Jarmo

To me, the big difference would be when cinematic takes account of how you've dressed up your character appearing in it, whether you're male or female and what companions are along, for example. Pre-rendered is what it is, in-game stuff can be either.

KotOR, KotOR2 and Jade Empire are all borderline between in game cutscenes and cinematics. Most/many (if not all) of the cutscenes were actually video files despite being (mostly) made with the game engine. They were just rendered at higher quality settings than what Xbox or low end PC:s were capable of. The files were limited to 640x480 (or thereabouts) resolution, so with current PC's look worse than the rest of the game. The cinematics I consider utter waste of time, are just the kind we see of Old Republic or the Minotaur fight at the opening of NWN. (NWN2 opening battle at least ties with the game and makes sense in a "oh, that's what happened there" way).

Wouldn't mind animated cutscenes, if they were done well enough. I'm mostly expecting some IWD style splash screens with voiceover and well satisfied with those. Voted for 2d animations, because it's the closest option, not expecting to see such.

Maybe it's because they know they are all going to die tomorrow. Dampens the mood.

Too bad. I like being able to micromanage everything when the going gets tough, but I don't look forward to having to do it all the time. I hope it's not as bad as having to keep the wizard from rushing in and slapping the demon with his bare palms, or having to tell the archer it's ok to start firing at the approaching opponents. Or to tell the fighter it's just fine to pick a new target once the current one drops dead.

And that's why there was a ring with dragons devouring each others in the first eternity logo, but it gave away too much!!! --- buaat... "Wear as many rings as you want" could work in multiple ways, the first obvious one being to make the wearer a near deity. But what if there are only a handful of really powerful rings to be had in the whole game? Piling them all to player character might not make the best sense, unless soloing. Maybe the rings are mostly nearly mundane (+1 damage reduction from fire) and the power doesn't stack? Or maybe the power does stack and ... would that work at all, no it wouldn't.

Now that you say it, there was something much like that on Portal's audio commentary. But I'm sure that was with a dedicated alpha test player, someone who knows he's being watched and someone who's not going to give up on a quest or the game. And I'm not actually advocating designing a game based on majority vote, or that whatever majority picks is the right choice. But I do think knowing what the majority (not just the majority of the vocal minority) thinks and chooses is something that could be valuable info for the developers.

Yet the wizards and clerics always seem to be 50+ after learning their first cantrips, except if they're female because then they're in their low 20's. (the females, on the other hand, usually have their absent-mindedness directed towards forgetting to wear clothes) Tolkien answer to elf dilemma would be that beginning elves are actually all 10th level. Because they are all master marksmen and super sneaky.

I'm wondering if there's been thought of collecting information of how players play and the gameplay choices made. It'd obviously need to be opt-in, but I'd think there'd be many willing to share the info and would think the info to be useful. A small package automatically sent when saving the game, or something like that. Like, if there's this awesome quest that's only available if you pick this one companion, but it'd turn out 97% of players don't pick the said companion and 57% don't even talk to him. Maybe he's in non-intuitive position or has an ugly nose, the data wouldn't tell that, but it'd tell the raw numbers of very few players picking the character. Then later, if there's this forum questionnaire, the said quest and companion would score very highly, nearly everybody having had the companion and done the quest. Because majority of forum dwellers would have replayed and consulted a walkthrough, found the elusive companion and done the awesome quest and liked it. Or if it turns out 33% of players abandon the game when getting a item strip and being hit with pox, or when having to do some long quest in a long, long depressive dungeon. Or for whatever reason. I'd guess stuff like that would be valuable data when designing the next game. I'm sure there's plenty of feedback from testers and beta-testers, but they're unlikely to just give up halfway for example.

In NWN2 Dark Waters campaign (psionics and pirates) there was an instance where you or another was going to lose an arm. Which was awesome, because then you was off to buy a hook replacement and there were plenty of those around, with various extra abilities. But otherwise, a permanent injury is like a companion dying. Reload and retry. Treatable (permanent unless treated) injuries would be ok, though if too frequent it'd just be another hassle, but I can't actually see the significant upside. There's going to be a maimed or what was it called state for nearly dying already, this would just be that state randomly happening.

