Death Machine Miyagi

This is good so long as it is believable: it must come slowly, methodically, preferably with an NPC who views you as a kind of mentor figure. Events would shape them and you could shape how they respond to those events. It would also be nice to see it not be based solely on the good-evil factor. Making an introverted NPC bolder and more outgoing, a religious NPC lose his faith, or a bloodythirsty NPC realize the futility of endless war are also valid changes that could come about through interaction.

Probably for the same reason people who want romances wouldn't be satisfied with, 'Why can't you just pretend the game lets you have a romance', or the same reason people complaining about generic PC dialogue wouldn't be appeased with, 'Why don't you just act like your character is saying something profound?' My stance on this issue, in a nutshell, amounts to this: if you're not going to have time limits, which is all well and good, don't have the game act like there is a time limit. Don't have an NPC say 'Hurry before its too late!' unless you need the player to hurry before its too late. If a city is under siege and the player needs to do things to lift that siege, don't tell the player the enemy could break through at any moment; tell them the siege is ongoing and its unknown when it will end. Leave the timing of things deliberately vague and everyone is satisfied. Otherwise, its a sharp jolt to suspension of disbelief. This should be done for the overwhelming majority of quests, and without exception the main quest, if they mention timing at all. I don't mind a minority of quests with a reasonable time limit, but I'm an explorer, at heart. I don't want to worry about my damn vault dying of thirst if I run off to explore someplace. An example of this being done pretty well: New Vegas. When will the Battle for Hoover Dam start? When will Caesar be prepared to launch his attack? In practice, the answer is 'whenever you've done all the quests you feel like doing.' As such, the game never says 'Caesar should be attacking any day now!'; you can pretend that you have as much or as little time as you like.

Not to derail my own thread, but Star Control 2 is freeware now and one of the best games ever made. Everyone should try it at least once.

I would prefer a main quest without a time limit. But here's the thing: I would prefer that main quest to be fairly clear in-game that, yes, there is no time limit. Not even an implied one. The Nameless One could wander around Sigil doing whatever for as long as he pleased because his quest was a personal one. He was made into an immortal ages upon ages ago. What's a few more days or weeks of wandering to that? That approach is a far cry from the aforementioned 'Hurry up! Irenicus is killing everyone in our city and you'll die before too much longer because you have no soul!' message sent by BG2, and a far better one, regardless of whether there wasn't any time limit in practice in either case.

This was ages and ages ago, but I actually really liked the time limit in Star Control II. Like in your example, you had plenty of time before the Ur-Quan civil war ended in Kohr-Ah victory, and you could delay that victory significantly if you played your cards right....but once the Kohr-Ah won, the death march would begin. They would begin going from world to world exterminating all life in their path. You could still win while they were doing so, and in fact it became easier with the little time you had left because you no longer had to figure out how to deal with the exterminated races and instead could just go to their planets and grab what you needed from the blasted ruins. But once the Kohr-Ah reach earth...game over. A time limit, well telegraphed and with plenty of room for exploration, which you can prolong if you need to do so, and which still allows room for victory even at proverbial 11 to midnight. That's an example of a time limit I don't mind.

For the most part, CRPGs seem to have realized the frustration that comes with imposed time limits. Being told you have to find the water chip in x amount of days means that casual exploration is curbed. If you just explore at your leisure and ignore the ticking timer, you get a game over and have to start over. This is annoying. Nowadays, when someone gives you a quest, telling you to 'Please hurry or all is lost!', you can usually rest easy that this amounts in practice to 'go run around doing random stuff for a few months, if you want. We'll still be here when you get back.' BG2 was an especially extreme offender, what with Irenicus laying waste to that Elven city while you supposedly slowly die from lack of a soul and everything. Come back a year later, if you like. He'll still be laying waste to the Elven city and you'll still be fine without your soul. This is stupid. In short, both extremes of the issue strike me as bad. One curbs your ability to casually explore and the other severely undermines the credibility of whatever danger you're facing. Is there a balance? Do you want time limits at all, or would you just rather keep with the current theme of 'nothing happens until your character starts pursuing the quest'? If you do find value in time limits, where do you want them and how should they be used and so forth?

I love how Half Life 3 is always used now. A game that has never been announced. Half-Life 3, no. Half-life 2 Episode 3, yes. There was no doubt Valve was expecting to release the latter. Valve's approach to the whole thing is fascinating, too, since they basically refuse to even acknowledge the subject. They won't say when they expect to release it or if its even under production anymore. Its either sadism or an extremely bizarre marketing tactic...but given how much crap they had to eat from giving false release dates for Half-Life 2, its hard to blame them for just not saying anything at all.

While I do, a publisher isn't the only reason for a release date. Every day of development means money spent, every day the game is not released means money not coming in. P:E's release date, whether it proves arbitrary or not, cannot just be delayed and delayed and delayed; their objective is still to turn a profit, after all. I support releasing the game 'when its done'...preferably when its not only done in the rough sense, but polished up to a mirror shine. I'm really hoping that can be accomplished within the time frame they specify. If it can't, I really hope they delay it until it can. But I don't think it amounts to their being able to release the game just whenever they feel like its suitably awesome. The money they have, and the money they hope to earn, will always play a role in the decision.

The stereotype of the fighter is someone who puts most of their attribute points into strength, dexterity and constitution while using intelligence and/or charisma as a dump stat.

This is actually a big problem for 'emotional impact.' The rule of writing fiction is supposed to be 'show, don't tell', but one of the major tools for accomplishing that (facial expression and body language) is simply not as easy to use in a game as it is in writing a book or making a film or whatever. This will especially be the case for a game like P:E, which seems set to resemble the Infinity Engine games, in which showing facial expression and body language was nigh impossible. I'm guessing they'll go the Planescape: Torment route and write the body language you would be seeing in dialogue, but that's always going to be a somewhat unsatisfactory approach.

