Razsius

Heh, I suppose you guys will win in the end I very much doubt JES is even reading this travesty of a thread. Edit: I'm just not that optimistic after all...

@PrimeJunta Sorry Prime I was all but nodding off at the keyboard I had to get some rest. Don't worry you'll never be able to scare me off . For one that awards no actual xp and essentially moves our xp "carrot" into a loot or gold "carrot". Second, if the Baron of Derpwood only awards you for killing orcs then you have no quest giver for killing hobgoblins. Assuming this is "corrected," then do you spend a ton of developer resources creating various quest givers to give incentives for killing x race for some doohickey they drop to get gold? Third, where are the quest givers? Are they scattered about across all the towns forcing you the player to visit various places for your goblin scalp turn ins and what have you? Maybe all the kill x guys are in a single place so that you only have to make a trip to a single town/city that's halfway across the world every single time you want to be rewarded for your effort. I'm not being fair again let's assume instead they code in a "monster bounty hunter" of sorts that accepts the noses of any monsters you kill. We're going to forgo realism and assume every monster actually has a nose. Also, there will be a "bounty hunter" in every town. Funny this is starting to look like an mmo... Where's the point where this does not feel "patchwork" if you will like fixing a select few loopholes in your combat xp system? I just had to derive an entirely new network of objective based quests just to fix a single issue of objective based xp. Why were we getting rid of combat xp again? You'll have to forgive me for being a little more concerned then "let's see what the developers come up with". I have seen *no* evidence of a solution to the problem. Yours for example rewards as was previously stated getting from point A to point B in the least resource intensive manner possible (this *should* be the stealthy approach or it is no longer a choice). As for stating that kill xp would make sense here. Wouldn't that be yet another loophole you had to fix in the objective xp based system? This is patently false Prime and you know it. I expect a little more from someone i'm responding to. You, yourself, are providing solutions that are either metagamey in an mmo sense or a direct reversion to the entire system itself. If that isn't a "patch" to it I don't know what is. Let's go back to that grab McGuffin quest. The munchkin goes back to find significantly more guards in the area he just stole from and a magical lock on the door. To get back inside the place he robbed he has to kill the Mage investigating the crime which will provide a huge rep hit in the city he currently occupies. The munchkin has even more targets now but for each one he kills he gains some pretty massive reputation penalties. No city in real life will take anyone killing their authorities lying down. Eventually, the player character should be run out of the city or just plain hunted down on sight. If Josh and co want to make a robust reputation system this event should influence *other* towns and cities as well. Get a reputation for being a scumbag and reap some pretty nasty penalties to all but the most evil of npcs interacting with you. This could influence things like going back on your word. As for spawn-o-mats 0 xp is only one solution. Hypothetically spawn-o-mats should have you, the player, *wanting* to close them. Low level shadow spawning 1 at a time? Meh! Who cares.. maybe i'll just farm. Beholders spawning at an exponential rate? You can bet even the munchkin's going to want to close those things before he has 50+ elder beholders all using his party as target practice. IWD had no xp gain for either trap disarming or lock picking. I think they had to code in xp for both of those in BG so the solution was to save time and not code it in. While this is true, i've never seen a parity of choice even in a game JES has designed. If unique loot is dropped from named mobs then that would be Helm's most efficient method. If random trash mobs named "Orc" occasionally drop "rare" items then you now have Diablo and most mmos method of dividing up loot gain (ie dumb luck). Which would beg the question why would I want such a system in my supposedly IE game successor? Also we have just moved the "carrot" from xp to loot. @Hassat Congratulations the path of least resistance is now combat because spending exponentially more time to get the exact same or much less reward is destroying the entire reason you are giving parity of xp to the quest. You just can't read can you? I gave you like 3 or 4 different reasons why you'd want to kill those critters but the biggest problem is the answer to my question (twice no less) was that the particular area of combat I was referring to was MEANINGLESS to clear. If that's not an "f you!" to the player I don't know what is. This was not the only area it happened in VtM: B either. Remember those vampire hunters hunting LaCroix and the rest of your race? Yea there's no reason to kill all of *them* either. Objective xp giving more "choices" is an absolute joke. It just shifted combat being the most efficient method to stealth approaches being infinitely better. And thus we would fix the fun right out of the game. Maybe enemies shouldn't drop loot at all! Instead we should have all loot be at the end of the dungeon in a big chest or awarded to you by the npc quest giver. We need some more equality of choice after all. You'll notice I didn't have an actual problem with disarming traps = xp and scribing scrolls = xp. Quite frankly, i'm not even sure how you were supposed to abuse those two there were only x amount of scrolls and traps in the BG series anyways.

Wow, here's a great idea as well. Think we're onto something here. Yes, I most definitely meant "Eternity After" in this sort of way not in a "I'm beating up lvl 1s as a lvl 50 playing the exact same game storyline i've already beaten" sort of way.

Your solution works for the extremely linear game that is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines but adding kill quests to every marauding orc band in PE should basically be unfeasible (as I would hope the game isn't nearly as linear). At the same time however, the solution is one of those annoying mmo staples the kill x or kill x critters quests. How would you parse the 15 level mega dungeon for example? Are there npcs who have no business being in a deadly dungeon scattered about to provide "milestones"? Are there x number of quests for the dungeon itself in the nearby town? Or is there one lump sum for completing all 15 levels? Any of those 3 options has the very real potential of driving me nuts. One of the things that majorly annoyed me about Watcher's Tower is how it really didn't feel like a dungeon with every Tom, **** and Harry just chilling in it. Regardless, cleaning out a dungeon of vicious hero eating monsters should have some form of benefit for you the player. The benefit is again obvious if you get xp for every one of them you kill. As for your question, if the quest given to you was "Grab McGuffin and do so as quietly as possible" then there might be associated faction loss with killing the guard or the quest giver might spit in your face instead of reward you for doing a good job. If you have a particular munchkin type player who would try to get around those two negatives by turning in the quest to then go back and kill the guard maybe the place is sealed off because of your recent theft which would make sense within the game world and really only piss off players who are trying to munchkin. Most of the xp loopholes could be fixed easily by having negatives like VtM: B had with Humanity loss. Edit: There is a certain irony that I, myself, have a potential solution for the objective based xp crowd for the mega dungeon. That's a Design Challenge for another time however.

