PrimeJunta

Sex is great, but constantly staring at pixelated T&A makes it boring. I can't, off-hand, think of any cRPG where sex was done really well. However I think The Witcher 1 & 2 are worth looking at because of the differences in which it was done in them. One of the many reasons I liked The Witcher is that many of the women in it were fully-fleshed characters, not just eye candy, ego stroking, or wanking material. This was let down by the really dopey sex minigame with the collecting cards. The Witcher 2 was a great deal better: Geralt's relationship with Triss was complex, many-layered, conflicted, without sliding into emo angst or melodrama, and Triss's character was much better developed too. (I thought the sex scenes were too far in Uncanny Valley though.) The point? If Triss had been wearing a Thong +5 all through the game, the impact of the sex scenes would've been greatly diminished. That she wore practical adventuring garb most of the time made the times when she... didn't... that much more effective. And yeah, speaking very much from my male gaze POV here! This is another reason I dislike gratuitous near-nudity in computer games so much. If all the women are babes and all the babes are half-naked all the time, then neither of these things make any difference any more. I would like the games much better if the women and the men both looked and dressed like real women and real men. Then you could have courtesan famous the world over for her beauty, charm, wit, and style, or the dashing troubadour breaking the hearts and stealing the virtue of fair maidens from castle to castle, and make them stand out and look the part.

Erm, Darth. This is the 21st century. The game is a 21st century artifact. How could it be unaffected by the 21st century political agendas its makers hold? The chief designer is a self-declared leftist and feminist, for example. I would find it strange if these views were NOT reflected in the game in any way. In any case, not liking the politics of a game is a perfectly good reason not to play a game. I make such choices too. I haven't played any of Larian's games precisely because the art – like the one you posted – gives a strong vibe of women-as-eye-candy-only, which is a big turn-off for me.

Finland, Eastern Europe.

About crates and OCD. What I'd like to see is... reasons for doing stuff. Take Arcanum. If I'm playing a technomancer, I will be rooting through rubbish bins a lot -- not because I'm obsessively searching for a few copper coins or something salable, but because I'm looking for a particular piece of junk I need for a particular purpose. Charcoal for bullets, rags for Molotov ****tails, plates for batteries, maybe a big pipe for an elephant gun, revolver parts for a fine revolver, and so on. If I don't need anything, I don't root through them, knowing they'll get refilled later anyway. OTOH actual valuable loot is relatively rare: it feels like an event to find something actually valuable. This in fact is one thing that Arcanum does really well, perhaps better than just about any cRPG I've played. The game comes tragically close to greatness; if only they'd had a few more months to rebalance it and flesh out the the magick-user gameplay.

A game with a city of 10,000 explorable houses would have to be structured pretty differently from the ones we're used to, even with sandbox games. It would have to behave a great deal more realistically. People would turn you away at the door if you had no business being there; if you broke or forced your way in, you would be treated as an intruder or a criminal and so on. And the game would provide you with reasons to visit specific places. Since most of those 10,000 houses would play no role beyond adding verisimilitude and, perhaps, if you're a catburglar type, providing places to burgle, they would probably have to be generated procedurally; there's no point spending that much effort hand-crafting them. Come to think of it, there is such a game: Dwarf Fortress. It's a hell of a fun game. I was badly hooked on Fortress Mode a few years ago, and it's come a looong way since then. I'm sure that concept could be taken into other directions as well. Dwarf Fortress is nothing like P:E is going to be though.

@Gumbercules... holy wow. That is impressive. Modern archery competitions are boring.

Is it me, or does that town have a massive Hommlet vibe to it?

As per the latest update, color customization is already in. What with that and cloaks that -- presumably -- look different, and of course all those splendid hats, I don't think there will be difficulties in being able to tell your characters apart. I'm thinking hot pink barbarian hide armor. Fabulous!

@rjshae: The negative connotations are kind of the point. I doubt we're going to see enlightened Vailians bringing civilization, decency, and the true faith to the benighted pagan hordes, Noble Savages, or all that commotion. Nor, I think, the equally obvious counter-narrative. I think we're going to see something much more nuanced, with people and cultures acting according to their own motives, and see where that takes us. Colonialism is a really good lens to look at all that. We have high adventure, exploration, discovery, contact of cultures; we also have genocide, rapine, pillage. And I'm sure we have cooperation, trade, and all that commotion too, especially if -- as it appears -- the technology disparity between the colonizers and the colonized isn't quite as big as between the gunpowder-breastplate-and-cavalry Conquistadors and the Neolithic Aztec, Inca, and others.

