JFSOCC

this smacks of good/evil dichotomy, of which I'm not a fan. But on the concept of sentient items with agendas, awesome, why not?

Crap. I was sure it was actually the story told by a still-living Spartan. That's why I simply stated it was historically 100% accurate, instead of inquiring as to the actual practices of the Spartants of old. I have a friend doing his thesis about the professionalisation of armies in ancient Greece. He comes up with anecdote after anecdote on how the Spartans sucked. Thermopile, they were aided by about 4000 Athenians, (who were definitely not just craftsmen pressed into service) the "revenge" battle you briefly see at the end of the movie 300, they were slaughtered again. In fact, they lost most of their engagements. They did however, have inflated egos. In one battle with Athens, Both parties agreed to send 300 of their best, when the battle ended, it was 2 Athenians left vs 1 Spartan left. The Athenians were like "We outnumber you 2-1, what's the point in continuing? we've won" went home and declared victory, the Spartan who remained went like "The Athenians fled the battlefield, clearly we've driven them off, we won" and that's the story he told when he got home.

why would you arbitrarily restrict that? I'd rather have all quests be diverse in nature. And I'd be cool with having challenging quests in either city. I think the bottleneck approach with chapters is a nice marker from which each chapter simply adds new quests to all known areas and opens up some new areas Because this way, you go to BBC1, (again, not the broadcasting corporation, I really need a better acronym) you do some 70% of the available quests. Then you decide to proceed with the main quest, advance in chapter, and new content opens up in the location you know, while you can now also move on to BBC2. This ensures that an area doesn't suddenly become devoid of content (that barren feel so many areas have when you're finished with them) because you've done all you could there. (at least not until you finish the game) This is what pacing is all about. Don't set it by location, set it by narrative timing. (IE, Early chapters, you join organisations and learn about the world. after doing some you gain some gear and a better position in these factions, you've become comfortable with the area you're in. Mid chapters, you've gained standing in the factions you work for and have gained some renown, meaning others contact you for more delicate assignments, some take you outside of the city you know. Mid-late chapters: the factions you work for ask you to establish business in BBC2, while some trouble is brewing at home. You know your home, but also have to explore new places. The challenges you get mean you have to move around a lot, but you're certainly getting a feel for the world. You even have established your own stronghold at a strategical location. Late game: most places you've been have some content, but the majority of the content is pointing you towards the exit, it's time to finish up and move on.) This strategy means that no location you find will become irrelevant as the game progresses, which I always think is a terrible shame.

I'm sorry but they had to invent space aliens to fight you because clearly humans were no match.

that's easily fixed by having a timeout for wounds after they're used. so, use ability, wound can't reload for x seconds. higher levesl means faster recharge.

secret bonus content.

you're joking right? Crysis was the most uninspiring game design. The plot was clichéd to non-existent, the monsters were boring, making use of numbers rather than interesting tactics, and their look incredibly unimaginative. And the suit was both overpowered and didn't encourage you to use it to the best of your ability. Crysis was an expensive engine demo IMO.

I believe what he said was that as a designer you should be OK with players not experiencing everything you've made for them.

I would be OK with having them be "lockdown" characters which disable magical abilities for a while on their targets. (bit like chi-blocking in Avatar) So your powerful warrior is going to do the ultimate sudoken move, finds it can't cast it. That way the monk would be a terrific force multiplier, and great help fighting boss monsters.

Are we really still discussing this? this thread is boring, let it die.

I love the fact that no-one said graphics, I guess we're all on the same line there. I wonder if we used the word "Visuals" instead, if people would vote differently. I love beautiful maps and background art, it it makes me feel like I'm in a magical place (which is hard to do) I might get mine. But graphics never made a game. Serious Sam, Crysis, Far cry were all cases of crappy game great graphics, At least the gameplay of Serious sam made it fun to do with a friend. It's just not nearly as important as any of the other options.

this is why I like the bottleneck approach they've said they're going for: once you've completed most of an area, you can move the story on, and the place gets repopulated with some new quests and new places open up to explore as well.