It seems my word choice has really kind of dug me a very deep hole I get to occupy. You see when I said "New Game+" I perhaps didn't really mean it as such. A "True Route", "After Story" or even some wacky option like "True Game+" would've been a much better word choice. I settled on "Eternity After" in an effort to get everyone's thought processes along the same railroad but i'm not even sure i'm on the same train to be honest. I'll try again. There's basically no way you could cripple the main plot of PE because it would be a continuation of the main plot. It would not be your standard fair "replay the same game with slightly different options and some unlocks" New Game+ mode. If you played PE all the way through "beat" the game then hit the now unlocked "Eternity After" you might replay as a nobody within the organization that you were trying to stop or crush (so you could become evil warlord or w/e). The perspective would be completely different. You might start on the other end of the world. Edair might freaking hate your guts and not join your party this time around. Enemies would be balanced around the level you restarted the game at (you would not be fighting lvl 1 enemies if you ended the game at 25). The list goes on. You'd learn a hell of a lot more because the opposition might know things your original PC could never know. A city that has a blockade around it might be impossible for you to get into without large bad guy connections. Players are *very* used to being able to go anywhere yet we as regular everyday humans *cannot* go everywhere in the real world. Even if you have some connections you *still* can't go everywhere. However, what limits you might not limit a different individual with a different background. It would greatly expand the story and present a fair amount of believability into the game world. When I think expansion, I think of either a completely new area and story and thus all the assets that need to be built for it or just some expansion areas that really don't tie into the world much. The first suggests an entirely new location(s). The second is more a new area or smattering of new areas with little tie in to what you were originally doing. My idea is more along the lines of expanded content within the same areas (uses the same art assets) with an occasional new area, "new" enemies and potentially different bosses. Edit: In a sense to experience the full game or core game you'd have to play all the way through "Eternity After". If the developers were really, really good at what they do things wouldn't make sense until you did play through everything but that's a little exclusive to my own tastes really. Boy it sure is hard to explain stories with multiple tiers.

/me raises hand I don't understand. Why is it bad design not to reward players for clearing those sewers instead of sneaking through them? In a developer sense, it's bad design for a system built to provide choice to effectively not have one (a choice). It's like all those options in JRPGs where your two choices for the "help the farmer" quest being "Yes" and "No" only if you select "No" the option pops up once again with an "Are you sure?" until you hit the "Yes" button. In a player sense, the quickest and most efficient method of getting through the sewers is *very* apparent. Only crazy bastards and rpers choose option 1 (ie fight their way through). I am one of those crazy bastards btw. In a game world sense, it makes absolutely no sense for you the vampire to allow rogue errant vampire creations to run rampart through the sewers of Hollywood because the Sabat don't give a flying rip about breaking the Masquerade and if it is broken it would spell the inevitable doom of you and the entire vampire race. Letting even one of those little critters get to the surface and start killing the crap out of humans would almost definitely lead to the Masquerade breaking. The game system however, does not recognize this very deadly threat. There are four other similar cases (though not as pronounced) in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. The combat xp system fudges this a bit in a sense that you do not feel like you are accomplishing nothing or that your work is basically meaningless. You *are* getting something in the form of xp that advances your character. There is a very real reason you (the player) would now wish to fight through the sewers. This doesn't fix the glaringly obvious problem but instead uses the rpg equivalent of the mathematical letter "i" to "hand wave" the "math". Ironically, you would now have to make an actual choice. The sewers would become "Do I use every last bullet I have to wreak all the critters in the sewer system to get gobs (hopefully) of xp or do I use significantly less resources to sneak or run by them all?" Edit: Again there is no such thing as parity of choice. I have absolutely have no clue why Josh thinks there is.

Oh it's been such a long time I actually forgot it could be fun to *post* on forums instead of lurk on them. Aluminiumtrioxid I am having fun... this is a bad, bad thing. I'll give you a piece of friendly advice as thanks for providing me with a small bit of pleasure after a long boring day at work. I am not the best of guys to "challenge"... Oh Aluminium you ask me for examples that you yourself have already provided to... yourself. Remember this guy? I phrased my question very succinctly in an effort to get an answer that I (quite frankly) already expected. According to your very reason there is no actual purpose to fighting through that sewer system. In other words it is meaningless to use combat in that situation. Does that sound like good game design to you? If yes, please never ever design a game. If no, then you have made my case for me . But i'm not being very fair here am I? Let's instead assume that those little critters dropped loot. Let us then assume it would follow the model of all previous IE games in that they would drop loot on par with "trash mobs". In this case probably somewhere along the lines of halfway through the game the items would probably have been sold for something equivalent to pocket change. Oops.. we seemed to have moved the "carrot" of xp to the "carrot" of loot. Well i'll be that almost sounds slightly problematic and perhaps quite similar to the very thing we were supposedly trying to avoid with an objective based xp system. Funny that . As for the loopholes there are solutions to them. In Baldur's Gate you got xp from scribing scrolls and disarming traps yet you got neither in Icewind Dale. It's almost like they closed some loopholes. There also have been instances of rpgs designed so that you get neither loot nor experience from summoned monsters which strangely enough can be an all the time type of thing in an objective based xp system. Funny how a solution to a perceived problem in a combat xp based system gets taken to a global scale in an objective based xp system. This forces me the player to deal with a problem *I* now have on my hands because it was *forced* upon me by a developer looking to "probably balance things" I wouldn't have used in the first place. I have provided my example for you now I will provide a counter example to solidify my point. I see that you thoroughly enjoy romance in your rpgs. Let's assume there was absolutely no way to avoid them in a play through of PE. Would you feel just a tad angry that suddenly this applied in PE when it was always optional in the IE games? Why? Oh and I have played many rpgs in the past Fallout 1+2, BG series, IWD (playing), PS: T, etc. Yea remember those guys? All had combat xp based systems. @Lephys You do realize that because you get equal loot in either scenario the "smart" thing to do is exactly what Helm has been saying for the past what 6+ pages? In other words, take the path of least resistance.

