PrimeJunta

Yes! And since I always play self-inserts, I consider this extremely welcome news.

It was not intended as an objection. I do love that image. Also, think of the role-playing possibilities. Exactly what kind of hero will collect four bards to tag along and sing to him on his adventures? http://youtu.be/BZwuTo7zKM8

I love that image. Four bards singing a cappella as the fighter goes a'choppin'. http://youtu.be/lk5_OSsawz4

Good thread. Golden age cRPG's were merciless. They just basically threw you into the world and had you figure it out from there. So it's hardly surprising that you go wtf, buffs? if nothing and nobody has introduced the concept, except mmmaybe some small print on page 52 of a manual you skimmed through once. Fortunately games have gotten a lot better in this respect since. There is a pretty strong convention of having some in-game introduction of a mechanic once it first comes up, even if it's not a straight-out tutorial (which I don't care for much). It's a fine line to balance, though; Valve does it a bit too well for example, which makes Half-Life 2 etc. feel more like a rat running through a maze than a game where you have actual agency, even for a linear shoot-em-up. So yeah, I very much agree that degenerate gaming is symptomatic of failure -- either failure of the game design itself, or failure of the game design to communicate itself to the player. More commonly the latter, I would suspect. I'm really hoping Sawyer meets his goal of minimizing it. In a system as complex as P:E it's bound to be impossible to eliminate it completely, but it's one area where it can certainly improve massively upon its antecedents. Here's to hoping.

That looks... manly. (Also yeah, best thread on this board so far. Keep 'em coming...)

Thank you. In that case, I have no interest in what you may have to say about game mechanics. I won't be wasting your time in pointless discussion in the future.

Before we continue, Dream, one question: what are your thoughts about metagaming? Problematic or not? By "metagaming" I mean abuse of mechanics to get desired results. For example, using the save/reload mechanic to get around a failed skill check or to get better random loot, grinding for XP, min-maxing, farming, or rest-spamming. I believe that metagaming is unequivocally a Bad Thing, and that one core measure of how good a game system is, is how good it is at marginalizing metagaming. For example, if game F lets you open a chest by saving before your lockpick attempt and reloading and trying again until you succeed, but game G gives you the same result with every reload, then in my opinion game F's lockpick mechanic is worse than game G's. I'm asking because I think there's a possibility we're talking at cross-purposes. I.e., if you do not see metagaming as problematic -- which is, naturally, an entirely legitimate position to take -- I will bow out of the discussion at this point.

Okay, I may have been exaggerating a little. Consider "anywhere" struck out. There were no-rest areas here and there, 'tis true. Even so, the rest mechanic was fundamentally broken in all of the IE games, and the "no-rest areas" were a ham-fisted attempt at mitigating that fundamental design flaw. I take it you're conceding your "complexity for no reason" point, since you're no longer arguing it?

Yes! One of the few actually interesting bits in DA:O was the dwarf noble background. It at least attempted this, where you could play your dwarven prince so that he never actually spoke to the dirty plebes, but had his servant do it for him. That was a great idea, and it's too bad it went out of the window the minute the actual game started.

You have a strange sense of humor, Dream. (You are joking, right?) Edit: In case you weren't joking, what, specifically, do you think was different in the resting mechanics between the IE games and NWN that made the former 'fine' and the latter 'not fine?'

Not at all, you'd be adding complexity to the game to discourage rest-spamming. Surely you can't actually like NWN-style "sit down for six seconds anywhere at any time to recharge all resources" derpiness that nerfs the whole idea of resource management? There are other ways to do this, of course, but resource-limited camping is one of the better ideas IMO.

"Do you have a moment to talk about St. Waidwen Martyr?"

Funny, the Aumaua is the concept art I've liked best so far. Well, them and Sagani.

One of the things I liked best about Fallout was the effort at making a believable world, with farms, herds, caravans, and what have you. I would very much like to see P:E do this too. You don't need to show everything, but I would be delighted to see hints that it is there.

