Remmirath

I do like a baseline of realism in armor. Obviously, this being a fantasy game, I expect some fantastic materials and stranger armors as well, but I'll just focus on the basic ones. Somewhat disjointed thoughts likely to follow, because it's still early and I haven't had enough coffee yet. Function: I would like to see armor giving something more akin to damage reduction than to armor class. It has always bothered me a bit when armor helps you avoid a blow rather than deflect it; unless it's enchanted to do that, it doesn't make much sense to me. Clearly, I think, heavier armors would tend to give the most reduction to damage. I'd also like to see different armor being better against different things. Plate being particularly good against slashing, for instance, and more vulnerable to bludgeoning. Although, come to think of it, most things are more vulnerable to bludgeoning and that could be a game balance problem -- perhaps if they had some other disadvantage (a bit slower, requiring more strength to use properly)? That's not exactly an armor issue, though. Also, helmets; I'd like to see a concrete benefit from wearing a helmet. There was the critical deflection chance in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but it wasn't a particularly large advantage. More damage reduction, perhaps, in addition? Hierarchy: I don't have much of a problem with how it typically is (hide/leather > chain/scale > plate). It's a simplification, but it works well enough. Leather should work better than hide in general, I'd say, but that's about it. I'd say that hide > leather > cloth/padded > scale > chain > plate might be better, but the typical one is good enough. Penalties: I don't like the dexterity penalty for armor in 3rd. It's too restrictive. What I'd rather see instead is a penalty to stamina regeneration, possibly also total stamina, from wearing heavier armor. I think that makes sense, and should have a similar but more realistic effect; certainly, one tends to wear down faster wearing a lot of metal than wearing some leather. I also think it would be an effective penalty. Expense is another one, particularly in the early game. Custom plate should be quite expensive, such that it takes a while to afford it, and probably also such that most people you fight also wouldn't be able to afford it so you wouldn't be able to loot it off the enemy very early. Perhaps even if you had to take a looted suit of full plate to an armorer to get it custom fitted. Chain and scale and similar would also be more expensive than leather, but less expensive than plate. At least for a while, it should be an effective deterrent; and taking into account a stamina drain, some characters might just want to forego the expense for it. If there is anything like a dodge stat or skill as opposed to an armor class, I could see heavier armors giving a slight penalty (say -1 or -2 at most) or perhaps lighter armors giving a slight bonus (of the same +1 or +2 equivalent). That could even things out more without completely eliminating any agility or dexterity benefits in heavier armor. Other: Different styles of armor for different lands would be cool, even if it was mostly just appearance based. If they had slightly different statistics, that might also be interesting (maybe dependent on the temperature of the local or the sorts of creatures they'd end up fighting, that kind of thing). Oh, and shields, since they're generally considered part of armor. It would be awesome if shield bashing was a possible and viable thing to do, but also, I could see shields giving a bonus to armor class as well as a reduction of damage. It seems a lot of the time using a shield ends up an inviable fighting style in games, where the shield only gives a tiny bonus to armor class but renders attacks more ineffective. I'd like to see shield + weapon being just as effective as a two-handed weapon, just in a somewhat different way. Being able to use the shield offensively is part of that, but so is it making a significant difference to defense. The only thing I didn't like about it was the gender requirements on it. I'd've rather if the NPCs just reacted differently if you wore the opposite thing. Not a big deal, though.

Manual pausing, although I don't tend to pause all that often -- probably a habit leftover from many multiplayer games, during which I generally try to not pause at all. I never liked the auto-pause, but on the other hand, there are times that I did want to pause (mostly for spell targeting or in a particularly chaotic battle).

I do like extra dialogue options from stats, skills, and occasional other things; I don't prefer if it's very obvious (I'd rather not know exactly where the extra dialogue options are coming from, I prefer them to just appear). I definitely prefer being able to select any party member for dialogue, and control what they say. Timed dialogue choices are to me an annoyance more than anything.

