TrashMan

But do they NEED to become stronger? If they are already strong. Do they have to be the greatest weapon ever? If the strongest weapon in the game is a +3 and the sword you found and customized is a +2, used it, and made a name for it (maybe even NPCs may recognize it) - will you throw it away? The out of control level/power inflation is the bane of most RPG's settings

I fail to see the problem. You are rewarded for finding a great swrod early andnow your character can carry it and make it his. Think of every fantasy character and their weapon. Anduril. Twinkle. Sword of Truth. Etc... they are all found relatively early and the hero sticks with them. Noone of those weapons are found at hte very end of hte story. None of those weapons are replacable throw-aways. The heroes in those stories dont' go trough 100 weapons beore settling on that one. I see no problem with it. Make the weapon part of the character. Give the player the ability to mark/customize it. For NPC to recongnize it. Give it presence. Give a bonus to familiarty because of long use. It only makes sense. I found BG1 to be almost right. Magis should be magical. Rare. Finding a magic item should be a moment of awe. ToB was horribel in that regard, given that it was raining +5 items left and right. You really shouldn't be able to have EVERY SINGLE SLOT ON EVERY CHARACTER filled with magical gear. It's jsut immersion breaking to have your character have more magical items than any person in history. Dunno about that. Not everything has to be equal. So a spell that's used infrequently will not be anyones first pick. So what? It still adds veriety to a class.

I disagree on this, very much so. It would make for a really boring game. Variety is good thing, as can be seen from BG2 which is the more popular game. Would make for a boring game? Only if you are obessed with loot. There are plenty of games where characters have limited inventories/weapons or games where they even can't take anything new. In some games you can't even carry weapons at all. In some you are limited to only two. In some there are only a dozen weapons in the whole game. Are those games boring? No. As long as the game gives you stuff to do, it won't be boring. Collecting items has more in common with jiggling shniy keys than actual good gameplay. It's a distraction more than a necessary element.

I have been campaigning for such a system for years. Glad to see someone finally got the same idea (or saw one of my many posts on various forums on that subject )

To be honest, sometimes I feel classes have talens and skills just to have something. In many cases rigid classes seems almost..restricting. Call me a heretic, but honestly, I'd rather do away with fixed classes and have skills anyone can learn (where it makes sense) and you can specialize in a class if you fit the requrement. To help you visualize, think of it as having no classes at hte benining (or beingin classes are nothing more than starter skill packages), like in Skyrim, but if you fit specific requirements you can specilize, kinda like prestige classes. THEN you get special, unique powers/feats)

As someoen who watches a lot of anime and likes anime.... I'm still not particualy fond of redicolous designs. They have their place, but it is not everywhere and everything is not acceptable simply because it's "fantasy". Peopel with a vast knowledge of a subject tend to be more ctitical then the ones that don't have such knowledge, on the account that they notice - conciously or subconciously - a lot of things that are wrong that other people simply don't. Knowledge forms our perception, the lens trough which we view things.