2 for women, 3 for men. ... no.. actually I want 4 for each finger, 40 in total. 10 is just as arbitrary as 2, just let me wear all the rings I find.

those are both western shows, made for western audiences. You must be thinking of some other show. Avatar is US, but Dragonball is fully japanese, even had manga success before being made into animated. Anyway. I can totally see the appeal in making a simple, easy to grasp system. To the tune of (while not knowing what OB is actually doing): - One stat for doing and sustaining damage - One stat for connecting and avoiding hits - One stat for having "knowledge" skills - one stat for being a talker and performer Then you can make a huge bunch of combinations and can probably make an educated guess of how it's going to work. Unlike some other system like e.g. Arcanum where you probably have a hard time deciding if you'll need willpower or beauty? That is, hard time in the first time before you know what you'll need and what makes what. Of course, even in my example you'd basically have 2/4 dump stats, based on whether you're making a talker or a doer. Which makes me suspect Obs is planning something else then. Basically, the fewer and the more general stats there are, the easier the game is to balance and get into, but at the same time there are going to be less nuances to character building and less possible results.

Whoa! I had seen koncerz in pictures before, but thought it a way smaller! Like.. the blade is almost twice as long as I'd have expected. Again, total badassery from the hussars, "we'll take that two handed sword but make the grip such that it can only be used one-handed".

Yeah, variations would be good. I don't actually know what kinds of variations Shadowrun has, but I could imagine doing versions like a character with flowing hair, then a hooded and hatted versions, then one with a helmet. Plain clothes, leather armor and mail.

I just hope there's a decent variety of portraits showing relatively good looking characters. Because BG, IWD, NWN, whatever... mostly had about 1 per class I could use without pain. I mean.. diversity is fine as such, but I'm not into 80 yrs old psychopaths or ugly frogs or fat merchants or stuff like that for my hero. Also, oftentimes you pick the first decent looking character you find and then end up adventuring with your mirror image, because the portrait selection looks that much grander when all the NPC faces are included.

Took me a year, two failed attempts and Avellones video before I gathered enough fortitude to go forth. The first try I gave up on the crash site, the second on the first village. The combat was just too horrible. (better on turn based mode) The ugly barrier took a real effort, but when I reached the big city (Tarant) I was already adjusted and the scenery is better there. All these old ones, real hard to get into nowadays.

One more. It took 2 playthroughs before I realized you can actually use the subway in Tarant. Because it wasn't obvious to me where you had to click, thought it was just a flavor and ambience thing.

You actually wasn't. Steps to get Virgil back involve one of the most un-obvious quests in the game and as such available to either people with great understanding of the game, or a walkthrough. Some may call it a downside, but I found it very rewarding when on one of the playthroughs I figured it all out. With a tech-character no less(it is much easier to get him back as a mage). Ah, figured it out with my Elven sorceress playthrough. And I'd have figured it out on the first playthrough as well, only I was in "modern RPG" mindset and expected major plot twists to be settled just by following the main plot. He did mention a dead friend and I did have the old newspaper which actually told where to find Virgil, just didn't see I was supposed to start searching. Saved the day as well! High charisma master persuader mage, there isn't no bandit mob can survive many seconds when the cavalry consists of Sogg, Torian, Vollinger, that Dark elf Sorceress (who is worthless in combat) and Worthless Mutt (who is anything but, a bit of a cheat actually what with 100+ points of bite damage in a round).

I kind of like the idea, maybe. If it's well done and looks good. It's a narrow path of doing enough to convey the feeling while not doing too much and making everything silly and stupid. Not a must or something I'd be too happy to sacrifice something else over. But if Obsidian would decide this is worth pursuing, I definitely wouldn't complain.