I'm all for betrayal. Keeps you on your toes. It would be cool if you had some chance of seeing it coming, though, at least if your character had particularly high wisdom or sense motive or similar or you were paying particularly close attention. Then you could try to do something about it (even if "doing something about it" and "killing the soon-to-be-betrayer" were one and the same).

I like instant death spells, to some extent. I like the possibility of one character on either side being suddenly taken out. On the other hand, they often end up working most of the time or working hardly any of the time, and either way can get somewhat annoying. Still, I lean more towards liking them. Yes. that is always quite annoying.

Bingo. I'd ideally love to see the scale of the BG games, the great story of both BG and PS:T, and the excellent combat encounter and dungeon design of the IWD games. Indeed. If possible, I would've voted for all three, but I voted for Baldur's Gate because it's less of an extreme either way than Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment would be.

Realism does matter to me. Or at least, believability and suspension of disbelief do. I do not mind some unrealistic or wildly fantastical things, of course; certainly not when they fit the setting (which I do assume that any such would). Things such as weapons and armour, however, I prefer to have a solid grounding in reality. I don't necessarily want them to completely follow the course they have followed in the real world, just so long as they follow a course that is believable. While I prefer a fairly high level of realism, I can certainly also enjoy games and stories with a lower level of it. It does reach a point where things start to simply seem ridiculous to me, however, and then I start to not really care any more. Extremely oversized weapons with nearly unusable looking designs can contribute to that. Armour that doesn't seem it would do its job can contribute to that. Day and night changing only when you make them change, or never, can contribute. The closer things get to a cartoonishly exaggerated level, the more I tend to walk away from them (although clearly, this isn't true of a large number of people, since lots of people like cartoons). Specifically in a game like this, while I am always happy to see weapons and armour and such be completely realistic, all I ask is for believability and internal consistency. If there is a really good reason for things, even things that I might normally raise an eyebrow about and disregard might end up working. I think perhaps the more realistic things already are, the less an explanation is needed for them. We all (most of us? Some of us?) already have a good idea of how most weapons and armour work here, for example, and why they are the way they are. So, no explanation for that is needed if they work and look the same way in the game. If they differ wildly, then things start to seem as though they don't make sense unless there is an explanation given.

I think that Stamina fits best what it is being used for, but as the name does not matter to the functionality of it I don't care much what it ends up being called. Although, I would find having both Health and Vitality to be somewhat confusing -- I find them much more similar than Stamina and Vitality. If anything, Health = Vitality would make more sense to me.

Speech skills (bluff, intimidate, diplomacy, et cetera) are usually interesting. Wilderness Lore and other perception type skills can also be quite interesting, I think, when they're made use of (I've always liked the various bits of information you can pick up in Icewind Dale II about various areas using Wilderness Lore). Pickpocketing can be good sometimes. Healing seems as though it might be quite a useful skill in this setting. Lore skills are nice, for item identification and picking up information (and the occasional extra dialogue option). However, my favourite would be Find/Remove Traps or the equivalent thereof. That, to me, is the real reason to have a thief in the party: traps. I love traps. I like finding them, I like disarming them, and I love it when they go off and something horrible happens. There's no reason to worry about a thief not being needed in the party if you have lots of good traps; let people bash away at locked chests and doors.

The first two options are essentially the same, except that there are no actual dice involved, so I picked the second one. I do prefer a range of numbers, because that allows for a stronger or weaker hit (but not strong enough to be a critical). A set number feels too flat to me. I don't much care exactly what numbers the range is, though, or how they are achieved; so long as they make some sense and I can figure them out. And, although I would tend to think this goes without saying, so long as the numbers that come out aren't absurdly high.

I would assume (and hope) that it works the same for NPCs as for PCs. I think it would be interesting if you could choose not to kill, but instead only subdue, some of the enemy; capturing them could be useful at times. I wouldn't find finishing the enemy off to be tedious, and I would certainly rather it be necessary than that the NPCs would work on different mechanics than the PCs.

