Mabster

As long as we're keeping out of Storm of Zehir territory, managing a little trading outpost or a store might be a fun diversion. After all, we're bound to end up slaughtering whole bands of brigands, so surely leaving massive hoards of plundered goods for the wolves would be a waste. Why not put them to good use? Capitalism, ho!

You don't think the devs believe in their product enough to be able to justify it's existence? Asking questions that have the devs explain their decisions and stand by them is a good thing. I'm not seeing the stupid in there either, the interviewer knows his stuff and his questions were pretty spot-on.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think you have your terms mixed up. In this context, fog of war refers to the mechanic where NPCs and events are hidden (i.e. obscured by a fog effect) in previously explored areas that the player's characters cannot currently see. Not revealing the map to the player until it's explored is not FoW. Hopefully the game will have both mechanics. Exploring dungeons is fun and FoW adds an important tactical element to the game.

Good job. This is well thought out and nicely presented. I'd love to see a system with a similar philosophy in the game. Having the characters actually carry backpacks would be awesome. Jagged Alliance 2 has a vaguely similar system after the 1.13 mod. I was wondering if you're familiar with it? It features backpacks in different shapes and sizes that can be transferred from one party member to another, different sizes of slots that determine the size and quantity of items that it can hold, and pockets and pouches that are determined by clothing. A large backpack also restricts mobility, so it needs to be dropped if you want have that character to climb to a roof for example. (A screenshot in the spoiler.)

Stuff that challenges the player, or gives a little nod for being generally awesome would be ok. Like mentioned above, the way Arcanum, NWN2 and the Fallout games handled things would be pretty great. Obviously, pop-ups or nonsense like that isn't a good idea. Pretty low. DA2 might not be popular here, but how about some respect? It's just a video game.

Who needs a bunker when everyone knows you can merrily survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a random fridge. Not really sure how to handle zombies though. Splice some sentient plants?

I don't think I'd waste my time with a fishing-lottery even if something like that was in the game. I wouldn't mind fishing without any minigames and could guarantee success with just cunning and lightning reflexes. Expanding on that, a sidequest where the player commandeers a fishing boat or gets to manage an entire fishing company would be pretty awesome. Moral choices to club baby seals or not. Going crazy in search of mythical prey. "There she blows! Man the harpoons!"

I went and replied to my own post there. Good job me.

Here's a few, though I have a feeling they might be a bit unpopular. - No gullible merchants with infinite money. No merchant is going to buy a wagon-load of bloody and slashed gear fresh from a recently murdered group of bandits, or items suspiciously similar to their own stock that have recently gone missing. Most surplus gear should be either broken down for parts or left behind. - No magic bottomless pockets. A character should be able to carry only some essentials depending on the clothing they wear. Backpacks can be used to haul stuff around, but wearing one to combat might be a bad idea. (JA2 had a fun system with this philosophy, especially modded.) - No endless item power progression. Items should come with a pretty modest power curve throughout the game, so that there are always options to choose the best tools for the job, and not just the stuff with the biggest numbers attached. If I want to fight an ice troll and I have a fire axe I found a number of encounters ago, it would suck if that weapon is useless because its numbers are not manly enough anymore. - No endless character power progression. An angry group of peasants should pose a potential threat to any warrior. Going *ding* a few times by punching bears to the face in a forest isn't proper justification for superhuman powers.

Classes determine things like hitpoints or how a character progresses through levels, they are part of the mechanics of the game, and should not be included in the narrative. The class wizard does not determine how a character looks, smells or behaves. If an npc refers to that character as 'a wizard' it should be because he or she used a spell or maybe wears a pointy hat. Nothing breaks immersion faster than referring to things that are not part of the game world. I think safe to assume that there would be the same amount of abilities and other options to customize characters regardless of whether there will be a subclasses or not. It might be possible that with subclasses balancing the game becomes so much easier that they have time to add more stuff, but I'm not sure if that's realistic.

I don't think the game mechanics should be something that are made part of the in-game world. A NPC could react to a spell you use, the way your dress or to your reputation, no need to include the mechanic for this purpose in my opinion.

I think I would rather have more flexible progression inside a single class than two tiers of limiting specialization. I thought specializations worked well enough in DAO, but the mechanic is there to limit your options not expand them, so I just don't see a reason to use such a system here. I think by properly explaining how different options will affect their characters, players can be trusted with a large pool of choices, rather than shoehorning them toward efficient builds.

A little reward for landing that great hit is always nice. I'm not exactly a huge fan of violence, but critting in a tabletop game usually ends in stupid amounts of gore. I think even in a cRPG the crits need to be just a little bit special. If Obsidian plan to go with over-the-top violence, then definitely, bring on the finishers and the Fallout-esque silly death animations. A game like this game shouldn't be too serious for it's own good after all.

Tactical combat without friendly fire doesn't sound like much fun. I'm definitely all for it being in the game. Hopefully the game will be designed with friendly fire in mind, even if it ends up as a toggleable feature. Stuff like the ability to customize the follower AI, so that it doesn't touch anything with an AoE or attack enemies affected by one, should come as standard. I would also like to see nice overlays for the spell and ability AoEs with the affected characters clearly highlighted (like in ToEE).

