kahoshi

So now the argument is "I want to make my game suck, you shouldn't prevent me from abusing your game and should instead make a game you don't like just so I can kill eveyrthing!" Sound logic.

I like completing a mission through stealth kills. Get in, leave behind a dungeon devoid of life, and not one enemy knew they were about to die.

Say what you will about the TES leveling system, it does exactly what it should in terms of roleplaying. I go around in my character doing quests, killing everything that might try and kill me and getting loot. Then I go into town and don't kill the people there because A) no exp and B) loot isn't worth it. I don't want to be a mass murderer this character only kills those who need to die. There is no reward for killing people I wouldn't want to kill anyway, but I still benefit from killing while questing.

simple =/= better

If I might be so bold as to offer an idea, rather than tying every cool monster kill to a quest have the monsters just be there. The player wanders upon them and decides to kill them, maybe it doesn't give XP explicitly (since that seems what you are trying to avoid), but instead you take the monster's head or whatever and THAT starts a quest to take the head to an NPC for a reward of exp and whatever else. Go even further, have the NPC offering the quest, but if the player isn't on the quest because they hadn't met the quest giver yet THEN the monster drops the item to start the quest. Also needs to be some sort of punishment for killing innocent people, especially after completing a quest for them, without ruining the possibility of playing an evil character.

I imagine the talk about expert mode death is like Diablo 3 hardcore mode, if your character dies then he/she is dead forever and you need to reroll.

Had to create an account just to respond to this one. Glad to see the coverage of necromancy, and I appreciate that it is the broader stance that allows for both the good and evil aspects. Far to many people focus just on the "evil" of necromancy. THey ignore that the original term for necromancy was uding the dead to divine the future, something usually not considered evil. Then there are the ones that steal bodies, raise the dead, trap souls, and whatever else all to gain power. I know its to late for such a thing to make it into the main game, but if an expansion had a necromancer class it would be awesome. Such classes are usually my favorite, to the point I made my own for D&D. Thanks for the good work!