Wait, what!? You act as if the last two plus decades of RPGs *were not* balanced around combat xp based systems. So what you're trying to say is that the last two decades (20+ years of iteration on this system people) meant absolutely nothing in the progress department of being able to close various xp loopholes that you have to go out of your way to abuse? Instead, the "solution" is to implement a system that comes with an entirely different set of xp based problems that we have not used for the last 20+ years. Maybe we should give up the title of "smartest species on the planet" and instead redeem the title "absolute dumbest species on the planet." We need to get back on track here. Even if there is an associated risk or cost to using something like stealth or diplomacy this does not necessarily mean you now have parity of choice which again is a complete myth. I have never in the past 20+ some odd years of playing rpgs, mmos, fps games, adventure games, tbs games, rts games, etc. found a parity of choice among them. Not. One. Single. Time. If stealth options take slightly more resources than combat options then diplomacy is the available most efficient choice. If both stealth and diplomacy suffer from too much resource attrition than meaningless combat in an objective based xp system is the most efficient method. God what a can of worms Josh has opened...

You seem to assume a lot what my tastes are but i'll bite. DA1+2: Haven't played either of them. KOTORs: Regarding the Star Forge the respawns are endless so you *have* to get to where you need to go. It's probably one of the most realistic renditions of invading the equivalent of a gigantic space station. You *will* die because you *will* be overrun eventually. That's not a slog that's realistic. Can't remember the sewers btw. Malachor doesn't even count because KOTOR2 was largely unfinished. I doubt Obsidian's version of Malachor being "done" was a long slog through a ton of enemies. Most of your crew barely makes an appearance after all. PS:T: You didn't play Planescape for the combat that's for sure. Might be the only one I can give you but even the Modron Cube felt like slightly less of a chore when you got some xp for it. Drakensang: Never played it. BG 1+2: You're moving into dangerous territory now. Never, not one single time, was I sitting there wishing there was less combat in the BGs. There's no way in hell I would've put 1000+ hours into 4+ entire run throughs of the game series if I felt as such. Divinity 2: Haven't played it though I was checking it out on Steam the other day wondering if I should get the Divinities. Looked a little too much like Diablo (a series I can't stand anymore). Still thinking about it. Are we even talking about the same game? Where was this "boring slog" in Baldur's Gate? We talking about that tiny little maze at the end? I notice your examples are at the very end of the games where xp does nothing anymore or is almost irrelevant... I wonder if there's some kind of connection there? What is this game and why do I care about it? Is it an RPG? Splinter Cell is a third person stealth game btw which works a hell of a lot better then a top down isometric game where you control a party of six. I don't necessarily want Obsidian to spend a good chunk of their 4 million dollars to craft some super elaborate stealth system. *You* might not care but the vampire you play should. As for a regular path without killing since when was that ever disallowed. Objective based xp or not it should always be a path you can take. "Viable" however, is dealing with the consequences of that action. Btw, I always did it the hard way. Whether I was a Malk that could invisible past them all or not I eliminated every single one of them (it was not fun). That certainly *is* the question isn't it?

It is an option and it's the best one for every combat heavy part of the game. The reason you *want* to kill all those obnoxious "sameish" enemies is they might start running amok in the streets of Hollywood breaking the Masquerade which equals your player characters death (and the extinction of his race as well). The game system built into the game however does not reflect this. That was all in bold in my previous post so you could realize that. I didn't read your whole post. I have made it a point not to read long posts anymore. That's why I quoted a certain section of your post. I did go back and re-read the bolded portion. I would say that that would be an example of poor game design. If the game states a reason as you why you want to kill enemies and then doesn't follow through with actual repercussions, that is an example of "degenerate gameplay." You wouldn't want to kill those sewer enemies if you could get out of it because the game hasn't made a consideration for them. Similarly, in IE games you would always want to rest after each fight becasue the game hasn't made a consideration for "rest-spamming." Unless you'd like to LARP your game. Which isn't a problem. I won't make a judgement on that - whatever players find fun. From the game design standpoint though, your example is the fault of the developers, not the players.The fault wasn't the lack of combat XP, the fault was not implementing what they said they would with the "overrunning of enemies." E: this is what I meant earlier about sugar-coating combat. In such a scenario, the lack of gameplay elements stands in starkly as a failure. If you sugar-coat it with XP, players dont' care as much. But is the problem really solved or are developers just sticking a band-aid on the main issue and obfuscating it? What you seem to be missing is that this "degenerate gameplay" if you will is now forced upon me by an objective based xp system. I care very little about the rest spamming issue because I never spammed rest myself. I, as a player, would have to go out of my way in order for it to become an issue (and in this case it would be only my issue). EVERYONE who played Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines knows those sewers all too well i'm sure and decided themselves whether they'd role play what would be a plausible course of action or not. This happened not just once but on four other separate occasions (basically whenever combat got lengthy). Effectively, this was introducing a design error that you couldn't avoid and your "solution" to it is anything but simple. Having to plot out the consequences of every single goblin band you eliminate would I suspect be far too time consuming for the developers to do. It makes you wonder why you'd axe combat xp in the first place. Let's face it parity of choices is a myth. There will always be a "best" option among the lot of them whether it's combat one time, diplomacy another and stealth a third. Why should the least efficient method give out the same xp and rewards as the most efficient method? Objective xp just makes so little sense to me it's ridiculous. Edit: You'll have to forgive me for taking the time to read your entire post before responding to it btw.

It is an option and it's the best one for every combat heavy part of the game. The reason you *want* to kill all those obnoxious "sameish" enemies is they might start running amok in the streets of Hollywood breaking the Masquerade which equals your player characters death (and the extinction of his race as well). The game system built into the game however does not reflect this. That was all in bold in my previous post so you could realize that. Edit: I generally love combat in games btw. I would not be playing Icewind Dale right now if I didn't. Edit 2: Then why have combat in a combat heavy game in the first place? The answer is probably both to your question btw.

