pipboy2000

This describes exactly how I feel about this. Not ALL the quests should be time sensitive, but the obviously ones should! In many RPGs situations like this occur: NPC: "My daddy/children/mother went down into this creepy cellar/dungeon/forest and didn't come back, but I heard really scary sounds five seconds ago and somebody desperately screamed for help. Please, PLEASE help me!" And you are like: "Fear not! I shall look into that incident!" (...as soon as possible, of course! I have to sell some loot first and maybe I will go to that other city 200 miles away to buy that magnificent sword I saw in that shop window and of course I have to brew some potions first, only a madman would go down there without some decent potions on him... speaking of that, I need to get me some mandrake roots first and you know that the prices for those are outrageous so I have to find some on my own in the forest of faraway... sooo, what about in, uuhhmm... let's say five weeks? Would that be okay?) On the other hand, I don't want the main story to have a time limit. I want to have time to explore because that is, for me, one major reason to play RPGs: I want to descent into a rich, interesting, different world. And I think that would not be possible, if I had to hurry from one place to another all the time...

To be honest, I don't really care that much about an archetype. The only thing, that really matters (and is hard to accomplish), is, that the companion acts authentically, not superficial (shallow?) and has a really, REALLY believable reason to leave everything behind to join your PC on his journey. My personal (I am aware that this topic is highly arguable) favorite companion of all time was Morrigan in Dragon Age. She was loyal to the party in her way, but also clearly wasn't fully integrated (at the campsite, her place was aside the others, etc.). You could feel, that she had built up a very hard shell but there was always a glimpse of a softer core. Even if you romanced her, it was still obvious, that she was, in some way, too insecure to trust you completely. And, above all, there were some ingenious conversations, mainly between her and Alistair, where she mocked him in such an intelligent, sarcastic way, that I laughed until I had tears in my eyes! Other companions, that were, in my eyes, well written would be: Bishop in NWN2, Minsk in Baldur's Gate 1/2, Triss Merrigold from The Witcher 1/2 (even though she maybe isn't a companion in the classical RPG way) and many more who I do not remember right now... Come to think of it, I remember another one: Grimgnaw in NWN1! Even though he also wasn't a companion on the "Baldur's Gate" sense, I was really fascinated about that guy!

There are RPGs with no logical connection between an enemy and the items left behind after death. Like, for example, wolves that mysteriously carry not only some kind of weapon or an armor but also lots of gold. On the other hand you maybe kill a full plated, axe-wielding death knight and he leaves nothing but 25 pieces of gold and a potion of health. In my personal opinion, this is not only rather disappointing, but also really kills the atmosphere. I would like to see a logical connection in between the enemy and the loot: - A wolf should drop nothing, unless you maybe have a skill that allows you to take the pelt or maybe use something as an alchemical ingredient. - A humanoid enemy should drop the weapons, clothes and armor he was wearing. If, for example, a town guard attacks you with a pike and wears chain mail, you should at least find something like: a pair of boots, pants, a shirt, chain mail, helmet, the pike and maybe some coin on him. - etc. To prevent people from power-selling tons of items, you could, for example add the possibility, that the weapons etc. get damaged in the fight. If the before mentioned death knight was killed by ten heavy blows of a two handed warhammer, it would be obvious that the full plate armor is in a rather bad shape after the fight, etc. I am aware that this might lead to balancing issues, but on the other hand I think, that the guys at Obsidian would be able to solve them. What is your opinion an this? Should there be a chance that monsters drop all kind of stuff, or should there be a logical connection in bewteen an enemy and the loot? pipboy2000

Although I like a stealing feature in a RPG I think it should has some obvious limits. - You should not be able to steal objects someone is clearly using at the moment of the theft. Stealing the pike out of his hand or the armor he is wearing from a guardsman is, in my eyes, just ridiculous! - It should be logical which items are stealable. For example: -- Stealing a coin purse out of a pocket / cutting it off from a belt does make sense, stealing a ring from someone's finger does not! -- Stealing the little, decorated dagger from someone's belt makes sense, etc., stealing a two handed axe in the middle of a crowd does not (everybody around would notice, that the little Halfling did NOT own an axe of his size 2 seconds ago...) - If you stroll into a house/building that is not open to the public, the residents should ask you to leave immediately and, if you stay, call the guards/attack you. I mean, how would you react, if a gang six suspicious looking people would burst into your home and start opening chests and searching shelves. (Like ownagefool mentioned, this was done quite well in the gothic/risen series.) - If you steal something from the shelves of a shop you should not be able to sell it to the shopkeeper. He would recognize his own wares. But: I really don't like the approach that you can sell stolen goods just to certain merchants. Why would that be? Have the items a label saying: "Beware! I was stolen!"? Have the "honest" merchants some kind of sixth sense that lets them identify a certain item as stolen? - If you get caught stealing / pick pocketing, there should be a harsh punishment. In most cultures, thieves faced things like chopped of hands etc. - I really would love to see some (little) consequences even for successful thievery! For example: -- If you stole a purse from a maidservant she could start complaining that she will face punishment at her employers house, because she had not been careful enough. -- A merchant could turn on his no good bodyguards for not preventing a theft. -- If you stole from a farmer, he could become desperate, now that he would not be able to buy the two cows he had been saving his money for 2 years. -- If you stole from somebody who would give a quest to you later on, he could say something like: "I would have offered you 50 gold pieces, but since some bastard stole my purse, I can't." -- If you stole from a beggar kid he could start to cry, now that he and his little sister would have to starve... Even if it would only be "role play" consequences, I think such little events would make you think twice before doing the "steal-harvest" on a map, before moving on...

