IndiraLightfoot

Marceror: The isometric view is absolutely great, and those hand-painted 2D backgrounds (yum!), but since I enjoyed NWN2 just as much (at least MotB), I figured it wasn't worth saving, if I was staring down the barrel of a gun.

Absolutely. The criteria I picked were the most important ones. NWN2 is still one of my absolute favourites, and it was more or less a 3D action game. I played it like IE games and it was very far from action game. Heh. I keed, I keed, a bit. It was made in 3D and there were plenty of actions going on in it.

Absolutely. The criteria I picked were the most important ones. NWN2 is still one of my absolute favourites, and it was more or less a 3D action game.

Interesting. You just put yourself on your own Ignore list, then, an echo chamber, it seems.

An imaginary sentence that I don't want to find out became real, after all, after PoE has been released, in the OE office: "Hey guys! It turns out that all that stuff we dismissed as nostalgia and replaced, it was actually genuinely fun gameplay. Bummer!"

This is a huge fear of mine as well. In reality, we're getting this "Sorry, honey, I shrunk the CRPG"-universe, where areas are like dioramas in some museum, or perhaps like a doll house museum.

Funny thing is: Feargus, Josh and MCA never miss an opportunity to declare their love for the IE games, and I wouldn't expect anything else. But it's clear that they all have their own ideas of what's the core of those classics. Right now, if we pretend, you only could save a few core game aspects of the BG-series (disregarding the story) what would it be? I'd go for the dice-based combat system, party-based companions/self-made party members, and the character/classes levelling/development system via xp. OE right now didn't save two of them. They left them to their fate. Instead, they picked crafting (from NWN2, really) and the stronghold (yet again, from NWN2).

Those rather "empty" expanses - they are still full of brilliant atmosphere and ambience - regulated the pacing, like in good music, varied the tempo, so when you got to a place like Durlag's Tower or Bodhi's abode, you would really feel the difference, and then the intensity got "fuller" somehow.

All that I can say for certain is that BG1 gave us maps from the very beginning that are almost larger than the entire beta maps taken together, scale-wise. And the encounter density was like three NPCs, one cutscene, five animals, in the big foresty map east of Candlekeep. I know, some people don't like that "emptiness" and scarcity, but I really do, still.

I can certainly see that I bring emotional aspects to the table here, but it really affects gameplay and that elusive "immersion". How much can you break with traditions and PnP mechanics of a CRPG before it becomes an ARPG or some other post-2000 game?

To me, any IE-inspired successor also needs to be more than just a nod to PnP mechanics. I still mourn the loss of the dice concept in PoE. I'd love to see it as pivotal in its systems. Ditching it was really brave of them.

As I'm playing BG:EE right now, I still get giddy just by watching my party members trying to hit their enemies. Every encounter, every head-to-head exchange of spells and/or blows, has that nice feel. As an old PnP player, that rattling of your d20 to see if you'll hit is still magical to me. It's ingrained in me system. Am I the only one that think that this excitement factor is missing? I would even love to see fumble/critical misses be implemented properly in a CRPG. I have already debated with Josh about this in a thread like over a year ago. I disliked "grazing", the always-hitting-a-little. He calmed me and others down by saying that there were a small percentage chance of missing, just as there were for crits. However, now, when we've got the game and this latest patch, there's even more swish-swooshing if the DT is too high or for whatever reason. The big problem being, I've stopped caring if I hit or not. The magic, at the moment, is gone, lost in some percentage friction mill, where you will grind down your enemy, and vice versa, every time. I don't want to get that excitement over a hit gone, especially when you attack a superior foe.

Hiro: I know, I know. In fact, one of the most "unfun" aspects of F:NV was those DT, blaha, blaha, values. It didn't make my gaming self feel comfy enough. Most other stuff in that game was brilliant, btw. I'd like to have all of this much more simplified. I would rework it into max three key values, and then let some of that simulationist stuff slide.

The more I ponder over this, I'd like to lay most of the blame on the DT stat itself. What'll happen if we scratch it? Is there something easier and more combat-flowy we can replace it with that involves the diversity of armour in the game?

Hiro: I picked it up on this forum, regarding CRPG approaches. It's like a dichotomy: simulationist vs gamist. That's all I know. If I somehow have misunderstood it, blame it on me. I reckon, it means that you acknowledge that a CRPG is a game first and foremost, and needs to have great gameplay. That's what I mean by it here, anyways.

And then someone walks by, accidentally bumps into that 10 watermelon head. Balance is pushed off kilter. Next thing you know, he's fallen and he can't get up! How's he even getting inside places to begin with! Oh, he's shorter than Kylie Minogue. He'll get in anywhere.

Marceror: Some plate mails were like that. The knight fell off his horse and was done for. However, in other plates you could be surprisingly agile and fast. I'm glad this isn't a simulationist game. I'd really prefer a gamist approach that still makes sense within that fantasy setting and within or laws of physics as well (but just barely).

He looks incredibly cool. I wish I was that guy. Imagine walking into a mall like that, checking out the nearest Subway, and then selecting Subway Melt, with a dark, entrancing voice: "I want it all".

Who needs armor, as long as the stats are high?

While the Fatigue idea really makes sense, what worries me is that we don't need more "meters" and factors in combat right now, but simpler and more intuitive stuff: Less is more.

Zierry: Thanks to Marceror and Seari, I finally get it. Didn't mean to be cheeky. I literally didn't understand your post.

How can you know? We could play only small part of game without piece of main story. I cant say anything about Baldurs Gate from plaing local quest in Ulgoth's Beard (without tower) with random premade companions. Non interctive demo of BG has terrible atmosphere. And combat is not what missing there. Come again? I'm afraid, I don't get your point.

Hiro: Yeah, help us polish this "turd" then! Armour needs a huge reworking, you certainly got that point across. Also the resting, health/stamina, need to be revisited with broad, brave and new strokes. Like you, I see rest spamming (especially at the inn) as a big annoyance. That's "degenerative gameplay" all over again. It has nothing on save-scumming in the IE games, which I was perfectly fine with, btw. In the IE games, it's something of a sport to get lost in some wilderness, run out spells and ammo, and then try to survive the whole thing and reach an inn or some vendor later.

Seari: Still the first fourth of the game had some very nice combat, even strategically. You must keep in mind that they made the entire game in eight months, so it's a miracle really. Story-wise, options, branching, plot, there you had the gashing wounds in it here and there. It's still a very nice game, although more of a dungeon crawl, like ToEE (which is equally great for what it is).

Sure and it'll most likely be fixed. What concerns me however, as I pointed out, are the implications of that game mechanic which potentially allows prolonged complete invulnerability states. Should never happen. Agreed! Also, fun fact: As someone that played NWN2 to bits, I can tell you that certain cleric/fighter builds going up against a few enemies at epic levels, like 20+, could actually end up smacking each other for 10 minutes or more, and it all felt hopeless. Those were extreme cases, though.