I'm not very fond of talent trees, so I would rather not see them. My problem with them is that often it doesn't seem to follow that you would need to know the previous talent to acquire the next one, and often there may be only one thing you actually want to use in a tree but have to take several other seemingly unrelated things to get to it. I'd rather have something more akin to feat selection, some combination of ranks of skill and feats requiring a certain rank of skill, or perhaps something entirely different (since I'm sure there are many other possibilities out there).

I've liked some games with them both, although I prefer real-time. So, I would certainly still support and look forward to it if it was turn-based, but perhaps slightly less -- most turn-based systems in computer RPGs I've found to be a bit aggravating to me.

Yes, you're quite right. I was speaking about plate, and I should've specifed that (not sure why I didn't); I agree about mail, since that's obviously true. I would say that in both cases you would be significantly more restricted than wearing a t-shirt, certainly, but not enough moreso than wearing leather that it would make all that much of a difference to dodging -- although whether or not that should be reflected statistically would, to my mind, depend on how large a range of numbers we get for such things. Percentile based? Sure. D20 based? Maybe not. Stiff, tough leather is also noticeably more restricting than a t-shirt, and soft enough leather that it isn't at least a bit restricting isn't much good as armour.

I like having to keep track of arrows and bolts (and bullets as well, in this case). Having to come up with a different strategy if the party runs out of arrows partway through a dungeon or battle is to me more interesting than having infinite arrows, and at low levels with not much gold, you have to decide whether to stock up on arrows or acquire other useful things. Enchantable ones also offer different strategic advantages and disadvantages, so I like having those around. Also, I do think they should take up room and weight in the inventory. They all have mass (sometimes quite a bit of it).

Sounds good. Sketching in one's journal seems as though it would be a fairly common thing to do (I'm sure I would do so, at least, if I kept one), so it makes sense to me from an in-game perspective, and it would make the journal more interesting to look at.

It makes more sense for armour to have an effect on how much damage the character takes rather than on whether or not they get hit. I'd like even more if how much of an effect depended partly on the type of armour, and partly on the type of weapon that was being used. I think armour shouldn't have an effect on being hit or not, as opposed to heavier armour having a negative effect. Unless your armour is poorly fitted and/or you've been fighting for a good long time already, you'll still be able to dodge blows in it. Since there is stamina, I think it would make sense if the heaviness of the armour instead effected stamina regeneration -- the less of it the heavier armour you wear.

Thanks for the link -- that was quite interesting!

I'm not sure I can pick just one. Things I agree with: Vale of Shadows, Dragonseye and the Severed Hand in Icewind Dale Finding Morte and Ravel in Planescape: Torment Spellhold, the Underdark, the Sewer Riddle, the Tests in Hell and the Unseeing Eye in Baldur's Gate II Finding the Dwemer in Morrowind The Felwood in Icewind Dale II Beyond that... I'm quite fond of the return to Candlekeep section of Baldur's Gate, as well as Durlag's Tower. Also in Baldur's Gate, all the strange little quests one can find by wandering about (the mad priest, the Basilisk-controlling gnome, the Sewer King). Dorn's Deep is one of my favourite areas in Icewind Dale, and the quest of finding out what happened there is one of my favourites. In Icewind Dale II, I like the Black Raven Monastery and gaining entrance to the Underdark. Also, Lord Pyros' domain in Dragonseye. The Dead Nations in Planescape: Torment I find very interesting. Also all the quests that you don't quite realise are quests until later, stemming from things you find (like Moridor's Box). I like the Sahuagin quest in Baldur's Gate II as well, and Watcher's Keep, and I'm actually fairly fond of Irenicus' dungeon. In Morrowind, I'm very fond of the Ashlands-related parts of the main quest, as well as the Ilunibi caverns section. I'm also fond of the last two quests in Tribunal, and that one quest where you take over the role of an actor. In some ways I really liked the last few Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion, but I would really have liked there to be some way to figure out what was going on. I didn't happen to, but still, I think it should've been possible. I really like Orazammar and the Deep Roads with Caridin in Dragon Age: Origins. That is probably my favourite part of the game. I also like Fort Drakon, although for a slightly different reason -- I like having my character break out on their own, but I also like that it doesn't have to be that way. I like the tombs of the ancient Sith Lords on Korriban in Knights of the Old Republic, and the last trial on Korriban -- particularly how it can change if you come to that planet last and are playing a Dark Side character. I suppose the most common theme there is a combination of exploration, interesting atmosphere, and a few other things such as riddles, puzzles, or investigation.