That reminds me of my first Oblivion face customization: At first, I was astonished how ugly the default face was, then, after ten minutes of fiddling with all the options my character was of such a tremendous ugliness, a Quasimodo-like freak, that the default face, all of a sudden, looked like a really good trade off...

Personally, I think there should be children and they should be killable. Not because it is my dearest desire to walk in pools of blood of the six year olds, but because I do not like it if somebody is invincible in a RPG. (Another example would be: If you are stupid enough to kill somebody who gave a quest to you, you should, imo, deal with the consequences...) And they should be in PE because a world without children is just weird. You could solve this by giving a child slayer a really bad stigma and enormous drawbacks (?), like, for example, 95% of the merchants won't barter with you anymore (because even thieves abominate child slayers) and many NPCs who would have had a side quest for you won't talk to you anymore.

Yes! I like the idea! If your party consists of a small, skinny, agile thief an an enormous, bulky barbarian, it should be clearly visible who is who on the battlefield...

I don't like the idea of carrying a special weapon just in case you encounter that one special enemy that is immune to almost everything else. But on the other hand it is somehow obvious, that a rapier would not be as harmful to a skeleton as a two handed sledgehammer... Yet again, in my opinion this was solved rather good in the Witcher series. A steel sword for the normal enemies and a silver sword for the monsters, some weaknesses as well (fire -> archespore) and that's that. But that does not mean, that I want PE to be exactly like the Witcher. It was just a good solution. I think there is nothing wrong, if an enemy proves to be more resistant to a certain kind of damage and maybe has a certain weakness, but it should not lead into a situation where you can not kill an enemy, just because you did not bring the right weapon. (This would, in my eyes, only be acceptable in a story related context: For example, you have the mission to kill the old vampire of Blablabla and the priest of XYZ told you three times that this ancient evil can only be slain by the silver garlic sword. If you enter his tomb without, it should be okay that he slaughters you like the idiot you are...)

I like the traditional monsters aswell es the weirder ones from Morrowind. But the best job, in my personal opinion, was done by CD Projekt in The Witcher! Those monsters felt very unique (compared to all the other fantasy RPGs) but also fitted perfectly into the whole Witcher world. In my opinion, the monsters in PE should fit into the region they live in. You could have, for example some traditional forests with traditional monsters like wolves, bears, etc. but also build some regions with extraordinary plants and a unique and very different wild life... The most important thing is, that the beasts match the region they appear in. Just adding some bizarre insects or three legged reptiles into a normal oak forest would, in my eyes, be the wrong way.

This is so poor...

Perfect! And no female armor that is basically nothing more than a steel bra and iron hot pants! I always found those so ridiculous! (In the witcher 2 Triss often wears normal, functional clothes and still is beatiful.)

I never used traps in Neverwinter Nights or other rpgs with my character/party members nor do I think they are a vital part of leveldesign. So I really wouldn't miss them. On the other hand it wouldn't bother me if they were implemented.

Narrated sequences with pictures leave enough to the imagination and are much cheaper than cutscenes. I really like the "dark tower comic trailer", molarBear posted. If it would be made that way, I would be fine!

This is how it should be done, in my opinion!

I think its always a some of both to greater or lesser degrees, because I think it's impossible to take yourself out character creation. I prefer to project myself on first playthroughs and then experiment more with roleplaying on replays. This is how I handle it aswell.

First: Unlike many other people over here, who try to make fun of the original post in a humiliating way, IcewindDave didn't just complain about something, but showed an easy solution to the thing he asked for. A solution that not only would be easy to accomplish for the developers but would not be offensive in any way to some of the more conservative players aswell. Second: The title of this whole forum is "Project Eternity Speculation & Discussion". I simply can't understand why a transsexual person can't make a proposal without attracting loads of degrading mockery. Edit: This used to be the answer to a post from "working man hole" but this post is gone, as is my quote of his post.

