Naurgalen

"Or, to put it simply, larger than what? Obviously the more time they take, in general, the more resources they'll need. But, with the exact same budget, you can take more time or less time. If you pay me $1,000 for a commissioned painting, I can take 3 days to paint it, or a week, even after spending the same amount on physical materials." This is what confused me. No matter how productive (or unproductive) they are, they still get paid monthly. The only way they could prolong the development/production time is if they cut the number of people on the project, ie. they had less people to pay each month. Money can be cut from many sources: voice actors, publicity, soundtrack, software licenses and beta testing (for example)... and reinvested in more money for salaries and other content production. At the same time, obsidian may had contracted people for speeding up production in specific things and then put them on other works. And ofcs they may invest more of their own money to finish some ideas that they know will greatly push up the quality of the game.

I have 100% trust in the team. :D

Planescape wins easily, because it has something that even great competitors like ME, KOTOR, NWN:MOTB and FF games lack: characters that ARE 100% part of the history. They are not there because they just want to have adventure or fun, their very lives / existanses are related to the Nameless past incarnations. Most in ways / chains that they cant even broke. I don't want to spoiler things, but if you didn't see those relations or percibe how they evolve in the game is because you didn do the proper in game investigation / conversations. Its not that they "fit" into the history, they are a part of it and by learning from them you learn about yourself. This, like someone before said, is however a merit from the history itself and not only the characters designs. Ps: While I love BG2 / KOTORs and his characters I really feel that ME, NWN2:MOTB and at least 2 FF (6 and 9) are far superior in a quality/quantity relation.

This thread is an example of why evil decisions are so good in RPG (when they are well thought): they make you think. And thinking makes you involve with the situations in the game, enhancing the narrative and bonds you make with your character and other npcs... think about what are your characters limits in extreme situations or temptations. Will you character give all for gold? for power? for revenge? for love? Will he let other do those things? What will he sacrifice? (yes, don't make all good choices the better ones!) And what is good? Is killing a few of good people the right thing if you make more people live even if you don't know those? Those things can make you *hate* your nemesis or even end sympathizing with him. Child killing, torture, or even the most depraved things CAN be made grey in some situations. They CAN be subtle and respectful in a text based communication. And thought provoking. That is the real point. Let obsidian give us a "thought" challenging game, a game that we remember, don't make it a black vs white thing. We are all grown up people and we know that there are many colors than that. Sometimes we win, sometimes we loose, and sometimes... we don't even know.

I would love to see that you CAN go and play REAL evil in the game. But for that the game should give you both actions/options AND reasons. Killing people, children, raping or whatever is insane... not really evil. To be evil you must know what morals or ethics are in the first place, and you must choose to discard them for a reason: revenge, hate, power, lust, greed or whatever sin can work. What would you do to someone that kidnaps your love interest in the party and tortures/rape her? Thats a moral question, and a powerful one that can change the way you roleplay your char. Even more simple and greedier things like how far would you go for some really good item are nice roleplay experiences for a player.

I love the idea, even if its not a top priority.

Like I said it adds "pressure" to your decisions: knowing that a spell will certainly kill you is not the same as "I´ll just take damage / use my greater potion". That alone can make a battle completely different cause you now have a priority: you need to silence that mage, shut down that trap, reveal that thief that just went into the shadows vs your mage or even hold/trap the monk with his death-palm attack. And sometimes it has ROLEPLAY sense: you mess with the death god? then just be obliterated, the lava flooded the room? you are no more than ashes. Damage has no sense at certain difference of power or situations.

I'm a little disappointed by Sawyers quote, cause I think insta-kill spells/ability's/traps can add a lot to one RPG game if they are balanced. And I´m putting emphasis on balanced cause most of the problems he numbers are design/balance problems and not a matter of 1 hit - you die mechanic. But first, why "insta-kill" mechanics instead of "big damage" mechanics? Because it means FAR more power in a roleplay perspective (dragons, epic wizards, gods need this kind of things!!) and a FAR more urgent / complicated / fun situation in a tactical situation. (do i cross the fire to put off the trap faster or I go the long way and risk a party member to die?) Why Hard Counters suck? Because they are not really designed into the game. If you know you are going to fight a red dragon and you get tons of fire-res the hard-counter is not "cheap", is strategic: like someone said, you give up your super shield+5 for the shield+2 of fire absorption. You search for the dragon-slayer items, you memorize the fire-protection spells. That is a way to make the player feel smart, by letting him find and be 1 step ahead. Then, the battle SHOULD be designed around the hard counters developers are giving the players: spells, potions, items and whatever so that dragon wont be just throwing fire to a fire-resistant party, it still must be a challenge. You shouldn't win (unless you are real pro) without having preparation vs "bosses" like dragons. But if a random encounter that you cant know is coming has insta-kill?! CHEAP!!! Again, not if it IS balanced. As many have said: long casting times, silences, counter spells, stuns, snares (for touch-range), using a fast protection etc... are common ways to balance 1-hit KO spells/abilitys. Specially if there is only a few of them and are good visually and sound telegraphed. And they put pressure on you AND your enemy's. (just give them the IA to know when they are being aimed with a death skill so they can run/shield/counter/silence/stun whatever)

