Death Machine Miyagi

Setting aside a whole romantic plot, I'd still prefer they don't force us to play as someone who is practically asexual, as many RPGs do. It irritated me that I could wander the wastes in Fallout: New Vegas as a character of the appropriate sexual orientation to one of my companions (a homosexual woman wandering with Veronica or a homosexual man wandering with Arcade, for example) and the subject was never even addressed. It could kinda sorta be brought up with Arcade when talking him into joining you as a gay man, but then the subject dropped as if it never happened. It doesn't need to go anywhere. They could shoot you down, you could shoot them down or it could just stay at the level of mild flirting. Two good looking single people of compatible orientation wandering the wastes for months and months with only each other for companionship without the subject of sexual tension even being discussed or hinted at, however, seems a bit of a stretch to me. EDIT: I forgot about Cass, who would actually be a good model for this approach. You can hit on her with the 'Lady Killer' perk...at which points she shoots you down point blank, 'cause she knows your type. Of course, if victory has been won for the NCR, she'll get drunk and try to hop in the sack with you (unsuccessfully) in one of the game endings. The issue is addressed and then set aside instead of just flat-out ignored.

Bioware has basically taught the RPG world how to make 'romance' in-game as obnoxious as possible. Penalize those who aren't interested through shallower character interaction and lost influence with those you refuse to romance. Treat every friendly interaction with an NPC as if its a prelude to sex. Advertise the number of romanceable NPCs as if it were practically the reason for the game. I especially loved how, in Mass Effect 1, you could basically only evade a romance by either: 1) Being an absolute **** to your romanceable crew members. 2) Turning down the alien space babe and then sending the opposite sex romanceable crew member to die on Virmire. Bioware NPCs can be so insistent on getting into your pants that you have to murder them to get them to leave you alone.

Obsidian has always given me the impression of being very ambivalent about romances in their games. At best. MCA, for example, has been openly dismissive of them and while JE Sawyer isn't dismissive, as seen above, you can definitely detect a severe lack of enthusiasm at the idea. My stance has always been that romance can be pretty cool, if done well. I'm not among those who are openly celebrating this because I don't think romances necessarily have to be done as poorly as Bioware's 'follow the correct dialogue path and receive awkward video game sex!' approach. Done well, a romantic relationship would create exactly what I would like to see more of in my RPGs; deeper interaction between the main character and the world around him/her, as well as the ability to define your character more clearly through their choices. But for me, its definitely a 'do it well or not at all' thing, so if they have to choose between shoehorning a romance in because a segment of the player population demands it or dropping it completely, the latter is definitely better. Especially if writing romances makes the writers gag. How interesting an in-game romance could you have when the writers seem to have such a dismissive view of the whole thing?

Its like a piece of bait just waiting there for someone to lunge at it. Who will be the first?

This issue is why I've found it extremely difficult to get into the Elder Scrolls games. When all paths are open, and every NPC reacts to you almost exactly the same regardless of race or background or accomplishments or anything else, the PC you've created loses all flavor and becomes a generic set of stats on legs. If I'm part of a persecuted minority, I'd like to feel persecuted. If I'm part of an honored group, I'd like to feel honored. I created an Altmer in Skyrim hoping to feel the hatred of the Nords for the oppressive Thalmor, to be blamed for all the suffering they were going through under the persecution of that organization. Never happened, and so my Altmer was boring, and so I stopped playing. So yeah, this is important to me, too. Obsidian has a good track record on this, though, so I'm not worried.

Eh. PoE is a spiritual successor to BG, in part, even if both of the examples I cited are Bioware's fault. I'm just saying don't follow the 'spiritual successor' thing so far as to fall into its failings as well as its successes. But yes, I agree, Obsidian has a much better track record in regards to continuity than Bioware. That was something that always struck me, even as far back as KOTOR 2, where MCA and company took throwaway plot details from the first game and wove them into entire storylines and characters. I think they'll do things right.

A quote from an interview with Sawyer, which is linked in this thread. That is, of course, a good sign. But PoE is just the first game and he is, I think, mainly discussing the endings of that first game. I don't know to what extent PoE will have an overarching plotline, extending from the first game to the last, but since we'll be playing the same character across multiple games I'm guessing it will have such. If it does, then my firm hope is that they've got some vision in their heads of what the end of that last game will look like, however dim. Lots of foreshadowing of things to come, no pivotal characters or plot developments dropped in at the last minute because no one bothered to think ahead.

