Gallenger

I vastly prefer turn based - hopefully they will give us the option of setting round end auto pauses so that it's basically turn based.

Well when you talk about weapon types you have to strike a balance somehow, since including too many weapon types just makes certain weapons redundant *or* makes certain weapon types completely useless. I'd be for a large variety of weapons and especially damage types (crushing, piercing, etc essentially core D&D weapons). Swords: big swords, medium swords, little swords, and wonky swords (bastard/double bladed) Axes (lower krit range - but more krit damage): big, medium, little, wonky. and etc etc.

I actually developed a complicated system for ammo storage in BG1 that made me not have to mess around with it all that much. Ideally, though we won't have to do that in PE. I'm not overly concerned with realism in this case - just have an ammo box in the UI which weapons draw out of (or just float them in the main inventory a la fallout 1-2).

I hadn't realized how much I missed watching the updates great stuff. I worry that the scope of the project and huge amount of expectations (we did give 4 million on a promise that they'd recapture something we haven't had in a while) don't wear them down too badly! Best of luck couldn't have asked for a better bunch to give this thing a go.

Step one. Decide you've had quite enough of this "sleeping" nonsense. Step 2. Buy a 38 pack of some nasty/cheap beer (unless you're rich) Step 3. Buy some snacks that are enjoyable Step 4. Watch Adam's iwd 2 playthrough start to finish (maybe add the D&D game if I'm still conscious). This shall be done.

I always just imagine that I've hired a scribe to record my every deed and compile every bit of lore I learn in a huge epic novelization of my adventure so that we can cash in - assuming we can survive. In all seriousness, the journal mechanic serves to help the player keep things straight. I would totally be in favor of allowing me to choose which things get put into the journal, and a system within the UI to allow me to organize said data however I want. Furthermore, it'd be really nice if I could write my own entries and organize them as I wished. It'd be really handy to write down notes in-game as to where a character is exactly and things like that or attach notes to markers I've put on the map, etc. But it'd be really difficult to play the game without the journal - take a 2 week break from playing, be utterly hopeless it needs to be loaded up with stuff with convenient markers.

Guns are fine - and they can easily make a progression that balances them while not being absurd or limiting folks from playing with other weapons. They'll be an option just like anything else if done right and that'd be good fun. As for their history in game, well you can't really draw much from the real world - since there are elves, dwarves, and magic. Who knows maybe some mage was doing alchemical experiements and accidently discovered gunpowder and started blowing things up. Or maybe the dwarves have a special penchant for guns since they're always mining and would need something hefty to clear all that stone and so it'd come naturally. Even in human history development occurs unevenly. Just look at modern societies that have satillite tv, but no in door plumbing, etc.

USA - Ft Wayne, Indiana We've got a surprisingly strong RP culture here - probably because there's nothing to do but watch corn grow all day.

Some quests being repeatable makes sense. People have already talked about caravan duty in Fallout if you had time to kill. Or you could talk about the brawling/racing type stuff from KOTOR 1-2 where you dueled people in various cities or raced them - or like the Witcher 1 did it. Something like Pazaak or the dice game from the witcher would be really cool to have too. Those things I'm totally ok with and they can make fun little side quests for people who are into that sort of thing - and if they're a terrible bore, well, you don't have to do them. I would say no to grindable fed ex quests though - this isn't going to be an MMO or a Bethesda game with unholy ****tons of poorly fleshed out content that simply encourage the player to grind whenever they can to pad out the game play time.

