Wirdjos

I want to be able to get ridiculously powerful over the course of the game+expanisions. I like starting out pitifully weak and growing into this awesome godlike force slowly and with reason. I don't mind there still being something stronger than me, I just want to be able to one-hit (or outright ignore) the things that were killing me when I started. I enjoy that climb and ending with godlike power is the perfect climax to that journey. The story should work with it though. There needs to be an explanation for why I've been allowed to become so strong and people should really recognize the fact that I am so strong. The latter is important even if the actual power gain is relatively even. If I do all of these great deeds, deeds that are normally done over an RPG, and it's widely known that I am that guy who killed that scary thing, people should be afraid. I shouldn't be willingly attacked by random level 1 minion #7000 while I'm wearing a god for a hat.

After reading the responses to Karkarov's post a page earlier, I think Hormalakh nailed the reason people are disagreeing. Games are much more profitable and the most (safest/easiest) profitable in the console market. This means both that games are being mass produced for pure profit on a scale that wasn't really present a few years ago and that those games are being promoted endlessly. It is unsurprising that games made to be consumed quickly and made largely without a love for what's inside are bad. Due to the amount of advertising some of these specific games get, it's also unsurprising that these are the recent games a lot of us know about. We get burned by these bad games and just assume that because that's largely all that's being advertised, that's all that is. If I'm right and others here have shared my experience, it would certaintly explain the hostility towards the new. But Karkarov is right, if P:E just mimics Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment, all we are going to get is game that is wildly outdated from the start and noone is going to want to try something like this again. In short, progress has been made and ignoring that will not forge a classic, it will create an experience that will be forgotten as soon as it's over. A note to Karkarov: Think you mean Obsidian when you typed Oblivion. If not, I've missed something and I'd appricated it if someone caught me up.

Remembering from DA:O, (I didn't play a whole lot of DA2) the only reason to remove the constant buff auras was to not be a freaky glowing spirit-creature thing during the cinematic style conversations. As I don't see P:E using that style for conversations, I don't think that will be an issue. Count me in the aura camp. I would prefer it if buffing was mostly limited to the chanters. Let them not stack with other chanter's songs (maybe with a little bonus for multiples of the same song) and be somewhat significant. That way the tactical choice is of which buff to choose. I never liked adding multiple buffs just to make my party what it really should have been to start, especially in the Vancian system. If you need single cast buffs, make them short and significant, like Dream mentioned.

The way I'm imagining P:E at the moment, the whole versatility of the bard will be a trait shared by every class to some extent. It looks like the chanter will be a passive buffer, as some else mentioned, but I'm hoping for a little more out of him. Buffs and debuffs are one thing, but what if the chanter could affect the entire environment. I'm thinking combination debuff and damage songs. Songs that bring rain and lightning or snow or turn soild ground to quicksand. Perhaps these things are summoned or maybe they are just ideas implanted in everyone's (in earshot) head. (Remember both sides of the battle can likely hear the chanter and he is supposed to be hitting on universal motifs) Either way, the idea of a character that is singing as he runs through his enemies is too good to pass up. By the class description alone, I will likely use a chanter for my first playthrough.

It took me a long time to figure it out, but I am definitely of the third group you described, Hormalakh. And I'm not great at games. I enjoy them, especially RPGs, so I've gotten good enough at playing them. But I do miss things constantly and I am well aware that I don't fully understand IE games. I know there's something I'm missing, I just can't figure out what it is. For that reason at least, I found your post (and the Sawyer post that inspired it) to be very interesting. I'm glad a developer is looking out for players like me and I hope they're better able to teach the game mechanics than most, but I would really like to be better at games myself. Should I pick up a D&D book and start there or do I need to sit down at a table with others to figure it out? I guess what I'm asking is if you think the gap between enthusiastic players that are okay and players that are great revolves mainly around understanding rules/mechanics or getting feedback from other players? I thought rogues were just walking trap-be-gone until I easily took out an entire room of enemies that were single handedly dropping my whole party using only Annah and liberal backstabbing. Rogues indeed rule and I wouldn't know that if the game hadn't challenged me.

