Exile2k4

The problem I found with the language in the game wasn't really with any specific name or term, but rather that there was a tendency to use multiple unfamiliar terms in a sentence which inhibited deriving meaning by context. If you have a sentence like "I met dasbasdiyb yesterday and they were upset with you" you can infer that it's probably a person's name, and something of what's going on. If you have a sentence like "dasnkdasun was in a adwiawdih with aindsida in adsuindasnu!" it's harder to pick up what each of these things is, not just because there are four times as many things to learn but because each lacks the contextual cues. Games like this tend to be fairly long, which is great, but I don't really have the free time to learn the range of peoples, places, creatures, gods & phenomena before starting, and for me personally it made parts of the game (particularly the opening) more opaque than engaging.

I thought more could have been done in places with either hallucinations that weren't clearly labelled as hallucinations by the purple lights, or rare instances where the dialogue options are deliberately restricted or your choices overidden. Maybe that would be too irritating in practice to play through, but the Awakened/Watcher curse felt more like a superpower in practice, which didn't really sell it as a motivation for me.

I enjoyed the game overall and I'm glad I backed it, but I was a little disappointed with everything from the start of Act III to the end of the game. The last parts felt rushed and a little threadbare, rather than the narrative picking up pace - I was already slightly disappointed with how few characters there were to interact with in many of the locations in Defiance Bay in Act II, but Twin Elms felt much worse. From reading interviews with the developers it's clear there's a huge amount of thought and writing that's gone into the ideas in the narrative. I think it's great that they try to write a morally grey story, and I find the subjects covered in the game interesting, but they didn't really come across to me strongly enough while I was actually playing, which for me undermines the point. Maybe it's my fault for not doing more background reading before playing the game, but there was too much writing in the style of "a Biawac trapped the Glanfathans in the Engwithan ruins in Eir Glanfath with a Delemgan in St. Waidwen's time!" for my liking, which really slowed my engagement with the story, especially early on. I had a clear idea in my head of what kind of character I wanted to play for my first playthrough, and I was impressed by how many conversation options there were to support that in places, but ultimately the mechanics of what I was doing in the game always felt separate from the overall narrative of the story and the choices I was making. I'm looking forward to any expansions or sequels, hopefully with the experience from making this game and without the pressure to create an entire world-lore from scratch the story will be more engaging in practice as well as in theory.

Love the update, looks great. One question I have - in the update it lists paladins as potentially being dedicated to orders or causes others perceive as bleak or malevolent. Are there plans to reflect this in game? In dialogue options? I love the thought of a game supporting my idea of a character with options that fit the character I want to play, but obviously there's only a fixed amount of work you can do, and the more branching/reactive options the shorter the overall game. Personally I'd love to play a religious zealot, a character whose dogmatic, single minded obsession leads them to do things others might perceive as evil, but with 11 classes/6 races and potentially different takes on each class, I'm not sure how much dialogue options/npc reactions can reflect a player's view of their character.

Thanks for the update, it's always really interesting to read little snippets of the development process and the work you guys are putting into this game. My two penneth on the UI: Personally I don't like it, I could cope with it but I'd much rather see a more modern, streamlined, customisable UI rather than a brick wall of buttons that take up screen space regardless of whether I use hotkeys or not. Obviously there's an element of nostalgia to a project like this, but much as I loved the old IE games when they were released I'm backing this project because I want to see what a game with those values made in 2013/14 looks like, not for the novelty of retro-gaming.

Personally, I'd like to see a general system in place that allowed relevant NPCs to yield when they were losing (lost too many of their allies, lost too much stamina etc.). This could create an interesting way of making things like beserk/frenzied/undead opponents distinctly different than standard NPCs who valued their own lives, and also give the player the moral question of whether to accept their submission or slay them anyway. I realise it's an established trope that works well for TV/film, but I get tired of the idea that humans have a safe and simple on/off switch that can be pressed in a fight. Anaesthetists are paid a lot for a reason. I feel in game terms it often doesn't add much either - the 'pacifist' approach in a game like Deus Ex HR felt mechanically very similar to the killing-everyone approach. I'd be interested to see what Obsidian came up with if they looked at this area and it's something I'd like to see included, but I think it's probably a) a drain of resources that could be better spent somewhere else, and b) something that leads to odd unforseen/tedious problems with the gameplay.

