Ignatius

These guys have seen through many games which were enormous. I think they're going to be fine. The game doesn't even have half as many classes as any of the IE games did. So... yeah. I think they're being pretty reasonable. And anything they can't fit into the first release, they can add later on in expansions. ...Right?

This is pretty much what the Baldur's Gate series was, and I think that's what this game will turn out to feel most like. PS:T was too story heavy, and IWD too combat heavy, I imagine they're more interested in trying to strike a balance than lean one way or another.

As much as I wanted to like the game, this is really what killed it for me in the end. It just became repetitive, and towards the end you just wanted it to be over. DA was a nice attempt, but at the end of the day, it was still too watered down. It was only because the well had gone so dry for a quality cRPG that it felt half-way special.

Character automation should exist, but be limited. BG had similar AI settings, though fairly watered down compared to DA, regardless, I never used them because combat was too complex, and you ALWAYS wanted to manage your heroes and what they did, or you ended up getting splattered. PE should aspire to that level of complexity. I see the appeal of such automation, (FFXII was pretty neat) but it's got some major downsides in the way combat functions and the level of connection you feel to your heroes and the pride you take in your own success born out of your own ingenuity. For example, knowing the right time to fire off that heal spell isn't quite the same when the computer remembers to do it because you programmed it to 2 hours before. Every decision should be yours and it should be immediate, because it's this that gives it weight. I think this sort of macro management of your characters isn't good for the game.

Everyone relax, the best spell a wizard will be able to spam is actually just Colored Lights. So no OP here. But definitely a nice light show to compliment your warriors hacking and slashing! But seriously, I'm having a hard time forming an opinion on this combat system without some hands on experience, or at least a solid example of how a fully fleshed out battle plays out. CDs/no CDs, I think it comes down to how interesting the composition of fights are more than anything. In BG2, you were always presented with a good variety of enemies with a variety of capabilities all of which you had to take into consideration. It made you really think on how to overcome it. Many fights felt severely stacked against you. I fondly remember that fight int he sewers against that surly dwarf and his companions. This is what DA was missing, (not to mention DA had a pitifully low variety of enemies) and this is what they need to get right in PE. One thing PE could actually improve on over BG is the melee combat, since in BG2, the command for your fighter was pretty much: take sword, poke enemy. And it seems like they're already addressing a lot of that, so that's a start.

Well, I've played most of those, but Baldur's Gate is the series that really hooked me, and that I've played the most. ToEE had amazing combat and IWD was just plain fun party adventuring. But I think that recapturing the feeling BG2 first gave me is what I really dream of a game doing, as impossible as it may be. It just had the perfect mix of all the things that make RPGs great.

Good interview. I love the design of Cadegund. Very interesting. Or refreshing at least.

I think they kind of go hand in hand, a good plot is supported by a believable world, but still, I chose world, because um... I like to explore?

Thank you! My god, I thought this would never happen! It's been torture slogging through all those tepid modern day RPGs. I've always said, IE is the only way to do a cRPG right. It let's the player focus on what matters, a good story and tactical combat, without getitng bogged down in anything else. It's just the perfect melding of style/function... Ahhh, so excited. This is so excellent. Whatever you guys do, I'm sure it'll be awesome.

No, I hate latin, or any languate I don't understand. Jokes! Of course, duh. That stuff was great. If they don't, well that's okay too. Actually they could have the caster say, "BURN INTO PIECES!" when casting fireball. What you guys think of that? Cool, yeah?

I'm just happy to play a game like this again. As good as BG2 was, it was getting a bit stale. No, seriously. How amazing is this!? I don't know why people aren't just celebrating. My god, IE brought back from the dead, better than ever, how could this be bad? It's not like Jay Wilson is running the show. Yeesh. (Poor, Jay.)

Baldur's Gate 2 had level scaling. :/ I think a lot of the story fights anyway. Fights like Gaxx, he was just locked in at 20 or so, which works, since it's meant to be hard to a point. What made BG2's scaled combat good was that levels weren't the end-all, be-all for determining difficulty. I mean, I'm pretty sure it had level-scaling, can someone back me up on this? Anyway, point is, it's worked in the past. Some games suffer from it, of course.

I feel like this is an important mindset to take with these Kickstarters. Yes, we have given them our money, and in some ways perhaps they are beholden to delivering what we want, perhaps more than in a typical scenario, but... I'm not sure about that. I feel like this only means that, "Hey, I really want to play another IE type game, they don't make them anymore, I heard you guys know a thing or two about it, here's 25 bucks, get to work." Beyond that, it's up to them. I'm just glad someone is doing it. (My god, what took you all so long!?!) Will there be parts I don't like, probably. (Doubtful.) But at the end of the day, they've already done more than enough. They've brought back a type of game that has been absent from my gaming regiment for FAR FAR FARRRRRR too long. Does that mean my expectations are incredibly low? No, not at all, I want it to be great, and I expect a lot, but just the fact that a game of this type is getting made by people who know what they're doing (we have to give them that least) is enough for me to relax a bit, and give them some leeway in their creation decisions. All I ask, is that there is a dragon to kill. And he's really hard to kill. Unless you have Carsomyr, of course.