Yeah, this is why I'm not always so wild about first and last name boxes. Of course, with only one field, it can get a little bit odd when people call your character by their first and last name all the time, but it only occasionally stands out (at least to me). Title box would be nice, though.

Somewhere in the middle sounds good to me. Most areas in Baldur's Gate I think struck a good balance, but there were some that had almost nothing in them (well, nothing except some spiders or bandits). I like best the areas that are not completely packed, but have a few interesting things sprinkled about in them. It isn't very interesting if you look through the whole area and never find anything, but then, I also find it to be less interesting if you can't go ten feet without finding something -- then it feels crowded, and that makes the whole area seem smaller (and leaves me wondering what all these people and things are doing out here so close together).

The title of the topic specifically uses the word oversexualisation. I consider armour to fall strongly under that category if sexualised, because there is almost never a reason for it to be. I would not consider clothing to; I would not consider even armour to if the character wearing it has a good reason for it (some rogue types with leather armour, perhaps, though not all for example). I don't think anybody is trying to say that there should never be any sexualisation of female characters, ever, just that it's kind of obnoxious when it's there for no good reason in inappropriate places or ways. Same goes for male characters, for that matter, it just isn't so often brought up about them. Are you sure that not offending was the only reason they changed it? Perhaps they are simply going in a more realistic direction with armour (which I would think is a good thing). Perhaps they were in the beginning, and didn't realise that was unrealistic (unlikely, but possible). Perhaps they simply hadn't thought about it yet. Also, I'm not quite so convinced about the core demographic thing as you appear to be. Why does it need to be attractive, though? It's armour. Do you care so much about whether male characters have attractive armour that shows instantly that they are male? And yes, of course you could easily put either a guy or a girl in it. Again, it's armour. If we were speaking of something other than armour, say, fancy dress attire, I might agree with you -- and I certainly wouldn't argue with you if that were the case -- but it isn't. Perhaps you should wait until you see the models to declare that they will all look the same. We don't know if they will or not yet. I still fail to see the problem if they do -- really, why do you need to instantly recognise that a particular NPC is female? Does it matter that instantly? I think it matters about as much as telling instantly whether they are an elf or a human, and I expect it will be about as easy to tell. Changing the armour is completely inconsequential to the gameplay, story, and in fact everything except for what the armour looks like. I don't see how it's a symptom of things to come, good or ill. Concept art is often changed or revised from an early stage. And again, I think it's more a question of realism than of PC/not PC. Do you know that? You probably don't know for sure if most of the people posting are male or not. And maybe, just maybe, those of them who are male actually do prefer realistic armour. You make quite a lot of assumptions, it seems. I have no problem with a variety of NPCs. I have no problem with the world reacting to female PCs in a different way than male ones, if that is how the world is (which of course, it isn't necessarily, and we don't know whether or not that is the case yet). Maybe I missed something, but I don't think most people here are arguing for men and women being treated exactly the same in the game. So long as I have the option to make my character act how I want (which I see you have no problem with), I'm fine. Now, how the armour looks does have an impact on that. Chances are that the armour models are the same between NPCs and PCs -- certainly more work if they aren't -- and I do consider being able to equip reasonable armour on a female character to be something to do with the PC. I don't get that from reading the thread. Perhaps you are reading too much into what some people are saying? For me at least, practicality and realism of armour and being able to play my own character(s) how I want to is the only issue. NPCs I expect to be all over the board. I expect to see the usual array of villagers, bar maids, and what have you; I'm fine with that. There's plenty of room for all sorts of NPCs. So long as they all make sense in the context of the world, I really don't care if some