JOG

If there are prejudices towards classes, then the main question is: how do you know what class someone is? The 7ft guy clad in raw hide armor, carrying a huge axe, and smelling like he never saw a bathtub in his whole life is obviously a barbarian, it might be more complicated to identify a dwarven barbarian, as his only distinctive feature would be the hide armor. That pompous fool in in shiny plate armor is obviously a paladin, and maybe there even is a law that all wizards have to wear a pointy hat, but what about the other classes? If there is a law that thieves have to wear black leather, nobody will ever wear black leather. A clever thief would wear a pointy hat, a trickster would wear the pointy hat, hide armor and behave all pompous.

Of course it is. What's not to understand? The developer provides model and texture, animation base data and an animation sequence, the player provides a card with enough computing power to calculate an image with the current frame of the animation sequence. The main effort in adding a new animation-sequence is adding the gameplay-code to actually activate it In 2.5D (3D perspective simulated in 2D usually called isometric, although most games are 3/4 view dimetric projection rather than isometric projection) you have to draw or prerender every single animation frame for every single action, and yes, weapons were usually an overlay sprite that had the same animation frames, nonetheless the effort rises exponentially with each new animation sequence, body shape and new style of armor. This is why there were overlay sprites for weapons in the first place, or why BG2 mirrors the sprites (player always sees the shield arm) to save developing time and thus costs.

3D is sooooooo 80's... Before Ultima 6 introduced the iso perspective aka 2.5d in 1990, almost every RPG was either completely 3D or switched between 3D and top down perspective. Wasteland is the only complete top down RPG I remember from that period. 3D has a couple of advantages: It scales better with higher resolutions, and it is much cheaper to create, because you can use that dedicated co-processor card on the player's PC, to do the calculations to actually display that animated figure on the screen, while in 2.5d every single animation frame for every single armor+weapon combo needs to be hand drawn, or at least pre-rendered. For the player the later is only an advantage, because there is much more room in the budget for different looking armors and weapons. The main disadvantage of 3D is that it ages badly. Background-art games like BG or Dark Sun still look and play as they always have, while NWN1 and even NWN2 look very clunky and amateurish by now. Even tile-based 2.5D games like Fallout, Arcanum or even Ultima 6-8 get off better, because their presentation of the gameworld always was an abstraction and never attempted to provide a realistic vision of that world.

Constant reloads and various techniques to make them happen faster were responsible for many broken savegames in various past games, unpatched BG2 was a good example as are all recent Bethsoft games. For non-combat skill-checks, a better approach is IMO to reduce the need for reloads: when a failed pickpocket attempt leads to a conversation where you can feign an excuse or simply run away, there is less need for a reload than when a failed pickpocket attempt practically means game over because the whole town gets hostile. Or simply remove the random element, and have a minimum skill value at which an action will automatically succeed (see dialogue in FO:NV) For combat, storing the random seed worked pretty well for me in Jagged Alliance, it forced you to try different tactics, instead of trying the same thing repeatedly until it finally worked. The game actually pre-rolled the next couple of skil-checks, so when you knew that the 3rd roll in that round would critically fail you could do something unimportant or even change your timing so that the opponents have that 3rd roll. But JA is mainly turn based combat; in a real time with pause system, there are so many variables you can't really pre-calculate every single action in combat, and even if you could it would be a very frustrating experience, when you know you're doomed to die exactly 10.45 seconds after loading this savegame.

Minigames that replace skill checks? (Lockpick, Persuasion) No, thanks. Minigames that are games people play in the game world (e.g. playing cards in a tavern) sure, why not. Just don't force us to play the game to continue in a quest. It's fine when that guy only trusts his gambling buddies, but when *I* don't feel like playing the minigame until he knows *my character* well enough, there should be an option to fade to black and claim that *my character* played for a couple of hours, rather than forcing *me* to do it.