1. Forgetting to balance enchantments. You have your two-handed weapon, 1h weapon & shield and dual wielding 1h weapons options. Which ones ill you go for? In most CRPG's you'd go for the last two. Why? Because the designers seem to forget that TWO magical items equals TWICE the magical enchantments, hence why such combos are almost always vastly superior to a 2h weapon. You have a paralisis enchantment on that big 2H axe? That's nice, I got a paralisyis enchantment on my 1h sword and a blindness enchantment on my 1h mace. I deal 2(3?) damage types and have twice the chance to incapacitate you. What's that? But you do more damage 2d6 +5 fire damage? Not bad. I do 1d8+5 fire and 1d6+5 ice damage. Opps. Looks like you underperform there too. 2. Loot/magic obsession. Finding loot is part of a CRPG charm. But it's not waht a CRPG should be about. It's not why we remember great fnatasy stories. Your average CRPG protagonists goes trough magical items faster than a starving man trough food. Magical items constantly discarded, used for 5 minutes untill a better weapon comes along. Long before the end of the game, every single inventory slot is filled with magical items. By the end, a character would cause a magic detector to explode. She sheer magniute of magical energy radiated over the hoards of legendary/epic items that the world hasn't seen in millenia would be OVER 9000!!! Magic and magical items are overused. When everything is magical, nothing is. Magic itself loses part of it's charm and "oomph". Powerful magical items are ntohing but trinkets to be discarded. When you think of Aragorn - was every single thing he carried magical? Did it have to be? Do characters in fantasy storeis switch equipment every 5 minutes? No, they find something nice and stick with it. It's one of the reasons I loved BG1 atmosphere so much. It felt so real. A qualtiy steel weapon was viable even at end game. You didn't finish the game with everything being a magical +5,+10 uber-item. 3. if less is more, more is less? Padding the game length with unnecessary, repettiive fight. Every road will have bandits. Or hostile wildlife with no sense of self-perserveation. And they will respawn. Sometimes entire game sections will be nothing more than padding (looking at you FF) /fillers. Because clearly, long game = automaticly better game. Right? Right?

I actually find it funny how these older games often turn to sci fi haha. Ultima I had it, and I remember fighting robots in technological pyramids that results in launching a space ship to defeat the big bad at the end of Might and Magic III too haha. I'm playing Wizardry 8 ATM and I'm facing WOODEN COMPUTERS. The combination of and old castle with candles and a computer (no electricity or sockets). Or fighting robots with laz0r guns with a spear. The HLL league has enforcers that patrol the city with plan old maces, while at the same time having scanners and spaceships. It is compeltely and utterly redicolous.

Sounds good, but I do have one plea: Dont' make all two-hadned weaposn have the same speed. There is no way a zewihander/greatsword would be as unwieldy as a two-handed hammer or axe. These weapons were well-balanced. Also, can weapons use more than one damage type? In some game wepons have multiple ways of attacking listed (swing, thrust, etc..) So a normal hammer would only have a swing (chrushing) A hammer with a spike on top would have swing (chrushing) and thrust (piercing) A greatsword would have swing (slashing) and thrust (piercing)..maybe even crushing (pomell was used in such a way) Of course, one (or two) ways of delivering damage would be primary, and using others would have penalties to hit. Sounds a bit complicated, but in reality it is simple (all things considered) and adds a lot more depth and realism to the weapons. The player would set an attack mode or the AI could auto-use or change it, depending on what attack type is best for a given target. On a more personal note, I was never concerend with balance in a singleplayer game. In fact, such "forced" balance often rubs me the wrong way. I don't care if class X is stronger than Y, given that I have a party and will have multiple classes. I don't care if weapon X is the most powerfull in the game, because I will be using multiple weapons (party)..nad as long as weapon Y isn't redicolously inferior, it's all good. I doubt many gmaers share my views tough.

Minimal killing? that would be interesting. I always tought that there is often too much filler fighting and too little actual roleplaying in many RPG's. I wouldn't remove combat compeltely - it makes little sense in any world - but I wouldn't throw opponents on the player and I would make enemies behave intelligently, thus making fight something you want to avoid. Storming an enemy castle would no longer allow kiting. The enemy wouldn't be beaf or blind. If the alarm is raised, sounds of battle heard, then you'd be swarmed.

Not really. Yes it is. It's far easier for a reader/player to connect to a grey antagonist, than it is an evil antagonist. Quite often, a reader and player will cry lack of depth, due to not being able to understand or connect to an evil antagonist. (Of course at the same time the reader/player they can be right depending on the character) No, it is not. You're confusing "easy to write" with "relatable" or "realistic". Yes, people will identify easier with a realsitic character...maybe. I never considered the need to "identify" as a big deal, since there are characters I like that have absolutely NOTHING in common with me. And b.t.w. good character aren't encessarily perfect and have their flaws, and evil characters can have their own virutes. But it seems to me you are talking about the extreemest of extreems. So no, grey characters are not easy to write. You can save the world because you want it for yourself, and still be hated. *** The problem with "evil" playtroughs is that real evil is subtle and revolves around HIDDEN motives and LONG-TERM plans...which are hard to make.