Other memes from BG2: The Umar Witch Project in Umar Hills. The second game was being made at right about the time the Blair WItch Project became such a surprise success. This, I think, would be an example of cultural reference that isn't too obnoxious, mostly because its written in-universe style without a fourth wall break to be found...though still very, very tongue in cheek.

I can't think of JRPG villains without thinking 'Sephiroth' and I can't think of a Sephiroth-clone as the primary antagonist of P:E without wanting to shoot myself in the head.

Fallout 2 was one of the worst offenders of all time in this regard. A modern player now has to go through groan-inducing references that were out of date in 1998. Pretty sure MCA has stated directly that that is something they will never, ever do again. And thank god for that.

update: One of the mods I have installed, I think SCS, has made it so that after a certain number of 'You have been waylaid and must defend yourself'-style bandit/slaver ambushes, of which I was getting increasingly irritated due to their overabundance, the bandits/slavers will just yell 'Change of plans. Let's get out of here!' or 'It's charname! Run!' I liked this. I liked this very much. I'm still a bit perplexed as to how a city the size of Athkatla can function when you can't wander between districts without inevitably being set upon by slavers and bandits, but it makes perfect sense that after about six or seven of those groups end up getting slaughtered by my party, the others would get the message and run like little girls at the sight of my approach. A step in the right direction, and if a mod can do something like that, I assume it wouldn't be too much trouble for the P:E team.

Obsidian, please, for the love of Christ, do not do this. This. Most of us have pledged Obsidian money so they can do their thing without intrusion, whether from us or anyone else. They may sample views around the board to get a general idea of opinions and views, and shape the story they want to tell according to this, but great work is not done through opinion polls.

Hmm, is that even possible? You might not use blood magic, however exposing your body and soul to the Dream Realm, the Veil is not a great idea, especially for somone who's roleplaying as a follower of the Maker, for demons are drawn to you. They seek to use you as a gateway to this world. Yep, perfectly possible. The ideal solution is to go rescue the Circle tower mages, who will then send some people to use a ritual which allows one of them to enter the kid's head. Only a mage can make the journey, though, so if your character isn't a mage you need to send in Morrigan, Wynne, that blood mage guy or the head wizard guy. You make a short trip through the kid's spirit playing as said mage, confront the Desire Demon, and then are given a bunch of options, the most 'honorable' of which is 'kill her and drive her out of the boy's soul.' Once this is done, everybody lives, from the kid to the mom to the blood mage and so on. Huzzah.

Incidentally, you don't need to use blood magic to save the kid. The optimal ending for that quest is getting a bunch of mages together, going into his head and fighting the demon. Everybody wins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert I'm guessing you're not American, since Ebert is pretty well-known on this side of the pond.

This reminds me of the time when Roger Ebert declared video games were not and could never be art on his blog, which resulted in a ton of people posting YouTube links to the video game moments that moved them emotionally, like Aerith getting skewered in Final Fantasy 7. Though I disagreed with Ebert, whenever I watched one of the 'emotionally effecting' videos from a game, I was always struck by how much lower the bar is for quality writing in a game compared to a genuinely well-written book or movie. And how singularly unimpressed Ebert must have been, if he watched them.

Your mom is a respectful discussion.

At it's basest form yes, but technology brings great change. Though not a change of mind. Nah, it even brings that. Which is why its difficult for a modern reader to not go through the Old Testament and think, 'Damn, that's harsh!' I'm sure to the ancient mind turning women into pillars of salt made perfect sense. But on subject: I want elves to live in forests and frolick and live forever and embody all that is joyous and good in this world. I want them to remind me repeatedly how little they can understand the short-lived races, with our wars and our petty jealousies. And then I want to be able to burn them from their homes and kill them to the applause of neighboring settlements.

I would prefer it if the DM is encouraged to let them try it...and then show, in combat, the actual practical consequences of six adventurers taking on thousands upon thousands of Drow in open battle. Which is to say, a very quick TPK owing to combat mechanics, not just the DM reading out 'you lose.'

I was playing BG2 again recently (ahhh nostalgia) when my party encountered a shady individual in the streets of Athkatla. At this point, my party consisted of about six individuals, three of whom were decked out in magical or full plate and carrying large weapons of various sorts. Two of the others were obviously mages with stoneskin up and a menacing air to them, along with the ever faithful Yoshimo with his katana. Anyway, the shady individual was wearing leather armor and wielding a short sword and was all alone. He demanded all of my money. Naturally, thinking he was a mentally disturbed individual who could not count or use his eyes to judge appropriate mugging victims, I politely refused. At which point he said something to the effect of 'We'll see about that!' before turning hostile, swinging ineffectually once or twice at one of my stoneskinned mages, and then dying horribly as my entire party hacked him into bloody giblets. What does this have to do with P:E? Well, I've noticed that BG2 and a wide assortment of other CRPGs have a lot of people like this, who dash headfirst into near instantaneous death even when it is very obvious they are grotesquely over-matched and should be shuffling away and leaving well enough alone, hoping for a more appropriate victim. I'm wondering what people think: is it worth making any kind of effort about this sort of thing, preparing appropriate NPC reactions when your character is carrying enough firepower to level an army single-handed and the like? Or is it part of the charm of this sort of game that poorly equipped enemies will cheerfully throw themselves into a fight with nigh-godlike opponents before dying seconds later?

That is, on the P:E kickstarter main page. There is big shiny $4 million castle, reached long ago, and there is the $3.9 'We are here!' marker forever taunting us (or maybe just me) with its non-castle-reaching outdatedness. I find this deeply troubling and demand the game be put on hold until its fixed.