Yeah. It's so easy to break that finding a way to play that doesn't break it has been a challenge in and of itself. I've got my Beat With An Ugly Stick dwarf technologist, now Firearms Master, and feeling pretty good about popping caps into anything. He broke the game by powerleveling, since I've had to kill everything myself. The game would be so. much. better. without combat XP.

Ziets on Formspring about the cultural and technology level: [ http://www.formspring.me/GZiets/q/450375950014634053 ] While this is clearly a few hundred years from steampunk, I think it does have something of an Arcanum vibe to it. There's the same feel of ongoing revolutionary change brought on by new technology. I really like that, especially since it's not been done all that much in fantasy settings -- they seem to tend to stay more or less the same for thousands upon thousands of years. ¡Mucho me gusta!

@AGX-17, just for your information, fantasy world steampunk is a pretty well-established sub-genre. Consider China Miéville's Bas-Lag series for example. Magic up the wazoo, and steam engines. Arcanum is bang-splat in the middle of that. In fact the "steam" -- technologist -- gameplay is a great deal deeper and better developed than the magic or melee gameplay. Which makes it doubly tragic that it's a candidate for worst balanced game ever. Damn thing keeps kicking you in the nuts. There are mechanics in there whose only purpose is to make you scream in frustration, I swear. I just dropped my elephant gun somewhere in the wilderness. Again. So here goes another runaround of gun shops to find a hunting rifle to make a new one. :sigh:

Whee! Let us dissect the words of Prophet Joshoboam: "CNPCs - Many of their introductions didn't sit well with me and I felt that there were too many who didn't have an equal amount of development given to them. While it was great that so many of them had a ton of quest content, I would have preferred a smaller list of companions with more attention to each one. This is what we said we were going to do at the start of the Kickstarter and it's what we're still planning to do." Agree 100%. More so for BG1. The companions are reduced to a handful of characteristic one-liners + really badly written fan-service "romance" in BG2. I think rose-colored spectacles play a big role here -- I believe BG introduced the whole notion of cRPG companions with personalities into western RPG's, but things have evolved a LOT since then. With companions, I say either go the IWD way and let you roll up a party by yourself, and only give them canned combat barks but no attempt at personality, or go the PS:T way and make them fully-developed characters with deep interactions between each other and you. The BG/2 way was the worst of both worlds; restrictive because it severely limited your party-building ability, but without all that much payoff in story, engagement, and, well, role-playing. Personally, the only companions I didn't actively dislike in BG2 were Keldorn and Yoshimo, and we all know what happened to Yoshimo. Everyone else was just incredibly annoying, which is why I finally succumbed and went with the "multiplayer" exploit to make my own party and shut everyone up. "Being required to find/save Imoen - I didn't like it then and I still don't. I wouldn't make the player rescue an NPC with whom he or she may or may not have a positive relationship. It's a very specific plot point and easy to not do. I understand that a lot of people have no problem with the rescue plot, which is totally fine, but I don't think that particular plot point needs to be repeated in PE." Neutral on this point. Most cRPG's are based on "find the McGuffin," and in this case the McGuffin was a person. No problems with this one. It would've been a lot better had there been some strong motivation established about why I should care about that person, other than general humanitarianism, but eh. "Style of dialogue - I prefer naturalistic -- some would say "dry" -- dialogue. BG2's characters are much more expressive. This is a personal thing and I recognize that most players *don't* like the same style of dialogue that I do. What I strictly prefer and what I write and have others write are not the same thing. My characters in F:NV are still on the dry end of the spectrum (e.g. Arcade Gannon, Chief Hanlon, Joshua Graham), but there are plenty of more flamboyant, expressive characters in the game that other writers developed." Not sure if Joshoboam is trying to be polite here by using "expressive" and "dry" as euphemisms for "derpy badly-written over-the-top teen fanfic style" and "realistic, adult, professionally written." If so, hell yeah. But taken at face value, I disagree. I would characterize Morte, Nordom, Dak'kon, Annah, and Fall-from-Grace as "expressive" and I loved the bejeezus out of them. "Being flooded with quests in Athkatla - To be honest, I don't think is a controversial opinion! I've seen many other players say the same thing. BG2 has a crazy amount of quests, which is great, but the density in Athkatla was a little too crazy. I think those quests should have been spread out or staggered in some other way. PE is going to have more of an exploration focus than BG2 (though not as much as BG), so I believe that will help spread the content out more." Partly agree. For me, the problem wasn't the quest density per se; it was, again, a problem with the writing. There was no flow in Athkatla; the quests were disconnected things you stumbled into in every direction, and what's more they would stomp on you hard if you innocently started with the wrong one (=too high-level for ya). I hadn't considered the density aspect of it, but I did think that it would've worked better if the quests had flowed to you differently e.g. by being placed in a way that you'd be more likely to find the easier ones first, and if there was something in the writing that suggested why you were being offered all of those quests. So I guess I'm in the kinda sorta agree with 50% camp here. Ironically, the one part I really, strongly and unequivocally disagree with is this: "Even though I had those problems with BG2, my job as a lead designer and project director is not to create content that appeals specifically to my tastes. Obviously I would have a difficult time making a game that I *disliked*, but I have (and continue to) push for elements I feel that players will ultimately enjoy even if I'm not super thrilled about it. That's my job." I will not explain why.

