Hormalakh

I should've known that any game Tim Cain makes would be awesome enough to think about this before me Very cool

Shoot sorry, I wrote another thread to gauge the forum's interest in this type of relationship: when you kick out your companion from your party, because he has been with you for a long period of time, he demands a portion of the loot (his cut) since he helped with the adventure. You either have to pay him (gold,treasure, xp, whatever) or kill him or keep him in your party (if he still wants to stay in your party.) This wouldn't affect new party members since they've just recently started traveling with you, but the party member who's been by your side saving your skin from time to time deserves some respect and a second-thought before mindlessly tossing him to the side for the more powerful new companion that completes your party the way you wanted it to be completed. Just a thought. Wht do you guys think?

Umm pike-and-shot regimens were pretty much common place by then. Are you sure G.A discovered the salvo?

Say you've had a companion that has been traveling with you for a big part of the game. Say it's been since the beginning of the game and now you've met a better companion that would totally complete your party. But, when you tell your ex-companion that it was no longer meant to be, he doesn't take it too kindly. In fact, he thinks that he's been working with you all this time, and that it really isn't fair for you to leave him at the tavern and go pick up that "hot new elf chick" to be in your party. In fact, he thinks that he deserves a fair share of all that loot you've been hoarding to yourself this whole time. He's leaving alright, but not without his cut of the loot. You'll have to kill him or pay him. And if it's in a lawful town, you can't kill him without answering to the law. What do you guys think? Would you like to see your party members force a cut of the loot or no, when you leave them?

Eh I disgree with the "they'll reload crowd". It's a critical miss. A critical miss should affect the player like it did in some older games. In fallout, you'd drop your weapon or get crippled, etc , if i'm not mistaken.

Uhhh solid state isn't as long-lasting and reusable as disc-format.

"lost" bah! don't make me laugh. We never talk about money "gained" from people sampling your game. But if it's pirated, it's definitely a loss. Anyway, don't steal this game people. support the devs. Pay them for this game.

Bye Tony Evans. I didn't know you, but just know that your name evokes some strong feelings even 9 months (I think?) after you left. *tear* edit: 2 years! and 9 months. That's amazing. We really loved you buddy.

You have to sacrifice your player at the end of the game for the good ending. In P:E2 you have to start a new character sheet. That would be quite the sacrifice.

I'm not going to read all 27 pages. But I'm hoping someone mentioned Haer D'alis and Aerie from BG2. They had a romance between them. So not everything was between the PC and the companions. Similarly, I really liked Viconia's romance because it was quite difficult to achieve and nothing is sweeter than a difficult relationship

Oh I'm sorry I haven't used battle.net since it was good. You know 1.0. Once I realized that Blizzard became what it is now, I stopped playing their games. So.....battle.net v. 1.0 YESSSSSS?

It's why people continue to buy songs from iTunes even though there's been plenty of news about how you don't own the music you buy: you just own the "license" to listen to it until Apple says you can't. Edit: Now that this thread has been completely derailed, I am done. Sorry about that OP.

Obsidian's own Battle.net? I likeeeeeeeee.

Seriously though, I really can't understand the "logic" behind DRM. I'm pretty sure that's because there simply isn't one. Pirates just bypass DRM. No matter what sort of DRM you implement, it's possible to crack it. So basically, DRM is a way of making pirates the privileged players of the game. It tries to say "piracy is bad" but instead all it says is "piracy pays off because you don't have to bother with this crap if you get the pirated version of the game", and on top of that it actually costs money to implement DRM. There just is no logic behind it whatsoever. My personal feeling is that companies that employ DRM aren't doing it to stop pirates. If pirates won't pay, then they'll charge their customers twice to recoup those losses. Those guys are paying money already, so they figure they'd pay again to play a game that they should technically own. Thus, when a game suddenly gets hacked or no longer works, they'll just have to buy the game again to play it. Suckers that they are, they probably do, thus paying once for the pirate and once for themselves.

I also would be quite pissed if any of my friends ever pirated this game, nor would I ever condone pirating this game. Why? Simple: I backed it and I actually like Obsidian as a company. They haven't screwed me over and listen to their fans. Why would I do anything that could possibly harm them by taking money away from them? These are the actual developers of the games, not some middleman trash that does nothing but destroy the games I love to play.

We did have "cats confirmed for $4mil stretch goal" afterall.... :D

It's not a quest per se, but I really liked what it did with dialogue. The Viconia Romance was one of the best written and executed parts of BGII. No dialogue option was a definite "win" and there is a lot of uncertainty in whether you reach your objective because it occurs over a long period of time. Sometimes you think the "quest" is over, but then it starts up again and you think "sweet I picked the right dialogue choice!" It was a satisfying challenge.

Why just ancient theory? There's a lot on souls even in contemporary theology and philosophy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul

"Is it better to be feared or loved?" Taking into account that this game will be based around factions and your reputation towards them, one very good way of achieving "evil rewards you" is to make one faction only either "fear you" or "hate you." Hating you is the "good option" because it's the option taht you start with. When you enter the town, and you save the puppy, are you doing it for the money that you are pretty suer you get or the experience that you get? In my opinion if you are doing things in the real world with an expectation of a reward, you aren't a good person, you're just a money-grubber. You're just trying to find the easiest way to make money. That makes me hate you. And when you come into my town, I'm going to charge you more cash for goods. But if you come into my town and start killing my children and eating the puppies. Then I'm going to start fearing you. Yeah, I'll give you the cheaper prices on the goodies (I might not show you rare items I have, unless you threaten me, but otherwise you get cheaper items.) There really is no way to be loved in this town. They hate outsiders. You're an outsider. The good option doesn't really reward you. The "evil one" does. Sort of.

Like I said, if you want to cast magic missle all day, go right ahead. I'll cast time stop, horrid wilting, and meteor swarm, and we'll see who wins that fight. Magic that implemented casting time was not degenerate in BG2. Go play the game again with a harder difficulty and a better AI (SCSII mod is a good one), then tell me the enemy mages sucked.

Both would always be the best option. But we live in a world with limitations on money and time.

I really love this thread, I mean I know this game is fantasy and all, but actually applying historical perspective to a game is soooo interesting. It makes fantasy a "what if" scenario. What-if we had elves, dwarves, etc? What if the printing press wasn't made? These are really interesting questions and I think a fantasy setting that's based on an anthropological and historical view is very cool.

I know I'm going to regret asking this, but... will the Priests be carrying holy hand grenades? As long as they can count to five, er three.

It is far from certain that something akin to blackpowder can even be made in a given fantasy world, just like electricity does not necessarily exist. Chain lightning anyone?

I think that what most of us in the forum talk about isn't really to stop "power-gaming," but to build efficient, robust, and thoughtful game mechanics that make the game fun to play in the way it was intended by the devs to be played. Having a backdoor that the developers didn't think about is what we don't want. But if the developers put in a mechanism that is well-thought out, it doesn't matter to us if players "power-game" that system. At least, that's the feeling I've been getting from a lot of the posts here on this forum.