smithereen

I actually liked Logain quite a bit. He was a relatable character, it just wasn't shoved in your face. You had to look around a bit and read between the lines. For me, a good cRPG has to have layered and dynamic characters, at least a few who are likable. But there's no accounting for taste, so it's not really worth getting into what I like in characters. Ashley Williams, Tali, Garrus, Kreia, Visas, HK-47, Heckt, the entire casts of Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer, etc - there are many to choose from. For characters, I mostly want to see real character development, and something I haven't seen before. I trust Obsidian to deliver in this regard. As for the PC's story, I have to care about it somehow. I liked Commander Shepard as a PC, the Warden, the Bhaalspawn Hawke, Thornton, the Nameless One, Geralt - again, I'm not picky, there just has to be some personal conflict. I don't mind having the save the galaxy, I just have to know why I want to do it. For Shepard and Hawke (morso than the Warden, his story was carried by Allistair and Morrigan), I was happy, as Hawke had a stake in the city to pretect - whether he was an **** or not, he probably didn't want to see his house burn down and his friends and family killed, and Shepard was pre-established to be an elite commando - a millitary man. Same with Geralt - although he was quite pre-defined, you were given do warning, rather than being told - "K, you're gonna go save the kittens, right?" For the rest of the plotting, the main this is to maintain internal consistancy, explain why the world rests on the PC's shoulder's, etc. A big turn-off for me is passing around the Idiot Ball - if somebody acts like a total moron or is unreasonably incompetent, it should be at least halfway explained. No strawmen if avoidable (I thought DA2 handled poiltics quite well, for example. DA1 was quite good as well), and I don't mean monsters. Reapers, Sith, Darkspawn are OK - no Leagues of Straw Conservatives or Evil Communists. And finally, try to not divorce the gameplay from the setting. Combat should not be entirely abstract - characters should be heavily affected by their careers - if their job involves being set on fire twice and stabbed six times in an average day, this should leave some serious physical and emotional scarring. If my character is sixteen and the baddest mother****er in the kingdom, this should not have been an accident. In fact, being a prodigy should not really be a satisfactory explaination. And if there are bands of robbers every twenty feet down the highway, who's job is it to deal with them? Probably not the band of adventurers just passing through, or the nation's economy would have imploded before they got there. Edit: And you have to use the medium's unique ability to build dramatic tention - bad things should happen, and there should be consequences for everthing. Including unforseen consequences. The Mass Effect and Dragon Age games (and Planescape: Torment) did this the best in video games, but there's still some room for improvement. See A Song of Ice and Fire - you get a LOT more invested in a story if you know everything can and will go to hell in a handbasket in five minuites - in a game, I think the Mass Effect got the closest. When it's YOUR fault somebody died, it hits even harder than Roose Bolton.

What happened? I missed it.

Yeah, I do.

Now imagine this song while exploring some wilderness,

Rahelron, I know how much that sucks, but full-text translations are expensive, and that would cost us a lot of content. A fan-made one WILL happen, quite me on it! Thinking of bumping my pledge up to $270 from $193, but I'm a starving university student and must be responsible with my money.

There is exactly one piece of bonus content I would love too see on in permadeth mode - a short epilogue when you did. "And after the hero was tragically fell to his death, trying to save a kitten from a tree, the rest of his companions, led by Ser Fredrick the Badass,, struck out to find the Artifact of Terror. One by one the fell, and upon their loss of the Artifact, the dreaded Frog-Sothoth devoured the world."

Although they were amazing series', the best parts of Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic was the music.

Hehe... Chris Avellone and George Ziets are so badass, they are stretch goals...

I trust Obsidian. But we need a reactive party. It would be so cool if a rogue you haven't been taking care off said "I see where this is going..." and ran away when you told him to suicide-ambush the Dragon Lord of Terror.

^^ That only worked in Neverwinter Nights. In real DnD, to become an Eldrich Knight you needed a level of a combat primary class - the class requirement was proficiency with all martial weapons, which you couldn't take as a feat.

As far as I can recall, DA2 was the only game I ever played where mages were arguably not a top-tier class, so I'm not worried about them being (un)useful. It was actually be refreshing for them to have a real weakness again.

Dice. I want a set of OOoE Dice!

DO WANT! MUST... RESIST... PLEDGE... INCREASE!!!

Pledges are slowing down drastically - we need some kind of publicity stunt. I mean to give PE more publicity, not to squeeze more money out of those who have already donated. Ideas?

I've now pledged $168 (do I have to prove it somehow? I'd like to be Chief Consulting Oracle of the Obsidian Order.

I thought the end of Mass Effect 2 was perfect - if you **** around and don't save your crew, they die. Simple as that. But their death triggers if you do two or more sidequests, not if you don't run fast enough.

Absolutely. I've been campaigning for companions to notice when they almost die for years now.

Effective villains can come in all shapes and sizes, but they need to have a lot of personal charisma, evoke an emotional reaction , and leave a lasting impact on the world. For me, both Knight-Commander Meradeth and First Enchanter Orsino were very effective, as they were both charismatic and well-acted, had sympathetic goals, and commited (or allowed) horrible atrocities to further them. Kreia and Loghain could also fall in this catagory. Irenicus, Darth Malak, The Joker, Darth Nihlous, the Reapers, etc. evoke nothing but hate and grudging respect, but that works just as well. Defeating villains has to come at a cost, too, or they just seem like hollow push-overs. They shouldn't be retroactively erased from existance and ull their villainy easily undone. That's too cheap.

I don't like it. I'd prefer to have the possibility of a strong, fast, tough fighter or a clever, charming, and wise mage.

I agree with most of the above, and would like to add that loot left in chests of cleared areas/on corpses should be attached to a variable 'decay' timer- a dead guard in the slums will have his armor scavenged the second you turn away; 50/50 chance that the bandit king (and his armor) got dragged off by wolves when you came back to his camp for a second load, etc.

I would be delighted to pledge an extra $20 for some cool art.

I would be very happy if hits happened much less often than in DnD style games, and I'd be very sad if combat could be redused to "DPS." Battles should be tense and hits should hurt. You should be penalized for being uncarful as well; every big hit should cause semi-persistant injuries and mental wear. (If we could get a mental fatigue stat, I'd name my firstborn Obsidian!) I would also be disappointed if DnD-style, artificial armor balence was implimented, making full plate 3X as restrictive as heavy chain (ugh). It'd be realy cool if they put some fancy math into attack/parry/armor statistics - longsword badly outreaches dagger, axe doesn't parry longsword or claymore, armor deflects sword, warhammer crushes armor, etc.

Only if makes sense charactor-wise - like Minsc's rage or Morte's... being a floating skull. And if it's only one special NPC... that's just asking for a Mary Sue to show up.

Just donated $160, and I'm anxiously anticipating the pinnicle of PC RPGs!

Now I love Obsidian... but that interview is bordering on CD Project-level populism. -2 respect. (Don't worry, Obsidian is still my favorite dev house)