JallaAllah

Have another NO from me!

R.I.P. Yoshimo ... we all loved you! We would have revived you 1000 times if possible ... God damn it, why am I listening to sad piano music at the moment!

So, as far as we are now, the side which wants XP for the inactive NPCs is kind of outnumbering (48.75 <--> 31,25) the other extreme. But still this is one of the closer polls I have seen yet. The problem I see with this, is that you destroy the emotional flow of the story itself, which also consists of a certain, realistic timeline. I don't know whether this is just a cosmetic, an important or no point for you. Do you want this, just to have all quests and sidelines done, or because it doesn't even bother you running around for ages, leaving the main story behind? A point I just thought about is the following problem: Obsidian said something, that they want to allow people, exploring the world in different numbers of people (1-6). Regarding this, it would be a problem to give full XP to inactive NPCs, because there would be no benefit for smaller parties or lonesome wanderers. What would your approach be to solve this discrepancy? Several people came up with questions about the logic of inactive NPCs not leveling up, or with approaches to fix this, by giving more XP, when active again, or doing their own sidequests. Personally I think, it would be awesome to implement NPCs questing by themselves, but for balancing - regarding they can be affected heavily or even die - I wonder, whether it is possible? To make it happen, there should be a high number of NPCs to choose (to have free ones questing for themselves), or a good way of wandering in lower numbers (to leave some behind on purpose). But both of this approaches and also the general idea needs a lot of effort! Do you think this should be added, and what do you think about the costs/effort? Is it (probably) worth with the budget we pledged?

I've kind of implemented that in the 2nd question. Next to the last choice! ;-)

Since this argument is going nowhere I opened a thread with a poll to the questions, that came up: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61934-should-inactive-npcs-get-xp-or-not/ Feel free to make this more reasonable and fruitful!

Following the heavy discussion of the following thread (http://forums.obsidi...60#entry1261314), I would like to start a poll, to find the best way through this important decision. It would be nice, if we could mostly gather pros and cons for the different points of view, or suggestions for other approaches. Don't just repeat and ignore former comments, please, and try to be reasonable! Since I'm more on the no-XP-side, I might have forgotten important points or suggestions, just tell me, or add them! Important: I considered the XP to be limited when making this poll up. Like it was in the BG-series or IWD.

The idea is good, and fits with the concept of us getting a stronghold. But it needs to be balanced. It should be really expensive.

100 areas are much beter than 25 (like in BG2). If you dont want to explore OK leave the area or don't go there. Through the quests and dialogs you will find the important one and will be able to focus on them. In BG had lot of exploration and I loved this game much more than BG2. The Pool is OK. The choses are clear, stick to the story (like in BG2) or the story + lot of exploring (like BG and even more). The rich and complexive world is more interesting, and I'm shure, for allmost everyone RPG fan. Obsidian will have to decide... Well it's true that Obsidian has to decide, but you can't start a poll with seriousness, not allowing more differentiated opinions. Those 80% are probably not a true opinion on the exact meaning of the sentence, but on the general trend. Also, "Yes" means something different than "I love to explore" in the meaning of the question. Exploring for instance doesn't exclude a high density, if it is well done. And still, the question asks for the existence of exploration areas, not for the whole games trend, which you seem to deduce. All I can read out of this poll is, that people love if a game has single or more areas that focus on exploration. Not that people love games which focus on exploration areas. Please restart this poll with a good and differentiated pool of answers, maybe even give the possibility to pick more than one answer. Edit: By the way, there is a different poll, asking for the general trend: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61928-low-content-density-vs-greater-density-of-content/ As shown, the middle seems to be the answer. And maybe the middle also means, that we get both: High density cities, villages, areas, and also low density exploration areas.

Shock them, shock them hard!!! Maybe autodeinstallation if someone enters Drizz't. Or automatically set the enemies damage on "infinite".