Could you please explain in detail how this rather featherbrained statement is, in any way, connected to the original post? (And I suggest, that you read through the original post a second time, before answering)

I don't really understand how a transgender person with difficulty connecting to a nontransgendered character would find it easier to connect to an asexual race, much less a race that has no sexuality because it's a non-organic construct like a golem. And I don't understand how people fail to grasp role playing games are games where you're supposed to play(with implemented mechanics) other characters, not yourself. When asking for these gay/trans/furry/foot fetish/whatever people want to play themselves - you're a tranny irl, why don't you play a lawful neutral/dwarf/cleric-thief. If you want to play yourself having romances, changing clothes and arranging your house according to feng-shui, all the while making your avatar as close as possible to yourself, what the **** are you doing here? For such needs there is the Sims series. Sh**t, I've been doing it wrong? I always play as a male character finding it easyer to relate, and I've been having so much fun with my games! I do tend to mix it up a bit when it comes to the morality issues, but I never seem to be able to get the feel for female PCs the same way I do male PCs. Fu*k. Now I don't know what to do. Go play Sims/Second Life/Elder Scrolls BAM! Now THAT is intelligent reasoning!

I don't really understand how a transgender person with difficulty connecting to a nontransgendered character would find it easier to connect to an asexual race, much less a race that has no sexuality because it's a non-organic construct like a golem. And I don't understand how people fail to grasp role playing games are games where you're supposed to play(with implemented mechanics) other characters, not yourself. When asking for these gay/trans/furry/foot fetish/whatever people want to play themselves - you're a tranny irl, why don't you play a lawful neutral/dwarf/cleric-thief. If you want to play yourself having romances, changing clothes and arranging your house according to feng-shui, all the while making your avatar as close as possible to yourself, what the **** are you doing here? For such needs there is the Sims series. Sh**t, I've been doing it wrong? I always play as a male character finding it easyer to relate, and I've been having so much fun with my games! I do tend to mix it up a bit when it comes to the morality issues, but I never seem to be able to get the feel for female PCs the same way I do male PCs. Fu*k. Now I don't know what to do. In my first playthrough, I normally chose a male character aswell. I like, that I can somehow pretend that I am the character in the game and try to make decessions I would make. This is, for example, a reason why I normally like rpgs, where I can creat my own character better than those where I am limited to a default character.

Good Lord! Implementing EVERY fetish would mean a huge amount of work, we agree on that one. But: I cannot see how adding something like golem as a playable character is very fetish-like. Is this really so hard to understand?! --- I don't really understand how a transgender person with difficulty connecting to a nontransgendered character would find it easier to connect to an asexual race, much less a race that has no sexuality because it's a non-organic construct like a golem. You know what, I don't know either. But if a transgender person says it would be cool and at the same time it doesn't mean a huge extra workload for the developers, why shouldn't it be implemented? Furthermore: I think that playing as a golem for example isn't something that would only appeal to transgender people. I think it is a great idea, with it's own unique possibilities for great quests and a fantastic background story...

I think they should be in the game, but not as common as in so many other rpgs. First, I would like a really good explanation for undeads. Not this "an evil necromancer waved his arm and - *PUFF* - here they are, ready to plague the land for no obvious reason" nonsense. Please think of something original! Second: It should be uncommon and horrific, if the dead walk amongst the living again. Not this "Undeads? Oh yes, those skinny guys roaming every cavern and tomb from here to elsewhere!" attitude. In many rpgs undead are more common than dogs and cats. Undeads should be mysterious, frightening, dangerous... I think you get my point.

I don't mind minigames like dice poker in the witcher or pazaak in kotor. If they fit in, they contribute to a "living and breathing" world. But I really dislike it, when you are forced to learn and play such a minigame to finish a certain quest. The minigames should be optional!

When I read all this posts, like this one, over here I get the feeling, that not many have read the original post: I simply can not see, where such an option would mean an incredible increase of workload for the developers.

I totally agree with OP in every point! Like many other people over here, I like the weapon design of "the witcher" aswell as the design in "baldur's gate" and hope they will chose something like it.

Even though it is off-topic: Cross dressing! This is an absolutely great idea! You could use that for some hilarious quests! For example: You would have to dress in women's clothes to infiltrate a place where only women can go. This could result into some huge barbarian starting to flirt with you, or yourself trying to seduce a guard to lure him away from his post, and so on... I think you could write some incredible dialogue in that context. As I said, an amazing idea!