Please start laying the groundwork for the endgame of that storyline sooner rather than later. The endgame may be many years away, but so much the better, as it means there is lots of time to plan. Don't make sh*t up at the last minute. Pave the way for a satisfying conclusion by having some degree of foreknowledge of how the series end will look, even if its in a hazy form, and foreshadowing that end properly. Baldur's Gate basically seemed to forget the Bhaalspawn story needed a satisfying conclusion until that conclusion was upon them and they were forced to write it. The result was the utter mess that was Throne of Bhaal, an expansion pack that thrust entirely new characters and villains into the story at almost the last minute, minus all foreshadowing. Established plot points from the previous games were forgotten or retconned, often giving the impression the writers had a very shallow knowledge of the very series they had created. The ending choice of the series itself was bland and predictable and made very little sense, as did the plans of virtually all the villains, Bhaal included. If they had a hazy notion of what things would look like when they reached the end from almost Day 1, if the writers had had a vision of how the Bhaalspawn storyline might wrap up, then the ending of the series might have been something truly epic. But they didn't think in the long term and the result was rather disappointing. The same criticism could be levelled at something like Mass Effect, in which the writers must have known from Day 1 they were eventually going to have to deal with the fact that the Reapers were so overpowered that no conventional war against them could possibly hope for success. With that knowledge in mind, they should have figured out what the Grand Plan was for defeating the Reapers and started laying the seeds to make that plan not seem like a Deus Ex Machina when Shephard started working to implement it, sprinkling hints and suggestions of a Reaper weakness that might be exploited throughout the course of the series. This was not done. The result: Catalyst from out of nowhere! Deus Ex Machina to the rescue! Obviously, a game is not a novel and is at much heavier risk of executive meddling, as I understand was the case for many of the more idiotic aspects of the Mass Effect series. But I'm sincerely hoping that will be less of a danger without a publisher, and with a crowd mandate to create the best story possible rather than a company mandate to focus on making the game appeal to a 'mass market.'

'Long over 20+ hours', he says. And a level cap at 12 in anticipation of a storyline spanning multiple games. That makes me very, very happy.

Obviously they're limited by their budget, like any other company making just about anything else. And, assuredly, releasing the game because they've run out of money would be a much less pleasant outcome than releasing the game because its been finished properly. But both are preferable to intentionally releasing an unfinished game in the short-sighted pursuit of immediate profit, ala KOTOR 2. The blame for that was on LucasArts and not Obsidian, but still. I have no real fear of such a thing happening, though, since an existing company that starts a Kickstarter is basically laying their very reputation on the line when it receives the money they requested. Obsidian obtained the money they have based upon faith, a trust built up between themselves and their fans. If that faith is violated and the game feels rushed or subpar, their brand name will suffer for it forever. Of all the people in the world to find that an undesirable outcome, Obsidian itself tops the list.

So long as the delay is used in service of polish and turning out a superior product rather than used as a desperation tactic from an incompetent developer, delays not only don't worry me, they positively encourage me. I would rather have a highly polished game many months from now than a buggy, forgettable piece of crap today. I have very strong faith from what I've seen from Obsidian that the development is all-in-all proceeding quite well, so yeah, take as much time as you need to wow us when the day of release finally comes.

This is where the analogy breaks down. Increasingly, EA's products aren't serviceable. They're downright bad, forcing features on gamers that they don't want and trying to gouge them for every micropayment they can dream up. Their prices are inflated, as well. McDonalds will give you a cheapo hamburger. They won't demand you add pickles to every order or give you a plain burger and bun then demand micropayments for every condiment. EA often seems downright hostile to their customers in a way that has nothing to do with their size and everything to do with their awful business decisions.

I have a confession to make: when I saw all the extra levels and stretch goals that were being tacked on, my response was partially excitement, but also a big helping of apprehension. I trust Obsidian is smart enough to know what a realistic goal is with the money they have, but when I see (for example) all those dungeon levels they've promised there's a big part of me that wonders whether they'll be forced to sacrifice quality for quantity to make all those levels.

Not to worry, I don't think it reaches that extreme. But there was a never any time where I was so baffled that I felt the need to wander every screen rubbing every object I had against every clickable object in the game world, as I remember doing in the Monkey Island days.

I don't mind a video format if the LPer knows how to edit out the parts which are utterly boring, such as...I dunno. Spending the entire video trying to fight your way through a pack of wolves because you haven't bothered to read the manual and figure out the importance of quick travel? Stuff like that. Avellone's first few videos are borderline unwatchable if you aren't a masochist. You just want to reach through the screen, slap the hell out of him and yell 'USE THE QUICK TRAVEL!!!'

Broken Age has the great story and memorable characters, for certain, but the puzzles are (mostly) pretty straightforward, particularly for the veteran adventure gamer. Definitely not bad mouthing it and I'm planning on playing it again soon.

