Starglider

I thought the 'rival adventuring party' thing in the Kickstarter was promising (one reason why I backed to that level). I hope they are implemented as more than just a random encounter; if they are given some build-up in terms of hearing about their exploits from townsfolk, encountering a destroyed caravan or group of monster corpses they've left behind, or them racing you to a plot goal, then that gives a good impression that your party is not the only competent force in the world. Yes you are lucky and have abilities way beyond the normal inhabitants of the world, but you are competing against rival adventurers of similar power then there is more sense of earning your rewards, vs being pre-destined to achieve them. Throne of Bhaal did this fairly well with the rival Bhaalspawn I thought.

All characters should be killable, if the player accidentally or deliberately kills someone absolutely essential to the plot then just pop up a 'game over' screen and make them reload from a quicksave.

Watcher's Keep and the Modron Cube were both great fun. Anything along those lines would be good. That said, this is a very good candidate for DLC rather than causing scope creep in the core game.

At least one class or race that has some interesting shapeshifts, either traditional druid or something more novel (e.g. worshippers of an ancient chaos god who think static forms are a curse...). When included I always have fun with this ability in CRPGs.

PS:T is still my favourite UI design. Wasted space is not really a concern on modern monitors; hardly anyone will be playing this game on less than 1080p and 2560 x 1600 will be increasingly common by the time this game comes out. Multi-monitor support such that I can put the minimap and all the UI / char status stuff on a second monitor, with the main one devoted to the game world, would be nice but obviously is a very low priority feature.

What I would like to see more than mounted combat is actual flying monsters. The Infinity Engine games were all limited to creatures that hovered slightly off the ground; even in NWN1 & 2, wings were strictly decorative. Now obviously in an isometric game you don't expect Skyrim style circling dragons that you have to shoot down with arrows. What you could have though is creatures that use flying for tactical repositioning; leap into the air, fly over your fighters and then land next to your casters. This makes wings on a monster actually dangerous (e.g. why this is +1 CR in D&D) as opposed to visual fluff. This would also work if you ever get winged party members as well; it would act as a short-ranged teleport, that only works outdoors, with a relatively long 'casting' time and the disadvantage of enemies being able to get free hits while taking off & landing.

More types of monster, both in general for tactical variety and for specific neat things I'd like to see (e.g. I like centaur-type creatures but they're often left out because they're harder to animate than humanoids).

Good point dlux, dev resources aren't completely fungible. Romances take mainly writer time, a little music and maybe voice acting. There is no impact on art or programming and neligible impact on QA / playtest. I am for in-depth relationships with your party members. That doesn't necessarily mean romance - in PST you couldn't really romance anyone (one kiss from Annah was the closest it got) but getting Dakkon, Grace and Morte to open up about their background really made them much more real and engaging as characters. Conversely, romance can be overdone : while I was fond of Aerie in BG2, having her give birth and then lug the baby around in her inventory in ToB really tore suspension of disbelief.

Just being able to buy a mansion is not a good use of resources. BG2 strongholds were great though, because they had unique quests associated with them : you had to work for it and having literally been to hell and back you felt you'd earned being able to live in the Planar Sphere. Taking over the Shadow Thieves was significant character development for the protagonist. Large bases like that can also support an interesting 'antagonist assaults your home base, have to defend it' mission. My personal favourite would be a sailing ship that you have to work hard to get, but once you have you could crew it, use for travel and dock at several different coastal towns/cities, and even access unique quests (e.g. on islands that would otherwise be impossible to get to). Of course I have no idea if that fits in with the story / setting / game world design.

Isle of Dogs, London, UK

32. What a bizarrely structured poll.

When I did a BG/BG2/ToB co-op playthough a while back, I hacked in the ability to shapechange into a bat for a friend playing a druid. This was a non-combat skill in that the bat form had no damaging attack, but it was very fast and didn't aggro monsters (permenant invisibility) so it was very good for scouting. She really enjoyed scouting out enemy locations and telling the rest of the party how to avoid or get the drop on mobs. You can do that with a normal thief / hide in shadows of course (e.g. Annah in PST) but I like this as an example of a shapechange that isn't for melee tanking (rarely seen in CRPGs).

Difficult to say without having more idea of the plot. If you are on a mission to save the world which is obviously the most important thing any of your characters could be doing, then having them follow around off-screen makes sense. If you are on a personal quest PST style then definitely they should go off and do their own things, and you'd have to meet them back at their home / encounter location. Although being able to send a messenger to get them would be convenient, should probably only work if the character likes the protagonist a lot.

Backed at the $5000 level, project is looking great, hope my idea for a adventuring group fits in with the setting.