I'll throw my two cents in. I think what I like most about BG and why I always come back to it is the atmosphere. The story is fairly generic and isn't consistently engaging. However, the art style, the music, the encounters, the "stuff" that you experience when playing the game is just excellent. It lost a bit of that for me in BG2, but BG2 was such a sexed up version of BG1 I was willing to let that loss of that special intangible something go. PsT is probably my favorite of the bunch simple because the story is so engaging and the NPC interactions, at the time, were awesome (and are still pretty fun ) IWD had a nice atmosphere, but in the end it's only a hack and slash game. I really wanted to beat IWD and IWD2, but I always just put it down and never finish. Fallout 1-2 are masterpieces which I bring up here because of Tim Cain et al's involvement in eternity. These are masterpieces despite their not having aged well (Fallout 1 is full of windows 95isms). They had an engaging story, nice atmosphere, etc. Despite my love of the above titles I've probably replayed these the most - I'm a sucker for things with Tim Cain's name on them. I loved Arcanum too - which is a game more people should play just be sure to do it in turn based mode I was involved in the ALFA project for NWN and it was pretty dang sweet (although I didn't care for the sp-campaign). I didn't get the chance to pick up NWN2 KOTOR 1-2 are fun games, although a bit stereotyped, and KOTOR 1 was pretty buggy in its day lol. I really came to love KOTOR 2 though because it was the first game where playing an evil character came naturally and was extremely rewarding. DA:O was one of those games I thought I should have loved, and I played it through several times to find a way to like it - but it just never stuck. At the end of the day I couldn't help but feel the story should have gone in a much different direction. It had potential, and then said potential just evaporates. ME1-2 were solid games. ME was a great game with bunches of needless tedium added in to pad out the game and that's pretty unfortunate. ME2 had an engaging story and the NPC development was solid (though a bit melodramatic and over-simplified) but my standards were dragged down by previous titles lol. So many years separate ME2 and PsT or the BGs. Me3 and DA:II resulted in me writing a lot of hate mail to bioware. Me 3 was garbage right from the start - shepard ought to be arrested for stalking with all the eaves he's dropping. DA:II had no redeeming qualities whatsoever - they even managed to make the game look worse than the previous DA title. Despite my love for the people working at obsidian, I absolutely despise Bethesda's games, and I've always been really nervous about spending money on New Vegas - maybe i'll get bored over the next 2 years or somebody will convince me that it's all ok lol. I also give Pool of Radience (the remake) an honorable mention for being awful - because I never got to play it. I was one of the lucky folks who bought a copy that was bugged and copied itself over my windows .ini files - thus forcing me to reformat .

I wouldn't mind the portraits being like they were in KOTOR or Planescape - because you can impliment subtle visual changes - if they intend for you to be able to influence your character and their alignment etc. Otherwise, I'm a sucker for those old BG/IWD drawings.

As soon as I heard that they were making Paladins of the nonreligious sort, I absolutely freaked. These are by far my favorite types of characters to play if they're implimented right (harsh world-view against non-abiding world).

Yeah just shove quest necessary items that don't have any value other than being part of a quest line to a special segment of the inventory where weight doesn't exist, problem solved. It'd take a lot of keys and notes placed into a bag to hinder somebody who is used to hauling their home on their back anyhow.

8 is fine - especially because you can suppliment with AH mercs. Just look at the content attached to the BG1 companions, as compared to PS:T or the NPC content in KOTOR2 (in most cases). If they have a lot of attached story dialogue, etc, I will be absolutely thrilled. Hell I'm thrilled that they're going back to the bigger party model to begin with instead of the 3-4 model.

Because of the nature of the isometric camera, it will be hard to surpass the lows hit by the ME series (particularly ME3). Perhaps if they went with a journal that added pictures they could keep things reasonable - I know things got a little strange in Torment... But for every Annah or high town prostitute there were also zombies and the lady of pain lol. I'm fine with some skin on some characters - and I'm sure if folks have done modelling in the old days, they know it was actually easier to give women huge boobs than make small ones that looked right. Some sexiness is fine, it's a video game, but I don't need or want robot camel toe or repeated close ups of a character's haunches.

Thanks for the steady streams of updates and all the cool stuff that happened along the way. Hopefully the Launch party can be live streamed too. This is the first game I've preordered (so to speak) since the glory days of NWN's trailor appearing on BG2 (or was it IWD?). I haven't been this excited about a game in almost a decade - or maybe ever.

Best of luck guys and thanks for the stream yesterday it was amazing - just like this game will be. It's going to be awesome to see a 4 mil. game dominate its AAA competition.

The easiest way to manage it is having a paper doll for equiped items - I think that's pretty well a standard thing. Regular slots are also still fairly normal for games which isn't so hard, just account for weight, and have a separate space in the inventory for secondary items (much like the alchemist bag in the Witcher, scroll cases in BG 2 etc). It's not something that's particularly worrisome. With the player having a house and other resources (hell anybody else stash things in Inn rooms in BG1? lol) it's not so bad - especially if they give us pack animals or early access to a base type area. The main thing is just not to try and get freaky with the inventory system and end up with something that's really overburdened and confusing (like Mass Effect 1).