities will work in combat, as well as in a social situation (if it at all). Lots of things to be seen. Personally I don't need them to manifest their mental prowess as mental blasts to do damage, but since they're already manipulating people's souls, with their minds, . . . one wonders what else that can do to the souls of others. Less mental blasts of the telekinetic sort, and more those inner, traumatic, mental attacks perhaps? Or is it another form of manipulation where the Cipher has to manipulate a person into harming themselves/others? Are they not capable of psychic attacks at all, and have to rely on martial weaponry? So many possibilities, so many questions, we just don't have the answers yet. I'm rather eager to see what Obsidian have decided to do/decided not to do. I imagine lots of people here are eager for more information though. Patience . . . patience is slow going, I'd like to obtain it. Now. Heh. We'll see soon enough I suppose.

Well, let's put it this way. Either you're going to have a bunch of people complaining about the decisions actually made themselves (Forton, the Monk class, the Paladin class, Priests, and every single choice Obsidian has made . . . ever), or you're going to have people complaining about the changes to Obsidian's decisions made only because people were complaining. Personally I'd rather people were complaining about a decision Obsidian actually made themselves. - The alterntive is complaining about changes made because people like Aedelric jumped to conclussions about Forton and the Monk, complaining throughout multiple threads, without their supporting lore even being released, nor their place in the world even being explained/defined by Obsidian. No, instead of waiting to see what Obsidian is actually doing, we have people like Aedelric creating a thread where he tells Obsidian how disappointed he is in them (and he did, I can quote it to anyone that wants the proof), as if he comes from a place of moral and intellectual superiority, as if he's been developing great games, with some of the greatest stories, characters and dialogue out there - instead of the people that actually have been developing such games. You know. Obsidian. But no . . . let's jump to wild conclussions about Forton, and Monks, instead of even seeing, in the first place, what Obsidian has planned. Because outside of the barest idea of Monks, and Forton, we have nothing. At all. We don't have the full story of Forton, Monks or the world, nor how they fit into the world - we have next to no lore. Yet I see people making all sorts of assumptions, wild baseless jumps, about exactly what they are and how they fit in. And almost everytime, and I can quote these things, it's someone telling others, 'how they don't fit in' even though we don't have information enough on the world, nor the subjects in question, to know what is fitting or not for the world. Instead I see people flinging around accusations about how Obsidian are just throwing things together, as a random mish mash, with nothing holding it all together or explaining it. The way people talk about Forton, the Monk, and various other aspects of the game, their place in the world/story, you'd think half this forum believed Obsidian's writers to have taken massive blunt force blows to their collective heads, leaving them dribbling simpletons. You'd think they'd never created beloved stories, characters, dialogues and more, but here's the thing . . . they did. They've created amazing things. So I just don't understand this insistence that characters, classes, concepts and more be trashed, replaced, and so on . . . before we've even really seen what they are, in totality, before we've even seen their place in the world, as if Obsidian have made some horrible mistake. The only bundle of problems I see are the people insisting their Christmas Present be returned, and replaced with one to their liking, before they've even opened the bloody present in the first place.

In a way I agree with some of what you're saying, I always wondered why they (in D&D didn't just make a Paladin-like class, in terms od Divine dedication, to replace concepts like Paladin and Blackguard, but with an 'insert the God you're dedicated to' option that defined your Alignment restrictions. Much like a Cleric Domain system, only for alignment. That said, I'm actually quite looking forward to Obsidian's take on Paladins, and the other classes in general. Paladins have been done many different ways, some inside the themes noted in this thread, others quite outside of that. A different take, even if it's not to everyone's taste, is hardly a bad thing. If people want the same thing they saw in other games, that's fine, those games and concepts exist, I just don't see the problem with letting Obsidian do their own thing.

Change the name and then people complain that they don't have a Paladin in P:E (as if I care). Change the mechanics/lore, and then people complain that they don't get to play the concept Obsidian came up with. Change this and that or something else and people still complain. The base thread is a complaint. The moral of the story is that no matter what Obsidian does, there will still be someone complaining. At the end of the day, at this point, I think I'd rather hear people complaining because of a decision Obsidian made on their own, rather than listen to people complaining about a something Obsidian changed due to complaints. - Let's be serious, there have been many takes on a Paladin, all over the board, Quest for Glory's implementation of a Paladin was on the concept of Honor, more than anything else, quite apart from some of the usual Paladin entries. Not being in line with other RPGs, nor in line with religious order style or others, one might pass them by, but Quest for Glory offered solid fare when it came to Paladins, even having to earn the right to be one. Might we not just give what Obsidian are trying to do a chance? Especially in light of the usual takes on Paladins being plentiful, all about the RPG genre, in many incarnations, right there for the playing.

I don't suppose it really matters to me, and, really, as long as there's a setting that let's you turn it up/down/on/off I don't see the harm in there being heavier violence settings. All in all, though, it just doesn't matter to me one way or the other, I've played games that were enjoyable at opposite extreme ends of the spectrum, as well as the in between.

I wouldn't be against spell components. I wouldn't be against a lack of them either . . . heck, you could even make it so some spells/spell-types /classes/whatever required reagents, and others did not, and I'd still be okay with it. I see the value of ingredients, as a mechanic and limiter, and I also see the reasons for there not be ingredients in other cases. I'm pretty easy to please where this topic is concerned.

Just for the sake of clarity, neither do I. I didn't mean to just suggest that, just in case anyone thought as much, though I do wholly mean the things I said.