Actually I don't think I gave you enough kudos for what you've done here, Hormalakh. You have made me reexamine my own views on piracy. If I'm honest with myself, piracy is act that I allow myself by ignoring the effect of it. It's hard to get yourself to consider the consequences when the act you yourself perform is so small and apparently harmless. My views are a little too close to Felithvian's above me to consider piracy an 'evil' though. Piracy (in the context of digital goods) is the sharing of information. The internet has caused this sharing to explode, but other than pure scale, piracy is no different that the used goods market (as it relates to media specifically). I don't see a way to admonish piracy completely without drawing in used book stores, used games stores, old record sellers, or even borrowing, lending, and renting media. Each of those allow more people access to a given media source than have paid for said media. While I am still somewhat shaky on piracy itself, I have a hard time believing those things are morally wrong. This leaves my actual actions a bit undecided. If I still believe in the free exchange of media (even as it relates to IPs) then piracy is only a legal issue, it's morality is more or less fine. However, the effect it has had on industries I enjoy is indisputable. If I continue to support piracy, even by simply judging it morality correct, then I need to be part of the solution. This is actually what I believe your OP advocated (though I don't want to speak for you so correct me if I'm wrong). P:E should not be pirated as it is a step in the right direction which means I should not make any DRM-free copies I'll recieve available for mass sharing as that might suggest this move was unappreciated. I should also advocate others do the same. Most importantly, I should donate to Obsidian's cause here and encourage others to do the same. Further more, I should be participating in both the discussions and implementations of those that are trying to adapt to sharing on the internet's scale instead of trying to stop it. Whether it's Netflix making whatever I want to watch available anytime for a fee or companies foregoing DRM and relying on goodwill to support their efforts. I don't know if this is what you were try to get across, though I'm sure it's not what you meant exactly. Either way, you forced me to reexamine my own thought processes, so thanks for that.

I am pretty sure this is the exact logic companies use to implement increasingly draconian DRM and to treat all their customers as criminals. Just thought you should know. Hormalakh, you have got to change the way you're dealing with this thing you've created. You're probably going to need mod help with that. You've posted a thread named Piracy and DRM. People are discussing Piracy and DRM. These things are related to P:E only slightly as P:E will have a DRM-free form thus clearly choosing the route of ignoring pirates. You have advocated DRM in P:E which has caused people here to respond with reasons why they think DRM is or is not ever acceptable. Continuing to state that this thread is only about P:E everytime someone mentions another game or fails to mention P:E only underminds your position by reducing your ethos. Please either accept the course this thread has taken or ask a mod to close it and create a more focused thread. Again, just thought you should know. After saying all of that, I do want to mention that you have both come up with some good suggestions for the community and have sparked others to come up with more. You have clearly put a lot of thought and effort into this and it has paid off. If nothing else, you've made a soild argument for respecting Obsidian and supporting this game.

Please don't stop. Obvoiusly Hormalakh should have more of a say as this is his(?) thread, but I've really enjoyed your perspective. It's not one I'm used to hearing. I'm not sure if that's because I'm in America and we don't and will never foreseeably have a pirate party or not. So thanks for your perspective and thanks for turning me on to Order of the Stick which I am reading between posting here.

I understand what you're saying. PC gaming definitely has changed, and not necessarily for the better. However, I don't think PC only games should be relegated to kickstarters only or MMO F2Ps. That would mean we would never have huge PC only single-player game budgets. Deus Ex 1 would have been less likely to happen. And all these console trash games that really suck on the PC will continue. I honestly don't think porting console games to PC should, or will, continue. Porting in general just doesn't seem like a good idea. But anyway... As for no huge PC games in to future, I don't agree. By creating a direct link between developers and gamers, the way games are released can change with both parties happy. I'm sure people will like this less than supporting any level of piracy, but I really think DLC is the future. Games could be funded and released in sizable chunks, with the chunks adding up to any huge game we have now. Because the DLC is directly funded by players before it's made, players can make what they want known better. Pointless, unwanted costume packs and such things geared toward profit and not content can be vetoed before anyone wastes anything on them. Again, idealistic, but I see the potential for DLC to make better games by filling content gaps that weren't apparent before a few playthroughs.