Like I said, sneaking will be the most efficient way of playing PE. And you will be rewarded for doing it too. Thats the way it is. I didn't realize I was funding Thief III. Am I allowed to be a little angry here? This kind of feels like a bait and switch. Personally, I find it somewhat funny that I see Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines being touted as some awesome game inspiring objective based xp system. That might be true if you already hated combat in the first place. You see there are two particular instances where the objective based xp was a rather nice touch. Infiltrating the museum without killing a soul in there was one of them. This made perfect sense within the game context and was rewarded *more* xp anyways. Not to mention killing the human guards would've given you a big humanity hit. It made very, very logical sense that you want to get in, get the McGuffin (in this case the sarcophagus) and get out. The second instance was stealing the suitcase from the two gangs (bonus points for getting to watch them kill each other). However, there were FIVE (yes five) instances where the combat was absolutely atrocious largely because of the quest based xp system. Because i've stated atrocious combat and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines in the same thought train, you already understand where one of those areas would be if you've played the game. Yes, i'm referring to the sewers. The feeling of a near endless hell of eliminating countless small, fast, deadly critters that can kill you at the drop of a hat if you're not careful makes for perhaps the least enjoyable part of the game. They give you zero xp, they give you no loot, there are a ton of them and the game world does nothing to reflect that they are no longer in it. The "smart" player finds any way possible not to engage in combat with them but the game world tells you that a feral vampire creation running amok in the sewers of Hollywood just might expose your race to the veritable "light of day". I always seem to leave that part of the game with 0 ammo left and a large headache. It's a shame I didn't sneak my way through to get the same amount of xp. The four other areas are the Chinatown vamps, LaCroix's tower, the appartment complex filled with vamps and the vampire hunter stronghold. All of them area basically the exact same situation. All of them are GLARING weaknesses of the game itself that strangely does not present itself in the normal play of something like Baldur's Gate. I agree with Helm, Gifted, Val and some others that an objective based xp system makes little sense in a game that supposedly heavily involves combat. Saying that diplomacy and/or sneaking options are not more efficient than combat is saying that combat is not only not rewarded and tedious but also very easy (at the same time this also states that sneaking and diplomacy options are not worth it). I've got one and only one real question to those that prefer the objective based xp system. If you've played Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, what reason do you have to clear out the entire sewer system in Hollywood and why is it a "viable" or "good" choice (emotional diapering yourself notwithstanding)?

It was an example. Fallout's not really built for something like this whereas the whole soul thing going on in the PE universe makes it seem like a much more viable candidate. It's basically creating more bang for buck in your game (and I don't know about you but i love getting 100+ hours out of my games). As for making a sequel that's completely missing the point all the art assets they have to create, new characters they have to write, new combat mechanics, completely different area of the universe they now have to create lore for, etc. you'd be waiting another couple years for that sequel. There's comparatively less work for doing something that's akin to finishing their story (under the assumption you've got unfinished business with the Big Bad.. who hell may not even be the Big Bad). You really could run amok with the idea.

All this *might* be true except you're still thinking of it like JRPG one route = one goal thing. This is going to be a CRPG of that i am most sure. Take Fallout for example (you've played it I hope). Now add in this kind of "New Game+" however, in this case, i'm going to rename the mode "Fallout After." Your character starts out in The Hub he *doesn't* start out in Vault 13 and he sure as hell doesn't give a damn about a stinking water chip. There's no time limit because you don't care about water chips. Your starting equipment is completely different because you're Mr. X in The Hub not a vault dweller. The Master's super mutant army of death killed the vault dweller which was you except for whatever reason you can start as Mr. X which is still you (both the player and the player character). You're in a completely different starting location. Vic and Dogmeat may or may not rejoin your party because you're a completely different person. People all over the place give you completely different dialogue options because again you're "someone else". You know exactly where the super mutant army is and how many days till they overrun the ghouls and eventually the rest of the wasteland. Your stats have carried over but your gear has not. The Brotherhood of Steel didn't let you in on your first play through because they didn't want to let some wasteland mongrel into their fold however as Mr. X you might just be able to cobble together a group that can take a stand against those arrogant bastards and raid their tech. Same map, same characters, same "play", completely different perspective and hence completely different game. Would that be a worthwhile mode or am I missing something here?

Mmm perhaps "New Game+" isn't exactly the right phrase i'm looking for which is probably why I came up with "Eternity After". I don't want this thread to get huge before I somewhat clarify what the general idea of what I was thinking. The "Eternity After" that I was looking for was more of a story within the story mode where basically if you replayed it the game would in a sense be a completely different game. As a somewhat old example take The Witcher game. There are actually two concurrent stories going as you are playing Geralt but it really isn't until after you've beaten the game that you truly knew who Alvin was. All that stuff was happening behind the scenes without you the player or Geralt the player character even realizing it. That was probably the best part of the entire game right there. Now why would a world that's likely going to be rather large compared to the Witcherverse not have these concurrent events (ie stuff outside your perspective)? An "Eternity After" example would be more like the second half of the football game though in reality your soul has say fled the body of the one you originally played as and then inhabits a different body. You'd have the same experiences (level), memories (build), knowledge (spells/skills/etc) and a seer's vision (you know how the story goes... or you think you do). The "restart" of the game might take place from a completely different view of the supernatural event (this doesn't preclude you from remaking your character and how they look btw) or the "restart" might be a narrated version of a set of memories that the elder soul has giving you a piece of what's *really* happening. When you get to a town that had a massive bandit problem that was already being taken care of by a different adventuring party... strangely they aren't taking care of it this time (perhaps that was *you* the player character doing it before). When you find Edair the second time he's in a completely different location that seems to be totally out of character for him... or is it? When you hit the city that has a secret society kept very hidden from prying eyes you dispel the illusion on the "door" to their inner sanctum because you now have that knowledge from playing through the first time. The list goes on and on and on. They could do a *ton* of stuff with this. That story I referenced by the way was amazing before they started revealing a ton about the characters and the interplay between them it's just when the backstory and the past started to be explained it took the story to a completely different level. I figure the first time through the game you'd get a variable ending depending on what you did and how you solved what but without your character having prior knowledge of certain events/characters/etc. you wouldn't be able to do everything (though you, the player, might not even notice this). "Eternity After" would simply vastly expand the game itself. Hearing second hand how that secret society operates and what they do might be *completely* different then if you joined them and learned first hand. It's just we as players tend to be very used to the God's Eye View of sorts where we know every known conspiracy, the entire history of the game world, every quest is given to us on a silver platter because hey we're "the chosen one" and kings, guild leaders, spymasters all love us like their long lost friend because the game would be booooring otherwise. But if The Witcher can do it linearly why can't PE do it on a much, much grander scale? Does any of that make sense to anyone?

