khango

In the IE games I find pre level 7 to be really tedious, and you often don't get the fun stuff 'till 12+, so I guess my hope would be start about level five IE equiv and be able to get to ~ 25 IE equiv, which encompasses the range of competent enough not to be killed by a rat to pretty much power incarnate. The less level one and two dinking around getting killed by a cricket, the better IMO.

I loved skull trap. It was the perfect spell for a sorcerer. Screw fireball and keep back the party members, in fact, they can take a nap.

I don't really care so long as there aren't trade offs that completely screw certain classes or characters in general.

So I'll admit I'm kind of sympathetic to the op's viewpoint. I posted something similar on the thread for rewards/stretch goal suggestions. However I'm fine with custom parties. I just think they should be handled by character generation/management ui outside of the actual game, rather than having some sort of convoluted in game system where you hire mercenaries, reason being that you could then have UI to manage the various characters you create and it'd take less developer time than building a whole in game map and set of interaction. Plus I have this sneaking suspicion that if the "adventurer's hall" or whatever it's called doesn't let someone create a party member from the ground up, the custom party of custom characters folk will be a bit disappointed. And if the in-game system lets you roll characters, I feel like it kind of messes with the suspension of disbelief. In fact, rather than an adventurer's hall, I'd like to see a character management UI where you can compare the various characters you've made and decide whether to queue them to be in your party. Now I'm sympathetic to the narrative and balancing requiring that they not be in the party at the start, so I can see why they'd go for the adventurer's hall. In fact if turns out to be a glorified inn that characters you create before starting the game hang out in so that you can pick them up after the solo intro, I think that'd be fine. I just don't really get why it'd be stretch goal. I'm not at all concerned about the custom characters somehow taking away from 'real' NPC party member dev time. Lastly, I'm a bit sympathetic to the issue of rogues, or more particularly, thieves, in top down isometric-ish RPGs. Don't get me wrong, I like thieves and rogues and I've enjoyed games like Thief, and in original Deus Ex I often went for the stealth. But in every IE game I've played, they've been the afterthought -- mostly too weak to be helpful (maybe okay with a bow), and forgotten about except for picking locks, as it was often much easier to just run summoned creatures or a tankish fighter out in front to trigger the traps instead the tedious and slow crawl and disarm. However this isn't to say rogues had no place... I played through BG2 with a bard, and I tried making a half-orc swashbuckler once, with mixed success. Everything about a thief screams solo play, and their trap abilities are very defensive, which also doesn't help in an offense-oriented party-based game. So yeah, I'm on board with the rogue thing if they can get away from the stuff that doesn't work and come up with something that does. (And I'm not saying get rid of traps.)

I'd try BG2 or PST over Icewind, or even BG1, but that's just me. Usually they all work well under wine, and there's GemRB if you feel like messing around some.

Aha, thanks, that thread does indeed get to what I was hoping to find, namely something like this: http://forums.obsidi...0#entry1219467.

I've seen in a few random threads suggestions that level scaling is confirmed... i.e. there will be massively more powerful rats as you level if these rumors are true. I am less than pleased about this idea, however I also don't know what the source of this info is, so if somebody could point me to it please! If something Bethesda-style or WoW-style is confirmed I might be heading for the hills... The last thing I was worried about was the spell casting system, which once I found it buried in some Reddit AMA thread, turned out to sound mostly fine, so I can't really tell if this is a lot of smoke for not much fire or what.

I'm so close to posting a rant. It feels like the forums and project are getting co-opted by 'special interests' -- namely MMO players and turn-based-rpg lovers who don't have a $@%! clue. I cast Abyssal Fury upon them. Repeatedly.

Yes, cRPGs are (or should be) vastly different than MMOs. An MMO is an aberration created by MBAs to feed the compulsive animal brain of those without an appreciation character or plot. If what you seek is repetitive micro-rewards and repetition, please go back to your MMO.

I kind of wish the 2.5 mil and 2.4 mil stretch goals were swapped. I like the proposed additional classes, whereas I can't name a game with crafting and recipes and such where it didn't end up being tedious or unimportant. Being able to get a few special items by collecting stuff for an NPC is a enough for me. Basically don't talk about being classic and then pander to modern action-rpg/mmo morons by throwing in a tedious crafting system that will either a) be so pointless it shouldn't be in the game, or b) take some much effort to balance and implement that it subtracts from the stuff we actually want to see in the game. Also, I don't get the "adventurer's tavern." Just let people load a custom party and don't bother with it please. I'd rather the in-game content was more focused and in my mind the adventurer's tavern is a way to waste resources (devs, artists, etc.) that could be going to improve the actual game content and game on a problem that could be solved by using character creation 6 times and take like 30 minutes of 1 developer's time.

I found BG1 kind of tedious at least in part because of how the maps worked. The way BG itself (the city) was broken up was kind of screwy and made getting around the city a pain. The extended countryside maps were neat, but also obnoxious because it was hard to tell if you were ruining quests just by parading through.