I disagree that piracy has hurt PC gaming's future, and future is the most important word here for me. The effect piracy or perceived piracy has had on PC gaming is indisputable. We have a shift of larger publishers to consoles, draconian DRM, and really just rage spouting from every corner. However, piracy is here. It is possible. It will not be stopped any more than any of the other crazy stuff on the internet will be stopped. And you can't expect all people to self regulate. It will not happen. If any luxury is to survive the digitial age, it has to evolve. The reason kickstarter excited me so much, and the reason you'll hear me advocating P:E moving completely over to a kickstarter model, is that this could be a way for the PC gaming industry to evolve. Let people pay for games they want upfront, before any cracking could possibly happen. Make the game, get paid exactly what the game was worth to make, then release it out into the world. No need to worry about expensive DRM or losing money to pirates. Just games people want being made for the amount of money they were actually worth. Maybe I'm being wildly idealistic, maybe I just have no idea how anything works around me. I don't know and I know I don't know. This is just what I think I see and what I'm hoping for.

Okay, so this more of a personal revelation that you are sharing with the community than a concern that P:E will be pirated enough to really hurt the game. That's a rather large sigh of relief. I couldn't imagine it, but I do miss a lot of threads. I also did(and do) my own fair share of pirating. My thought process revolves around the 'you're stealing sales' argument. Before I pirate something ask myself whether I would ever buy it. If my answer is no, I would not buy this and if I couldn't get it for free I simply wouldn't have it, then I'll pirate it. If I enjoy it and discover that I would have bought it had I known this, then I buy it. I don't think this makes what I do morally sound, but does make it acceptable to me.

I'm not a fan of DRM, but I didn't even know what it was until somewhat recently. If the DRM a game has does not hinder my ability to access the game I bought now or in future nor does it block modders, I won't even notice. I only oppose DRM as it harms me, the consumer, or limits game purchasing to buying a license that may run out at some undetermined point in the future. What I believe is that DRM can be, and often is, abusive so it should be avoided. That said, I do wonder what prompted you to post this, Hormalakh. Was there discussion in the forums about people pirating or planning to? I was under the impression that P:E would be relatively pirate free due to the way it was funded. To be honest, I would prefer that P:E was sold only as a token effort and only online. Let the true revenue be produced by people backing the games before any work has been done. That's the only way that piracy can be stopped (rendered moot) completely. Note: Due to the rate this thread is moving, it is possible this post is outdated. If I read every post before I posted, I never would. Here's hoping.

Guess that makes you royalty around here, Miyagi. Not sure when I'll get to play BG1 again plus mods, but do you have any companions you'd recommend having around(other than Tiax)? The reason I hesitate to admit that I'm the writer is that I don't really like the dialogues I wrote all that much. Most of them are fine, but I did two very bad things: 1) I introduced a thing where Tiax leaves the party if your reputation isn't low enough, or else gives you five days to do something horrible or else he leaves. It seemed reasonable, given that he's a priest of Cyric, but for those players who used things like the 'happy mod' to ensure NPCs would never leave regardless of reputation it was basically re-introducing a disliked feature with no way around it. 2) I assumed he would always be found in Baldur's Gate Chapter Five, because that's where he's placed originally. Little did I know they would introduce a feature sticking him in the middle of Beregost from Chapter One on. Thus, I freely used references to things like the Iron Throne that the party should know nothing about in the early game. Aside from that, because again I was assuming you would only get him late in the game, I had barely any material for Mr. Tiax that wasn't late game stuff. All in all, Tiax needs a lot of tweeking to make right. But anyway, recommended NPCs? I couldn't say for certain because I'm not sure what kind of party you want. For a good play-through, I've tended to stick with Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Dynaheir and Minsc, but that gets pretty tiring after awhile. Evil play-through tends to be me as a thief multi- or dual-classed with something else, Viconia, Edwin and Kagain. XP split four ways means much faster advancement. I'm with Karkarov to some extent. You did what made sense for the character and I aplaude you for that. You shouldn't feel bad, though I appreciate the warning as far as punishing mechanics go. Judging by your answer, I think you might have misunderstood my question. I was asking what characters you thought the most interesting or the most changed by the BG1 NPC Project mod. Assume I'm playing just for the 'story' sort of interest and I'm willing to endure whatever horrible stats to hear NPCs say interesting things. I also usually choose the good-aligned party you mentioned as I know it's canon. That's one of my biggest problems with BG2, it establishes canon and decides (somewhat) who my BG1 character was. If you know a mod or two that allows for different party members in the first area of BG2 (with dialogue/story points), I'd love to grab those too.