Not really. Completely and utterly wrong. On all accounts. Good and evil are not clear cut and choice encompasses many, many things. I can roleplay a dozen different character that make different choice - and all of them could be "good". Or would they be? Is the character pragmatic? Slow? Tired? Sarcastic? Does he value A over B? A lot of choices don't even have to concern morality at all. And when they do, they can be interpreted differently.

You have one flawed assumption there - that male sexualization and female sexualization is the same. In other words, that women are "turned on" by the same things as men are. While there are women that swoon over good-looking men (cough *Twilight*), obviously the standards are different. For women it's (generally speaking) more emotional than physical, but it's still there. It's just harder to spot. Well, at least sometimes (dont' tell me Twilight isn't sexually objectifiying men). Would it bother me to have a male avatar in a loincloth with a bulge? Not really. We've all seen Connan.

Crappy writing. Deus Ex Machina from nowhere, forced romance (why does the main rpotagonist ALWAYS haev to get the girl? Even if he's 12? Really......), avoidance of actual tacking of those subjects.

There is no kill like overkill: GIFs': http://i.imgur.com/thsGl.gif http://i.imgur.com/sGuoY.gif http://i.imgur.com/dYLqX.gif http://i.imgur.com/EjMpB.gif http://i42.tinypic.com/cs134.jpg http://i40.tinypic.com/vqis78.gif http://24.media.tumblr.com/7fc2309f95f1a24916326a93e87b6879/tumblr_mg8mgqG4Lt1r3z63yo1_500.gif http://i.imgur.com/SXY7p.gif http://i.imgur.com/23vaM.gif http://24.media.tumblr.com/1d622023cc440583327359e491cb4f13/tumblr_mqifihBwBt1qdlh1io1_400.gif http://25.media.tumblr.com/2cf30f8b77d9487e64dadb881760a053/tumblr_mqinf0Kwhf1qdlh1io1_400.gif http://25.media.tumblr.com/af8d3288a113aaf7dffa052f9d23bae2/tumblr_mqf4ibIqXr1qdlh1io1_250.gif http://25.media.tumblr.com/ac67ad875d49d93362cc6b3d5ccfd011/tumblr_m8b5esR4si1qdlh1io1_r1_250.gif http://www.ahmanolo.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/dan%C3%A7aaaa.gif http://i.imgur.com/YZm90D0.gif http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/azbEnDx_460sa.gif http://i.imgur.com/Y2bsH1h.gif http://i.imgur.com/KIeb0yc.gif http://i.imgur.com/rLq1RFb.gif http://i.imgur.com/AVRtXfa.gif http://i.imgur.com/xPC6Bve.gif http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/9718/5819421f6f734141cd6dade.gif http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/287/5a8cc61ea62f0be357ee7c2.gif http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/457/4e17d1683064905bf37e64f.gif http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/5218/008f827b2a48f48845f07a2.gif http://i.imgur.com/F45mRlB.gif http://i.imgur.com/nzKRvXU.gif http://i.imgur.com/I4J9GgC.gif http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1457/50kermit.gif http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ip6ijxMFzqEgQ.gif http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/a1AMWr2_460sa.gif http://i.imgur.com/kRt5H0S.gif http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o528/arcki1/LCD-humano-en-Corea-del-Sur_zpsb38ad8a4.gif http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1379/cef3beb12da459340292afd.gif http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6ogywkAad1qdlh1io1_400.gif http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1859/c72c35d83c0049391e2e418.gif http://i.imgur.com/wfOSxKu.gif http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/3959/d56dc81ade9b420f8a6d035.gif http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/1210/e246ac1a06403f0b1318cd5.gif http://i.imgur.com/yUFOo.gif http://i.imgur.com/PYwSfLr.gif http://i.imgur.com/NACY4PV.gif http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/7567/f677ecc24b58547711ac461.gif http://i.imgur.com/PcTYCFc.gif http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4062/a16c799f3bfe4caac02ca93.gif http://i.imgur.com/wp390.gif http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/914/063d805922e1c9fea95d0f1.gif http://i.imgur.com/OVtKv.gif http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8968/f713aec0ffc0d83a15f871b.gif http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bqOwQIm5V0s/UUHp8cvnA1I/AAAAAAAA0aU/MmxRF7gb5Ns/s1600/888.gif http://i.imgur.com/ogI1sOZ.gif http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6256/0548f4b0bf25dfc5c9e63be.gif http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/3903/1247bafd6fd983f07d9a117.gif http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/4981/265d049cf37d9d1a26c1c97.gif http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view2/1678237/corgi-dancing-for-food-o.gif http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/nePle7n.gif http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/pg3n5jH.gif http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/z-watching-a-movie-when-people-are-under-water-hold-my-breath.gif http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wtf.gif http://quicklol.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/clockwork-man-animated-gif.gif http://i.imgur.com/vN2fbjm.gif IMAGES: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GYeHsO0gf3I/UPjuN7yUmKI/AAAAAAAAB0k/pEtV05m-7QE/s400/funny.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TKDoJjMpzeM/UPjuMmbskWI/AAAAAAAAB0U/_yKQiRe90fY/s400/funny+1.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6gRsIvfmz94/UPjuMXHWmpI/AAAAAAAAB0M/QsA8_ajyvnA/s400/funny+2.jpg https://images.encyclopediadramatica.se/0/0b/Piratesknockedupshrek.jpg http://i.imgur.com/g2HVy06.jpg https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/q71/374404_495017087248196_2042591410_n.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/funny-pictures-finding-nemo.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/X28MD5q.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/fun-science-facts-10.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/that-aint-right-24.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/daily-morning-awesomeness-276.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/dma-17.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Dl7tHq7.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/rjlXGR2.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/resized_EB3G5Ua.jpg http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/nA6Kx8n.jpg http://quicklol.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/duck-duck-goose-trees-on-cars.jpg

