rjshae

Don't try to appeal to the casual gamers & hack 'n' slash crowd (God of War, anyone?) as did EAWare with their grossly ill-advised "This is the New Sh**" add for Dragon Age. This is primarily a game for grognards, so be honest about its throwback nature and fewer of the non-cRPG players who purchase PoE will shriek and sling poop on the forums. I was being satirical...

Shadows of Esteren - A Medieval Horror RPG: Occultism by Jim Searcy -- "A medieval role-playing game somewhere between Ravenloft, Game of Thrones and Call of Cthulhu"; Succeeding at $30,225 with 34 days to go. Silent Legions: A Sandbox Horror RPG by Kevin Crawford -- "A Lovecraftian horror RPG from the creator of Stars Without Number designed for sandbox play and home-brewed Mythos creation"; Succeeding at $18,276 with 4 hours to go. World of Mists: New RPG Setting for Pathfinder by WoM V Studio LTD -- "World of Mists is a setting book project for a tabletop role-play game, 100% compatible with Pathfinder"; 2% funded at £830 with 15 days to go. Not sure why this is not doing well. Aihrde: An RPG Setting from the Makers of Castles & Crusades by Stephen Chenault -- "a world heavy with the stains of time, where the bold stand upon the ruins of time and plunder the wealth of dragons and kings"; succeeding at $16,203 with 18 days to go

#2 and #4 seem like reasonable options for a casual play mode; #3 could be handled via more variety in lore XP; I think #1 would be a good addition at higher class levels (for the expansion).

I never understood this sentiment. Ideally, I like to see Kickstarting cRPG titles be all about independence from big house publisher control; it does not need to be about making a self-sustaining series. If it does make them self-sustaining, then great. But if it doesn't: so what? You'll still end up with a game that you want.

Regarding multitasking: because this is a computer-based game, there is no reason why the developers need to follow the D&D dogma for multitasking classes. They could, instead, use interpolation and scaling to generate class progression tables on the fly. For example, if you have 5 levels in Fighter and 3 levels in Cleric, the game engine can compute a scaled spell progression formula to determine what additional spell/effect bonuses you gain if you add a level to Cleric. This would allow the game to balance out the capabilities of the characters better, based on the total character levels.

That last one looks like the Pee versus En Pee problem. Sorry, nerdy math joke attempt.

They should call it... Shadowrun Forever. To be followed by Shadowrun & the Worm Catcher. (Wyrm Catcher?)

Another question is whether games will make films obsolete. Well probably not, but I do think they are going to start chipping away at the film business. Your conventional, mindless action film with car chases and shoot outs can easily be supplanted by a game. Movies have become quite pricey, making decently designed games very competitive.

The fairness of the release price--vis-a-vis the Kickstarter contributions--has little to do with it, beyond influencing a certain amount of publicity. As a commercial entity that wants to remain in business and continue to produce games that we can enjoy, they should set the price to bring in the best profit. Doing anything less would not be in their interest, nor in ours.

Funny yes, but a catchy tagline wouldn't hurt. "Old school adventures for a new generation" I'm sure somebody can do better than I.

With a 4 minute Superbowl ad, of course. They will have to spend all that Kickstrter funding somewhere...

Well that narrows it down...

And we have a bite. Will it be reeled in or escape the hook?

It's wasn't so much about the experience being newer but the alternatives being no better. As for RPGs - for me they started rolling downhill when the gameplay and mechanics design got 'refined'. No developer wants takes risks anymore and I fell that for the last decade I have been playing the same three games with slightly different skins. Yes, well I can't really blame them for not wanting to bet the company with a $100 million AAA title by "taking a chance" on something radically different that may not find an audience. Those niche products are better left for indie companies and Kickstarted games to explore. That's why I wouldn't mind seeing developer companies like Obsidian or InXile returning to Kickstarter to fund a more risky title. Personally I think we should be encouraging that behavior, rather than disparaging them for returning to the well.

Nostalgia is always used as the default rebuttal by people who don't understand what made a genre/game popular or loved by the people discussing it in the first place. The fact is that many RPG fans have been disillusioned by how modern (AAA) RPG's have placed an ever-increasing emphasis on action to increase marketability, reduced dialogue/gameplay choices because of the constraints of voice-acting,/graphics, ect... stripped away depth, challenge and complexity because it doesn't "appeal to a mainstream audience". No it's not a default argument, it's a valid psychological process. I've played numerous RPGs, both old and new. Many older games left a favorable impression on my mind, but in going back and replaying them I found they weren't quite as enjoyable as I once found them. You say that modern games place an every increasing emphasis on action, yet many RPGs of old were almost entirely oriented around action. The stories were threadbare at best, with only a handful having a solid, enjoyable, well-developed plot and interesting interactions that rose above the constant stream of repetitive combat encounters.

BS. Played it recently and it was awesome. Well good for you then. Have a cookie.

Nostalgia has a tendency to enhance and glorify older experiences, which may create the illusion that things are getting worse. However, many of the older RPGs were also boring experiences with stupid repetitive mechanics, lousy stories, pitiful character interactions, and, of course, limited graphics and sounds. It's just that we were willing to put up with them back then because all we had were less capable computing systems and the experience was all so much newer.

He seems to be mulling over the idea of an isometric Star Wars game with 2D backgrounds ala the Infinity Engine games, which would be substantially cheaper to produce than something with kotor's production values. It would also be easier to make as they already have the tools to make it with the tools they've created during the production of Pillars of Eternity. It doesn't have to be Star Wars, per se. They could, for example, do a reboot of Star Frontiers. That would give them a space opera setting that they could adapt to the PoE engine.

Really? The existence of supernatural magic spells doesn't seem strange to you, and yet this does? Hmm...

This game was funded by RPG grognards. Sorry, mate. You are barking up against the wrong tree. Perhaps even Yggdrasil?

Yes, that was my thinking too--use a tree structure for the skills (with the current set serving as the base) and allow specializing in the various branches. That way your rogue can specialize in burglarizing, investigating, or scouting. This skills tree approach would probably be the easiest to implement, given the current code development, and I think it possesses a certain elegance too.

Well I wouldn't classify myself as an endophine junkie, but I know that mountain hikes do stick with me, memory-wise. Enough so that I want to keep going back. Perhaps it's a combination of the clean snappy air, beautiful views, and strenuous activity?

Does this world have a printing press? I don't believe so. Have they mastered surveying techniques? Probably not. You're talking hand drawn maps created by a scholar collecting various traveler's tales and adding various creative embellishments. You'll be lucky if a map is even close to accurate. The best maps will probably be of coastlines; not of interior trails and dirt roads.