Shadenuat

I like that idea. For me, ideal would be if only your party warrior or knight with repair skill could merge, as an example, some magic sword back, and only your party wizard could awaken the enchantment in it after. If player's party worked together to achieve that special, and maybe most powerful item in game, it would become personal, like "Hey, I(we) did it!", not "I just got these parts to NPC and now have best weapon in game".

We cared about newspapers, Tim.

Enemies surrender and option of taking them prisoners, or get their stuff and leave them alone, or cut their heads would be cool.

Because they make us feel cool. Robes are cheap, can be made from simple but sturdy cloth, protect you from cold and wind and generally are better suited for all weather than some leather top. Hat helps against rain and insects from trees above.

Nothing wrong with finishing moves for melee if they're fast, brutal and realistic. Lot of oldies had some sort of unique animations with enemies running around burning or turning into dust after some spell. Finishing moves like "PRESS "A"!! PRESS "A"!! PRESS "A"!!! > AWESOME" are of different matter and, generally, are ****.

Getting 25 xp per lock/trap and 50 per using medicine skill in Fallout was nice, after completing Temple of Trials in the beginning, instead of getting level 2 for scorpions, get the same amount of xp from traps, locks, fixing well and healing yourself. Did't break the game for sure.

It should be, and without an option of turning it off. Because turning FF off always ruins the balance of the game in a favor of spellcasting parties and turns everything in a cakewalk. It also, like some mentioned here, makes abilities like Evasion less useful and could potentially break a large chunk of encounters in the game (for example, almost every battle in tight environment like corridors or maybe rooms with innocent NPCs which designers made with FF in mind). Some AoE spells could be made without it, however. For example, I never understood why druid can't call his god's powers only on enemies to entangle them with vines.

Voice work is a very expensive art tool, never understood the point in blowing all money on it even if other parts of the game still were underdeveloped. Maybe if Dragon Age 2 did't have voice acting, it would't suck as much as it did. And I don't buy that "immersion" stuff either, if you can immerse yourself in a book, than so could you in a game with book-like narrative and tools.

If there would be level-based system, I'd prefer it have 5-8 levels in total, but each level matter a lot more than single level in games which have 20-99-125 levels.

Kisses and huggies, or people dying in Afghan. Which is more relevant to incoming party-based Infinity-successor game and why? Discuss!

See a rope, but the guy 's missing a 10' foot pole. Without much surprise, art is going down to earth, almost LoTR style with an AD&D twist. Good choice in a world of a media where WoW dictated the crappy giant pauldrons style for years, it's refreshing.

4th edition of D&D is about everyone pulling their weight in combat. And 4th edition is quite a controversial thing. Compromise is a thing which leaves both parties equally unsatisfied. When this thief can contribute to straight combat as well as that fighter, party just becomes a group of soldiers with different flavours. I am completely okay with, for example, a herbalist character who can't, or just does't want to, take a weapon in her hands, but treats wounds of the party after combat better than anyone.

Reason why we see dumb as bricks fighters does't lie inside roleplaying system, as much as in the idea of how world percieves these characters. Even D&D3 has fighter-type classes which use dexterity, intelligence and even charisma to up their chances in combat (look up prestige classes in NWN2), and in game like Fallout, high INT is almost mandatory for a good fightning character (more skill points). It just that any decent DM would screw you up at least once if, instead putting few points in swimming, you tweaked your character just a little bit more to that murderbot you've always dreamt of. And try playing Arcanum with intelligence less than 8. Other game which subverted the thing in an interesting way is Age of Decadence, where you had far more chances of survival with smart and charming fighter than a mere brute. As for idea of upping body and mind stats separately, I don't like it. Because it just screams "People who are not into combat do not adventure".

Urgency is a great tool which makes player act on a basis of how real person would actually act - without all the soap opera or over the top drama which acts as substitute for that usually. When world shows that it can live it's own life and give or take from the player something he cared about, it just stops feel like something static or player's plaything. As design tool, urgency with consequences should be used more often in games.