I should probably preface this post with the fact that the Baldur's Gate series is probably one of my favorite games of all time. They had linear story as well as main villains that were for the most part integrated into the larger BG picture since day 1. Sarevok and Irenicus especially got under my skin. By the time the endgame rolled around, I was out for some sweet, sweet vengeance. But in a sense it was kind of funny. No matter how prepared they thought they were the minute you rolled into the picture it was all over. What if that *wasn't* the case? What if the game world was built so well and the villains so competent that it required more then one perspective to see the entire picture? What if you got to the Big Bad and his still unfathomable plan (not necessarily of world conquest) was *not* stopped by you the player? What if as you and your party were slowly turning to stone you wished you could've had just a little more time? What if... there was an "Eternity After" option? The problem nowadays is that my favorite stories tend to have multiple tiers. There's one in particular that makes you *think* you understand where things are going only to later be egotistically curb stomped into oblivion by the realization that you fundamentally *don't* understand any of the characters at all. To be honest I get a tad tired of being able to expose every single conspiracy or to walk into any throne room of any king I like and strike up a conversation about the weather and what plagues his realm. Chatting up Aran Linvail of the Shadow Thieves like he's any other thief I can most definitely do without. So why *do* you always end up winning and why is every secret of the game universe ever always revealed to you? A "mature game" would dictate that neither of the above two should always happen and Project Eternity with one of it's main focuses being about souls is a perfect CRPG for a kind of "New Game+" option. You see when Obsidian revealed the first bits of the "lore" of the PE world I almost immediately felt that the supernatural event you get to view coincided somewhat with a form of soul possession. The "one man's life" and "the Watcher" reference sounded almost like you as the PC were given responsibility that wasn't chosen but rather was forced upon you. Being possessed by a kind of elder soul seemed somewhat plausible in the PE universe or what very little I know of it. Naturally, the possibility of this opened quite a world in the PE scheme of soul reincarnation. Thus, we have our first ever potential "New Game+" option in a CRPG. A different perspective with the same level of experience, memories and knowledge that belong to the soul. A new game of the same world with many new options dialogue, story and companion/character growth. A "second chance" to stop things (or push them forward) in a way that smells of a great book or a world built with the complexity of something Tolkienesque. So what do you guys think? Eternity? or.... Eternity After?

Actually, the road just north of Nashkel has *no* hidden treasure and precisely one NPC to talk to. Most other maps will have one or 2 scripted encounters, that's all. It's been a while since I last played so I've been trying to be thorough. There's 2 npcs on that map and a response to one of them has to be one of the best cans of verbal whoop ass you ever get to deliver to an annoying npc. You, uh... might want to be a little more thorough. Funny how you mention what is perhaps one of if not the most barren map in the entire game and I can still remember something from it. Btw if you go just a single map north you find an area with 2 of your sidequest objectives. Besides, as I recall there's kind of an ongoing bandit problem plaguing the roads. Would it make much sense for there to be a large number of npcs going along it? Out of curiosity what would you have put on that map? I'd simply say define unique scenery. BG takes place in a very specific section of the Forgotten Realms universe. The reason there are no towering snow capped mountains or vast stretches of deserts and swamps is because they weren't in that particular area. Besides the gnoll fortress *was* built into a mountain. That aside it's been almost a decade and a half since the game was first released aren't we being just a touch harsh on it's supposedly mundane graphics? How would you have diversified things without using landscapes that make absolutely no sense within the setting?

Me and the OP must have played completely different games. Bland and repetitive scenery? Are you kidding? The granite mines of Nashkel, the mountain fortress of gnolls, the lush open green valleys near the Candlekeep coastline, the web infested Cloakwood Forest, the fast-flowing river near Baldur's Gate, the desolate and lonely crossroads filled with broken merchant wagons, the deforested bandit camp area, the "bottomless drop" rocky coastline, the "statue forest" near the eastern edge of the map, the list goes on. I didn't even mention the wizard's tower, the mining town Nashkel itself, the Friendly Arm Inn, Beregost and Baldur's Gate. It would be pretty hard to not remember what any particular part of the game looked like because every area including the ones lacking content had it's own look. For a game that's almost a decade and a half old i'd say the fact that I can remember this stuff is impressive (haven't played BG in years). BG didn't use an overly fanciful universe (see Planescape) to make a large impression either. Most repetitive and boring landscape? That award goes to the game set in the mega fanciful universe Planescape: Torment. I'm looking at you ever red Baator. Don't even get me started on Torment though. The City of (Closed) Doors with portals that can go *anywhere*. No exploration here of course. There's probably a demotivator for this with the title "Lame." It has a picture of Sigil with the caption "The City of Doors? But I can't go anywhere..." underneath it. As far as the BG 2 random encounters go I only remember *one* of them (the one with Drizzt). I'd say random encounters for world exploration are a poor man's substitute at best. What i'd truly like to see is Obsidian take away what Bioware did with it's world crafting. I mentioned places like Cloakwood, the Candlekeep coastline, the gnoll fortress, the crossroads, etc. because the landscape of those spread their "area of influence" to the surrounding maps. Content tended to be the same way with the only truly "dead" areas being far removed from the civilized parts of the BG world (which is exactly how it should be). The BG world felt seamless in that sense. I'd be more than a little disappointing if Obsidian didn't already know this. Edit: Movement speed in BG 1 was actually a little slow which is why it was increased in BG 2. I think the vast open spaces of BG scare off individuals that can't find an npc with an exclamation point sitting around in a place he has no business just chilling in. Nevermind the fact that even the most barren of maps had some hidden treasure in it.