I think it's a really difficult issue - personally I'm hoping that the devs design some of the features of the game so that Ironman is very difficult but still enjoyable, and then I'll enjoy the challenge of that setting. A lot of things which promote constantly saving might be 'realistic' in some way (ie traps that spring out of nowhere and instantly kill you) but they don't really add much to the gameplay experience for me personally. I love the feeling of weight and importance that playing without constantly saving/reloading gives combat, conversations and decisions, but I don't want to restart the game a dozen times for things that I didn't feel were in my control.

I agree with the OP - while hypothetically I can imagine the 'perfect' game having excellently voiced dialogue all the way through, I just don't think it's practical for PE. I actually don't think it's practical to do it well even for a high budget RPG (I felt like it was a weak point in Skyrim). I think it's natural to judge voice acting by the standards you see in films/TV, but those mediums have such a comparitively small amount of dailogue to get 'right' compared to a fully voiced computer game, and your interaction with it is completely different. I realise this is probably a minority view, but I'd even be quite happy if they ditched the small number of characters/lines they normally voice in these games. To me, that just highlights the lack of voice work in the rest of the game.

I think it might be interesting to see how the writers play around with the way magic/psychic abillities/"real" gods realate to one another - where their practitioners/followers believe there power comes from, how they view the world and how they relate to one another.

I'd like Obsidian to include sex and relationships if they feel it fits well/adds to the story, and if they feel they can handle it in a way that's not ridiculous. Something I dislike generally is the way in which violence is so much more acceptable than sex. I was going to vote in your poll but... I realise it must be difficult if English isn't your native language, but why does it not just say "people should look sexy" instead of "women should look sexy"?

I think ultimately it's one of those things which would be nice to have, but it's something that's costs might far outweigh what it adds to the game. It's a shame in a way, because something I'd really like to see in an RPG is more use of lighting as a strategic factor - dungeons/caves etc. being genuinely dark, torches etc. being something that's vital. It seems like a missed opportunity to me in games like Skyrim (I know there are mods which play with the idea), but I guess it would be too irritating to people in a more mainstream game, and too expensive in a game like this.

Personally I'd like to see fairly 'realistic' weapons like this, broadly speaking. The only thing I'd worry about is if you picture these weapons in game, if the characters are around the size in the old IE games, I think all these weapons might end up looking virtually identical, even if the resolution's high. Slightly separate point - while I'd like to see a fair degree of realism/functionality, I'd also like to see something that reflected the limited knowledge of the people in a pseudo-medieval world. I think sometimes we look at weapons and armour from a 21st century/scientific perspective of what "worked" best, and assume all the characters should be doing that, whereas people at the time wouldn't have had such wide access to information. Redundant and downright bad ideas in weapons and armour persisted for very long periods of time after they should in theory have died out, and a large number of people were poorly equipped from whatever they managed to scavenge together.

I think finishing moves would be great if they made them short - essentially the same speed/time duration as a normal hit, except the blow clearly penetrates/decapitates/severs etc. To me, this would give the combat more dynamism than if the characters just whack at each other until one falls over. I'd rather not see any lengthy "cool" finishing moves where one combatant cartwheels over another's head and spends the next ten seconds hacking them to pieces - those can be entertaining the first time, but they become repetitive. I'd love to see detailed character models, great animation etc. in the game, but ultimately I guess it comes down to the resources they have and how much every feature costs them.

I'd really like to see a large range to the armour in game - I'd like to see armour like this being worn by some factions/characters even though it's "obsolete" compared to the cutting edge of arms and armour development at the time. I'd like to see full plate armour be something rare, expensive and valuable, and the best types have to be custom made for the wearer, as opposed to something you find as random loot two hours into the game. I think making plate armour uncommon would give it much more character, and I'd really like to see mismatched battles between well equipped characters and comparably "primitive" hill tribes wielding wood/stone/occasionally iron weapons.

I don't mean to bash the OP, but it's a bit weird when the developers have said their goal is to get it done in 18 months to only have 1 year / 2 years as options. I know a lot of games are delayed for all kinds of reasons, but personally I think this will be done pretty much exactly on schedule. The developers know what they're doing, they know the kind of product they want to make, and there isn't a publisher to suddenly add demands part way through development. I think Obsidian will be determined to get it done very close to their original projection, because they will want to be seen to be honouring their initial pledge with a project like this.