Slavery is a pretty common theme in fantasy literature and games, but it's always possible the devs have nothing to say on the topic, or since we know next to nothing about the world, it might not be a good fit. Still, it's pretty likely theme to be in featured in the game. Slavers are really easy villains in a ton games, so if the theme is in there, hopefully it's not just 'something bad guys do', a cue for the player to dislike a certain group. Being part of a society where holding slaves is not considered morally apprehensive might be really interesting. Freeing slaves and giving bad guys their lot, is still fun though. The whole experience shouldn't be too morally ambivalent--it's a fantasy game after all.

Hopefully mentioning Sarkeesian does not invoke the nonsense it does in some corners of the internet. I would like to point out that she is just an internet commentator among hundreds of others, and if you actually watch her Youtube videos, there is nothing in them to fuel the silliness that sometimes circles around her internet persona. Her Youtube stuff is mainly about presenting much discussed topics in well-produced, bite sized videos. Also, feminism is an important topic it should be discussed by as many voices as possible. OT: Going by their track record, I trust Obsidian to make a compelling narrative with more than just token or cliche female characters. That said, this is a useful discussion to have, even if a lot of folks are uncomfortable with it.

Quests don't need to be written in your journal to act as such. The game can easily incentivise the player toward activities like exploring and thieving. A ranger exploring a forest might get experience for discovering interesting ruins, or hunting down a rare animal. A thief breaking and entering might get experience for coming across some interesting information, or getting her hands on a particularly valuable item--or by blackmailing a necromancer after witnessing a tender moment between him and a zombie. The enemies and traps either character might face are things they must overcome to reach those rewards.

What the system in the Elder Scrolls games does right is level the playing field between heroes and normal folk. A hero shouldn't be able to surpass a highly skilled artisan in blacksmithing just because s/he also kills dragons for funsies. That said, I dislike the grinding element that is present in Bethesda's games, training some of the skills just feels like a massive chore at times. I think skill points could be replaced by skill training tiers (e.g. novice, apprentice, journeyman, master). Improving a skill training could happen through dialogue or exploration (e.g. skill trainers, lore books, ect.). I also think that what characters are be able to do should be determined mostly by their ability scores, so perhaps a character would only get skill training in just three or four areas of expertise, making that skill training feel much more special. This would mean that anyone with high dexterity (or equivalent) could pick a simple lock, but to crack that dwarven safe you'll need a master pick lock.

Obviously any game can be ruined with bad design, but let's give Obsidian some credit here. Level scaling doesn't come pre-packaged with stupid, so using the mechanic where it's appropriate doesn't mean that leveling becomes non-important, or that some areas can't be too easy or too murdeous, or that every bunny we'll come across will be the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. Having at least things like scaled encounters where the amount and type of enemies depends on the player's abilities is just smart. Screaming 'burn it with fire' every time level scaling is mentioned, effectively reduces any impact users might have on this topic. My personal preference to reduce the need for much level scaling would be to keep power progression under control, so that even lower level enemies would still pose a potential threat to a higher level player character. If a knight gets mobbed by peasants he shouldn't be able to stand there smugly in his Full Plate of Can't-Touch-This, while the poor sods keep stabbling air with their pitch forks.

I think having kids in rpgs is really positive overall, they add realism and life to the world and can provoke different emotional responses from the player than adults. I think one of the most memorable quests in Fallout 2 was the one in Modoc involving the tanners lost kid. I loved that quest. Making child npcs immortal, and having them not react to attacks in any way would be pretty silly, but I'd be fine with kids that escape and disappear when attacked. If there must be death, a bit more 'neutral' way to handle things might be to minimize any player incentive to harm those npcs by just making killing them as boring as humanly possible. Using really simple animations, little to no blood, simple sfx, and the like should go a long way. Bottom line for me though: I'd much rather the game included unmurderable kids than none at all.

I didn't feel like a retard playing BG2 and IWD2 though. If anything I would have loved to have the functionalty in the earlier titles as well. Having accessibility and ease of use doesn't mean the game can't also be hard and unforgiving, it's just good design.

I don't agree that there should be any set minimum amount of content . Long is good, but it shouldn't be the driving focus in design. I wouldn't mind exchanging game length for more reactivity to player action (which adds tons of replay value). I'd also like to see the main story to be well paced and gripping, even if that means it might be shorter, rather than artificially dragged out by boring repetition (e.g. the Deep Roads bit in DAO). Having plenty of content and being able to muck about in silly tangents, killing rats in basements and whatnot, is good fun, but that's all secondary fluff. Basically: well realized story > reactive game world > the amount of actual content on offer.

I know Obsidian will put enough talent and love in their game that whatever themes they use the narrative will be thoughtful and complex (i.e. mature). Here's hoping we won't see too much gray, grit and depression that often seem to be linked to the more mature games. I think the game would feel sufficiently realistic and alive even with a good amount of humor and optimism (if only to dot all that negativity people "want to see discussed").

I think actual permanent death adds a lot to shorter games, like roguelikes, and to games where you have a healthy pool of backups to keep you going. Here though, the limited amount of companions probably means a death would be an automatic a fail state. 'Death = reload' just seems boring and uninspired. I'm kinda hoping they stay away from the raise dead mechanics of Torment and others. The system works well enough I suppose, but does bring with it two bugbears. It will probably have implications on how involved the companions can be in the story, and more importantly, will need some form of contrivance for resurrecting the dead, which rarely does any favors for any setting. Trivializing death is not a smart move in my opinion. I would prefer an injury mechanic