Larkaloke

One way or another I intend to continue the party I finished the game with. Since that was all hired adventurers other than the main character, because I prefer playing with a party of my own characters, I'll recreate them in the new game instead of importing them if I have to... but I really hope that, even if it's not currently planned, we'll end up being able to import the whole party. If I can't, I'll just pretend that's what happened as best I can, I guess.

Money was a big issue for me early on, but that's because I go with the "create my own party via hiring adventurers and hire a new one any time one dies in a fight" model, which takes a large percentage of money to keep going towards the beginning. That was also when I was still buying up stronghold fortifications and such. After about halfway through the Endless Paths and having completed several other quests, Raedric's Hold included, that started to turn around. By the time I went for the White March (nearly finished with the main game) my party had so much money they couldn't have spent it all. I think that's fairly typical, having some trouble affording the items that one wants and all in the beginning of the game but ending up with ridiculous quantities of money by the end; at least, that seems to be what usually happens to me in any RPG.

I did find the travel time to and from Stalwart rather odd. The first time it says that it will takes weeks -- and the narration backs that up -- but after that, as far as I could tell, it actually did take the stated 24 hours (although I didn't have much time critical going on, since I did the expansion as the very last thing before the final area). Maybe there's a cap on the amount of time the travel window can display, so it just maxes out at 24 hours? Assuming I'm wrong and it actually does take weeks each time, mind; otherwise the script overwriting the travel time the first time would seem a likelier explanation.

Yeah, I really hope this is possible. I don't know how many people would've completed the game with one or more hired adventurers, but I'm guessing it's a fairly large number.

That would eliminate much of the point of making your own companions to me, and probably to a decent number of other people. If one wants characters with a backstory that one didn't decide on, and who will say things of their own accord, why not just take the NPCs? This idea would fill a completely different niche to player-created characters, which I believe are generally employed by people who want to create more than one player character in the game. If you want to decide that all your hired adventurers have lost their tongue or what have you, you can already do that. Nothing stopping you. Also, while I admit this may not be the norm, I've run up against the eight character limit numerous times in PoE (mostly due to the game not having quite realised that earlier characters were actually dead). If one isn't going to reload when a character dies and is instead going to hire a new character, that's going to end up with probably a good deal more than eight characters by the end. I very much hope that the extra companion creation will work much the same in the next game. If anything, I'd rather see a large limit on number of adventurers created, and some way to add more characters at the beginning of the game (which would be quite useful if one finished the first game with a party of hired adventurers and wants to keep those same characters, for example).

I happen to prefer the artstyle to that used on many newer games, and believe that it works better for RPGs -- especially party-based RPGs -- than modern 3d graphics often do. I also think that 'dated' is a foolish term to use to describe an art style or indeed anything that is primarily judged on (inherently subjective) aesthetic merits. Going by that definition, they may as well decry every game as having a dated art style, because it inevitably will become older and thus 'dated'. Artistic merit is considerably more important than rather or not an art style is the newest thing, and use of the term 'dated' (even aside from the other problems with it) doesn't reflect that. I find that Icewind Dale's graphics have held up very well, for instance, but many at-the-time bleeding edge 3d games haven't held up so well. Painted backgrounds are pretty timeless. If they're good, they'll stay good.

It is an overall minor complaint, but I always miss being able to name saved games when I can't. It's much easier to keep track of where you are and what you're doing if you can name them. It also leaves a more interesting trail when you're looking back on a certain time playing through the game.

1. Not only do I quicksave after doing just about anything, I also keep a long (often very long on the first playthrough) list of saved games with supposedly witty or cunning titles that don't actually tell me particularly much about what's going on. Inevitably, many of them will be jokes that I will not remember when I look back on them. It's part of the fun, somehow. (Assuming you can name saved games. You can name them, right? I don't recall anybody mentioning it for certain.) 2. Despite this large number of saved games that I will accumulate, I will not reload unless absolutely necessary (as in, can no longer progress, or all party members dead). The saved games are mostly insurance, and to look back on fondly. 3. I will steadfastly refuse to find help if I'm struggling to progress in a plot or solve a puzzle, until at least the third time I've played the game. 4. After so many years of playing Infinity Engine games with player-imposed restrictions, I'm not sure I'll be able to stop myself from doing that the first time I play through Pillars of Eternity. It might feel weird. I won't go full on no-reload the first time, at least. 5. Do nothing that my character wouldn't do, do everything that they would do, even if this results in skipping massive portions of the game or in extraordinarily bad decision making (I can always see those areas/outcomes later with other characters, anyhow). 6. Read every item description, every book, every journal entry, and anything else applicable. As well as all of these.

I'm interested enough to keep an eye on it, but only very cautiously optimistic at this stage -- with a dash of pessimism ready at any moment. I did, in fact, like both Neverwinter Nights and Temple of Elemental Evil as well as Dragon age: Origins (albeit none of those so much as, say, Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment), so if turns out being like one of those I'll probably go for it. I'm not wild about 5E, but it's far, far better than 4E -- I wouldn't touch any CRPG made with 4E -- but if they're changing a bunch of the mechanics, that might not matter. Talk of cooldowns makes me suspicious. It always does. DA:O has thus far been the only game which I could stand the combat of that had cooldowns, but at that it had serious issues and the cooldowns were one of them. In the end, so long as it has a decent amount of story and roleplaying freedom and actual full character creation, I'll probably get it. There are few enough CRPGs that come along and look at all promising to me. I'd rather be choosier, but the pickings are still too lean. If the DM client is good, that'll redeem a lot of potential flaws as well; 1-4 players is, for me, actually probably more than I'll play with anyhow, so that's not a problem for me. Yeah... I'm not forming any sort of definite opinion, even preliminarily, until I see something about at least character creation and basic mechanics. The teaser and screenshots look good at a glance (I clearly didn't take sufficient time to analyse the trailer, since I missed basically everything people have pointed out already), but of course they will. That's their point. Eh, regardless, I'm at least glad that more people are trying to go for isometric RPGs again.

