Jarrakul

What I'd actually like to see, rather than a totally random point allocation algorithm, is a method that applies small random modifiers (possibly guaranteed net-0, possibly not) to the stats after you allocate them (or even before, or partway through or something). That, to me, would seem to reflect real life the best. You can choose what you're trying to be, and that has a big influence, but equal effort will not yield equal results for everything. If I exercise just as much as another person, that other person might still end up stronger than me, but I can still choose to exercise and make myself stronger to some extent. I think such a system would be cool.

Oldschool D&D has a lot of talk of bearded female dwarves. Also very few visual depictions of them. As media have become more visual, female dwarves have tended to lose their beards, presumably because bearded women aren't conventionally sexy. Again, I don't really care one way or the other, but it does bother me that people tend to go "ew, gross, that shouldn't be in the game." Sometimes biology is gross. Somethings other species aren't conventionally attractive. I fail to see the problem. But, again, this isn't actually a big deal. It looks like Eternity's dwarf women probably don't have beards, and I have no problem with that.

First off, W.MacKinnon, I certainly don't think you're trolling. I don't agree with you, but your arguments are reasonable and worthy of respect. As far as I'm concerned, keep it up. Now, regarding DA2, my point isn't that it's a flawless game (although it's no coincidence that I seem to jump to its defense more often than most folks on these forums). My point is that the DLC doesn't substantially affect its flaws (except the preorder stuff, which as I noted leaves a bad taste in my mouth), so I don't think the "cut content for later DLC" argument applies. The costume packs, for example, add customization options to the main character, but main character customization wasn't especially lacking. Nonek, I disagree with all three of your examples. I played DA1, DA2, and ME2 through at least twice each, and in all cases I had no DLC at all for the first playthrough (except, once more, the preorder stuff for DA2, but again I'm not defending that) and eventually had all (or nearly all) the DLC for one or more later playthroughs. While the DLC certainly added content, I never felt any of those games to be incomplete without the DLC. Even Soldier's Peak, which I have serious issues with, was not integral to DA1's plot, characters, or mechanical progression. That said, I certainly don't agree that DLC is always good. It isn't. But I don't think the "cut content" thing is uniquely a problem of DLC as opposed to regular expansions, nor do I think DLC seems to lead strongly to lack of mod support (precious few games have mod support anyway, but the great flagships of mod support, the Elder Scrolls games and the latest two Fallout games, also have DLC and seem to do just fine). It is, of course, difficult to prove anything causal about market behaviors, but I just don't buy the argument that DLC, as a system, is causing very many (if any) of the problems that tend to plague modern games.

So, that stretch goal doesn't mean anything specific, really. Or anything at all. But it does communicate the idea that sometimes added features aren't the way to go. Sometimes you just need more money to, well, make the game generally better. The specific stretch goal isn't meaningful in and of itself, but it does serve as a reminded that money doesn't have to go into additional features, and that some of it probably shouldn't.

So, what you're saying is, platemail bikinis actually make sense? I kid, of course. but that does come disturbingly close.

Yeah, I'm definitely hoping we don't see a return of tiny corridors (bg1 was a bigger offender than bg2 in that regard, so hopefully the trend continues) and awful pathfinding. for most of us, those are not the parts we remember fondly.

Um, Dragon Age 2 has mods. I mean, it's not Skyrim, but it definitely has them. I've even done some slight modding myself (as complicated as I've done in anything, really). Adding Elder Scrolls-style full-blown mod support is difficult and expensive. There are very good reasons not to add it other than "we want you to buy our DLCs." And, while we're on the subject, DA2 had at least as much armor variety as the old IE games (at least for the main character, and the item packs only gave armor for the main character), so I don't really see that point either. For that matter, I don't understand how you say it lacks sidequests. It lacks areas, no doubt, but I certainly never felt like there weren't enough sidequests to do. For that matter, its "sidequest" DLCs are two of the most substantial DLCs I've played, both adding a number of hours of content, some entirely new gameplay, and some very interesting additions to the lore, which is exactly what I'd want DLC to add. Now, the whole thing with Sebastian being preorder bonus/day-one DLC instead of just a release character is totally worth criticizing. Actually, a lot about how they did preorder bonuses is worth criticizing ("want to respec your character? well did you preorder? no? then too bad."). But when you accuse the game of being otherwise incomplete in order to encourage people to buy DLCs, I just don't see it. There was a lot wrong with DA2, but there's not a lot of correlation between the base game's flaws and what the DLCs add.