I like the combat log. I'm not sure I would have realized how certain mechanics worked in IE games without it.

How about some crab people?

I agree that boob-armor is silly. As someone with a bit of European martial arts experience I can vouch for it not making sense. So please, skip it. As far as regular clothing goes, though, I feel like there should be room for characters to dress like they act. And if you recruit some rogue from a brothel, maybe she's really repressed and covers up, or maybe she shows a lot of cleavage. It should be a combo of society and character for the normal dress. But armor doesn't need boob-cups.

If cooldowns are long enough it's not sooo bad, as in if it were like a sorcerer-style casting system where level 1 spells recharged at a rate of +1 per hour, level 2 at a rate of +1 per 2 hours, and so on, with normal spells per level progression, and your spell selection was a little more limited, like maybe you could only have spells from two complimentary schools active for casting without having to reset and zero your spell counters.....

I'd like to see really epic monsters added. Not just dragons, but maybe like every 50 or 100 k there could be an epic monster quest added, which would involve maybe a dragon, a 300yd 16ft thick snake, a Fenrir type wolf the size of a house, a 40 ft giant, a sea monster, etc. Like a quest that involved one the most epic, gigantic, awesome monsters/creatures from lore. Might be cool. Ha. I'm okay with the ship thing, but I guess that kind of leads down the rabbit hole... if you can get a ship, why not a zeppelin? And would you really pilot it, or would it just end up as a fast-travel system? (The maps aren't seamless and have loading screens, no?) Mod tools would be okay. Not against the endless dungeon, but try to make every level have a story and not be repetitive.

BG2 & PST

I think all three (right number?) of the evil characters I remember in BG2 were quite fun even when they constantly complained about your decisions, so I don't think it's really as strong a requirement that ego stroking be positive, it's just that most games can't really provide a context for dissimilar characters to be cooperating, whereas in BG2 it was obvious that Korgan cared about loot and Edwin cared about power in ways that let them say funny things and justified them sticking with a non-aligned player character. Personally I loved that in BG2 they'd want to kill each other or leave the party for good. The 'gimping' thing is kind of a non-issue in BG2 because you can level so much. But I agree with you pretty much about BG1.

Mostly I just hate the random container thing.

I only care that normal mode is reasonable. It shouldn't be nerfed for casual morons. Newer games have a tendency to be bloody easy. Like Mass Effect, for example. The first two were ridiculously easy even on hardest difficulty (haven't played the 3rd). That said, I'm not a fan of impossible, either. And forcing a rest-fight-rest slog is pretty obnoxious, too.

Against any effects that break immersion.

With multiple windows visible at once, the main use I can see is that it might be nice to have two inventories open at once. Otherwise I'm not sure it has much point. But the minimap has no place in a top-down isometric-ish game with a panning camera. Press M for map and see the map. Minimap has absolutely no place. And there should absolutely not be compasses pointing out where to go for your quests and such. Otherwise, I like the BG style UI, because it has thematic flavor. I don't really care if it's bulky or not that way, but please keep it thematic.

I think with sphere you end up at like 24-25 and without it 16 - 18, though it depends on class. At least that's my memory. What I'd like to see is initial level depending on character background/class combo, like peasant wizard? start at level 3 with some special skills in practical magic/herbology, noble wizard from wizard academy start at level 7, but have a penalty to social skills. I think having an extended levelling curve that allows for a lot of specialization rather than purely powering up is also good. Like maybe a level cap of 50, and requiring 10 proficiency slots to fully utilize a weapon in a 'u' shaped curve, where veteran soldiers maybe have 7, freshly trained recruits 3, and 3 or 4 slots of difference would be enough to be near impossible to overcome. There could be a big trade off in getting the last three slots two, like maybe it could require a special quest with intensive training by a grand master that comes with some sort of opportunity cost depending on the weapon. As for wizards, while I hate spell progressions, I wouldn't be against inexperienced wizards having slightly reduced spell effects or a chance to trigger a different spell by accident that decreases until it's gone as they get more experience. Also, I think ranged weapons should be on an easier proficiency curve than melee ones. If you think about it most shooters can be good enough without being Robin Hood pretty quickly, whether with guns or bows, while it takes a significant amount to training to fight another person with a sword and not getting yourself killed. Being Robin Hood or William Tell should be hard, but hitting someone in general shouldn't be. Think Agincourt or Mongol Hordes. I actually think most of the other IE games did this well, or at least it's been my experience that ranged weapons could easily outdo melee.

I'm pretty sure that's a midget with joysticks driving some sort of robot. In other words, an armor suite mecha. Not sure how I feel about adding that to the game. It's only a step away from wizards with AT-STs. Which I guess would make it Howl's Moving Castle?

I'm rather fond of the mysteries that seem bizarre and horrible and plain befuddling, but then lead to someone absurd and clueless (like RIncewind from Discworld) being responsible more or less by accident. Not that I dislike more serious ones. The whole 'skinner murders' thing played out in several places kind of unexpectedly throughout BG2 without really letting you see through the veil, so to speak, which was neat.