Heresiarch

How exactly does this happen in video games? Or is it something exclusively in player's head, which the game never acknowledges? It's a combination of what happens in the game and what happens in the player's head. Only by combining the two do you see the whole story. Without the player's contribution the protagonist is a flat character, and without the game's contribution the entire thing is just fan-fiction. And the game acknowledges the player's contribution indirectly by responding to the PC's actions, which are themselves informed by the part of the narrative that occurs in the player's mind. I wonder if you do a lot of roleplaying outside of video games, because there is usually a solid rule, "if it isn't in your bio, it never happened". Same goes for video games, if it isn't on screen (in graphics, text or whatever form), it isn't there at all. Role playing is getting into the head of a character and governing his actions. Playing pretend that your character is someone else entirely and does a whole bunch of stuff off-screen doesn't enhance the experience in any way. Nor would I ever want a game that assumes that I do a lot of role play solely in my head, because when I do so, I don't play games. I write stories. Which typically involve a lot of power-hungry mages, incestuous fae courts, half-crazed murderous anti-heroes and other awesome fantasy goodness. But that's my own stuff and I don't project any of it onto my video game characters. Because RP video games ultimately are someone else's story, in which you can play a part. If you still need a chunk of your own generated story to make it look good, it only means that the story is bad to start with.

Where "good" and "evil" choices can define and diversify the character, the plot and the story, romance minigames don't add anything beyond those dialogue sessions and a cutscene or two. They don't serve the plot, other than what goes on in your head, and they are too sappy to not feel artificial. If romance is a minigame, you have to hit the dev on the head with something hard, because he is doing it wrong. A romance should be deep and involving, it is about dialogue, but it shouldn't be simply romance-specific dialogue, but influence different part of the game as well. Think Jade Empire, where you could change the outlook of your companion, if you have a deep emotional link with them. If romance is done in the way that has nothing to do with characterising the protagonist it shouldn't even be there. It's a role-play game, not a dating sim. Conversely, having romance feels artificial. Unless you're playing a squee-laden emo sap. Right. If I say, "The sky is blue" you can't just answer with, "Conversely, the sky is ultraviolet". If you state something that contradicts common sense, you have to back it up with arguments. It can't be you have known so many people who never romanced anyone, that you have started to believe that it is the natural way to go.

I never choose "evil" dialogue options. Mostly because they are stupid, but also I'm just a real nice and charming kinda guy. Bad option are about a third of total content, right? I say we cut it out in favour of something everyone, including me, can enjoy. Exploding helicopters, for instance. And let the modders add the evil paths for enthusiasts. Having no romance feels artificial. Unless you're playing an emotionless robot.

It allows a more artistic approach to scenery for one thing. I don't see how full 3D view is important at all, unless you're playing a tactical game. Did full 3D do anything to benefit NWN games? I don't think so. Harpsichords are retro, but it doesn't mean that you have to compose for piano only or that harpsichord music is somehow inferior. It's simply different.

I think you're mixing graphics with isometric vs 3D view. There's nothing stopping you from making detailed graphics in a game with isometric view. It just means that you can't rotate the camera and have to see structures from a single angle. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Having to construct a 3D model for every shack you come across usually leads to sloppy design, a lot of repetition or a detailed, but fairly small world overall. So you can't really talk about a "retro feel", unless you believe that isometric view is retro by itself.

The story is created by the player through his roleplaying. It's an "emergent narrative". How exactly does this happen in video games? Or is it something exclusively in player's head, which the game never acknowledges?

Aren't actually inconsistent AT ALL. They may not fit reality, but they are insanely consistent within the game. I'm fine with a world with it's own internal logic. Well, no? If you had a smart and charming character to start with and he became a warrior and trained a lot, surely he'll have more attribute points overall, than a very smart mage, who has absolutely no incentive to train his physical abilities? No consistency there. Hit points? You were a weakling and couldn't take a blow to the head and five levels later you can take a dozen of them without paying any attention. What sort of internal logic dictates that leveling up transforms your skull to a piece of adamantine? Sure it is game mechanics, so it inviolable. But same goes for uniform power, if some party members are weaker than others by design, why would you ever pick them, again?