That is a fair point, Fluff. Although women with beards are far from unheard of in the real world, I don't know of any ethnicities that tend strongly towards it. But, as you note, I think the core of the argument survives. Sometimes fantasy races aren't like humans. Also, and this is sort of tangential, I have never seen a setting where dwarf women naturally grow beards but sometimes they shave. I find that somewhat curious.

Only to people who feel that every female character needs to be sexually attractive. I'm rather ambivalent on the issue of beards on dwarf women, but I hardly see why it's any weirder than elf men not being able to grow beards. Than again, my opinions have been known to be rather strange.

Great to hear you guys take this stuff seriously. Speaking for myself, I never seriously doubted you because I never doubted Obsidian's judgment, but it's great to hear nonetheless.

I've played female dwarves multiple times. My DA1 character in particular was an exiled dwarf princess, and was pretty freaking awesome. But yeah, they're totally underrepresented.

I'm not sure it makes one a child to strongly dislike sandbox RPGs and MMOs. Now, I'll admit, Hassat's response could probably have been more mature, but I'm not unsympathetic myself. Sandbox RPGs are fine, to my mind. Obsidian did well with New Vegas, I'd trust them to do another one if that's where they wanted to go. MMOs, on the other hand, kill companies. They're really big, really expensive, and almost all of them fail pretty quickly, leading to company collapse. The few that succeed make so much money that they come to define the company, or at least the IP, basically destroying it for anyone who doesn't want to play the MMO (yes, I am bitter about the lack of Warcraft 4, why do you ask?). So I can see what Hassat would be upset at the suggestion, even if I think his response could have been more "this is why I think you're wrong" and less "I hate you."

Make no mistake, I don't really advocate the Shield of Balduran as a game design choice either. But as cheesy as it is, it's very clearly working as intended. I'm pretty sure the summons aren't. Hence, while I'll call them both cheese (which, imo, should be removed whenever possible), only the summoning one is an actual exploit. Also, summoning to kill beholders definitely requires either luck (you cast summons for normal reasons and then noticed beholders didn't eye-ray them) or prior knowledge of something totally unintuitive (you go in there knowing that beholders don't eye-ray summons, even though nothing in the game tells you that and it doesn't make sense). Which, if no more natural options are presented, does meet the definition I've put forth for sucker-punchery.

I dunno what mods you're playing with, but that's not true in the base game. Karoug can only be hurt by the silver dagger, the Sword of Balduran, the Flame Brand, and I think the bastard sword +1/+3 vs. shapechangers. It's possible there's one or two more, but I can't think of them. And spells, which admittedly is a big category. See, when you say things like this, I question how well you remember that part of the game. The boss beholder was one of the two in that first room. There was another one in the dungeon, but the one that dropped the eye was at the very start. You don't sneak past anything. And I'll admit I'm not 100% certain, but I think I remember him casting True Seeing if you try to sneak past him. As for summons, I'll admit that I forgot about that. Of course, it only works because beholders won't use their eye rays on summons for no apparent reason, which seems like a pretty clear exploit to me. But hey, fight unfairness with unfairness if you want. Just don't design games that way.

Mask of the Betrayer was Planescape: Torment reskinned and set in Princess Mononoke. You think I'm kidding, I'm sure, but it really is. And I enjoyed it immensely. Anyway, I'd prefer an expansion to add content after the main game, just so that I can play it with my original PC even though I'll finish the base game long before the expansion comes out. Something like Throne of Bhaal, Heart of Winter, Dragon Age: Awakening, or Mask of the Betrayer would be perfect.

Speaking of someone who's had a LOT of experience with Baldur's Gate, and has no significant problem beating anything the game can throw at me... yeah, that first room of the beholder lair is blatantly unfair, and the only reliable way to beat it is to be blatantly unfair back. That's kind of the whole shtick with beholders, really, but that first room with an elder orb and another beholder right after a party-required area transition is just pointlessly mean. After all, normally you'd just send one party member in with the Shield of Balduran or something, but here you have to know the battle is coming (and even if you know that area has beholders, you don't know that you're going to be transported right next to two of them with no warning) and prepare accordingly with Protection from Magic scrolls and similar. And even most preparations don't work very well, because of the beholders' anti-magic ray. To be totally honest, if I were doing a hardcore playthrough, I wouldn't set foot in there. The rest of the dungeon is fine, with proper preparation (although the fact that "proper preparation" requires buying an item in the chapter before and can't be accessed from the Underdark makes it quite the sucker-punch anyway), but that first room is just stupid. And as for mind flayers being worse than beholders... mind flayers don't dispel the millions of effects that make you immune to their crowd control. Beholders do. To counter them, you really need either the Shield of Balduran (which isn't available from the Underdark) or the Cloak of Mirroring (which is a missable drop in an area that you can easily skip accidentally). Yes, if you have either of those items, you can mop up, but if you don't, or if your whole party is forced into the fight at once for reasons that don't actually make sense, you're pretty much at the mercy of luck.