Like: Deserts, ice-wastes, swamps and jungles, the inhospitable places where ancient structures, cults or even societies may still be found, undisturbed and forgotten by the civilized lands. Dislike: Nothing really, voted for dry mountains since I had to choose something

I prefer a story design that doesn't require me to take along a certain party member, and if I never add them to the party, I'll never even notice if they leveled up or not. Frankly, the whole non-party party members concept is silly. All those guys that squatted in the Ebon Hawk, the small army camping in the Sunken Flagon, the trek of neglected party members following my clandestine party across Ferelden. Why do they even follow me? I've talked to them for maybe 5 minutes then dumped them with the rest of the bums, and even if *I* had some use for them later on, why should *they* still be willing to help me after being treated so badly? BG had it right IMO - If you don't want them in your party they won't follow you but do their own thing, if you come back later they might be willing to follow you, but need a while to catch up. Of course they could get random amounts of XP for "adventuring on their own", but this shouldn't be the same amount the party members got. It's really dependent on how XP per level scales, though, usually the XP required for the next level increases exponentially, so the low level characters will quickly catch up when they join a high-level party. Another way to accomplish this is making the XP that is gained by an encounter dependent on level. (the more difficult the encounter, and the lower the character's level, the more XP he'll get) If the XP per level stays linear troughout the game, then the out-of-party characters are more dependent on getting bonus XP for just sitting around.

Maybe remove the hair and ears and add an extra trunk or three, and instead of a warrior make it a cipher... Oh wait... Seriously though, a single character of a vastly different race is a waste of resources, and for a whole race I'd hope for something more inventive than a human with an animal head, IMO, even a quadruple-wielding mantis-man (yes, Thri-Kreen) would be more interesting than a Samuphant. BTW: do we even know how the Orlans and Aumauna look like?

What has racism (or generally intolerance towards anyone who is different, be it color of skin, disablements or religion) to do with mature themes anyway? It's not like there is a shortage of it in T-rated media. Racism (specism?) between elves and dwarves is a standard fantasy trope, the only thing that can make them work together is their common racism vs. orcs. And racism because of different skin color and facial features is also commonplace. The FR even have it set in the rules: dark skinned elves and dwarves are evil. Always. Well, almost... Racism of the surface races vs. drow runs like a golden thread throughout the whole Drizzt saga, and it even goes the dangerous path to say that this racism is justified, and that the one dark skinned guy who is treated unjustly has to accept this, and has to work to show that he is better than the rest of his race.

That system doesn't really work in a story with one protagonist who is the player's only character. If I ask someone to leave and all others vote against me, I'm obviously the one who should (and would) leave. It also depends on the NPC's relation to my character, an impish childhood friend like Imoen could simply refuse being dumped and follow me anyway, while the guy I just picked up on the street might just shrug and go to the next tavern.

It's mature to accept those things as very real and then move on, it's something that can/should exist, but it's not something that needs to be displayed. It's okay when a man hires you to kill someone who had his way with his daughter, but I don't want to actually see the deed. The female caravan guard in FO:NV who lies on the road in powder ganger territory is a good example of mature presentation of mature content. It's obvious what happened to her, no need to show or describe it in any more detail. A good example of juvenile presentation of mature content is the NWN mod "A dance with rogues": A very excellent RP mod with a bit too much emphasis on describing and playing out each and any variety of mature themes.

Having just played trough BG1+2 with a thief a couple of weeks ago, I really don't see the issue any issue wirh stealth. Quite on the contrary, stealth is like an innate invisibility spell - run around a corner and hide and they stop chasing you. May be a bit harder in the wilderness, but stealth attacks in the wilderness aren't exactly the thief's terrain anyway but the ranger's. Also, taking you out of stealth for triggered dialogue, is a NWN feature. In BG you could avoid such triggers by increasing your stealth skill. But the issue you have isn't really about stealth but about perception, the skills/attributes that oppose stealth could also be used to determine the fog of war radius, of course this could apply to our opponents as well and with a high perception they could snipe us before we see them. Careful what you wish for.