I am pretty sure that's one of them rhetorical questions. Who decides who should pay for our mistakes? Well, if you mug someone, it would be common law, if you lie, it's your consciousness, if you mix acetaminophen with alcohol, it's biology. So it largely depends on the situation at hand. I believe PsychoBlonde's question was more about why than about who. So I answered why would you want an obligation to pay for your mistakes in a game. It takes your gameplay to a whole new level. As simple as that. And no, it does not work the same way, if you just get the same effect as Ironman gives you through strength of will and determination.

Hit points, weapon damage, fixed stat for all characters, fixed number of skill points per level are only some of the other illustrious examples of such inconsistencies. So I would say that uniform character levels aren't really a good place to start. What I would say is leave mechanics out of it as much as possible. I don't want "consistency" interfering with my choice of companions.

Sex in video games is lame. Personally, I prefer LARPing this part. I don't really care if my character shags everything that moves or stays as chaste as a eunuch in a full-body chastity suit if it has nothing to do with the character. Geralt, having so many potential sexual encounters in Witcher 1 that they could've overcome his STD immunity, was fun, because that's how his sexual life is usually going along. When he isn't shagging some particular sorceress that is. The latter theme was thoroughly explored in Witcher 2, which never bothered me one bit either. But when sex is treated as the ultimate reward for having a romance (yes, I am talking about you, Mass Effect), it's just silly. Not to mention that all the interaction with love interests are stupid simple: you say the stuff they like, you get your treat at the end. It's nothing but lazy and boring. I think if you can't deliver an engaging romance (either because of limited budget or simple lack of interest), don't do it a t all. It will come out nothing but a total waste in the end.

While I thoroughly enjoyed multiclassing in BG (dual classed from 10+ level fighter to mage to later import the high level character into a new game and kick some major ass as a real spellsword) and IWD (10 Rogue, 3 Fighter, the rest Sorcerer for an unbeatable combo class), I think the mechanic works properly in IWD only. NWN2 proved me right, making multi-classing a tedious and dubious affair with effective, but improbable (sorcerer/paladin? bard/barbarian/RDD?! fighter/monk/IB/paladin?!! really now?!) and likely, but extremely lame combinations. Multiclassing should be mostly done for flavour, not for minmaxing. NWN made me think that milticlassing is plain wrong. I don't mind specialization or prestige classes or whatever you call them, but the options should be fairly limited. Like, say, in DAO, which got at least this part right, whatever you think about the rest of it. That way people don't overdo minmaxing and devs don't have to worry about it too much.

Reality show? In my PE? I think this is an extremely bad idea.

What's this "should"? According to whom? For what purpose? That's easy. If you play any game that features Ironmode, you know the difference between the two. You know you can't just saveload, so every decision you take counts. It may be dead squad members, wasted resources or defeat in a crucial battle. It's a whole other experience and it actually forces you to master the gameplay if you don't like settling for a compromise each time. You get a lot more gratifying experience from it, naturally. And no, it's not at all the same thing, as if you were simply to not save/load. Been there, done that.

Hit points suck, because they are inconsistent and arbitrary. A blow, dealing -10 HP, dealt to a character with 11 HP is a hideous, devastating strike, leaving him on the brink of death. The very same blow dealt to the very same character, but 10 levels higher and with 100 HP total is nothing but an itchy scratch. Which raises a whole lot of hard-to-explain-from-a-logical-standpoint situations. This kind of problem is easily avoided in settings with fixed number of health level, like in World of Darkness. And I heartily concur that this kind of system is a lot better if it weren't suffering the terrible effects of random dice throws. However, if the random part is normalized (i.e. not linear like in dice with every result having approximately the same chance of occurring, but average results happening a lot more often than extremes), it could work quite well.

Sure, as long as I can liquidize my assets and reinvest it in local government bonds. And while we are at it, I also want an option to subcontract my quests, so that that other unnamed adventurers risk their lives for a meagre cut of the reward. I will call it DTHA: Double Time Hero Agency incorporated. P.S. Did I mention that I want to be able to issue loans and play on futures market as well?

I don't mind Ironmode, since that's how I play most of the time anyway. I am not sure ho well it works in cRPGs, since sometime you can screw up badly and have your whole party killed. If that would be the end of the game, I would be unlikely to ever try Ironmode.

Why? For one thing, because you are not six people at once. Then again if your companions have at least some sort of personality (i.e. we're not talking Wizardry or IWD-style party) you should never be able to make them say anything. Otherwise it will cheapen your character interactions with them.