The system makes game sense and is intuitive, your explanation does not. Wizard is no doubt intelligent and focused, in casting spells and reading books. A fighter spends his time being focused on hitting enemies with weapons. Now which one is more likely to know what parts of the enemy are good parts to perforate with sword strokes? That doesn't go anywhere towards explaining why, when both share a high attribute, the attribute means something completely different for the two classes, especially when the game itself would shows both classes getting the very same benefit by the shared attribute. And yes. A high STR fighter in PE is going to be better at melee than a high STR wizard. But that's just the same as in D&D, a high STR fighter is better than a high STR wizard, because of fighter feats and better attack progression. --- BTW. I'd love to see a system where magic power is detached from wisdom or whatever magic skill. Meaning you could have a simple stupid mage who can't cast high complexity spells, but can cast the simple spells with tremendous power. Or a highly trained wizard with maybe low magic aptitude, who could still compensate by weaving more elaborate magics.

I realize I phrased this badly. I didn't mean you should get the highest quality items at any time, but the highest quality items you're able to get through the procurement channel available to you. So if you have acces to a local weaponsmiths store and he gets his stuff by forging it in his backyard, you can order from him whatever he's capable of making, that being normal quality items. He wouldn't have 75 different suits of armor on store, but he could make a set if you can wait a week. If you have access to the royal armory, you could easily order up masterwork armor and weapons. Probably you could also order enchanted items, similar to the standard equipment of kings guard. Maybe up to +2 keen or holy stuff, the process involving whatever magic and priests are involved. The absolute highest level +4 wyverns tail splatters would be only available through finding them. This would mean you can keep your bec de corbin specialist in bec de corbins througout the game. Not requiring huge loads of luck in getting the weapon you want. Not the absolute best, but good enough.

There's a weaponsmith and armorsmith system available in M&B:With Fire and Sword where you can order some very expensive, best in the game items. But that actually has a surprising downside. Once you equip with the stuff, you know you're not going to find anything better because there is nothing better. This immediately takes out all the fun in shopping and looting. "Nope, nothing good found this time either, and there never will be again." Despite this though, yeah. There should be a system for ordering up the highest quality items available, through whatever channel you have access to. Maybe you could put out a call for some specific kinds of items, and maybe you'd find them, or something similar. And maybe there'd be a reverse call for the real neat holy mace you found from the tomb? At +100% markup over the "going rate", too good to pass?

Only that it would & wll. PE wizards can use axes and if they have high power or strenght or whatever it's called, they'll do high damage with the axe.

Do you have a problem internally with having a word "strength" as it applies to both physical strength and mental strength of will? I agree the system as such, makes game sense and is probably going to work fine. My problem is that such an abstraction means, a wizard that's good at blasting things because of his humongous mental power, is also going to be awesome at lifting heavy objects and bashing people in their heads with big hammers because of his humongous physical power. Because they're both represented by the same attribute. Mage also gets the strenght/power bonus when using melee weapons. Likewise, a dumb brute barbarian is also going to be an excellent healer, because of the soothing effect of his bulging muscles. But like I said the last time this cropped up. It's not a huge deal. Not in the top 10 of things that can make or break the game.

Played every Total War game so far (except a few add-ons) and will get this as well, but I think I'll wait for discount and patches. Medieval 2 is the one I've played for about a million hours, the main game was so-so, like every other TW, but http://www.twcenter.net/wiki/Stainless_Steel fixes so much and makes everything so much better it's actually pretty historical and fun to play. Broken Crescent and Third Age as well. No more mods after that, meaning the games are no longer salvageable. Empire was faulty in many ways, but still fun for a few long campaigns, Napoleon too limited to get much enjoyment out of. Shogun 2 was the biggest disappointment so far, can't specifiy why, but it just wasn't as much fun as I wanted, played a it once or twice. Can't remember if I won or not, don't care either. Didn't pick the DLC's. Finish up with arcanum, pick up GTA5 and see about Rome in a few months.