JFSOCC

I don't usually play cleric characters, so most of this discussion passed me by. I read up today. what can I say. If I play a cleric maybe there is this cult that follows a sikh-like philosophy that all religions contain wisdom and truth, and that no-one holds the ultimate wisdom to determine who is right. therefore they respect all religions and have to defend against injustice and religious intolerance. That would make for an interesting and challenging character to play. I might even go cleric if they try something like that.

If you're going to have significant difference in how weapons play, without one decidedly being better than the other (just different) then I want to have access to choice. I don't want to ignore the mace because I already found a sword earlier and invested into my swordmanship so that it now no longer is interesting to go with the mace, because I came across it later. that's my only real fear.

Some want wizard towers and temples in thier strongholds, you want Casinos and Brothels. Awesome :D Honestly I want the stronghold to be strange and unique. What the game play of Crossroads Keep was better and awesome, the flavour of the Wizards Tower/Sphere in BG2 was freaking awesome. It should be more then a generic medevil keep. That why I suggested Ob Nau's keep, but there are other ideas awesome ideas as well. Maybe's a mobile fortress, like a space station only for the Ocean instead of space. Or maybe its made from Crystals or Living wood. Or its carved into a Vulcano, with a room for Sharks with freaking laser beams. I also suggest they look at a veriety of late medevil palaces and Castles for ideas it should be beautiful and magnifiant. And if they're going to have a temple in the Keep it should be devoted to the Character's God, not to a bunch Lathanderites. I allows thought that made no sense, its like the Catholic church building a keep and deciding it should have a Mosque or Hindu Temple in it instead of a Christian Chapel, it makes no sense. uhh, no, it's a reference joke.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5tZMDBXTRQ

I'm all for a clean slate, because I don't want to roleplay a character that I might not feel a connection too.

I doubt that the Dragon age games will ever be what I would desire of them. I've said it before and I'll say it again, they are riddled with bad design choices. I doubt it will ever be a real challenger. but what they can do is poison the supply. by being crappy and more well known, they can be the first choice of people new to the genre, or who just don;t know, and then after disappointing the players, have them decide that they do not like RPGs.

I think one of the reasons why stealth is often underwhelming is because the application of it was limited by game mechanics. like, you don;t need to hide bodies because they often just fade, so the game engine doesn;t get clogged up. While dishonoured doesn't seem like the game I would like it to be, I did think it an interesting feature that you could have a special ability that would destroy bodies after killing them (leaving their loot) I too play stealthy characters, which btw, pet peeve: just because I like to play a stealthy character doesn't mean I want him to be the rat-faced charisma-less character. I'd rather have me be the well spoken "I'd never expect it of him!" character with the hidden skillset.

that's not the problem of humans, but rather of how they are presented; as the youngest and unwise race. and yes, I always thought it was belligerent to hear. Why can't humans be the wise old species that gets to be 80 years old while the others never make it past 50?

I actually like the suggestion earlier for competition quests (like the arena) Maybe.... and perhaps it's too radical a suggestion, but maybe you could have some sort of online leaderboards, where you would get matched up with NPC's that have the build of someone ranked slightly above you. this would keep it always challenging, as you'd be playing against an AI proxy of a build that worked well enough to score slightly better than your own. This doesn't have to be just combat, (as long as it is not Pazaak) and I imagine that people who cheat and edit their playerstats would be matched up against others who did the same.

Oh he stuck in the tower? I need him, let's assume he was innocent and prove it! yes, lets search through trash piles and find droid parts! I actually really enjoyed the quest, but indeed, replay value at 0.

My Stronghold is in a place of power on the world, I can tap the ethereal energies and... teleport! just an idea. Or a floating island which you can steer. (maybe I've played too much Bastion)

I think Fallout 2 had a number of awesome quests, mostly because a lot of them could be approached from many different ways. Edit: I also really enjoyed the quest in KOTOR1 where you had to figure out a murder, although it has little replay value. (maybe if they have a quest like this in PE they could make it variable by play-through, so that the answer isn't set in stone when you begin.)

because you like to, because some problems can't be solved by sending an army in, because of diplomatic issues (someone you want to get at is in another sovereign state.)

two souls competing for the same body would also be interesting.

You can have the full spectrum of personalities with just humans. That's one thing I've hated about some fantasy fiction, Elves and Vulcans are not the noble race we could one day be, Gnomes or Ferengi are not the trader race, and Orcs and Klingons are not noble warriors. that's as one-dimensional as it gets. You should have the full spectrum of personalities and they shouldn't be dependent on race.

pff, so many good ones! some I forgot, some in games I haven't played (maybe I should!) I enjoyed the quest in Morrowind where you have to trail a man in Seyda Neen, to see where he kept some of his stuff. It felt real and unforced. no hand-holding either.

it'd be cool if you could be asked to investigate your own misdeeds, you could fess up, or decide to frame someone else. or maybe just sabotage the research enough so that it wouldn't be found out.

and subject to the law of diminishing returns.