I consider non-combat class mechanic broken in single-player cRPGs. If you play a game where a non-combat approach is just as viable for progress, like Fallout or Deus Ex, it's fine, sure. But when you have to do all of those things with your party at once, role play becomes broken. That's because you can't roleplay 6 characters at once, you can do just one at a time, so that one should always do the talking (except when others interfere). So I am against balancing poor combat abilities with non-combat abilities. If you rogues/chanter/paladin doesn't hit as hard and can take much punishment, make him able to synergize with combat classes through buffs, spells, potions, shared tactics, so that it is still useful.

RL people from various eras and regions on Earth? as example soldiers in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 11th-13th century? Tuscan sellswords? not sure about the leather coat but while you don't find many "professional armies" (as much you can call the medieval and earlier armies that) mixing a lot up you can find a few historical cases, and in some cultures more evidence of weapon/armament style mixtures than in other (another example for this would be the temurid-mughal "royal guards") also, using a leather main armor with metal arm and leg protection is very very common actually I imagine your issue is mainly that in games you barely find aethestically fitting pieces of various armor sets, which would be true Well, yes, I don't mind if armour is a combination between leather, steel and cloth. But wearing bits of plate armour (like plate gauntlets or greaves) together with bits of light armour (like a padded gambeson) doesn't make any sense. Typically, that sort of thing is what mixing and matching in RPGs boils down to. So I think all plausible combinations should be represented as single armour items and mixing and matching should be left for the things that make actual sense when worn together, including underamour items, cloaks, overcoats, tabards and aesthetics like amulets.

I am for reducing the actual armor system to two slots: armor and underarmor. Seriously, who ever wears plate greaves and vambraces and a leather coat? Who wears leather armor with plate boots? Well, apart from Morrowind enthusiasts. Wearing an arming doublet under a suit of plate or a padded gambeson under mail armour makes a great deal of sense. How about no rings? I realise it's a persistent cliché, but they don't make much sense. Or any at all.

I don't think emotions come from theatrical lines, posh pseudofrench accent or backhanding hysterical women in the face. Emotions come from scenes like this. http://www.youtube.c...2HhCFhKw#t=389s It becomes even better if your character hasn't given a vow of silence and actually does some talking in appropriate moments like this.

That's all roleplaying ever is. Roleplaying happens entirely inside the player's head, as he imagines how his character feels about things and why he does the things he does. Roleplaying is in-character decision-making, and that's never referenced by the action in-game content. Moreover, it does indirectly impact the game through your character's actions. When your character decides to do things, it is your roleplaying (which is inside your head) that determines what he does. When anything happens to your character, it is your roleplaying (which is in your head) that determines how he feels about that. A blank slate PC gives the player tremendous leeway in establishing how his character makes decisions. A fixed background, however, limits the player to character designs that are compatible with that background. There are many different ways your character might be a pacifist, but many fewer that might explain how he's both a pacifist and a war hero. Well, no. If RP was only inside one's head, no one would ever buy PRGs or role play with other people. The only thing in your head is your character. The feedback, the way the world reacts to his actions, the challenges he is presented with all depend on the world around him. That world dictates what becomes of him more than any biography or what ever is in the player's head. If there is no reactivity, it does not matter what you pretend your character to be. Neither you can make NPC react appropriately for infinite number of background variation, nor make an interesting story about a generic person with no predefined past or personality. So if you want good story and no main character background, you're out of luck.

I like an unwinnable fight, when it means that I can win it at some time. One hit KOs like Irenicus' Rapture of Father or Lothar's death spell in PST seem far too cheap. Same goes for other cheating mechanics. If this is simply the fight we have to avoid for the rest of the game, why even give us an opportunity to do it? To prove that the player sucks?

Personally, I prefer Witcher-style loot. Better gear should be rare, not overpowered, have some trade-offs or specific uses. But most importantly, the badassery part should stem from the character's experience and abilities, not from him holding a Fork of Truth +6 and wearing Golden Trousers of Impenetrable Defense +4. If you remember how combo chain progressed in Witcher 1, you know what I'm talking about. One moment you're outclassed by mobs, then you gain a level gulp a few potions and they drop like flies.

I hope for a dark and brooding sort. Not quite like Batman, but more along the lines of sarcastic/smart-ass mode of Mike Thorton and the second season Blackadder. A bit more reserved, maybe. I always found Bruce Wayne's sense of humour lacking, especially for someone that smart.