Wow, I'm still amazed at the levels of butthurt certain people are able to maintain. Carry on...

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I only caught this conquistador vibe now. I dig it. It gives the setting a dynamic tension that's different from most fantasy settings. Also, cool aumaua head. Also digging the idea of fantasy Polynesians. Really happy to get these twists on generic western pseudo-medieval fantasy; I did not expect that when backing the project and I salute Obsidian for having the stones to depart from the BG-IWD formula in this respect.

Arcanum. I have finally, finally, FINALLY managed to get into it. I now get it, and absolutely bleeping love it. It's also unbelievably broken in so many ways it NEEDS a spiritual sequel that does it right. Seriously. My Arcanum history in brief. I played many, many characters up to level 15 or so, which then fizzled. The first ones I rolled were a bit like MCA's -- disastrously underpowered; constant dying was not fun. My very first character concept was a technological gunslinger. I did not know how to build one. It was not fun. Then I figured out the most egregious loopholes in the game: how XP is awarded, and, um, Harm. So I rolled up a nearly pure diplomat, and watched as my minions steamrollered everything in their path. The game essentially became a "Win!" button, which got really boring. So I ditched my diplomat and made a (nearly) pure mage instead. Once my arcane affinity hit near 100% and I got a couple of staffs with 40-50 mana, it was "Win!" button again. I only needed relatively limited spells to mow through the game, so I easily maxed out Persuasion again. So... boring again. And finally I'm back to my original concept, and this is fun. It feels like a constant balancing act, constant hunt for stuff to use, constant drive to find creative ways to overcome challenges. Of course I did cheat a bit at the very beginning: I had the difficulty set to Easy until I managed to get to the point where I had my gunslinging abilities up to the point where I wasn't getting mauled by wolves every time. The tragic flaw of Arcanum is that to have this much fun, I have to intentionally gimp myself: to forgo the most efficient ways of playing the game. If magic and diplomacy were balanced the same way as technology, it would be a much, much better game. Specifically -- (1) Nerf Charisma. Maxing out Cha makes your party four times more powerful than average Cha. No other ability has this level of impact on your power. It's tantamount to an instant-win button. (2) Add resource costs to magic. The most fun part of playing a technomancer is having to hunt for schematics, components, and materials. In fact the crafting mechanics in the game are the best I've seen anywhere. Mages would be way more fun to play if you could find or buy spells the same way you find or buy schematics, if you could craft magic items the same way you craft tech items, and if the more powerful spells required material components you would need to find, buy, or craft. With the cheap and plentiful stamina potions, you can just spam Disintegrate to mow through anything. If every Disintegrate used up a diamond (crafted from Rough Diamond, magically crafted from Coal?), you'd have to think more strategically about it. (2b) Nerf Harm. It should not scale with level and magical affinity as much as it does. You shouldn't be able to waste, say, Granite Rats or Ore Golems without taking a scratch and with your stamina barely depleting just by going clickclickclickclick. But yeah, now I get why this is a classic. It's been totes worth the trouble to work around its flaws.

LTTP but... (1) Support for making the characters easy to identify would be good. It would help both mechanics and the imagination. (2) Breastplate is breastplate, whatever's in it. I like realistic-looking armor, and P:E is shaping up very nicely in this respect. (3) I really like the idea of tabards, insignia, painted shields etc. (3b) I would add hats, crests, and plumes. We already saw those. Besides plumes rule. I want that golden potato with a feather sticking out of it. I'd like to see tailors that let you easily adjust these major cosmetic aspects of your character. It's fun and should be relatively easy to implement. As to the masculine/feminine aspect, I'm sure different cultures would have different takes on it. Personally I'm hoping they'll bring back millstone collars.

