JFSOCC

You don't create art by playing it safe. That's all I have to say about that.

Making merchants more than loot drop-off/equipment buying/quest giving points would enrich the game, though there is of course a certain comfort in knowing that there is a reliable place for loot drop-off/equipment buying available.

Things I think would benefit an expansion: Don't raise the level cap with the expansion. Rewards offered by playing the expansion aren't better, but add diversity of options. (new skills and abilities, not strictly more powerful or more numerous than would otherwise be available) A player gets new/different options, not better options. Have part of the expansion overlap with the current game world, and part draw you away to new locales. interweave new factions and old factions in both the old and new locales, so as to not have the expansion be a completely isolated from the vanilla game. If I do something in the expansion, it could affect the game in vanilla. It is important to me that the expansion interweaves with the vanilla game, otherwise it's not really an expansion as much as a sequel.

I believe there is a toggle, no?

I wonder if it will be possible to equip hirelings at your stronghold with all the stuff you've put in your deep stash.

Good AI is fairly predictable. You know that when you find a certain type of enemy, he is going to play to a certain strategy. this allows you to learn from and prepare for the next time you meet a similar enemy. Having Boss AI's be different makes the mix all the more interesting, especially since Bosses are one offs anyway. I don't want to make assumptions of scope (though yes, sometimes I do) as I simply do not know enough about the subject to know how much effort is required to put certain features in the game. I think we would all be wiser if we didn't make these assumptions. Especially because it makes it sound like you don't want to defend your good ideas. "I know this is probably too much, but" isn't exactly inspiring anyone. Besides, a good idea is a good idea, and whether it fits the scope of the game is a decision you don't have to make.

Turn it into a side quest line. You cant use the inn in town X until you find the cause of the disapperance of the owner. "Sorry <CharName> the inn has been abandoned since the owner disappeard under mysterious circumstances. Some say he was kidnapped by Grognards, while others swear he chanted "Avellone, Avellone, Avellone" into a mirror before vanishing. But whatever happened, no inn or tavern here until it is solved". <<Accept Quest. "Incident at the Inn?" Y/N>> An interesting way to deal with it, I like it. But perhaps you can allow the backer who failed to communicate give his inn for the expansion? New round, new chances, so to speak. Outsourcing it to the community, well, I wonder how the people who paid large sums for the privilege would feel about that. That said, there is a lot of creative energy in the community, and I'm sure someone could come up with something cool.

I'm happy to hear we won't see (many) 'corridor hell' maps, as I like to call them. Not only because of the navigation problems, but because they're often uninspired in design. Thanks Josh!

Yeah... it also sort of undermines the cohesiveness of their design. It reminds me of trying to pick a color to paint something. "Well, we could go with blue, but some people don't like blue. We could go with orange, but some people don't like orange. Let's just go with ALL THE COLORS, TOGETHER!" Then they end up with a muddy grey, and wonder what went wrong. "We should've gotten all the people with each individual color as their favorite! Why didn't we?!" To appeal to the widest audience possible, one must inherently appeal to a stupid audience. A bomb is far more effective at widespread devastation (i.e. sales) than a rifle, after all. And so the term blockbuster was coined, after the devastating bombs of the same (colloquial) name.

http://supergiantgames.com/index.php/2014/04/transistor-arrives-may-20-on-ps4-and-pc/ Bastion blew me away, I'm certainly buying transistor.

genius. Also I love the true facts videos.

thanks for the interviews, now I'll never get to bed on time

I love these kinds of threads. scouting, scouting gives you a bonus to speed and stealth while active, while denying you use of your weapons until a few seconds after turning the skill off. Empathy, which would be a dialogue skill. Empathy would give you helper dialogue that tell the state of mind of those you are talking to. You'd get something like "You sense something is troubling her" or "He seems to be very ashamed" higher levels of empathy (or psychology) offer dialogue options and replaces weaker helper dialogue of lower levels with better options. This should not be an overly powerful always win skill. But mostly I really love to see an implementation of one of the first ideas I had on these forums: Wilderness survival http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62261-a-wilderness-idea/

Citadels is my favourite game. That game needs to be on Tabletop. It's the best balanced game I've ever seen, it's easy to learn hard to master. It's deep but not complex, and it rewards calculated, selfish, and pragmatic strategies. There is some luck, but luck is not the determining factor. The Artwork is terrific, beautiful and fitting the theme of building and expanding your city state in Renaissance Italy. And this game is great even with two players, which I think is a rarity. many games are only really fun when it is played by more than two players. The Dynamics of each game are different based on how it develops, on the number of players, and the type of characters playing. I just wish people would call it by the name I know it by: Machiavelli. Because it takes a Machiavellian mindset to be effective at this game and because it's set in Renaissance Italy.

You can still have preparation in these new circumstances, I knowing what enemy times you're likely to be up ahead means you need to plan your gear accordingly. (like knowing to stock up on acid and fire damage sources if you're going to go into troll territory)

Well I did mostly play thief, but it's true I found the number of skills lacking in all of those games. However, it was made up some by the dialogue trees and interesting quests of those games. And I never liked to use wizards, because as Josh mentioned earlier, they could do everything my thief could do but more reliably and cheaply. I really didn't enjoy playing with wizards, still don't.

There are not many, honestly. We'd rather have a small number of skills that get a good amount of use than include a bunch of skills that wind up neglected. I'm rather disappointed by that. I'm one of those who never played any of the IE games for the combat, which I found more or less tedious. (which is why I skipped Icewind Dale, which appeared to me to be more of a dungeon crawler than role-playing experience.) Earlier you made the argument players could miss out on a lot of content if they were forced to play "the dialogue game" Is that necessarily a bad thing? I know I'm not going to experience everything in one playthrough, that makes it all the more interesting for me to replay the game. Can you at least tell us about how many skills we can expect, and the frequency with which we're likely to (be able to) use them? Can one full party master all skills, or will you always be missing out on some? How many skills can a character feasibly master of the total pool? If my PC lacks a skill, but a companion npc has it, will their skill be usable or ignored in dialogue?

Perhaps problems like these can be avoided by having arrows never be meaningless. They could be limited and effective even on a basic level. meaning bows are effective at the cost of ammunition as gold-sink.

Tim Cain said he was a min-maxer and I that he didn't mind at all allowing players to play that way. I think this is one of the ways to accommodate that style of play.

please please please go somewhere tropical for the expansion!

I will check the stats of the races first, but if it's no matter, I'll pick human, maybe godlike.

let's move on to more constructive debate.

Two companies helping each other stay independent.

this whole thing is a storm in a teacup. Nothing changed except Obsidian doesn't have to worry about distribution anymore, allowing them to spend their effort where it matters. Nothing to see here, move along. Maybe a nod of thanks to paradox for being so cool about this.

I wonder what part of the spells wizards and druids have would have utility outside of combat. There is a treasure trove of potential there. The example spells I've seen, some I like, but many are boring. I'd love to see some more out of the box thinking in spells. I liked the spell that let you switch places with characters. But what about revealing hidden doors? Activating ancient runes? or a telekinesis or levitation spell? That wizards and druids can both cause conditions with their spells is interesting to mix with rogues, which may finally make wizards something I'd consider. So that's a plus. I'd love to learn more about (all) the classes outside of combat though. I feel that Obsidian could take more risks with their classes. And what about crafting your own tome with spells? or will players be limited to pre-made tomes and maybe one stolen spell? It's hard to make a final judgement without knowing more spells or how the classes function outside of combat, but from what I see it's a fairly tame transliteration of wizards and druids from other IPs