Jasede

Zed's right though. Western games have been lagging behind Japanese games in this regard. Remember in Fallout 2 when the gangsters wife would tell you secrets if she was satisfied with your sex? The thing is, you don't have any control over that, it's just a simple skill check. This way would be much more interactive, and open up new and interesting forms of gameplay. Different races and desires would create more challenge. It'd work out quite well with romances, they'd go hand and hand. If you can't satisfy your girl she'll leave you, or you'll have to find the gifts she likes in order to make up for bad sex, etc. When you say interactive do you mean as in picking various positions or sexual practices and getting paid off with your lover's satisfaction based on your skills and stats or do you mean more twitchy, as in for example a rhythm mini-game that would simulate thrusting? Personally I think it ought to be the former since it's an RPG. It should be tied to your stats like Constitution, Strength and Charisma and skills such as Acrobatics, Tumble, Climb, Seduction, Bluff and Animal Empathy.

Only the worst D&D books and campaigns feature good Drow and noble savage orcs.

Clearly that's why we need detailed naked portraits as well as high-quality pixel-sex that you can still make out in an isometric game. It would add sexiness and if you think about it, that is the greatest reward of them all. If you take out the sexuality from the game then you end up with something dull people can't relate to. Romeo and Juliet would never be as memorable without the long on-stage sex-scenes.

This poll is useless, what about men? Why can't they be sexy? What about sexy dwarves and gnomes? My friends an I are already selling commissions for PE dwarf porn as we speak so I'm sure we can lend Obsidian a hand, to ensure this game will be the greatest RPG of all times.

I told someone on the internet they were wrong.

Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches, let the posts pile up in the message boards. In the end, they'll beg us to save them.

Because it's like stealing from the big evil publishers. That's why I illegally download millions of copies of those games so I can cost those companies billions of dollars in lost sales. That's right, big publishers! If you cross me I'll download your games trillions of times! You won't even have a shirt to wear once I'm done stealing from you! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'd like to see a Lore skill. It's traditional. There could be several, such as Geography, History, Languages, et cetera. The skill check you'd have to meet would vary depending on the item or be a combination thereof.

Ah yes, Skaven, the only fantasy anthropomorphic rat race of which there is (almost) no pornography due to how badass they are.

Why yes that would be sexy.

On that note, Notepad is the best RPG ever!!!

They won't be happy until everything is a realtime action-packed drama cutscene fest voiced by Liam Neeson with QTEs, romances and a difficulty curve ranging from coma patient to imbecile. You know, like Uncharted. And people wonder how we got to be so bitter and hostile! Wouldn't you be, too? If the one hobby you truly enjoy was pooped on? It's like being a fan of the opera and hearing that all showings are to be replaced with Britney Spears shows.

Where's the "none, I want to write my own notes" option?

Starcraft 1 to Starcraft 2, the rise - and fall - of Blizzard. It's staggering how they managed to sink so low so quickly.

That was the worst thing I've read since the romance thread. Someone should suggest to the journlolist in question she ought to take up knitting or stitching and never touch a video game ever again.

Planescape:Torment was about a man who cannot die, a game focused on the story with combat thrown in as an afterthought. You asked if it had permanent death. As a matter of fact it did but it was rare; very few things in the realms could harm TNO. There were also several ways to permanently rid yourself of your companions. Icewind Dale didn't have a "no resting except at campsites" system - but it did have an optional difficulty that was very challenging and the game was designed to be beatable - if difficult - using realistic P&P style resting cycles. It didn't prevent me from playing the way I want to to make concessions to players. Yes, healing in Baldur's Gate was rare. The only potions were Cure Light Wounds potions which were next-to-useless in any battle that matters. Incidentally, two of these games featured D&D-style permanent death that you could not Resurrect from if characters took too much damage. Whatever point you were trying to make is lost on me. It's only natural someone as experience in RPGs as I is looking for something more challenging that pushes the boundaries in terms of challenge rather than something that is just as hard as all the games I already played. We need to quest for bigger challenges, not settle for what we can already comfortably beat. And yes, older RPGs were positively brutal compared to today's games because they punished you for your mistakes rather than preventing you from making any in the first place.

KOTOR 2, Fallout, PS:T, MotB, NV I'd say we needn't be worried.

Nobody is asking for contrived mechanics. But if you happen to set the option for permadeath - as has already been stated will exist - and someone dies they ought to be, well, dead. Just like they'd be dead in BG and in need of resurrection - or "too far gone" and unrezzable. We're simply grumpy that people would even so much as hint at bemoaning mechanics we've become accustomed to: failed resurrections, characters taking too much damage to be resurrected, HP management, risk of death. You can not with a straight face tell me old games weren't much harder than the crud we get nowadays, with the rare exception of some Japanese games. Nobody is asking for forced difficulty; nobody said as much, nobody asked for that much. What we're asking for is to be spared of forced ease and having the game be designed around the needs of those looking for an easy time instead of designing the game to be challenging and then including an easy-mode. Unlike what some people may believe it's very possible to make difficult games that can be completed in the RPG-game equivalent of not ever getting hit in an action game (Ninja Gaiden, DMC, Bayonetta, God Hand), games containing no artificial difficulty whatsoever that are simply mechanically demanding. It'd be nice to have a technically demanding combat experience. Because we sure as hell aren't going to get it anywhere else.

This being a Ziets/Avellone game you can count on there being betrayal that you won't see coming until it's too late but that makes sense in retrospect.

Today's gamer's need to man up. And if they don't "have time" for this sort of hobby then they should stick to the billions of casual games already available rather than corrupting the few difficult games that still remain.

No you won't. And thank the powers that be for that.

You guys should try Dark Souls; more spears and maces and spears + shield style than you can shake a stick at. Plus, you can wield every weapon in two hands if you so please, from a lowly dagger to a gigantic club, some of course working better in one style than in the other, others able to function equally well in both.

Don't care about realism. I think two-handed swords, flails, axes, mauls and so on are plain cool and satisfying to use, especially if wielding two-handed weapons applies an extra bonus derived from your strength score.

Your suggestion gave me Bioware-rash.