I thought this would be a thread about how abandoned ruins are very rarely if ever actually abandoned. I'm kind of disappointed. Then again this does make one wonder what you could do in that regard... So your party stumbles across a small town and the local gossip is to stay the hell away from the abandoned ruins because people that explore them never return. You, as the player think "Ah it's one of these quests... probably ghosts." So you reach the place and quite literally nothing is there. No monsters, no ghosts, no hucksters... no life. You go in search the place and maybe there's some random junk scattered about but that's it. No journals lying around, no blood etched messages on the walls telling you to leave the place or else... nothing. You reach the very deepest part and the wind whistling through the place is starting to get to you and Justin Bell's doing a damn fine job setting the atmosphere with whispers echoing through the halls yet nothing still comes. Just as you think Obsidian is trolling the hell out of you a room that wasn't there before opens up. Inside is a gigantic magic circle with a stone alter dead center. The room's walls are riddled with arcane symbols and ravaged writings in a script you simply don't understand. Beating a hasty retreat to the previously introduced podunk town you retell your story and hire someone who may understand what the hell's going on with that room. He complains the whole way down to the room. Upon reaching the room our resident archeologist gets to work translating. He does know the writing but it's so terribly worn down that it's barely understandable. Something about "demon's dream", "our folly", "the dreamslab" and "waking nightmares". You make out just enough to do something idiotic like going to bed on the alter. And so the quest begins... Your main character wakes up with one hell of a headache and the sinking feeling that something is fundamentally wrong. The walls are older, they shed malice like a furnace and all your companions are nowhere to be found. You see, a large group of idiotic mages "back in the day" wished to enter and rob the dreams of a Greater Abyssal Daemon thus acquiring knowledge beyond their ken to fight a war they were losing badly because this, of course, is *such* a great idea. It didn't work. Instead, it summoned the Greater Abyssal Daemon's transcended body into the city itself creating a city that would devour life at a frightening rate except... they didn't know that. As more and more people disappeared by the day, it soon became clear that something had gone terribly wrong with their idiotic ritual. They sent mage after mage into the dreamworld in order to gather data and rectify the situation but any that actually returned were crazed, drooling lunatics. By some god's grace the leader of the mages *did* manage to return with a solution to their problem but it was far, far too late. The last residents of the city having their existence sapped away were in no condition to do much of anything. Using his very last strength he inscribed on the walls of the dream chamber a dire warning to any retard adventurers that don't do what they're told... like say *YOUR* party. The entire quest is trying to figure out what the hell's happening, get out of the dreamworld (which is slowly killing you) and to get back to your companions and run the hell away from the ruins like a little girl.

Haha thanks. I'll try to cut down on some of my quoting as well so I don't become "Giant Blocks of Text Guy". In regards to companions and Deionarra just assume that i've fully unlocked all except the last 2 Unbroken Circle teachings. I believe that was a high int option. But in regards to Morte's backstory, Vhailor's backstory, Ignus' backstory and Annah's backstory. I'm almost positive I pumped them for everything they were worth. I unlocked Dak' kon's past in regards to him and the Practical Incarnation as well I pumped the Practical Incarnation for everything he had as well. Grace was a little harder to figure out and there was much left unsaid despite her giving you her history. Ravel and that Alu-fiend shopkeeper allude to there being more to her then meets the eye but I never found anyone who gave you the "real" 411 on Grace the "fallen succubus" who doesn't seem to struggle. I did indeed bring that wedding ring to Deionarra and I even got to apologize to her. Problem is Deionarra's character consists of crazy lovestruck seer and that's about it. I still believe that could've been expanded greatly but at least I felt something for her at the end. While I do agree that you can ask your Planescape companions much more about things. The real solid companions you get in BG 2 have backstories that are implied instead of asked about. When you first find Keldorn he's on a quest, a very specific one and he's got specific gear with him. He's old and the VAed lines he does have reflect his character immensely. Later, you get to do his one and only personal quest that gives you a view of Keldorn from 5 different angles his wife's view, his kids view, the lover's view, Keldorn's view of the situation and your (the player's) view. Keldorn is pretty much intricately tied to the Baldur's Gate 2 world almost immediately. You know his faction, how he's viewed within the faction (the quest he was on), how his family views him and even how an npc (the lover) outside the circle views him. He radiates reputation and class before you even get to his banter dialogues. Concerning his banters he's got a ton of them between Viconia (man he hates her) and Jan. He also has a few with Yoshimo and some real personal ones with Anomen. If you never played with both Keldorn and Anomen in your party you really and I mean really missed out on one of the most sombering dialogue banters i've ever seen. Mind you i'm probably forgetting a few banters he has with others. Not to mention his response to you before you go after Irenicus is like a paragraph long rather than the few words I got from my companions in Planescape. Also i'm pretty sure you can try to tell him to bail on you. That's just Keldorn. There's still Sarevok (all that development across 2 games as an antagonist), Imoen (I can never say "no" to her), Jaheira (romancable), Aerie (romancable), Viconia (romancable and she's pretty lippy), Jan (he's kinda like Morte), Edwin, Haer' Dalis, and even Yoshimo are all presented excellently. That's a good chunk of the BG 2 cast and i'm probably forgetting someone(s). Lothar actually can kill you (as in you get a game over). For those that didn't play Planescape I wouldn't read this next paragraph. In regards to the combat, yeah I do understand what you are getting at. Thing is I can't fully agree with an idea that purposely makes a part of a game pretty lame to fuel an "experience."