Since the physics of deflecting blows are the same for both sexes, I doubt it'd look all that different. Men come in a variety of shapes and sizes as well, y'know.

I'm sure you could do something with a prerendered overlay for time of day shadows, but it would be a non-trivial amount of work that would have to be done for every level. Not worth the trouble IMO since the day will progress slowly enough you wouldn't see the shadows move in any case. It's pretty noticeable in the video when the cycle is sped up over a few seconds, but I very much doubt most people would notice when the game is running in real time. There are always trade-offs, and so far I'm really digging these ones.

I have a confession to make. Up to this point, the art style presented in P:E hasn't really rustled my jimmies, except a couple of the concept portraits -- Sherlock Orlan and Sagani to be specific. I mean I thought there were some neat ideas there but nothing that would make me really go wow. Even that scene; I thought it was nicely done and a worthy update to the BG2 style of graphics. I didn't back P:E for the graphics. But NOW I see what you guys are after. That looks really, really sweet, both technically but especially artistically. So yeah, impressed. Especially the dynamic lighting. I think I know the clever trick you're using there (came across it in... oh, 1992 I think, in a 3D modeling package running on Silicon Graphics workstations, where you could model lighting in real time on a prerendered model, 'cuz the hardware wasn't good enough to do it in real time in 3D yet)... but damn it looks good.

Arcanum done right would be awesome. Keep: the idea of a classic swords-and-sorcery world suddenly in the throes of an industrial revolution. Build on: the tech/magic split, so the mechanics are way more meaningful -- for example, someone with high magical aptitude should make tech items around him critically fail, not just be unable to use them, and vice versa with someone with high tech aptitude; magic shouldn't work within 100 yards of a steam engine, and engines shouldn't work within 100 yards of magic hotspots, etc. Fix: combat, character development balance (magic is WAAAY overpowered), general world structure. Cities should be surrounded by large farmlands. There should be a frontier, with railroads pushing into it. There should be real antagonism between "civilization" and "natives." A dark and fantastic twist on the conquest of the West would work very well, like in Felix Gilman's Half-Made World and The Rise of Ransom City, or why not China Miéville's Iron Council. (In fact, Gilman's Half-Made World would be a fantastic setting for a cRPG, what with the Gun and the Line, the frontier towns caught between them, the Old World, the First Folk, and the Unmade Lands.) I've finally managed to put together a character that's playable enough for my lazy style that I've been able to drill into the weird world of Arcanum, and it really is something rather special. It's such a shame it's so badly damaged in the execution. I'd love to play a technologist, but dread the tedium of die-and-reload early levels as one would entail, with the temptation of spamming Harm so alluring...

I'm all for a no-level-scaling mode. Add another control for encounter difficulty -- Easy locks all crit-path encounters to the bottom of their scaling band, Normal to the middle, and Hard to the top. Make it a startup option only, like Trial of Iron. Should be quite easy to implement and would add a lot of value for people who object to any form of level scaling for whatever reason. It's a pity they didn't think of that as a stretch goal actually -- I'm sure it would've pulled in a few more pennies from the Valorians of this world and it would've been easy to do.

There are also lots of possibilities there, beyond Fallout's "buff up your social skills to the max and clickity-click on dialog options." Corruption, both as petty bribery and at the large scale. Stealth. Careful balancing acts between factions, pitting them against each other. Tricking crucial NPC's into saying the wrong thing at the wrong place, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could be quite a lot of fun. It would also be a quite a lot of work. I'm more in favor of a free-form approach. If "pacifist options" fit in a given context, then of course they should be included. But to go out of your way to make sure every situation on the critical path has a "pacifist solution," especially in a game that's overtly billed as combat-heavy? Nah. With Torment: ToN on the other hand... yeah, the pacifist thing fits the Tides perfectly and I would hope to see much more of it there.

It's funny how tastes change. At some point, someone thought that putting a gilded potato with a feather sticking out of it on your head made you look more fearsome. Gotta love plumes. They should've put that in as a final stretch goal, would've broken 4.5 mil with no problems.

That's kind of the point, don't you think? Character differentiation doesn't mean anything if every build will be as good in all circumstances. I'd much rather see a game where a ranger is genuinely more at home in the wilderness, a well-bred rapier-carrying noble in the royal palace, and a rough knife-wielding street thug in the back alley. This kind of diversity would make for much better replayability and would encourage you to build a diverse, well-rounded party. The only real pitfall is that you'd have to be careful to avoid situations where your critical path is completely blocked due to your character concept, but I think the Obsidian devs are smart enough to avoid that.