Arhiippa

Did you romance the farmer's daughter in Fallout 2? I think that is the most appropiate way to handle those situations: include some dialogue and then black out. No, I didn't. I tend to play altruistic and responsible characters, especially on my first playthrough. But my subversive streak really likes content that pushes the boundaries of acceptable even if I wouldn't concentrate on that content while playing.

Considering the level of talent and experience associated with this project, I'm quite certain that mature is not going mean gratuitous titillation. What I'm hoping for and expecting is a nuanced and comprehensive approach to a wide variety of serious and emotionally evocative topics. Depending of course on what themes are relevant to the story being told. From what I've understood, the freedom for mature content mostly just means that the writers don't have to censor themselves if the story-arc deals with issues that are considered taboo or unpleasant, not gratuitous nudity. Although I wouldn't mind gore or an isometric sex scene at all, if not for any other reason, then just for the ****storm it would bring.

What I'd like to see is more the approach to the story than the elements of it. What made Torment great was the detail and effort spent to make the world and characters real and believable. Which for a world as weird as planescape is quite an achievement. And while P:E is not going to be the spiritual successor to Torment, I'm pretty sure that Avellone and the other writers are going to approach this story and these characters with the same honesty and depth that made Torment so good. This time there are no limitations from any license or publisher, so they will have even more freedom to deal with issues they deem central to the themes central to this game. So I'd rather see them using this freedom to develop new themes than rehashing ones already done before, however much I liked them the first time. The one aspect I'd like to take from Torment is the personal story hook, but luckily that is already in the cards, so I'm satisfied. To clarify, I don't mind if we end up saving the world in the game or in an expansion or sequel, but for it to matter, I have to get to know the world first and that is best achieved by a personal story.

I would like to have NPCs for every class AND race, so 88. Oh, and both sexes. And nice and evil. So 352. But on a more serious note, 8 seems like a reasonable number to start with. From what I've understood of the classes, they leave quite a lot of room for customization, so having a specific role being filled in a party shouldn't necessarily demand a specific class. And as for NPCs with strong opinions on certain playstyles, I trust Ziets and Avellone are able to either give them good enough reasons to stick with the party or have the more nitpicky NPCs fill a role that can be filled by some other NPC. And if one wants to have the one exact and correct party build then the adventurer's house is a reasonable tradeoff. Having said all that, I would of course like to see NPCs for every class or even more, but one can't have everything. Quality > quantity and all that. Luckily it's almost guaranteed that modders will take care of any glaring deficiencies in the NPC roster quite quickly. Maybe not at the level that Avellone or Zietz could achieve, but if they don't have enough time to do their job well, we won't get that level of quality for the 8 either.

It should of course depend on the setting and how magic items are created in the world. If the creation process isn't too arduous, I don't have a problem with there being lots of enchanted items. However, I don't want to see any numerics in their names. Since the names are part of the in-game world, it seems quite ridiculous to have something called a +2 long sword. +2 what? But if the creation process is more demanding, and with very powerful items in any case, I only want to see items with good backstories and they shouldn't be around every corner. I also liked the idea that using the same weapon or weapons of similar style would give the character some sorts of bonuses from expertise. It shouldn't be too hard to implement and would give characters, and their favorite items, more personal flavor.

I really like it, that there is no easy and powerful curative magic in the game. It will be much easier for Obsidian to create a consistent and believable fantasy setting this way.