About the UI it feels it wants to capture the style of the old games while having tons of "free" space, and I like that, but I think it should try at the same time embracing the new "minimalistic" design: intuitive, small and with lots of easy to read information. For example: - Healths/Mana/Whatever resource bars: Go for the league of legends (and i think dota 2 too) approach, making the bar "segmented" to represent easy to read amounts of HP instead of guessing how much life is 30% of a line. - Unite all kinds of HP in the same easily to read bar, but make them accordingly different (LOL, Mass Effect). That means: if you have a shield /extra life it goes to your health bar, but instead of "green" (or whatever) it is "white" if it works like normal health or "blue" if it only protects you from magic. (I wont recommend having more than 3 types of "extra health") - Even more, improve that according to your game: make monks "injury's" be seen in his health: how much health they will have if they don't treat them. (this can be used with other DOTs too if you want it) - Separate buffs from debuffs not only by color but position. Put them in order of their "actual" duration and if you can, find a way yo make that duration visually easy to read. (more trasparent? overline shich makes thiner? a clock line-border?)

Its FAR more like: you (the devs) THINK it can give the other (users) a "stomach-ache" (or will make the game "worse")... Its an assumption. It could give you the stomach-ache but you really don't know for certain even if it is probable. What is a fact is that you promised something and you don't feel like delivering it. In a normal relation it can be fixed easier: You go and talk with the other explaining the problem and come to an agreement. But here we have thousands of "customers" and even a good explanation + a survey wont fix it 100%. Some people would just want to take the risk cause for them it IS a "core" reason why they pledged (maybe you don't care about the frotress, isometric camera, having more than 1 class/race or whatever is the problem but surely others do). That is why its a tough decision: promises are the reason you put money into the project. And that's why promises were delivered so "scarcely" and in an open way: Obsidian is no fool.

I´m on the "no" side not because I´ll rampage the forums, demand a refund or whatever but because all "goals" are a compromise from them to us. That is the reason why they left them mostly "open" and don't go for really wild stretch goals like 7 city's or 34 classes. (and common sense ofc xD) The point is, while I trust Obsidian (and I know they wont do this), I don't trust or know every other kickstarter project and wont like Obsidian giving bad examples to them. Like the "old" and professional company they are, they should lead by example.

I think that the density of quests in Athkatla is what made the city feel like a real, living "hub/capital" city. Sigil and Neverwinter in comparison feel far small even while both were detailed, full of people and sound-art directed to feel like mayor city's. That is why I think quest (or "things to do") is what makes the difference.

It depends on the story. While I agree that video games have more inherent possibility's about the narratives they use vs other media, I have to agree too with the thought that narratives are tools to convey a story.

Argentina, but I'm very surprised that i didn't see a single Brazilian user looking at how many they are in other games.

Just let me have high tiered time bending spells and I will be happy: slow time bubble ala diablo was really nice, time stop, haste, chain contingency are all great. But for inspiration Mage: The awakening is a nice place.

The point of lore was always to give knowledge that is not directly related to the main quest but gives breath to the world. Sometimes it was justified and sometimes not but it was made that way so 1) its not a chore finding all the information about every single creature the game has 2) you still have access to that information that its not all that relevant to the main quest. Having that in mind I don't feel it was really badly used. Still, like someone said before it could be made better if some quests, events or gameplay mechanics made actual use of it.

Of course it is about the resources. Even so, I suspect the actual motive of the Argentinian government to stir this up is to deflect attention from a poor record at home. When you're having trouble at home, stir up something abroad to make people look the other way. The average Argentinian can't care less about a rocky outcrop far out sea with a few sheep on it. As for "PS: I feel this needs to be made clearer: Falklands are occupied with UK people from 1833, its only logical to conclude that people who was born in British ambient, culture, with British parents, grandparents etc... and are having a good way of live wont feel like suddenly having a strange urge to be from Argentina. The referendum is just a political propaganda so the people don't think about what was really wrong at the beginning." What was wrong at the beginning? Are you saying people shouldn't have a right to want to belong to what country they feel they belong to? Or is it because the British are supposedly colonial? All the states in South-America have a history in colonialism. Now, if you're saying we should hand the whole lot back to the native population, that's something else... The claims are long before all the oil thing, it sure gives more reasons to both country's to appeal but its not the key thing: The peoples arguments are mostly the ones I said. About the other thing, ofc people have the right to belong the country they want (well if said country accepts you =P) but that doesn't necessarily makes the territory where they live from that country. Specially if we want to be legal about it. If that would be right all china-towns in the world can just call their own determination rights and conquer the world little by little xD. The french colony was pretty much bought, and that works like today: when you buy something its yours with all the legal things (rights and responsibilitys) it has. The British -if we want to be legal- should have never constructed a colony there, they only did it cause they didn't know that the isles were already claimed. Thats why they almost went to war with Spain. Luckily for both country's that didn't happen and they left the problem for later. About the capacity its allways debatable, and we can talk about it eternally. But the fact that almost no Argentine was left at the end and the population replaced is not. About the letter, well its biased so I wouldn't take it to the letter even if he was the better professional in the world. The relations with Chile aren't all the nice I would like, but with all latin america? That are some big words that are far from reality.