Actually that's the rogue's role too. Be it the blushing ladies or their seething husbands. "Rogues have little in common with each other." So starts the character description, but at the end of the day they all end up as dual wielding tactical fighters. The original concept of backstab was dirty fighting techniques, I agree that this should be available to all classes that don't follow some code of honor, but then what's left for the rogue in combat? Computer-RPGs usually lack the spotlight periods when your character can showcase his skills, social interaction is even less flexible without a human DM directly controlling the NPCs, so the rogue was made a special kind of fighter that can also unlock doors and disarm traps.

The only reason I used multiplayer in BG was to create several PCs, otherwise I'm with NerdBoner here, not everyone I know needs to know / would understand the vast amount of time I invest in gaming, and those few that would understand don't play RPGs. I'm not against MP per se, but story, and story-presentation (e.g. dialogue window) will suffer in a multi-player game. Multiplayer is okay for a nice dungeon crawling session with little story, but dungeon crawlers with weak story aren't the type of game that is so rare nowadays that 70k people collect 4 millions to fund another one.

There is a difference between good reasoning for being evil, and just being evil because you're evil. Selling the slaves or killing the slavers, is okay, just a matter of greed vs. heroism. The biological warfare part is also fine, our ancestors used their catapults to hurl diseased bodies over a besieged city's wall, it's pragmatism vs. righteousness. Megaton was just silly, there is absolutely no reason for any even slightly sane character to do it. If there were a line of quests where you gain the enmity of Megaton and at the end have the choice to nuke the town, fine, but even the most evil villain won't destroy the only safe place within miles just because a random guy in a bar asked him to. Tenpenny tower is grey/grey, you can help murder a bunch of bigot humans, you can assassinate a bunch of bigot ghouls, you can be so stupid to actually believe that a truce between those groups will hold longer than a couple of days, or you can simply walk away. That's the kind of quest I like the most. Even if we take the gods into account, different faiths have different creeds, even if they are just variations of the same religion. This includes a karma system like in Fallout: the good-evil value just represents the reputation you would have with a neutral good deity, a god that appreciates law and order or an evil one might judge you quite differently

D&D has the subdual damage system, dealing nonlethal damage with a lethal weapon (or vice versa) is a "called attack" at -4 penalty. Nonlethal damage is accumulated and regenerates over time, when your nonlethal damage exceeds your current hitpoints you fall unconscious. In addition there is the HP dying mechanic where you are unconscious at 0 HP, and take damage every round until your wounds are treated, death comes at -10HP.

Actually it was Emperor Barbarossa of the HRE who released the first version of a beer purity law in the 12th century, the city state Weimar, and the duchey of Landshut followed with their own specific purity requirements in the 14th and 15th century. in the early 16th century it became a state law in the kingdom of Bavaria, You're insofar right, that the south german abbeys actually were the inventors of today's beer for their own use, supposedly some of them made a pilgrimage, carrying open barrels of beer to rome, and convinced the pope that this disgsting stale beverage is a proper drink for lenten season.

Well isn't that the point of stamina + health? You can beat someone into submission, without killing him outright. It's more an AI question: Will a fleeing or knocked out enemy attack you again as soon as he has recovered, or is there an option for surrender, and if there is, how are you going to handle your captives?

When the society is advanced enough to care about such things, illegal drugs are nice quest-hooks offerring plenty of opportunities for quests on either side in the smuggling / drug-related crimes scene. In a more archaic world, where every man is for himself, and crimes are only prosecuted by the victims (assuming they still are able to do so), it doesn't make much sense that there are "illegal" drugs. Without illegality, a "drug" is just a fancy named potion.

