limaxophobiacq

I don't really see how any significant number of people would be interested in this. Transexuals are a pretty small minority to begin with and I think most male-to-female would prefer just to play women and vice versa. Edit: I also don't see how gender is such a big hurdle for identification with a character, I play both female and male characters in games (computer and tabletop) all the time.

In the unlikely event the funding reaches beyond 5 million I'll be too happy to care.

I should read threads more carefully*. Yeah, 30-40 at 2.2-2.4 or more seems pretty reasonable. *in my defense, it's 7 am over here

I think you (Merin) are being a bit too pessimistic unless you're talking about a situation where donations just freeze at the current level. They did launch the kickstarter on the promise that they could actually make a game for 1.1 million, so unless they were lying about that* they should be able to make a decent-length game give 2-3 times that money. *and I'm fairly convinced obsidian is better than that

While I'd use the option it would probably have to be over $140, plain black t-shirts generally being cheaper than printed books, even for softcover.

If it gets up to 3 million, which I think it might, I'd expect about 30 hours or so (or otherwise I don't know how they expected to make any game at all with 1.1 million), which I think is about as long as Torment and MotB. While it has a lot less budget than a AAA title, 2d-isometric & no voice acting also requires less resources than a 'modern' game, I can't imagine PS:T cost much more than 3 million even adjusted for inflation.

I'm pretty sure there's no chance it'll be as big as BG2 (which was crazy huge), but something the scale of Torment or IWD would probably be possible.

Personally I'd prefer them to not try to re-invent DnD and make something of their own, so no spell-memorization or arcane/divine magic for me. I'd be fine with other ways of differentiating different kinds of magic and magic users though. The only thing I'd really hate to see is mana-potion chugging.

On second thought: Combat as hardcore as the games of the 90's? I'm going to take that to mean that it'll be about as punishing as PS:T combat, and yeah I'd probably like that.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit weird that we have all these calls for making the combat more hardcore, when most peoples favorite IE game seems to be the one were it was actually impossible to die in combat and game balance was very questionable?

Donations are obviously cooling of but I'm hopefull they'll get a bit of a boost toward the end, when some people who've been undecided decide to pitch in, that might take it up to 2.4 and maybe higher if we're lucky.

Seeing as how commissioned digital fantasy art like character portraits is probably quite cheap compared to the rest of game development, I see no reason they shouldn't try to get the best artists they can*, and Icewind Dales portraits were amazing. *Doesn't have to be Justin Sweet (even though his stuff is amazing), but good artwork should be priority.

Whatever magic system we get, it needs to have more interesting spells than most modern rpgs that go for little more than different levels of fireballs, lightning bolts, and some generic magical-damage magic-missile spell (though these could probably still be in there). Spells should have cool aesthetics and effects/descriptions, like IE spells such as Tashas Hideous Laughter, Axe of Torment, Mechanus Cannon, Swarm Curse, Seven Eyes etc.

Sorry, I was emphasizing the bad a bit too much :D What I mean is in number 1, just like real life, there will be lots of benevolence, heroism, and other "good" stuffs. But there's no censoring for the "bad" either, that means you will see child killings explicitly should you wander near Spartan-like war camps. That doesn't mean you will see kids dying or people raped every 60 seconds, just when it's logical and artistically needed. Oh ok, in that case I'm pretty much fine with it.

Include them as fits the story and is statistically plausible (about 5% of the population gay + some more who are bi IIRC), and don't do it by just having them tell you they're gay for no reason just to show inclusiveness (the inclusiveness in itself is good but there are good and bad ways of doing it). If there's any games writer I trust to do this right it's Avellone, so I'm not really worried. Edit: I don't really care for much 'sexual' or romantic content anyway, but given that a lot of characters will probably be portraid as straight like having wives and husbands of the opposite sex there should probably be one or two who are not but no need to make a big deal out of it.

The one thing I'd like to avoid of the old IE games is the ridiculous randomness of life and death in early levels like in BG 1 were your low level character could often die through no fault of your own just because some bandit archer got a critical hit or through failing a single saving throw. While even great warriors dying to bad luck is realistic, I don't think it makes for a great game. When I fail I want it to be because I could have played better (but without cheesing), not because someone happened to roll a 1 or a 20.

Nr. 1 sounds more like a grimdark joke setting like 40k than anything realistic. "Cannibalism in poor areas", historically cannibalism really only happens in extremely desperate situations with mass-starvation and even then is never really common even in those periods. Edit: I mean I'm ok with child murder by some lone monster like Ned in BGII, or in war and by plundering bandits, and rape being disturbingly widespread in historical times is true (esp. if you count girls getting married of without their consent and the marriage being 'consumated'), but your first option basically sounds like a tagline for F.A.T.A.L..

No level scaling. OTOH, I'd rather like it if we start out more powerfull than 1st-level AD&D characters which would mitigate the need to scale enemies in different areas for such extreme differences in power-level, I'd rather it scale like BG2 & PST were you start out quite competent.

I'd like it if the dwarves weren't so ridiculously stocky as they've been portraid in lots of recent media and in DnD 3.X & 4. The old Icewind Dale portraits and the artwork we have from the update now where they look like they're tough and strong but like they can still be athletic is much preferable.

Legolas > Gimli Therefore Elves > Dwarves. I mean did you see all the orcs Legolas killed in Lord of the Rings? Gimli couldn't come close to being that awesome. "In the Battle of the Hornburg, Legolas and Gimli engaged in an Orc-slaying contest, which Gimli won by one, killing forty-two to Legolas's forty-one" Clearly Dwarves > elves.

Thanks for the info. Some dissapointment on the non-human races being the same old elves-dwarves but it's better than not knowing and I'd think at least the kinda-planetouched 'godlike' could be done in a way that's interesting and distinquishes them from their DnD equivalents. Edit: That was a bit of a downer, other than the races all the other news are excellent.

Or about homosexuality and testoterone fueled sex.

Also, this. Very much this. And the great thing about a Kickstarter project is that you can do something like this, without having to worry about making publishers and such angsty about what you're doing. Heh. Last time around a business partner intervened in something like this for obsidian was when Hasbro/Wizards or Atari (don't remember) made the rather un-PC choice of not letting Avellone make Gann bi in MotB, so I for one am happy they are now rid of such restriction.

From what I remember of the BG1-2 and IWD paper-dolls, I'm not that worried about the in-game representation of women being too sexualized. IWD also had some amazing portraits and of them it was really only a few human female wizards and a bard who were obviously drawn to look sexy.

Given that my (and many others) favorite of the IE games was Torment, were combat mostly boils down to throwing Litany of Curses and then having Morte run circles around Dak'kon and TNO or casting Swarm Curse on big groups of enemies and marveling at a 2nd level spell beating most 6+ levels for effectiveness, the tactical combat was never a main draw. As for the tactical combat itself I think Icewind Dale did it better than BG 2, and the less the game takes after early-game BG 1 the better*. *1 wrong turn in the second area and your 1st level mage gets attacked by 4-5 archers, or go into Bazillisk area and getting insta-petrified. Wandering into enemies who randomly kill you in less than 10 seconds and then learning to avoid the location untill you are higher level does not = skill.