smithereen

This thread is a good excuse to whine and prosylatize! There should be, 1. Some sense of urgency. Please, God, no resting after every battle, and especially don't let me rest after every battle excect when I arbitrarily can't. 1.a See also: Fast Travel 2. Some consequence for gameplay failure other than tedium. Maybe no "permadeth" mode, but how about some anti-save-scumming features and some plot and/or mechanics consequences for letting me and my buddies get beat up all the time. 3. If you could somehow make me feel like magic isn't just for hurting and healing people, that would be great. 4. Environment physics would be awesome. 5. Please, God, keep friendly fire in. 6. If my companions complain about being injured by friendly fire or otherwise treated reckelessly, I will name my firstborn son Obsidian 7. Please include as much companion dialogue as humanly possible. If this means less voiceacting, so be it. 7.a. This does not imply I wan't everyone and their dogs to be romancable. I just want my druid to be upset when I randomly massacre small animals, etc. 8. Not every choice has to be a good one. 9. There should be many bad endings. 9.a. Some should trigger about halfway through the game. And yes, I want my cake; I intend to eat it, too.

There should *always* be an option for tradgedy. The only question is whether there should be an option for a "golden ending" where most things work out, and if so, how difficult it should be to achieve. What bothers me is when games punish gameplay failure with player tedium, rather than story consequencies. If you constantly refuse material rewards for your heroics and therefore don't equip your character, you shouldn't be able to save-scum your way to a perfect playthrough - bad things should happen.