TMTVL

You do realize I'm not going to eat dead party members if you're gonna do that to them, right?

So if some poor shmuck who's not really all that good at the combat system manages to get a bunch of lucky rolls, he gets steamrolled in the next encounter?

I'm into guys with a more... Slim physique and long thin muscles instead of short big muscles. In women I tend to focus more on the face than the rest of the body, I kinda like a rounder face and don't like the breasts and behind to be too large. On the other hand there are people who are into muscle men. There are people who like women with big breasts. Women with large behinds. Men with beards. Men without beards. Women without beards. Long hair, short hair, dark hair, fair hair, dark eyes, bright eyes, jutting cheeckbones, protracted cheeckbones, small noses, big noses. There is a term in programming, "oversimulation". Shamus Young has a post a bit about it, if you're interested. In general I'd say it's something that has to be avoided. I can't help but feel that designing some kind of "beauty gauge" is one of the lowest posible priorities in any program, only slightly above creating a simulation of your character's digestive system.

Touge Hiro, writer of Candy Boy. It takes skill to make something move at the speed of molasses, yet keep it entertaining for hours on end. While Namori, Nanae Haruno, Kazuma Kowo and many others have done interesting things with their medium, I find that Touge Hiro's writing style could really work for video games, especially considering how much longer your average video game is compared to a book, movie or even some serialized manga/anime/soap operas/... If you were to force my hand to name a western writer, maybe Lewis Carroll or something? I don't usually read books other then manga or manuals/encyclopedia on various topics, so the fact that the Alice novels (combined into the Anotated Alice) kept me interested might speak well of him. I kinda like Terry Pratchett, Terry Goodkind, James Clemens, Julian May, Tolkien and other authors, but not quite to the extent that I love the works of earlier mentioned authors.

While I'd like to get Sir Terrence the Eternal Coward through the game, I obviously need to go through with Alex the Master of Magic and Fitness and Rye, Lady Shadowstalker first. Running away is a nice relief after bashing a lot of heads in.

I played through BG2 without any clerical assistance a couple of times 'cause I don't like Viconia, and Korghan and Edwin don't like Aerie. If you're patient and willing to spend a lot of time making sure you can survive without a certain type of character, you can get some odd parties through any game. The main question is how important class is a a character defining concept, think of Kelgar in NWN2, who can go from Fighter to Monk. It seems a pretty big deal. If classes are as important in P.E., it'd probably take a lot for someone to change class. But I dunno, I guess we'll hear about it in the future.

Hmm, yes, it does bring to mind the misadventures of the iron palm/viper styles in Bioware's Jade Empire. Also, OP, sad to say this, but Hokuto Hagan Ryozan Ha, omae mou shindeiru.

Japanese. I'll help translate if need be, I wanna see this in Japanese.

So unenchanted cloaks are finally useful? Sign me up!

But that's the thing, innit? Do you want to be rewarded with an ending and for the devs to say "you did well, player," or do you want the experience of playing the game, even if it doesn't lead to the results you want? Or do you want to have your cake and eat it because you're a spoiled brat?

Take the Drakengard/NieR approach: The closer to 100% completion you need to get the ending, the more tragic the ending is.

If you can wake people up, it would be fun if they were like "it's 3 am, you ass. I'm appreciative you killed the ogres, but couldn't you have woken me up at a civilized time?" On the other hand, I would like for P.E. to be released before Half Life 3.

The IE games together with V:tMB, Arcanum, Fallout 1 & 2, NWN2 and ToEE kept it simple and kept it clean, just a skill check. It's not TES, it's not Beth, it's P.E, it's Obs. Skill check, open the door, get on the floor and get eaten by the dinosaur.

Fallout/Arcanum type endings are interesting, I personally like kinda simple endings, just a "these are the consequences," though the V:tMB endings were cool too (love, Jack). Apart from the Persona 3 ending, I haven't really seen many sad endings, though Persona 3's ending was basically the best way to die ever, so I love that ending. I'd love to see what Obs is gonna cook up.