At least in my case, the benefit is managed expectations. I've now had a couple of demonstrations of what game projects that made millions can do with that kind of money after all the Kickstarter rewards and such have been shipped and the actual money they can use for the game is left. That means, while I might hope for something epic in scale, I'm not going to be shocked if the developers are forced to settle on something a little less than that. And I can handle it if that ends up the case, as long as the game is good. I kinda liked Shadowrun Returns and thought Broken Age was great fun. They were just, as I say, a bit short and linear. I don't know. Perhaps Obsidian can do more with what they have.

I've only played two of the really big, successful ones now: Shadowrun Returns and Broken Age. But despite the two of them making many times what they sought, the feel is much the same. They were made on a strict budget. They're both quite short. They're both fairly linear, though Broken Age much, much less so than the relentless feel of being on railroad tracks in Shadowrun Returns. Options and choices are largely simplified compared to the games they're paying homage to. I enjoyed both for what they were, but I left both feeling that the developers were trying to do the best they could with what was, in game industry terms, not a lot of money. The fact Broken Age was split into two parts precisely because they shot over budget only reinforces that. So now we come to Pillars of Eternity, which also made what seems at first to be a pretty large sum of money. The intention is to create two huge cities, an enormous multi-level dungeon, lots and lots of class and races choices, and a variety of other such claims that indicate a game aiming to be set on an epic scale ala Baldur's Gate. Yet their budget isn't all that much bigger than the Broken Age budget, the first released installment of which I completed in about three and a half hours. That makes me uneasy. Am I alone on that?

I do regret that MCA may never finish the game and therefore never get to see 'the reveal' about Nasrudin and about the final 'villain'. He complained early on about how he didn't like plots about villains who want to destroy everything because that motivation doesn't make any sense. Yet Arcanum takes great pains to make the villain's plan not only make sense, it almost makes

When Feargus says Skyrim, he means an open world game with Obsidian's own spices in the mix. Just look at New Vegas, it certainly didn't have generic characters or generic dialogue. Just because Bethesda makes bad open world games doesn't mean Obsidian would follow in their footsteps even if Feargus used the title Skyrim to get some recognition instead of saying "open world game". If they mean a game like New Vegas, they really should say a game like New Vegas, which would leave me more favorably disposed to the idea. Name dropping Skyrim as a model throws a big wet blanket over any enthusiasm I have, and will continue to do so until I hear repeatedly 'it's an open world game, but no, it's not really all that much like Skyrim.' That said, I still prefer a stronger story over another sandbox game.

Its really obvious MCA isn't into it. To the extent he is into it, he's really bad at it, such that watching his early Let's Play videos are almost an endurance test. Dude, read the damn manual. Anyway, I'll be genuinely shocked if he ever actually does play the thing to completion as he says he will.

I ended up buying Skyrim recently because of a Steam sale, just because it had so many good reviews and so many people singing its praises. I lost interest very quickly and I haven't been able to muster up the enthusiasm to try it again. Regret wasting the money now. The cost of open world is too often generic characters, generic dialogue, generic story and a generic protagonist. I created an Altmer character with an implicit background of being an anti-Thalmor rebel because I wanted to see how people would treat me differently based upon my race (like the awkwardness of being of an anti-Nazi German in the middle of the Second World War), but the answer to that question was seemingly 'not much differently at all.' My character ended up feeling like a personality-less arbitrary arrangement of stats. I find that very boring. So no, if they go the route of 2D Skyrim, I won't be backing it. I backed this project and Tides of Numenera because I'm excited for a return to an emphasis on telling a good story with interesting characters over lots and lots of generic, forgettable content. That description seems to be a major step in the wrong direction.

From the start, I kinda wish they had tried for something more unusual and imaginative than yet another Medieval European Fantasy RPG, but since the game was pitched as a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine I understand why they did it. I'm appeased on this score by the fact that the devil is in the details: just because you're making Medieval European Fantasy doesn't mean you're making a Tolkien rip-off, and the previous work of the writers along with the introduction of a lot of features from the Renaissance gives me hope the setting will have a look and feel all its own, even if (most of) the races and classes and such are very, very familiar.

Fallout and Fallout 2 removed the children when they were released in Europe, so that wouldn't be a change based on time. I am curious as to the often-repeated-but-as-yet-unproven statement that, in the 16 years between now and Fallout 2, the political climate has shifted so badly that child killing in gaming is no longer possible without sending the non-gaming world into a frenzy of moral outrage. What are you basing this on? Can you provide a source or two at least? As it stands, it sounds like people just kind of assuming this is the case, even in a present reality where if anything games seems to have become more openly controversial than ever.

Me, too. If someone is going to go to all the trouble of making conlanguages for a game, or even the rough outlines of those languages and a few words, then the least they can do is throw in a few lines of chanting in that language for spells and the like. That would make it a 'mysterious, magical language' for everyone, no matter what languages they understand in the real world.