I finally beat the game. It is somewhat fitting that I end the game at a giant Fortress of Regrets as I definitely had a few of them (regrets) about the game. The story ended up coming together quite nicely but the road getting there was quite rocky. But at the end, sitting atop a floating castle filled with shadows and failings, I couldn't help but wonder how great a game it could've been had resources in certain areas been tweaked. Alas... all I see are shadows. I do have a few questions for the Planescape fans. Most especially for the ones that don't seem to enjoy BG 2. I see people often mention things like they wish the companions would be "at the level" of Planescape but for me it'd be something along the lines of "at the level" of the developed companions of BG 2 and Planescape. Ignus and Vhailor were left largely unexplored while Dak' kon and Morte were some of the best companions i've seen. But here's the thing, i'd equally rate ones like Sarevok, Imoen, Jaheira and Keldorn as being very close, at or even above the level of those previous two. I wouldn't want to see another Ignus for example as Edwin's very first meeting beats him hands down. Ignus' entire story is basically done before you get him in your party. So question... why are the Torment companions better? Some examples would be nice. Am I the only one that considered Deionarra the unofficial "eighth companion" (Ah regrets...)? Why wasn't a real reason to search for your mortality actually given? The only real reference to it I could remember was Deionarra making a prophesy on it and then Ravel elaborating on it. As a counter example I knew the exact reason why Geralt was doing what he was doing in The Witcher. On the other hand, we have TNO going "man I sure wish I could remember who the hell I was... let's go search for my mortality". Little jarring till you hit the Fortress. After finishing the game I find my position on the immortality thing strengthened significantly as it's heavily implied that you will always be a different incarnation after every death. Basically, you wouldn't be "you" anymore after every death. This isn't reflected at all in the gameplay. Also, because Planescape combat = large groups of monsters you could kill 1 or 2 monsters in the group and make progress in that regard. You could basically zerg combat despite the resource loss per attempt. You can't zerg Kael and each attempt required your full strength in order to have a chance to beat him. I really don't understand this. If the combat's detracting from enjoyment of the game or adds nothing to it why would it be good to have combat feeling like it's "blocking" the player character from it's goals? I do kind of understand when you hit say Baator and just basically want to ask the Pillar the things you need and not try to empty the entire plane of demons but BG 2 had the respawning mechanic with combat that added to the game rather then detracted. I think that was me and I only said as much because any reasonable person is going to judge a game as a whole. They should also be developed as a whole. The combat mechanics at the very best didn't add anything to the game. The fact that you could get in combat did but how it often played out did not. Here's how I beat every boss in Planescape on max difficulty. Step 1) click TNO Step 2) click boss Step 3) win. I'll actually agree to these but as Karkarov above me stated D&D actually allowed for things like alignment shifts and class changes. If your Lawful Good Paladin decided he wanted to go on a murderous rampage for some inexplicable reason then your alignment very much did shift and you became a Fallen Paladin. Humans could dual class in AD&D second edition and of course non-humans could multi class. While it's true you couldn't shift classes per say it was fairly loose on how you could progress your character (well at least as a Human). As far as unremovable items goes I tend to agree as well with the exception of when it starts taking choices away from me the player. The one subverted "unremovable item" was anything but fun. TNO not wearing any armor because he's TNO was pretty dumb. It didn't add anything to the story or gameplay.

I like how you don't address his point at all. If Chris wanted just the setting maybe he could of licensed you know... just the setting? Instead for whatever reason they also decided to license all the AD&D rules to do what? Subvert them? Why? To "be different"? "Make you think about them?" To that i would simply say "Grow up." Just because something is "different" does not inherently make it better. I don't know what's so hard to grasp concerning this logic. As well, those decisions to subvert the rules very much had an effect on the quality of the game itself. Entirely instant cast spells meant that there was basically no balance to speak of regarding them. Combat is so atrociously basic that I catch myself nodding off if I happen to be playing Planescape late at night. You think that happened to me at four in the morning when i was playing Baldur's Gate I? Hell no! To be honest I considered the immortality thing to be a detraction from the game rather then something new and awesome. The few times i've encountered where it's progress to die (like your tomb or the Githyanki killing you) could either be replaced or made little sense (if you are dead how do you hear the Gith conversing after?). Combat wise it's one of the driving wedges between you and enjoyment of the actual gameplay. Without any real way to fail at any particular combat it instead heightens the feeling of combat being a grind or detracting from the actual "game" itself. I remember one of the interviewers who spoke to Chris brought up that there was too much combat in Planescape. That, of course, isn't actually true but there's a reason he thinks that. Outside of combat it also makes little internal sense. Supposedly, when you The Nameless One died you either became a different incarnation or you just lost your memory. Neither of those things is even remotely displayed when you die in game thus there is no "conflict" or option for failure. I remember back when I was sucked into WoW during The Burning Crusade expansion my raiding guild had spent a *considerable* amount of time trying to kill Kael. So for that very first kill when we had finally killed the bastard after many, many deaths everyone quite literally cheered on Vent. I'll never forget that feeling of accomplishment. Never. But, if WoW had "held our hand" as it were and never had allowed us to actually die and fail I guarantee there would've been no enjoyment to speak of for "finally" killing him. Even visual novels allow for failure. Post as many as you want (it's always interesting to find another view of things). But I might disagree on some or even all of them for my own reasons. This is hyperbole at best. I'm not the biggest fan of RTwP combat myself so I do kind of understand where you are coming from but you can't completely ignore all the things the BG series does involving combat that Planescape simply does not have. Peristant AoEs? Offensive and Defensive dispels? Suppressing fire from archers? Layered mage buffs? Contingencies? Time Stop? The list goes on... In regards to combat... they aren't even on the same plane. Edit: As a sidenote, I've played and beaten BG 1 - BG 2: ToB at least 4+ times. I probably have 1000+ hours into that series and now i'm seriously considering 2 more goes at it. I'd say one of my most fun runs was with an Assassin. Everything would explode when I landed a backstab when I hit the end game.

I have to agree at least somewhat here. The no swords and no armor thing especially stank of selfish adolescence. I liken it to a teenager who argues with a parent just for the sake of doing such rather than for any actual logical reason. The no sword anti-trope barely affected me at all but the no armor anti-trope irritated me to no end. I'm surprised no one's made a game with a main character that lacked both arms and legs to move with as I see so much swinging of swords and walking around that it's become rather drab. I vote for a main character that cannot move or equip weapons at all. Heh... the amazing lack of portals in the City of Doors (plenty of fetch quests though). Thought I was the only one that noticed that. Which is equally as bad in the polar opposite direction. Out of curiosity why? I often see many Planescape fans liken the game to a visual novel (to which I often wonder if they've played any of the good ones). If you cut out the atrocious combat, the lame fetch questing and the non-choices wouldn't you have a much, much better game by any stretch of the imagination? If your car's bumper is hanging off of your car as you are driving wouldn't just removing it be a far safer and wiser option then leaving it on to do potential damage to a) the road b) other cars/drivers and c) your own car? Haha wow... well said my friend well said. That really kind of does make Black Isle look really stupid for making such decisions back in the day doesn't it? I admit you brought a smile to my face as I was a little worried there for a time. But yes, rereading that giant block of text and envisioning the lack of any real reference points makes that little blurb indeed convoluted but it's largely because i withheld a great deal of them (the reference points). Statements out of context tend to be difficult to make sense of. As for the authors, Frank Herbert's well known for starting Dune which is a big part of Sci-Fi greatness. I'd name him king along with Isaac Asimov. These guys laid the foundation for everything after. They are, in essence, what Tolkien was to fantasy. The second is Joe Ambercrombie who writes perhaps the grittiest "dark fantasy" i've ever seen. To be honest, gritty fantasy is not my cup of tea but I have a healthy respect for him because his characters are second to none. Logan Ninefingers is a work of art... and there really isn't much to say after that. I'd suggest starting with The First Law book 1 if you do decide to check him out. But alas, both of those authors (all three?) are not what you are looking for... or at least what I was referencing. So forum suicide be damned here is what I *was* referring to: http://www.amazon.co...=Pandora Hearts Of course I do hear of ways to perhaps... preview... certain works. A word of caution though this particular Wonderland does *not* let you go assuming you fall too far in.