Tartarus from Persona 3, maybe. Maybe every floor being like a Tartarus block, seems like something that could be really cool and it would work as an isometric thing. The Wizardry series also had some cool dungeons.

4-5 bards? Can I use the defensive spin/free action bug with a couple of blades?

Whaddabout caves/caverns, valleys, rolling green Irish hills,... There's a whole world out there. But I don't have the resources to go explore it all, so I want as much in my video games as possible.

If anyone who wants to suggest something funky would first like to stop and think "would that take longer to code/design/...?" Don't forget we're on a one year budget. I'm also getting flashbacks to playing Oblivion on my laptop where I had to carry 500 lockpicks with me 'cause I couldn't run the game properly and even an easy lock could take 10 lockpicks with my awesome lockpick machine character.

If the story is entirely depending on you dealing the lethal blow, it's not an RPG, it's an action-adventure. It's called a Role Playing Game, some people are gonna want to play a role of their choosing instead of a role assigned to them, and allowing such is what differs RPGs from strategy games. Or beat'm ups with role-playing elements.

If party leader gives boni, then it should prolly be depending on charisma score to some extent.

I like to play a rogue as a... Skirmisher? Being better with missile weapons then fighters and being quite a bit more sturdy then wizzies, I pepper the hostiles with arrows and throwing daggers from the shadows. When shadows are in short supply, they pull wizzie guard duty, switching to dagger/sword/what have you if anyone comes too close.

They said the Cypher class is gonna be kida like Psionics in D&D. Too bad, 'cause I got visions of Kinetic Cypher as an IE kinda game. Anyway, there's been some fun stuff with D&D Psionics, but mainly due to it being broken like all buggery when I played it back in the day. I preferred Dragonfire Disciple, but whatever. If it is Psionics, I'd like if it had some of the Wizardry 8 type mindreading and charm and stuff.

How do I feel about dead party members? SImple... Good eatin'!

Rogue, sneak around, pick some locks, talk people down. I'm also gonna see if the Cipher can so some mind reading shenanigans and if the wizzie can use utility spells to avoid gameplay sections. I'd also love to try single class party (wizzies are too weak, might go druids), and a solo run-through.

If the villain is more intelligent then your character, why didn't he go after you himself after you beat his first three assassins? If he really is charismatic, why doesn't he talk you into following him? If the villain is an uomo universalis, excelling in everything, from intelligence to social interaction to physical/magical prowess, then you shouldn't stand a chance. And I don't care what you say, if it takes someone loaded with magical artefacts up the wazoo to take him out, the guy does excel in physical (or magical, we can use substitution here) prowess. If I want to play as a coward who avoids combat in whatever fashion available to him, why do I have to get my copy of Way of the Samurai 2 out, can't a western developer make a game where that's possible? It isn't always a great man with a great sword and a great, red beard who gets drawn into high adventure, sometimes it can be a snivveling coward, or a follower of the god of love and peace, or... I know it is fun to be better then the opponents, but I wouldn't mind having a choice. In an RPG, I would like the opportunity to play out a role of my choosing. I realize allowing for every type of playthrough would make things hard to balance, but still. If it wasn't for a single door that was mysteriously unopenable without killing, I could have finished Arcanum as a pacifist, and it was very hard, and the true imbalance in that game wasn't as much between sneaky talky types versus combat monsters, but between powerful magic and pitiful tech. If you don't like doing things by way of talking and sneaking, you don't know what I like about finishing Fallout:NV by talking the NCR into leaving the area alone, just as you probably don't know what it feels like for a manga fan to read Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, or for a movie buff to watch Citizen Kane. You wouldn't understand how the decision whether to save Sayo by breaking my pacifism, or stand by and to let her die tore me apart in Way of the Samurai 2. If there's anyone who should be good enough at making games to make a pacifist playthrough not only possible, but also interesting, isn't it the dream team working on PE?