Thanks, Kumuji. I don't know how I missed that. Guess that makes you royalty around here, Miyagi. Not sure when I'll get to play BG1 again plus mods, but do you have any companions you'd recommend having around(other than Tiax)?

Like I mentioned in my previous post, NPC interation is the only thing I find lacking in my current BG1 playthrough. I've never messed around with mods, but I would really like to know what mod(s) you used to fix that particular flaw.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I wasn't with you for the first three pages, but this last page has been gold, Prosper. Keep going. Texture that bad boy! I'll be on the edge on my seat til then.

You can't just leave us like that. What was it?! What topic?! Anyway, I'd love to know how BG:EE turns out. I'm playing the unenhanced version (six bleeding discs and everything) at the moment. The only thing that I find lacking is the companion dialogue. For the most part, I feel like I could have made my whole party myself and not missed much. If they add a lot of dialogue, I might actually pick it up.

I unironically like this last creation. Has this thread turned a corner or have I? Either way, keep up the good work, Prosper! I nominate this Prosperkin for the final floor of 'The Endless Paths of Od Nua'.

I have a hard time pulling away from the idea of a 'holy warrior' as paladin. They don't have to have divine powers or a lawful alignment, but they do have to be answering a calling and be highly moral (whatever morals those are). I do understand why they are changing the way the class works. As many others have said, the paladin was really just a fighter/cleric with poor access to spells in D&D. It makes sense to make the two very different, especially when the game is new and doesn't have the classes D&D has. I'm just hoping for flavor text that places in the world I'm used to, otherwise that's going to be quite an adjustment. I also might wonder why the name paladin was chosen if there's no 'holy' connection.

Wow, updates every Tuesday? That's down right madness! Exciting madness, but madness none the less. I like the idea of getting to know more people that are working on the game, so keep them coming!

Since no one's mentioned it yet... If you click on someone's username then select 'posts' then 'find content', you can see everywhere that person has posted. I also works for any of the developers.

I'm actually stuck in Arcanum due to this very mechanic. I chose the 'Miracle Operation' background and fell in love with the character despite the horrible disadvantage it's giving me at the moment. I just can't seem to put this character down and start an easier one for my first time through because of what that background adds to my role playing experience. If you couldn't tell, I wholeheartedly support backgrounds and random traits (advantages and disadvantages with explanation) in P:E.