come off as a bit stereotypical. If they all did, that would be a problem, but I don't see that happening. Sometimes, when people complain about something, the person or people receiving the complaint think about it and then in fact change their minds. I would suspect that was what happened. I doubt they would've done it if they didn't agree with it. Granted, I wasn't here at the time, and I don't know how it all went down. I also have to suspect you were a good deal more than just "fine" with it, since you apparently care so very much about the change. As an aside, I do hope that nobody would seriously base their entire opinion of whether or not a game is for them based on armour design. I've played plenty of games with unrealistic armour designs. It annoys me every now and then, but they can still be great games. Interestingly enough, if you change the word "sexist" to "trolling" and switch a few things around part of this reads a lot like what you've been saying -- the good ol' "anybody who doesn't agree with me is trolling!" argument. Perhaps some people (on both sides) just start or comment on these topics to rile people up, but I think the great majority of them actually are interested in the question and care about it. That aside, I do agree with this to some extent. Most of the arguments presented here I would describe as more of strange or a little bit obsessive than sexist. Overuse of words, particularly when it is not really the right word, can become tiresome -- though I've my doubts about whether or not it innures people to the real thing, but that is really fairly off-topic I think, so I'll leave it at that. See, I'm not sure that everybody is actually talking about the same thing here. I, for instance, want realistic armour. I don't want it to change much at all between men and women. Partially I want this so that it will look reasonable on my character, partially because unrealistic armour annoys me in general -- and yes, that includes things like oversized pauldrons, bizarre non-functional decorations, and lack of coverage in key areas, be the armour in question for men or women. I would not like to see those things either, and I'd mention it. All I ask of NPCs -- male or female -- is that they have their own individual character for the important ones, and that they all work in the setting. Yeah, I'd be upset if all the female NPCs around were completely stereotypical, but I don't even see that as something to worry about because it just isn't going to happen. No point worrying about it. I'm sure the NPCs will be fine. They have a great track record with that. If it makes sense for the world and NPCs in the world to treat female PCs differently then male ones, I want them to do so. I don't think we have enough information yet to know whether not that makes sense. I don't particularly care whether or not it does; either way could be great.

I very definitely prefer a blank slate. Failing that, just enough details to give some context, but not enough to limit the kind of character that will fit into the background. Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale II were good examples of that, to my mind; the characters were at least at the time of the game's beginning mercenaries of some stripe, and you knew what city they had most recently been in and the rest was up in the air. So long as the choice of who your character is doesn't feel restricted, it's fine by me. Baldur's Gate was fine; being raised by Gorion and knowing Imoen and the others in Candlekeep was vague enough that I haven't yet come up with a concept that didn't work. For some reason, while perhaps it should've been the same sort of thing, Neverwinter Nights 2 always felt much more restrictive to me on that. In any case, enough rambling: I like to be able to define my character's background as much as possible.

Ambivalent. I do not mind if I am able to keep adventuring after the main quest is over, but I never have actually done it when it is an option unless a new expansion comes out -- and that, of course, can happen even if you couldn't otherwise explore after the main quest. I consider the whole "New Game +" thing to be more a question of the ability to export and import characters than of whether or not one can continue playing after the main quest is over, but said export and import function would be a nice thing to have for the harder modes.

I voted for the first option, but that's mostly because I sometimes find myself coming up with names that are too long to fit in some name fields (probably because I intend to add last names on for most characters). So long as reasonable symbols such as spaces and dashes are present, I don't really care if all the others are. Seperate box for first and last name is also good.