It depends quite a bit on the type of game for me. I don't outright hate multiplayer, surely, but I have a preference for singleplayer. I'll generally be leery of a game which I can't play singleplayer, but not one I can't play multiplayer. It also depends heavily on the type of multiplayer experience. LAN multiplayer is always cool by me. MMORPGs never are, and everything else falls somewhere in between. If we're talking, say, shooters or strategy games, it's nice to be able to play against real people. Multiplayer is a plus. I actually enjoy playing against the computer generally as much as playing against actual players (I can play against the computer whenever I want, and there's no expectation of me talking in game, and I don't usually like doing that) even in those cases, but the option is a good thing. I like LAN multiplayer for roleplaying games. I enjoy playing through Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, and so forth with certain people (my brother and I have always had a lot of fun with LAN games, and then the occasional friend). I don't like any other sort of multiplayer for RPGs in general, although Neverwinter Nights I think had a good idea there -- it's just not so much my cup of tea. I'm not enough of a people person to want to play with a whole bunch of people I don't know for long periods of time. MMORPGs always fail, to me. They have some promise, or would, if people actually roleplayed in them... but they don't, and it's just a bunch of people running around with silly character names shouting about what loot they've got for sale, the plots almost never work with that many people, and then the mechanics tend to be of a sort I don't like anyhow. There are ways I think a MMORPG could theoretically be cool (massive player organised battles, for example), but it would have to have a really great community and a sufficiently loose and player-driven, changing main plot. Generally though, I have to deal with masses of strangers enough in day-to-day life, and I don't need that in my gaming as well. I do enjoy LAN gaming with a few friends, or my family; I'm rarely in the mood for more than a few FPS matches against people as a whole.

Baldur's Gate is the only game I'm playing steadily at the moment, with a no-reload quest near the end. If the party should survive that, I'll go on to Baldur's Gate II. I had been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, which didn't have quite as many or the same problems as I thought it would, but I finished that last month. Also still slogging my way through Mass Effect 3, because I prefer to finish games once I start them, even if it's making me grit my teeth fairly often. There's a distinct possibility I'll eventually give up on that one, though. I'm also planning on picking Rome II: Total War up again, having waited (hopefully) long enough for it to be patched to the point that it's not crashing every fifteen minutes. On that note, I'm still playing Empire: Total War every now and then, having not yet actually finished a campaign (the period simply doesn't appeal to me particularly much, nor do guns in strategy games, so it keeps getting shunted aside for other games). That's about it. I keep meaning to pick up Fallout again, but I haven't yet, and I keep meaning to try The Witcher (it's sitting on my hard disk, anyhow), but I haven't yet. I'll leave 'em until after Pillars of Eternity. Edit: Oh yeah, and as usual, Unreal Tournament 2004 and rogue as the mood strikes me.

In a perfect game, one might get not only a tight story and carefully crafted content but also infinite side content just in case. I probably wouldn't use that side content, or not very much of it, even if it were there. As it is, one usually has to choose between the two, and I far prefer the first. There's nothing quite like a nice, hand-crafted dungeon; volume does not make up for lack of quality. In short, I am happy with the way it is. Every game that I have ever played which has so-called infinite content (to me, it more often seems that the real content is actually even more finite than usual, as I'm not usually fond of the randomly generated stuff) has not compelled me to keep playing after the main storyline -- whatever that should happen to be for the character I'm playing -- is over. I'll pick such games up again in order to play expansions, if those look interesting, but that's the same for games that definitely end. I don't wander around in the world after the game is (to me) over. If I touch the procedural content at all, and whether or not I do depends on the character I'm playing, it'll be as side content during the game. I am all for sequels which let you import the character, especially when they let you keep the same level (it usually comes of very strangely if they don't) and expansions. I think you get more high-quality content that way than with a lot of largely random side content. Some random encounters are fine. I liked the random waylayings of Baldur's Gate. I'm leery of respawning, though; it's too often done in a rather questionable way. Procedural quests are an intersting idea, but are not yet to the point where they seem like anything but random filler. I suppose if you're going to have lots of filler sidequests they're a good way to do it, but I'd rather have a single really cool and unique sidequest than fifty generic-feeling ones.

I would prefer to get everything at the same time, because I strongly prefer to install games from disc instead of downloading them, and I don't mind waiting a few days. My internet connection is faster than it used to be, but it still takes much longer to install from the internet than it does to install from a disc. That said, the GOG download wouldn't be too bad since it doesn't have the problem of having to open up some distribution service every time you want to play the game, and I certainly understand why people who live farther away wouldn't want to wait weeks to get all of their stuff. So, while I would personally rather have it all in one shipment, I won't be at all upset if option #1 ends up winning.

I'm not sure. It depends on what character concept I have in mind at the time, the portraits I have on hand that might fit that concept, and whim of the moment. The problems that occasionally keep me from playing female characters in games (silly armour, voice acting that's annoying to me or doesn't fit the concept I'm thinking of) aren't going to be a problem here, so for that reason female is slightly more likely than male. Of course, I am planning on making heavy use of the Adventurer's Hall, so whichever one my main character is, I'll certainly have at least one or two characters eventually who are the other as well.

I intend to start playing the day it comes out. The only two ways I can see myself waiting to play the game are if I end up being too busy that week (unlikely, but possible) or if the game has serious enough problems that it won't run in a playable state on my computer (also unlikely). Minor bugs don't usually bother me, and I doubt I'll have the patience to wait for the first patch, so diving in is the way to go.