I don't think so: Giving every player the freedom to swap their NPCs whenever they want to foils the concept of NPCs interacting with the character of the PC. For instance, if you choose to be an evil guy and to be reckless to your companions, there should be a disadvantage out of a logical point of view, since you also choose to be a "lonely wolf" (not every evil character has to be a "lonely wolf", its just an example of interaction). People relying on teamplay and keeping their party together should be rewarded - compared to all-time-swaping - because it is a difficult quest, to keep your NPCs at hand throughout heavy decisions, in which they might disagree. And a last point to be precise: This game is not like an MMORPG, where completing every single quest in an eternal journey is a must-have. Most people here seem to want to see the difference and the narrowness of their decisions, and so the difference is also made, by keeping NPCs at the level you left them. (There might be some exceptions, if it is well implemented in the game, but I'd prefer them to be exceptions by word.)

Isn't a cRPG all about different endings?

This poll doesn't allow different opinions than black and white ... I'd go with the balanced way, although I really enjoyed the density in BG2.

I don't really think it's possible to state it as simply as a ratio. I mean I'm fine with something like Crom Faeyr being in the game as long as it feels like something rare and special and the game isn't balanced around having it, and comparing fighting with Crom Faeyr to using a regular un-enhanced warhammer is a pretty gigantic difference, but it doesn't make you feel like your character just exists for the gear to have someone to carry it around. Sure you can have a ratio, all RPGs are at their heart and soul a system of values with modifiers. Besides, I'm not asking for a hard cap ratio, I'm just soliciting opinions on the general feel people would like. For example -- just guessing mind you -- I'd say Baldur's Gate 1 probably had a ratio of about 1:4 by the end of the game for how much special gear enhanced your characters' combat effectiveness. A high level fighter with just a basic long sword and no armor was still pretty damned deadly, just because of high saving throws, and numbers of attacks per round. Well, I don't know if this ratio guessing is doing this thread a favor. For instance I want to point out, that in the late-game of BG-series weapons got much higher "ratios", since you could only harm enemies with certain boni etc. So ratios in general are far more dynamic during the game than it is suggested here. A low level hero will struggle for his life by a single "goblin-strike" when wearing no armor, but an armor itself should give heavy advantage compared to naked fighting. Also this doesn't consider the influence of possible, certain weapon types vs. different armors: I wouldn't like to see a sword giving just a minimum of advantage vs. unarmored enemies compared to a hammer. Every (possible) aspect of fighting has to be represented properly in this game, please! I guess we should let Obsidian do their job and hope they will make it in a realistic and balanced way!

How about a romanceable dragon and when you kiss, she transforms into a hot, busty chick and you live happily ever after? All sexism aside ... This is the kind of stupid ideas we need! I'm kind of bored of the stereotypes and cliches we all have to face in every RPG we play. But also I don't want this game to be slapstick comedy like the extreme version of this short suggestion implies. But spiced with story etc. such ideas become wonderful parts of wonderful games ... we just need a good mix of old and "stupid", new/creative ideas! And by the way: The concept of souls at least allows us to think of very powerful entities, which overpower maybe even the main story line. A soul is just a matter of personality and background-story. This means, that we shouldn't waste powerful cliches, like dragons just for the sake of having a "cool" character. The concept of soul is also what makes your character strong, not the poor fact of him being connected to some powerful, long forgotten, animalish creature. I prefer playing the David, not the Goliath, since we all once started as Davids!

Well people, I really wonder, how this comments came up, since most of the people voting in polls want BG-Series or PS:T to return. No doubt there are epic, tactical fights, but still, both games are about people choosing their destiny by sword AND word. I enjoyed all the easter-eggs, the romances (lots of talking) and every stupid conversation possible. This should be no MMORPG, where everything you enjoy is just the wonderful 3D-graphic and slaying 1000 times the same enemy. Talking and dialogs give depth to the game, it is the difference between "LOTR" and "Sharktopus" (probably still an enjoyable movie ) ... Please, don't forget that ... Play Diablo ...