I suspect that players may game this system by having their monk character don armor in the middle of the battle, once the wounds limit is reached. I seem to recall you could do that in the IE games--albeit with the loss of a round. I imagine a monk in armour can take a lot of punishment, for a while. sounds like a decent way to make the enemy waste their best attacks and then get into dishing it back out.

Please make this game. please! I love empire building!

Monk'd combo well with rogue if multi-classing is ever going to happen, I'd imagine.

I want to disagree about this idea; you would still have to remember which NPCs were going to offer you quests, and morevoer, you would have to go back to get those quests when you were done with your current ones. It would be an artificial and frustrating restriction, as well as requiring mind reading from the NPCs to work in character. I disagree for the same reasons centurion brought up. Artificial limitations like those are extremely frustrating. A well structured/designed quest log is a far more appealing option. I tend to play the IE games quite methodically, I will talk to everyone, picking up every quest I can, and work my way through them one by one. I'm convinced, you have a much better alternative. I also believe that having an immense amount of content (IE: Quests) allows you to have a ton of optional content and mutually exclusive content.(faction quests for opposing factions) You'll get a complete experience regardless of missing quests, which vastly increases replayability, because you will always have other paths to take, other content yet to explore. On a side note; I hope to see factions which overlap on other factions interests, while not being directly opposed. This means that you can choose different ways to play, while still staying true to your ethos. (no good or evil dichotomy giving you basically 2 playthroughs)

should have

nonsense, the Lower Elements Police Recon team would have recovered the remains ages ago.

For that you can have a list of Dramatis Personae in your journal, which you can annotate. "Arin Astor, found in the Sunken Flagon in Big Big City 1, Merchant Quarter" (annotated: "has a quest")

If learning lore feels like work I won't enjoy it. With this I mean, don't dump a book on me. Instead let me explore an ancient ruins, let the ruins themselves show insights into the society which ones called it home. With the shape and purpose of the buildings, the machinery and what it was used for. Require me to use them to beat a puzzle unrelated to the lore, and if I pay attention it will give me some insight into who lived there first. If I find drawings of bears on the wall, in all sorts of poses, and I come across a throne room, throne has bear skulls underneath it, the walls have rotting bear rugs on them. There's a bear-skull helmet I can find. A mural shows a figure in a powerpose with a bear fighting on his side, enemies failing before him, then I'm pretty sure I'll get a good idea about the people I'm dealing with. If I enter an ancient castle ruins and I see torture devices everywhere, and secret rooms and corridors with spy holes, a dungeon filled with emaciated corpses, but beautiful (now wild) gardens at ground level and at elevation, you'll be pretty sure it was a powerful elite which ruled in a place where there was competition with other noble elites. If I find a clearing in the forest with a stream running through it, and 5 black and 5 white stones crossing it, some of the trees have black bark and some have white bark, I'll know this was a cultivated and ceremonial spot for those who felt the need to be close to nature. You can show a lot of lore without saying a single word. tl;dr: Involve me and show me, don't just tell me.

Well, I disagree with Josh here. However, I think what might be helpful, is if you can only have a set amount of quests active at any time, and only able to get others once it drops below 5. So you'd come across someone who has quest dialogue for you and you have 5 quests active, he'll reply "You look like you have a lot on your mind, why don't you come back later?" or some variation of that. Because I don;t think the problem was the amount of content, I think it was that you got quests dumped on you up to the point that you weren't sure what quest you were working on.

I'm reminded of an idea I had when I wasn't on these forums for so long, and still had fresh creative bouts http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62261-a-wilderness-idea/

I watched Carnage by Roman Polanski. Delightful.

I wonder what you guys think about the long-term consequences of war, even when it's finished. Also there is this lovely book named "All the countries we've invaded" which shows that the British Empire has invaded every country but about 30.