Most player-crafting systems not only sabotage the games economy (assuming it exists in the first place) by allowing you to make a quick buck by crafting and enchanting, but also practically force you to specialize some of your characters for crafting purposes, just to be able to get good equipment. The silliness becomes aparent when there are dedicated craftsmen that earn their living by crafting stuff but are novices compared to a dedicated adventurer. Most adventurers find legendary swords or are rewarded with custom-made enchanted armor. They usually are too busy slaying evil princesses and wooing pretty dragons, to sit down and do some crafting. There may be exceptions, yes, the smith or enchanter with wanderlust shouldn't become the rule, though, and they shouldn't be able to carry on their craft in the mid of a dungeon while besieged by hordes of monsters. If you have a dedicated smith in the party, you may visit the next city and ask the local smith if you can rent his workshop for a day: then you'd be able to craft the same items the local blacksmith would be able to make at cost price, but if an adventuring smith is better than a settled one, soon all smiths would be adventurers, just to be able to make the really good stuff.

I hope firearms aren't just bows with a different kind of ammo. The kind of Firearms we're talking about here had one big disadvantage: loading time. This is why musketeers fired in formations, while line 1 shot, line 2+3 reloaded their weapons. This is also why pirates, and other folks attacking with firearms in a man-vs-man scenario often carried several loaded guns and a melee wapon. Flintlock guns were fire and forget weapons, in close quarter combat there was no time to reload them. If guns are supposed to be devastating against all conventional and magical protection, they also ought to have the disadvantage of long reload times. You still could play a medieval Han Solo who shoots his overkill gun at that annoying Orlan in the bar, but gameplay-wise, a gunman wouldn't play like a marksman, but more like a fighter/mage who lets loose one devastating ranged attack before he enters melee.

I always prefered carrying my character(s) over to sequels. While I like to finish a story, I don't need to "max out" my character. This is something the industry has forgotten, today most "RPGs" just aim at maxing out a character, the target audience even seems to be demanding it, a game that doesn't allow you to gain at least 30-40 levels is not worth playing. When there isn't enough story to max out your character you get some pointless grinding levels with silly groups of high-level opponents where you can quickly gain a level or ten before the endgame. (Yes, NWN2. I'm also pointing at you here.) A sequel then either features all-new characters, completely overhauls the character system and makes your previous accomplishments irrelevant, or is an epic campaign, where you jump from one legendary place to the other to find suitable opposition. I for one prefer the old-school approach like in the old SSI games, Bard's Tale, Realms of Arkania, and "lately" Baldur's Gate: 2-4 games with an increasing level span, where you could play each game individually with new characters or bring your old characters to the next chapter of a truly epic story.

Well, disintegration means no resurection anyway. Anyway, not a fan of "save or else" spells. Rewarding Player stupidity (like attacking the king in his throne room, provoking the guy who holds a crossbow to your head, or simply deciding to plunge into that bottomless pit) with insta-death is okay every once in a while. When it isn't overdone, it's a better consequence for stupid choices than locking the door and spawning endless waves of avengers, but it should be story / dialogue related, not the random effect caused by a random spell cast in a random encounter.

http://en.wikipedia....)#Effectiveness Mail armour provided an effective defence against slashing blows by an edged weapon and penetration by thrusting and piercing weapons; in fact a study conducted at the Royal Armouries at Leeds concluded that "it is almost impossible to penetrate using any conventional medieval weapon" The most effective weapon in the medieval age was not the sword but the mace and hammer, when full plate protected the limbs against blunt blows, they simply added a spike to their hammer, getting the best out of both worlds. But yes, full plate was obviously much more expensive, as it required a skilled craftsman to create a custom suit that has the joints at exactly the right places. full plate also wasn't just a sheet of shaped metal, but consisted of many layers. Chainmail could be made by everyone, just give them a mold and a "knitting recipe", once it's done, anyone can slip into that metal shirt .

Mail armor (mesh of metal rings) was used by the celts since 300 BC and was still used in the late 19th century (early bulletproof vests). Actually it still is in use in form of cut-proof gloves for butchers. Half plate was used in ancient Greece around 800 BC and was still in use in WW I. Full Plate armor was used from 1300 to 1700, until the gun made it obsolete. Combinations of normal cloth or leather armor with steel plates was in use for even longer and is still in use (flak vests).