incubus9

Awesome job, downloading now!

I would say that PoE definitely is about as long as BG1 without the expansion. With Tales of the Sword Coast added in, its definitely not. But I can see this game being about the same length or longer depending on how the expansion turns out.

I'm totally digging the dps monk build I made. With max dex and might I am consistently hitting for 10+ damage 2-3x as fast as Eder does with his beginner sword and shield build. I'm definitely going to run my second playthrough as a spell caster though. Possibly a druid or a cipher.

I'm down with getting some new content and seeing some additional stretch goals in the forms of wilderness areas and possibly a companion or two. I'd like to see some fleshed out areas away from the quest line to explore, to give it that feeling of an open world. That being said I'd rather not go over board on creating new companions. I'd rather see lots of work done in improving the interaction and banter between the NPCs and the protagonist. One of my favorite mods to BG1 and BG2 was the banter packs. Having interesting conversation amongs party members that reflects their personalities really helps build a solid gameplay experience IMHO. That being said, once you decide on how you want to go about doing the new stretch goals I'll be sure to toss a few bucks at you to keep this game going smoothly.

I am leaning towards an endurance dungeon. If its going to be 13+ levels, it should be very difficult to reach the bottom. If there are some random encounter respawns minus any specific boss encounters, I think it would add to the challenge. Of course on the Path of the Damned difficulty it should get rediculous.

I spent way more money then I should, but 140 dollars was worth it to get beta access and a collector's edition box.

I mentioned in the thread on classes that a possible mage class would be a Soul Mage. Someone able to dominate and control the souls of those around them and drain them for life replenishment. Something like this would be obviously viewed as evil and repugnant since it violates the sanctity of the individual. Having the possibility of such an evil class would make role-playing an evil character a bit more fitting. Something like this would also tie into Necromancy pretty well since they would be placing stolen and dominated souls into the corpses of others.

Yeah, its pretty easy to turn the regular guy into the "Chosen One". Like this: "Congratulations, you are our 1 Millionth Customer!"

I personally prefer that there are a limited number of classes with a small number of sub-classes or kits underneath them. Most of my ideas have already been posted, but I would like to add one thing. Soul Mage - A mage who is by sheer force of his will able to manipulate the energies in other souls nearby him. A Soul Mage is able to affect enemy characters with soul crushing fear or unimaginable bliss. He is able to bolster allies will as well. Through the darkest of arts a Soul Mage may draw the souls of others into himself to heal wounds.

Nah if magic existed, men would be better at it than women, so they'd have just as much dominance if not more. I assume thats a troll comment.

I think that the issue of women's rights should be handled by in-game lore and be balanced among cultures. Just like in the real world, we have places where women are allowed to vote, go to school, and hold jobs. In some places they are beaten and stoned for minor crimes. It would be juvenile to turn all females into some kind of Conan the Barbarian sex symbol, but it would be unrealistic to make them all second-class citizens. The inclusion of magic would also be a big cultural rebalancing since physical strength would no longer be the only way in which to assert dominance over another.

I want all female NPCs to be slaves of my passion... Oh, wait, this isn't a Bioware Forum....

Inhuman villains can be great as well. I think that the the villain that best fits the topic of this thread should be humanoid. In Aliens we didn't "love to hate" them, we were just terrified of them. Their motivations were so foreign to our own that we couldn't even attempt to understand them, only to fight or flee. These kinds of villains do have a good place in sci-fi and fantasy settings, but I think they do fall short when it comes to being a memorable villain. Villains need to have something relatable to ourselves so we can put their decisions into relation.

I think a good villain should have a bit of yin-yang to him. In good there is always evil, and in evil there is always good. A good antagonist - protagonist relationship should be like the reflection of a cloudy mirror. This is of course this is assuming that the villain is human at all. I could be some other race or even non-humanoid. I feel that a truly memorable villain should be human or humanoid, since motivations for a more esoteric being could be less descernible. I don't think its that important that a player sympathizes with the villain as much as I think it is important that the player understands the motivations for the villain. If I can understand the motivation for the villains actions, whether or not I sympathize, I can at least give his actions some context.

How about a slave race. They would be known as the Soulless. All other races would believe they are beings without souls. I'm kind of stealing the idea a bit from The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. A race of intelligent yet complacent beings would allow for interesting role play scenarios.