Made me remember "Ronja Rovardotter" - book and movie. Cringed at the idea that some party of do-gooders would wipe clean castle like in there but spare bandit daughter cause they are like "the good guys". When you think about it, games which promote idea that somebody could be born evil and only serve as XP bag is pretty sick. But that's just a universal problem of combat and violence oriented products. There's just too much murder in games. I am not a pacifist, but when violence just replaces every other aspect of game, it becomes boring.

Something crazy which MCA always wanted to put in the game but noone let him.

Rolling is absolutely amazing in PnP because DM can give you only few tries and then build the character around that. It allows to create a character who is't fixed on killin machine but has more natural and mediocre stats like normal human being, or to create somebody with great strengths, but also great weaknesses. In CRPG's, rolling is nothing but cold metagaming and adds nothing to difficulty of making a good character and should be avoided. Aside from classes and skills, I want to see backstories or strengths/weaknesses system like in GURPS, SPECIAL, Arcanum. Something very cool like your magic working better under the sky than in dungeons and such.

1. How mega is your idea of a mega dungeon? 5 levels?10 levels? 20? More? It depens on size of levels. ToEE was't that deep a dungeon, but every level was humongous. Legend of Grimrock had compact levels, so there were 13, but whole game was a dungeon. I don't see the point in creating levels just for the sake of levels, it's better to be "realistic" in the sense that each level should serve some kind of function (see Arx Fatalis for whole setting around that concept), or you'd just run out of ideas to keep players interested. I am not a fan of filler-levels. From five to seven levels seems like a good number to crawl into, without other parts of the game suffering too much. 2. How important do you think story is in said mega dungeon? It should have story which arcs everything, but there is no need for a lot of NPC's, cutscenes or drama. People have to understand that they are going into that dungeon for the sake of gold, because of great adventurer's greed, exploration and combat. It is a dungeon, dungeons exist to crawl them. There should probably be issues with traps, supplies, darkness. Players can create their own story depending on how they act in a dungeon. Design and level layout, item descriptions, puzzles, monsters, and other adventuring parties (rivals, dead, trapped, or even turned undead) can all add to the story. 3. Would you still support a mega dungeon if it diverted resources from the main plot/game? My guess is no, but I had to ask. Like mega-dungeon or romances? Dungeon please. 4. Is this something you would like to see as a high end stretch goal or set of stretch goals? Yes.

Oh. I admit I got carried away a bit by all that "soul" business. It just reminds me on something I've written myself on occasion.

The fact that gods know and manipulate souls does't automatically mean souls are their creation. Could be just a law of that Multiverse.

I imagine one soul breaks the cycle or the truth about gods lies would come out? Mages in armor? Huh... Also, if a magical veil comes from purity of one's soul, and gun can break it, is it going somewhere near Arcanum problem of tech vs. magic? The whole fact is kinda weird, to tie material force to metaphysical one.

I expect something like Mask of Betrayer. Not very long, focused, but with some twists which make game worth replaying. I am not sure it would ever be as big as Baldur's Gate or Arcanum.

Screw cooldowns. Unless it's a spell so powerful it's insane to cast it more than once a day, or only on friday because witches and black cats, or only when moon moves into position, they don't make magic in game more believable than so hated by some memorising. Cooldowns are synthetic mechanic grown from developer's need to calculate DPS in MMO's.

Memorising or mana, things always boil down to how mage replenishes his magical resource. Spell slots, mana or ingredients, they are all magical resources, just like hit points. Strategy is't just about placing spells into slots, it's about how hard to get your slots back. And that is what determines spellcaster's gameplay - where exactly resource replenishment fits into game and battle encounters. So really, stamina or ingredients can work as well as memorising spells - if there are no stamina potions, or ingredients are costly and have weight, ect. As for 4th edition, it does not exactly make more sense than 3d or 2d. Why exactly a ranger can use some sort of snipe ability only once per combat? Does he forget it and the re-memorises? I know it mimics sort of "dramatic moments" or "fate points" maybe, but still :3

Problem solved lol. Special dwarven magic. Did't they actually put large metal spheres at the handle of pistols or made them massive to be able to hit with them? Well after guns became more common I believe they tested plate chest-pieces by shooting at them. A good one had to withstand shot from specific range.