I haven't read all the official / political documents as a common person that I am, but there are at least 3 claims that are really common here: 1 - 2) Historic and legal rights: Based on a) the legacy from Spain, b) resettlement from Argentina while the isles were abandoned and the c) expulsion/problems that came later when the British arrived again. 3) Geographical rights: The islands are not only near Argentina but in fact they are part from its continental shelf, so they are literally in Argentinian territory by most treaty's. (+ its has given many complicated problems with the sea regulations) Ofc they are far more complicated and detailed than that but that's the reason why the conflict still exists. The fun thing about this all is that I don't like nationalism, it blinds people and makes people feel superior to others. But if a give my opinion in this kind of debates its cause this is greater than Argentina or The United Kingdom, its about law and justice: how we make our relations with other country's / people and respect them. Don't be mistaken, if tomorrow I see some kind of convincing proof of ownership I would totally defend the British. Its just, that this time I don't think they have the upper legal (*) and moral ground. (*) PS: I feel this needs to be made clearer: Falklands are occupied with UK people from 1833, its only logical to conclude that people who was born in British ambient, culture, with British parents, grandparents etc... and are having a good way of live wont feel like suddenly having a strange urge to be from Argentina. The referendum is just a political propaganda so the people don't think about what was really wrong at the beginning. PS2: Yes, I play lawfull good characters xD

I prefer facts over speculations: The first people who lived there were French, amerindians didn't have settlements there even if they discovered them first. That first colony then went to Spain´s "Buenos Aires colonial administration" that later became Argentina. British were the second country to build a settlement in the isles. Eventually both Spain and Britain withdrew their forces from the island leaving plaques claiming them. The third settlement was made by Luis Vernet FOR Argentina with authorization from BOTH the Republic of Buenos Aires and Britain. 10 years later British forces returned to the island and claimed that settlement making the Argentine garrison leave. A shame that they didn't have the rights to decide their own fate no? Claiming rights that you didn't respected first its a bit hypocritical.

Blah I'm from Argentina and I´ll tell you this: Nobody wants vengeance here and FAR less one who is devoted to a religion that's about union. (I´m agnostic but its just common sense) The war was a stupid maneuver by the dictatorship that was ruling my country at that time to don't be taken out. If someone needs to be punished its them for killing innocent people by their ambitions (disguised as "protecting our territory"). Still, the domain of the isles is debatable and being objective as I can I don't see strong arguments on the British part. If I go with my family into your home cause you were on vacations 10 whole years, and then we self determinate that it was abandoned and now its ours / from our country... is it right? And I'm not even talking about legal.

Ill just copy-paste what someone put in another forum and I agree 100% is the best quest I have ever played: "I remember in Planescape: Torment, when you meet Mebbeth the witch, the first character who can teach you to take up the Wizard class. She's this absent-minded insane old woman, and she starts sending you out on these seemingly stereotypically pointless fetch-quests for the most inane, irrelevant items - her washed linens, which have been over-starched, an old picture frame that's missing its picture, a bag whose contents have all been lost save for a handful of dried-up thorny seeds. It's pretty much designed to be annoying, and just when you're getting really frustrated, she turns all this random stuff around into something else - stripping the starched surface from the linens to form papery sheets, stretching them across the picture frame, using a drop of your blood to grow a seed into a vine that grows around the frame to hold the sheets in place. The result is your first spellbook, with a few spells already scribed into it, including a thorny plant-based one derived from those seeds, and even much of the seemingly-trivial dialogue you had along the way is transformed, through a few key phrases from Mebbeth, into insights as to how wizardry works - not only in-universe, but game-mechanically, so that the quest series becomes a tutorial on the wizard class. It's just brilliantly presented - the typically annoying, trivial fetch-quest is transformed into both a representation of the hard work and dedication required to learn the magical arts and a genuinely useful tutorial into the use of magic in-game, and at the end of it you have an absolutely unique spellbook and some unique spells to cast."

Question: By non "human" gods you mean elvish/dwarven/whatever or REAL "non human" / otherworldly gods like cthulhu?

1) Anders from DA2 or 2) Kaidan Alenko from ME1 (he didnt survived muahahaha!!!). Ashly 2, but Kaidan was just sooo worse that I dont ever had a doubt who to sacrifice.

Then u didnt like Planescape: Torment

The problem of DA2 was not that you were always going to the same place, but that you were going to different places and they still reused the same maps! it was lke ME1, and that destroys the idea that you are exploring a real world.