I too fondly remember the cult quest, I remember being scared ****less of the beholder hoping it wouldn't see me.

I once left the forum for two and a half days! then I came back yesterday. Honestly though, unless you have very little do do than build your own hype all day, once or twice a week seems easily enough, spend 20 mins reading all the new threads. if you click on the white icon it automatically goes to the first unread post, so you won't have to get behind on the discussion. it's a very active forum right now though, so you might have a lot of reading to catch up on, if you want to keep track of everything.

If I travel by map, a random encounter is something that gets in the way of what I was planning to do. I want to be able to freely travel without every three inch having to fight another encounter. this way travel becomes a chore. This is something I feel strongly about. I can't stand it when I am planning on going somewhere and it goes "Nope, first you HAVE to do this" it breaks flow. and rare has been the time that a random encounter was interesting enough that I even cared.

If I have a charismatic character, at least I would like to be able to have my companions be convinced by me. Maybe not on everything, but it should be a two-way street. This is why I liked the KOTORII alignment shifts you could affect your party with.

You make the thread and I'll work on an idea to post. I see quite a bit of love for exploration so far. which reminds me of another thing. some games only have you go places A-purpose. This prevents me from actually looking at and caring for the world. having quests open up just by exploring (in areas that you have absolutely no reason to visit) will probably allow me to look around and enjoy the world, it comes back to pacing. If I constantly have stuff to do I might not take the time to look around. solving mysteries with visual clues (and no hand-holding) helps. indeed the sewers in the slum district were a good example of stumbling onto something cool.

there are two ideas I see popping up: on one side there is "you don't want your experience ruined" on the other side I see "you're free to choose your own experience, even if that ruins your enjoyment" Maybe it's good to look at why people abuse the game: It could be because they are zealous at having the maximum result out of every encounter (power-gaming) that could be fixed by making it unclear what the maximum result is, having different outcomes be beneficial in different ways, and detrimental in different ways. Some might abuse out of fear to fail. This could be prevented by either making failure less catastrophic, or having the result be ambiguous enough that it is unclear whether or not you failed. players are smart however, and I have no doubt they'd figure it out. having no failure at all removes any challenge from the game as well. it's this type of abuse that is the hardest to deal with. I think that perhaps a player can be subtly conditioned by having the early game show that failure is not to be feared, at least not all the time. I think the team went in the right direction by offering rewards for encounters and quests, regardless of how they are dealt with, because my failure to detect a trap won't mean I missed the experience for dismantling it. Why else would a person abuse the game? well, they could be a beta tester, or a critic, trying to find balance issues, infinite xp exploits and the like. in which case I'm fine with them abusing the hell out of it. What else... well, perhaps the player doesn't care for the specific challenge he or she is currently offered, and wants to get through it, fast and efficiently. As a developer you should ask yourself some serious questions if this happens. This could be solved by having only few essential quests, designing the quests so that they are enjoyable (though you can't always please everyone) and not trapping the player stuck in a location or quest. (so allowing them to cancel quests, and not locking the door behind them when they enter a dungeon.) Finally the last reason I see someone trying to abuse the system, or cheat, is because they wish to be entertained more than engaged. I think that an RPG might not be for you if that's the case, however, even here you can have workarounds. Don't care for dialogue? Find Combat too unenjoyable and want to progress in the story? This is solely at the doorstep of the developers. If they make a game engaging, players will be entertained as well as engaged. Don't let dialogue consist of just walls of text, making it a chore to read. Don't let combat be hordes of enemies without pause. don't let every door you open be a path to more of the same combat, don't let everyone you talk to have a book of text to read through. Pacing is important. Find other ways to challenge to player, find other ways to tell the story. (visual narrative is just as important as good dialogue)

I've more than once hurt my own character creation by choosing aesthetics over traits. Why should an Elf not be as fit to be a beserker as an Orc? because Orcs get more strength, while elves get a penalty to strength and a bonus to dexterity? I've always seen this happen in MMO's where certain builds just don't exist, because they aren't efficient. If you're going to be a fire elementalist, and there is a race that gives you +10% fire damage, that doesn't present a real choice. Racial traits narrow down choices in this manner, because if you want to play a certain way, you're required to limit your choice to what allows you to play like that. So I hope that if the different races are significantly different, they differ in a way which doesn't hinder your choice like that. perhaps a human cleric may play differently from a dwarven one, but either option should be equally viable.

just out of curiosity, what if they were variable in how they played out?