I've never really liked Paladins, or many of the traditional classes in general, but Obsidian have their own take. Heck, I'd have prefered an RPG that threw the majority of the genres traditions to the wind, but I'm willing to accept the choices Obsidian are making anyways. Mostly because I tend to like their games regardless. You can find most of these, and other, takes on Paladins in all sorts of RPGs out there anyways, so I'm not entirely sure Obsidian throwing the usual Paladin concepts out are entirely a bad thing. If people want the usual takes on Paladins, they can likely find those out there, somewhere, across various RPGs . . . so I don't see the harm in Obsidian doing this instead.

While I'm not necessarily for it, it's certainly been done before that sort of adventurer class branching out into fighter/thief/mage classes which then branch into further classes, as in the fighter example of spreading out into monk, paladin, etc etc etc. I supposed it's a taste issue really, surely such systems work, since you can literally point at them and say, "Look, here it is, long standing single or multiplayer RPG, uses a system that is this, or, a variation of this, and it seems to be working." So . . . yeah, if you like that sort of thing, systems like that can and have worked, technically, so it's not impossible. It's just a taste issue, is it to a player's taste and is it to the taste of the developers making a game. Personally I'm fine with what's been presented so far, but I wholly understand that some people like alternatives. In fact even I do, in a way, the Gothic II example is, in a way, a manner of saying you start out as an adventurer that branches out into different possible disciplines/classes by earning your way into different factions and al that. In my mind, the thing that makes the most difference, in what a class is . . . isn't going to be mechanics, it's going to be how they interact with the world, and how the world interacts with them. How they fit in. Where they come from. How they got where they are/become what they are, and that's why I'll go back to the Gothic II example in a discussion like this again and again. Still, there's something to be said for more fixed class systems, and it's not that they're simpler, since they can be quite complex in their own way. Overall it's the presentation, and how someone reacts to you in the world, when they find out what you are, that settles a class into 'what it is' . . . how people in the world percieve you. Obviously what they are/do/their philosophies are a part of that, so it's a shared thing. What you do, versus what people percieve you doing. Your order as a "____" can be isolationist, typically, and only go out into the world for particular reasons (maybe they predict terrible events, and send people out to record them firsthand, for example - having martial skills to defend themselves well enough to bring back said recordings), but the world view could be that when one of you leave your isolation bad things are about to happen so they blame you/distrust you, or, even if they don't pin it on you, still take your presence as a bad sign. Intent versus perception, to me, is another way to define class aside from how you got where you are, to be called such a thing as, "Insert Class Name here" . . . I also need to go back to Gothic II again, the use of Class Name more as a title for the character, than as a fixed idea that's absolute. The King may be a great man in that eye, but that eye over there thinks the King is a bit greedy and that one over there thinks the King is using his daughter as fleeting entertainment with no intent to actually marry her. Fire Mages in Gothic II were viewed in different ways from NPC to NPC, amongst some they commanded respect, yet amongst others they found distrust, that if you'd been a mercenary/dragon-hunter you wouldn't have found. Anyways, enough rambling.

I can't find the quote, but I'd really not assume otherwise anyways. I think that's likely spot on. In spell crafting you mean? Never that I'm aware of, it's usually been to the idea of summoning a weapon you can wield when it has been there, or as a pet you summon (floating sword that swings at the enemy, usually achieved by using a typically character skeleton with no visual - but of course you don't bother with that, it's all pre-set that there are typical types of summons, much like Morrowind/Oblivion where spell crafting a summon is usually just modifying the existing summons). The examples I'd give as using weapons as spell projectiles are typically going to be eastern games, some 2D one or two 3D. I remember the Mana Khemia series had several spell effects that used a basic weapon as a projectile (like a rain of swords from the sky), as a 2D example and the Atelier series having examples of it in 3D. Oddly enough I'm pretty sure the only Western game with 'weapons as projectiles/spell effects' I can think of, off the top of my head, are from D&D, especially PnP, where you had a better variety of spell types. The concept is largely the same though, is your sword you've summoned a projectile? Well, obviously the sword flies at the enemy in such a way that it sticks them with the pointy end. - Actually one of my favorite spell lines from D&D didn't use weapons as projectiles/spell effects, but a hand or fist as a spell effect, that being the Bigby spell line (there's a wiki article with the entire spell line if you're interested). One of my favorites. Bigby's Clenched fist, for example, is an evocation spell, and . . . I'm not a big evocation fan, I much prefer transmutation when it comes to D&D, but the Bigby line, in my mind, is evocation done in a way that's actually interesting. I guess I'm just hard on the evocation school in general though. No, no scripts, more like the usual Morrowind/Oblivion line of thought where you're just filling in/selecting, pre-existing options and altering their values. I only use that as an example because I assume that's what you're familiar with, but I do think Two Worlds 2 has the better spell creation system with its cards. I don't think I've ever seen the 'touch my target and you get set on fire' thing in a spell crafting system. Anyways, I'll stop now, I imagine the OP would like his thread to move on.

I think Shadowbane's Irekei were the only elves I've ever really liked. Still, Shadowbane had great lore in general, despite the game being somewhat of a disappointment. Its half elves were driven mad by the mixture of bloodlines, its Irekei were called Devil Men by the other races, and its base Elves, while not interesting me, were necessary to set up the Half Elves (Aelfborn) and Sand Elves (Irekei) and how they came about. In the end, what made the work, was not that they were elves, but the lore surrounding and supporting the concepts. Good writing can make up for a lot, even for unoriginal races. As such, if Elves have to exist . . . how I'd like them served is in a manner that is actually intriguing, thought provoking, and fun. In a way that, even if I don't wish to play as one, I can still benefit from their presence in the game in a positive way.