Congrats, Razsius, on finishing the game! Let's see what I can do about adding perspective and answering some of those questions. I'm going to try to keep the amount of quoting down to avoid exponential post growth. So if my post confuses you, read post #69. I'm with you as far as Deionarra's companion status. If you ignored her, you really missed something. I hope you took the ring from the legacy with you to the Fortress, which is as much as I can say without getting too spoilery. As far as the quality of the other companions, I'm not quite as rabid as some I've seen, but I did think they were great so let me try to explain why. I think the first bit of great character aspect had to do with how well developed the backstories were. Because most of your companions had lived long eventful lives before the game takes place, there was a lot to shape a character around. There is also an aspect of most of these backstories that was very important and extremely spoilery. All I can say is talk to your companions. Another bit of this, for me, did have to do with the ways you were restricted with what you could 'command' your companions to do. Annah for example, wore these type of clothes and used these type of weapons. It was annoying for sure, but it made me feel like Annah was Annah, not a character I created that the game forced a story onto. Dak'kon was very good for this as well. He had clothing that meant something to him, a weapon that was interesting in its own right that also meant something to him, and an item that meant something to him. Speaking of the Unbroken Circle, if you didn't have a long conversation with him about it, you missed something worth doing. I've probably got more to say on the topic, but this paragraph is big enough already. Moving on. I admit a bit of stretching with my Kael comparison. I don't think I'd go as far as zerg style combat, but you could bum rush and whittle a little too much. I see where the mechanic was trying to go and focused too much on that. I personally wouldn't attack the same way twice, if I was beaten I would come back with a new tactic, but I can see people exploiting this. That is a weakeness in the immortality mechanic. As far as TNO becoming a different incarnation each time he died, I didn't see/notice that being implied. What I took from the incarnation symposium was that the only time TNO got a memory wipe is when he got to the Fortress and died. I supported that with the fact that this is only section of the game (that I know of) that you can get a game over. As far as my opinions on crappy combat being an asset here, what I'm trying to get across is that TNO with his goal might have the same opinion on combat as many people that played the game did, it's relatively unproductive and not terribly enjoyable. Now if the gameplay reflects the views of the main character back onto the player successfully, the game has made you feel what the main character is feeling. Now this a point against P:T as an RPG because you are no longer telling the main character/avatar what feel, he is also telling you what to feel. I realize that's a bit of jumbled mess, but I hope my point is surviving my articulation. If not, and you want me to, I'll keep trying. I should also go on the record here and state that I have never been exposed to true Pen and Paper D&D. I realized this in my last post and added the distinction of 'in videogames' to attempt to recongize that. I actually didn't know that D&D allowed for a change in alignments, I just know that I never managed to change alignment in BG. For the same reason, I don't know the extent to which D&D allows class change. Though I wouldn't compare dual-classing (as I know it from BG) or multiclassing to the class shuffling in P:T. P:T's class system seemed more like a wandering attention that focused on whatever way of approaching the world was working best at the moment and shifting when the situation changed.

That's... very unlogical. The idea of class is to exactly create and separate roles. And I don't understand why do you need classes at all if they would have almost skill-based like gameplay. I admit that I'm probably being a little too far reaching with my language (and my hopes). But classes don't have to be just about separate roles. For example, a fighter and a barbarian could serve basically the same role even if there are things that one does better than the other. You have to push them further apart with stats for them to be two totally different roles. A fighter could sacrifice durability for speed and power or a barbarian could drop some power/speed for more hit points. Take the melee chanter I proposed in my previous comment. I would likely have to sacrifice some of whatever stat is used to power his story-magic in order to allow him to better survive the frontlines. This means that he would be a weaker storyteller/singer than a pure chanter, but would better serve my needs of heading my party. He still wouldn't be able to truly compete with a pure fighter in fighting ability, but he would have the advantage of his form of magic.

Melee spells were always kinda lackluster in D&D, which also dragged down whole Necromancy school. However I'd rather make save-or-something spells melee and keep mages lightly-armored, seems it would be more thrilling to play that sort of spellcaster that way than just run around in heavy armor casting melee spells which damage as well if not better than ranged ones. From Sawyer's first comment here, it sounds like heavy armor is going to give the wizard a penalty to casting speed. Add in the possibility of spell interruption and the likelihood that wizards will need to keep casting spells to hold their own compared to any physical geared class, and you have a pretty tense situation. Personally, I'm really happy with this stance that the devs seem to be taking towards allowing any class to be shifted to fit unusual roles . I have an odd fondness for leading my party into battle that tends to prevent me from playing less physical classes. I like the idea of playing a chanter that can stand toe to toe with the frontliners and still use story-magic effectively, or a wizard that can cast while locking eyes with a barbarian. The trick is making each class able to fill most any role and still keeping them different enough that they feel distinct. Good luck, Obsidian!