Avatar WAS outgrowing being a kids cartoon and was doign well. But it dissapointed me completely at the end.

And in which direction would the half-circles face? That was the difficulty he was mentioning in regards to line of sight as far as i could tell. The front. DUH!.. unless you have eyes on the back fo your head The circles being a sound+visual combo is problematic, as it makes sneaking from behind practicly impossible. Also, sound and visual detection are vastly different. I can easly see a man standing 500-1000 meters from me, but I sure as hell can't hear his footsteps at that range. I confess, a perfect solution escapes me. Would you even need a visual cone, given that at the scale and given normal human sight, a person should see from one corner of the screen to the opposite? So a cone would technicly have no meaningfull "range". Snekaing would be about avoiding the visual cone and being quiet. Kinda like commandos. So it's more about beign quiet than it's about being a master of camouflage. The visual overlay for it should be toggable, since there is no point in having it on all the time anyway.

Instead of circle, use half-cirlces. That leaves a blind spot for vidual detection. Audio detection is another matter.

No facing? No light levels? I'm kinda dissapointed the devs think it's "too complicated" for us. I can already visually see the circles and the areas that are darker/brighter - what information overload are we talkign about?

Becasue that way sucks. I want it like it is in BG - the player and all NPCs and mosnters play by the exact same rules. As it was in the IE games, I want all monsters to have stats. Skills. Everything the player has. The mere mentioning of your desire top not have that makes me want to kill you for heresy.

A will to fight certainly helps. Positive outlook, placebo effect and all that jazz. Our mental state does impact our body. However, it alone is not enough.