That's a pretty large leap of logic there. There's only 1 pure mage in the game (I think) which means that if your main character is not a mage you have *one* option to get one. How is me wanting say oh I don't know *two* choices for a pure mage "wanting everyone to join me"? You can show loss and brokenness in a character while still maintaining the personality of the character quite distinctly (see below). Ignus has thoughts of fire... and that's about it. If that isn't an example of a one-sided character I don't know what is. Limiting where you can learn things is almost as stupid as limiting *what* you can learn imo. I generally have to explore avenues outside my home country (the US) to get anything of merit anymore. It seems close to all of my favorite authors are British (Frank Herbert and Joe Ambercrombie to name a couple) or otherwise. But yes, I was actually thinking of one perhaps two series that kind of delve into "identity" but really don't make it a main theme or point. Thing is these forums tend to be the "unforgiving" kind when certain types of media are talked about. For example, said series might not be a book or a movie. Thinking about it... yes why not. Let's say that there is a single character in a certain unknown series that has/had the occupation of knight. Let's say this character screwed up excessively at his job and watched the family he was supposed to protect aside from the youngest daughter get butchered by bandits. Feeling regret and remorse at his horrible failure he found himself in contract with an entity that could best be described as an inanimate object given sentience. The power he gained could erase things in the world that were essentially immortal and so he rampaged across his world feeding the sentient inanimate in an attempt to gain the power to rewrite the past. He ultimately failed and was cast into the world's "hell" which ironically was the residing place of the only being capable of fulfilling his wish. The being stole something from him that forever changed his... view. Right before the entity consumed him an event that would've occurred well outside the time frame the knight would've lived happened (wow that sentence was hard as hell... and probably not grammatically correct). It caused great pain to the entity and provoked a very human reaction from it because it once was... or maybe never was allowed to be... human. It had a simple favor to ask to the only man it had ever seen. The knight's wish had been granted... but he had failed once again. You see after he left the world's "hell" he went back to check on that only surviving daughter. The family was now entirely wiped out. Time had been rewritten and the bandits had never raided the family but it's political rivals in a move to destroy their competition had annihilated them fully to make sure they would never pose a threat. The knight had not been there to protect the daughter that had once survived because his decision to rewrite the past and return to the world had placed him many, many days after the political raid had taken place. There is one caveat to this story however. The power that knight had gotten was not cheap. It cost him his vitality. There was no "I wiggle my hands and then stop time." No, this power cost something... and it was a great deal of a cost. Though he had lived only a short time by human standards he didn't have much in the way of life left and that was before he ended up with a second contract with the inanimate sentient at twice the cost. He had things to do and he still needed power for it. That, my friends, is only half of his story... That is only one of the supporting characters of said series. I'm kind of curious whether people consider that much characterization good or not. I suppose I might find out after I post this.

If you're talking about the identity issue thing then even the BG series does that only in a slightly different way ("Do my genes make me who I am?"). I suppose one of the problems is i'm a lot older then I used to be back when this was released. I've already basically encountered media that does the identity topic *way* better then this game does. So the solution to bad quests is to not play the game? I thought I was trying to unlock memories which could be encountered basically anywhere (at least until mortality became an issue all of a sudden). Apparently, playing the game is "doin it rong" I guess... As far as Mebbeth's quest goes I generally don't need a game to patronize me about patience. I *really* don't need it to do it twice (the stone man if you have low int). The other two were generally worth it especially Cry for Trees. I ended up stopping at his "oasis" for a few minutes just to kind of gather my thoughts on the Planescape matter. As far as combat goes, every spell is instant cast and it's generally not worth your while to position Annah for a backstab. Combat is basic and trite at best and mind numbingly repetitive at worst. Your solution to the longest combat i've encountered yet was to skip it. That tells me much about it. While I can't even begin to understand the search for mortality I do know a fair bit about Ignus. The thing is his two answers to Ravel were "Burn" and "Burn". He might've been someone once but he certainly ain't much now. He's also the only pure companion mage that i've found and I wanted one in my party. Slim pickings when it comes to companions *really* sucks. As for making a weapon to kill myself. The *only* reference to it was Deionarra's prophecy. That's a pretty piss poor method to get the option to even show up if I do say so myself despite what it might *later* entail. "Oh look! I just so happened to have randomly picked up the key to unlock this door." Looking at the map makes me think about 2/3 of the game is done and while I don't mind a back ended game, this is getting a tad ridiculous. Well at the very least it's nice to know that what I basically expected is true. /sigh No, I do know what little they gave me of Deionarra's backstory it's just they gave you so very little it's hard to make any real connection to her character. Second hand sources of information really doesn't help either. One of my biggest beefs is you can't go back and ask her ghost about her father, the stone, etc. It's has to be the biggest waste of a slightly different romantic foray ever. Like much of your companion history and a lot of even the memories I have found it seems to be up to me the player to basically fill in the blanks. There's what 6+ unique ways that people point you to Lothar and yet Deionarra who has her own damn theme can't get periodically undated dialogue options? Reminds me of the difference between a Tad Williams fantasy novel and a Brandon Sanderson novel. Tad spends reams of paper describing an experience to you. Sanderson *shows* you in 3 sentences. So much wasted writing... tch.