Archy

I play rpgs for the sake of immersion which I get from dialogue, story, choices, quests, interesting characters, lore and things of that nature. Gameplay, combat and all that is entirely secondary. Of course I wish they too had depth and remained interesting but its still secondary. If an rpg had the most perfect gameplay mechanics and combat ever to grace the world but the things that get me immersed failed I wouldnt play it. Prepare your flamethrowers for I also love romances, befriending companions, cutscenes, VOs and on some occasions even voiced PCs. Suppose you would call me a biowarian but bioware certainly hasnt made much games of my tastes recently. There have been some good bits but every game within the last five years has been flawed in one way or another. Some have been total failures (looking at you DA2). Theyve been dumbing down every aspect I like. Its not about watching a set characters story but forging my own. Another world and life that I can live in and affect is what gets me to play rpgs. Why this project caught my interest and why I donated is because it promised depth and complexity instead of the dumbing down recent games have received. As I understand that depth and complexity will also extend to choices, dialogue, quests etc.

Would love every one you mentioned and a rather large magic impact. Mages are clearly a part of the world and have impact but let obsidian decide what kind. Every theme you mentioned would make the world feel more alive. As a recent example skyrim in addition to being flawed in a million other ways hardly had any of those and felt even more dead because of it. Whatever little was implemented didnt have any emotional impact and was just there for the sake of it. Make all those themes a seemless part of the world and you have a stage set for limitless interesting dilemmas and choices. The more political/religious/ethic/whateverelse themes there are for my character to reflect upon the more immersed I become.

As long as there are no black and white, cliched good/evil options and there are many (manymanymany) options that are something you could call grey I'm satisfied. Wouldnt even use the terms good and evil since what I consider good many games consider evil and so forth just making them irrelevant terms that dont really mean anything. I also never play a character that is stereotypically good or a character that is stereotypically evil so whatever is implied of the choices doesnt matter. I rarely play as anything other than myself and do what I'd do in the situation.

I'd really love full VO for the sake of my immersion (having to read dialogue from the screen and the lack of emotion VO would give for characters really puts me off) but if that wont fit the budget at least make the most important character fully voiced. Whenever possible I play with all subtitles turned off as only listening to characters gets me far deeper into the conversation than reading what they said could. Feels more alive. For example befriending or romancing a companion or someone else, progressing their storyline through a critical point or listening to an antagonists motives without the emotion VO gives feels kind of dead. I dont mind random dialogue with unimportant npcs not being voiced though (and it wont from what i hea) if it wont fit the budget. I might get flamed for this but I'd even like a voiced PC if that was possible. Its one of the rare things I've actually liked (one other would be cutscenes (commense flame)) in modern rpgs. I know theyre expensive and probably wont fit the budget but I'd still like them. I used to be 100% against voice PCs but have started to like it and with a good voice actor and nothing lost in options that which is lost in getting to imagine your voice would be well repaid in immersion and life for the PC. Though a bad actor and less choices would make brake said immersion so I suppose it wouldnt be worth the risk.