Only if CHA is the only stat check you ever make in conversation. Which would be silly. INT and WIS are at least as relevant, as are various knowlege-based skills, reputation, and experience.

Perhaps I didn't express myself well enough, because what I was hoping for is very much like what you're describing. No automatic "get out of battle free" card, but escaping battle as a gameplay challenge in and of itself.

I want to be able to shave with a torch. That would be manly.

Ouch. Does that really happen in Skyrim? Haven't played it...

Maybe I've been watching too many nature documentaries lately. It's been cool to see the way prey evades predators, among other things. Like a mountain goat finding a spot on a cliff face that's too steep for a snow leopard to reach; after a while, the snow leopard goes away to find something else to eat. I disagree with you about case (a). I believe that bears -- and most other creatures -- defending their lairs or homes would not normally pursue you once they've chased you off, if for no other reason than that it would leave their lair undefended against the next band of murder hobos that comes along. I agree that case (b) ought to be rare. That said, there have been area-defense scenarios in cRPG's. Redcliff Village in DA:O to pick a relatively recent example; that one wasn't even story-critical. I can't see any logical reason the party couldn't have just snuck out from that if it started to go badly. (Well, other than that it was unlikely to go that badly since it was a pretty easy fight.) With case ©, you don't necessarily have to be faster. There are other ways you could escape a fight. Maybe you can retreat behind a door and bar it. Perhaps the monster can't climb as well as your party and you can get onto a ledge it can't reach. Maybe you can cast an invisibility spell and tiptoe away while it's looking for you. Maybe you even have teleport magic that'll let you pop out of trouble. Maybe you have some smoke grenades that'll distract it long enough for you to get out of range. Perhaps the monster is too big to squeeze into a hole you can fit into. Perhaps there's a magical barrier it can't cross but you can. Perhaps if you scatter some caltrops or something else to slow it down a bit so you can get away. Just to pick a few ideas at random.

How's that? I'd say most of the time combat happens because (a) you're attacking someone else's territory, (b) they're attacking your territory, © they want to eat/kill/rob you or (d) you want to eat/kill/rob them. "Stupidly violent" covers all of those (or not), I think. The magically programmed assassin (e) is, I hope, a relatively rare occurrence. Otherwise it would be banal. None of these are necessarily "to the death" scenarios. In case (a), the defender would want to repel you but probably not pursue you once you've retreated, in (b) there's no reason for them to pursue you once you've retreated, in © they would give up the pursuit if you're too much trouble to catch, and in (d) combat would end once you stop pursuing them. Even the magically programmed-to-kill assassin might want to give up on an encounter and try again later if you evade it long enough.

...lives to run another day. There's a pretty strong convention in cRPG's that every combat encounter is to the death. Once combat starts, only one side walks off the battlefield, unless there's a specific circumstances that defines the encounter as nonlethal (e.g. arena fight or duel). Roguelikes with permadeath are the major exception. They pretty much have to be. I like that mechanic. Escaping an ambush or a fight for which you're unprepared can feel like a real accomplishment, and coming back to, ahem, sort things out feels that much sweeter. I would like to see a "disengage from combat" mechanic in P:E. It would make Trial of Iron and other higher-challenge modes that much more feasible. Even cooler if sometimes enemies took any knocked-out party members prisoner instead of killing them outright. So you could regroup, lick your wounds, and mount a daring rescue. That would probably be pretty hard to write in as a mechanic, and would certainly not be universally applicable. A wolfpack, for example, isn't likely to take prisoners. Thoughts?

No zoom, then. Huh.

I just realized I have to turn down the saturation on my monitor to zero to play this entirely in black and white. Even changed my avi accordingly. Looking sweet. Moar plz.

Minsc started out as fun but he started to grate on me plenty quick. There's only so much "Go for the eyes, Boo!" a man can take. I thought Morte and Sulik (FO2) did the comic sidekick thing much better.

They could also declare you a "not really a woman." An honorary bro if you will. I've seen that happen. Also, Kronar.