* THE FOLLOWING MAY BE VERY DEPRESSING, consider yourself warned* About a month and a half ago, my father celebrated his 70th birthday. A birthday the doctors said would never come. You see, he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 35, and it was what eventually led him to quit his job as a ship captain. He used to sail all over the world and bring souvenirs, then he's lock himself in his private little museum and write whole A4 notebooks worth of knowledge of old customs, songs, words and general lore about the past of the region, knowledge he collected over the years. To this day, he wrote more than 100 of them. After his 4th operation, the doctors said his chances of waking up is minimal at best. Then came the 5th operation. Then the 6th. Then the 7th. His appendix was practicly gone at this point so he had to watch what he ate. Then the 8th operation, about a month before his 70th birthday. The cancer was spreading and one his kidneys was removed, the other was barely working for a while, but it recovered. My father was left with 2 bags he had to carry with him (for urine and excrement), and a weakned body due to all the time in the hospital. But, he was always a mans' man. Tall, broad-shouldered, boisterous, tanacious. He bounced back and the birthday was spent in good spirits. However, as christmas came his condition started to worsen. The cancer spread again, this time to the leg, and apprently the bone. If you didn't know, this is bad scenario, since it causes pain. But he soldiered on. Despite barely being able to stand on his feet, he refused to use the wheelchair. Depsite being in obvious pain, he refused any pain medication. But there are limits to everything. A few days ago it was obvious he could get to the bad, even with me and my mother helping him. I practicly carried him. He was in so much pain he was shivering, and still my motehr had to actually yell at him to get him to take some pain medication. For the last two days his condition is...not good. He spends most of the day sleeping, and when he isn't he is dazed. It's disheartenign to see such a mounatin of a man in such a weak state, shrunk and feelbe. His once booming voice a whisper. It's painfull to look at him like that, and I know it pains him even more to be seen like that. Right now, we are keeping the morphine bands on standby if it gets worse. And it will. The doctors flat out told us that there is nothing more they can take out, nothing more they can do. He is dying and everyone knows it. Him too. For the first time in my life I've sen him cry....cry at a cartoon. I pretended not to notice, and continued typing his notebooks onto my laptop. We hoped the book about old customs - his book - might be out while he was alive. Now I blame my own damn slowness at typing. I could have typed more. But I didn't. And yet ultimatively, this books seems so irrelevant to me now. The family is natually distraught. My mother - as strong woman as any I have ever known - is nearly broken. Physicly and mentally. I try and help as much as I can around the house and with dad, and I know that at least partially she is pushing herself in doing all kinds of work as a distraction. I know I do. I try to do everything just so that I don't have to think about it. My syster had to take medication to calm herself. But I had a long talk with her and she has calmed down. She still hasn't told her kids, who love their grandfather. Their visit is still one of the thing that clearly make him happy. Myself? I'm handling it as good as one can under these condition, I think. No crying, no panic attacks. Just some numbness and distraction. Even as I'm typing this, I'm only doing it because it makes me feel better. It probably hasn't hit me yet. I was always close to my father, but we never talked that much. We'd watch cartoons together (he loved Bugs Bunny and other old ones, and I do too) and various documentaries, over which we'd sometimes comment and talk. I must have seen every single documentary on Discovery Channel and National Geogrpahic, and a lot of cooking shows. Since he sleeps most of the day now, and the last two years I've been watching less and less with him ....I miss it. And to think his father died of cancer. And all of his 5 siblings(he's the oldest) - all had cancer too. No cancer on my mothers side, so I have a good chance of being spared. But just to be sure, me and my sisters will go for a checkup. There are good methods today, the easiest one being a rengden scan and taking of a blood sample for specific markers. Mind you, the marker method is great, but requires you to go periodicly (once a year..preferably once every 6 months), since it's based on comparisons with previous samples. But it is supposedly very accurate. So my advice to you people - get a checkup. Even if you don't have a history. From my discussion with doctors and research I've done into cancer, it's becoming more frequent (as are allergies). Wether it's our lifestyle or something else, I do not know, but it's not a good sign. Either way, early detection is half the solution. Stay safe, stay healthy.