SgtGriff

Don't give up on your ideas, Sawyer! This could really add something unique to the game even if everyone isn't 100% pleased. It's impossible to please everyone. I for one would love to see some new ideas like this. PE is the perfect venue for it.

In what way is it restrictive? So far as I can tell those who are complaining about it either misunderstand the concept, or haven't thought it through very carefully.

I like this idea of an evil ideologue. It's both more interesting and more believable. You can imagine a Cynical Ideologue who is going through the motions purely for money, sex, glory. Or better yet the Amoral Ideologue who has a long term, but awful plan. The game would have to specifically accommodate that though. In order to get Miyagi's "long-game evil" there would have to be long term evil goals. I'm curious what folks think about Good characters though. They can be equally boring, usually because their choices are so blatantly obvious. And to be fair, often the good choice is obvious. But other times it really isn't. The world is full of moral dilemmas. I'd love to see a game that doesn't shy away from that. One where--no really--you actually are going to have to choose between father and the son. You really are going to have to sacrifice the one--your favorite one--to save the many. And there is no third option. What do you think? Do you want hard reality in PE or should it be a more idealized version of the world where there's always a way?

Yes. This is nicely summarized. It seems like the key to getting a realistic moral feel is to have other characters react appropriately. I don't think I've ever seen this done in an exceptional way. A well known psychopath should absolutely shush any room he walks into. It would also be nice to have moral choices work internally on the player character. As I see it, the attraction of evil in the real world is short-term gain followed by a long-term cost... with interest. Sometimes that's a physical cost. But it always damages your soul, something we may have a great parallel for with PE's use of "tangible" souls.

Any story about people interacting with each other is going to have to deal with morality on some level. There will be consequences for actions. One choice will profit you more than another. Or maybe not. Either way the game is saying something about how a person should live. Even if what it says is: it doesn't matter what you do. That said, how would you like to see PE deal with it? Should good characters profit by their acts? How? Should the benefits for evil be different? How so? Or should good and evil characters play largely the same except for how NPCs react? Or do you object to being called good or evil in the first place? I know what I'd like to see. But I'm curious to hear the community's ideas.

I'm curious to know how differently these classes will play. With eleven it seems like it will be a challenge to make them feel unique. I've seen games provide different skill trees for classes that essentially amount to the same effect with a different name. But there are so many more possibilities than standard heals, buffs, damage, and summons. I hope Obsidian will take the opportunity to try some really interesting things!

Hear, hear! I think there is a great deal of room for innovation in the relationships between players and companions. Many RPGs today have reduced companion interaction to a post-quest checklist: do something in the world, return to base and talk to everyone, repeat. It would be wonderful to have these interactions happen in a more organic way, as they do in real life. To me, that means having companions with their own hopes/dreams/opinions who react to their their circumstances in a way that reveals those things. Sometimes they need to tell you something important. Sometimes they really want a beer right now. And they probably don't want to tell you their deep dark secrets while standing in the middle of a crowded street. So let's hear what the companion says when there's only one room left at the inn.... awkward. Let's have one companion burst in and tell me the need to talk about one of the other guys. Let's have someone disappear for a day and not tell me where they were...

I'm opposite on this one. I wouldn't want any in-game benefit for doing this at all. The only thing I would want, and this is only if they include achievements in the first place, would be achievements for those modes and maybe one extra for completing on all three in the same run. If there's an epilogue or summation at the end, maybe they could give a nod to the mode, not overtly but clearly enough that it gives a little ego-stroke. I've often heard this opinion from difficulty hounds. I agree to some degree that challenge is its own reward. And I agree that showering characters with gifts just for playing hard mode is counter productive. However, with greater risk ought to come greater reward. It's like life! I could take the easy road and have a still have good time. Or I could take the hard road and experience things I'd never get to experience otherwise. Let's have some experiences of some kind reserved for those who want to take the hard road. Nothing broken. And nothing arbitrary. I don't want a bunch of equipment to appear in my inventory, for example. But appropriate rewards for accomplishing a greater task would be welcome.

This sounds great. It would also be nice to have some sort of reward for playing in one of these modes. It need not be extreme but something other than bragging rights might be nice. Greater likelihood of special equipment, or a unique ending come to mind.

I would love to finally see an RPG that puts a lot of care into social interactions with NPCs. Skills like "bartering" which instantaneously give a discount never felt exciting because you never really "used" them. They just acted like buffs. Lets see skills that change my interactions with NPCs in a profound way. If I'm good at "speech" let me calm a mob, or argue a case before court, rather than just see some extra dialogue options. If I'm good at "crafting" let me be well known in town for my craftsmanship. In short, it would be great to see non-combat skills affect the players relationships with NPCs in more interesting ways than we usually see.

Sounds like a lot of the basic wold building is coming together and it sounds brilliant. I'm hopeful your ethics will affect the state of your soul in a non black and white way. Also you've dragged the possibilities of sea monsters. Now you better let me meet one! And maybe have a conversation about ethics and souls with it...

I think people want the choices in games (especially RPGs) to be be like life. Sometimes difficult, sometimes obscure, and always uncertain. Should I take this job? Date this person? Go to this school? We never really know the consequences of our choices until after we make them. So don't spoil us! Make us choose with incomplete information. Make the game like life... except that we can always try again!

Why not try something entirely different? Let's give magic real power... and a real cost. What if magic "built up" in a person's system with each use, and each new spell had an increasing chance of a devastating misfire? What if exceptionally strong magic incapacitated the user for a bit? What if magic literally consumed calories like exercise and so wizards were perpetually having to eat humongous meals? What if....

If firearms are included, it might be neat to see them treated as if they were just invented: devastating, but dangerous to the user and inaccurate at much a distance. However it works, let's have a creative twist.