Yeah, I get that. Honestly, I know exactly what people mean. It just bothers me to see all DLC being painted with that brush. I've been as angry about specific DLC as anyone out there, but I've also played DLCs that I thought were really good and worth every penny. Borderlands (1 & 2) has a great track record, for example, with some really fun and frequently hilarious extra content that takes real time and effort to get through. Dragon Age 2, for all people like to hate on it, had two awesome DLCs that added significantly to the game. The New Vegas DLCs were no slouches either, although their precise quality varied from uneven (Honest Hearts) to excellent (Old World Blues). None of them were as big as a (good) full expansion, but they were also cheaper, so that seems fair. So, given that there've been a number of DLCs that I really enjoyed, I don't really like it when people talk about DLCs being bad. Maybe that's just me being pedantic, but it feels important.

Lephys, I could kiss you right now. This is a point I've been trying to make to a number of people for years now. Yes, there's bad DLC out there, but it has nothing to do with it being DLC and everything to do with the content just being bad. Expansion packs are sometimes bad. Base games are sometimes bad. Yes, DLC is sometimes bad. But somehow people just seem to remember the freaking horse armor and assume that all DLC is equally inane. However, I do agree that we shouldn't have a chunk carved out of the plot for the expansion. That's not a DLC-specific problem, but it is bad.

You have just succinctly summed up my position on more mechanics than I can readily count. Bravo.

I actually think the dragon thing is fine, so long as dragons aren't immune to wide varieties of things that aren't immediately obvious. Say, for example, that only piercing weapons can hurt dragons. Other weapons and spells are useless. Then it's a pretty big problem if you're forced into a fight with one without any warning, because you didn't know you had to pack piercing weapons, and you still don't until you try everything else and find out it doesn't work (and it's the same if you knew there was a dragon, but had no way of knowing it was randomly immune to 3/4ths of attacks). Immunities to a few things that aren't obvious is fine, and immunity to things that are obvious is also fine (I mean really, fireballing a dragon is only one step less dumb than fireballing a fire elemental, at least if you've established that the dragon breathes fire), but when immunities are broad and unintuitive, there needs to be some way of figuring it out other than trial and error.

Ah, a youngin'! Nah, I'm kidding. I'm only 24 myself. The difference is, of course, that I was playing through BG and IWD at age 9. I mean, I was awful at them, but I enjoyed them immensely. So while I don't think I'm supporting this out of nostalgia, I'll admit that I can't rule it out.

I wonder if it's nostalgia, or just being a fan of genres that have practically disappeared. Of course you could argue that those are both the same thing, but to me it seems like there's a pretty important difference.

Agreed. I'd love to see multiple types of "equivalent" armors, even if their stats are totally identical (I have an inordinate love of purely cosmetic choices). I do understand this would take a decent bit of extra artist time for relatively little benefit, though, so I don't really expect to see it.

From a conceptual standpoint, your traditional inventory is stuff like your belt pouches, sheaths, and other readily available things. Your stash is your pack, which can store stuff but you're not going to be digging through it in the middle of a fight. Now, I'll be the first to admit there are some holes in this reasoning, but I like the idea well enough for gameplay purposes that I'm willing to ignore them. To each his/her own, though.

Obviously things like combat quality are subjective, but I liked Torment's combat well enough. At least once you really started getting a party together. The beginning could be pretty rough for lack of tactical options. As for the content being locked behind int/wis gates, my first Nameless One was a fighter and had low-to-mediocre values in both those areas. And you know what? I still loved the story, still enjoyed poking around. Even though I was missing things, the stuff I wasn't missing was still pretty amazing. Interestingly, Karkarov, my opinion of DA2 is almost the exact opposite of yours (which may be related to my differing opinion of PS:T also). I think the combat and early-game plot is quite weak, but I think the game makes up for it with the later plot and the characters. It might be blasphemy to say on these boards, but I actually really like DA2, specifically because it's willing to use player agency to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that one person is not enough to save the city. In a gaming climate that almost universally equates agency with some sort of crazy power fantasy, this was a freaking breath of fresh air.