GrinningReaper659

And just thought "Wait what?"... give me a moment. Well, not me necessarily but those disagreeing with you on this thread, I included myself... "You're talking to me as if I don't know how to roleplay a character... I prefer to roleplay a story, rather than an individual character." -Osvir

So, you accuse me of incorrectly telling you that you misunderstand roleplaying, and then immediately say that you'd rather play the role of a story than a character, so I feel compelled to further explain what I believe is a misconception on your part. Roleplaying is playing a role in a story. The story itself is not a role in a story, it is the story. Your "now that's roleplaying folks" example of creating a character to RP that follows the Bhaalspawn around in BG, well, that is roleplaying technically, although you certainly weren't playing a roleplaying game correctly. That would be as if I rejected whatever setting and background was provided by my DM in a PnP roleplaying game and explained to him that I would be ignoring him and walking around as a character that existed within his story but not within his decisions for my character... so yes technically roleplaying but in the loosest definition, and not really playing the game at that point. Roleplaying presupposes an individual perspective. You can not aptly play the role of multiple individuals and simultaneously feel as immersed in those roles as you would be in an individual role, which is a limitation due to the fact that we think as individuals. Inanimate objects, such as a rock or some dirt, can certainly have a role in a story; however, as a rock or a bit of dirt can not have a will of their own, that role can not be played. If you decided to animate a rock as an intelligent talking rock then, at that point, it could have a role that could be played. A god that has a high level of control over a story can be roleplayed, but not a story itself. In order for anything to be roleplayed, it has to have an individual consciousness/awareness and it has to be a part of a story. A story itself does not meet these criteria. Multiple people can be roleplayed in a single story, but it will invariably take away from the immersion/roleplaying experience as you do not have an individual role to play. I suggest that you have not been RPing "correctly" to this point, the way you discuss motivations is always as if you are viewing your character from afar and controlling him as one would a puppet instead of attempting to truly occupy his position in the story. I already explained my views on your questions regarding why the story shouldn't go on when the main character dies. It does. It's an important part of roleplaying immersion, though, that your part in it does not. If you were to die today, the story of those you know and the world around you would go on, but you wouldn't be around to see it or be a part of it. These games are intended to simulate an individual perspective, such as the one that we possess in reality, and I'm pretty sure that most RPers prefer this, I know I do. As to your suggestions that you are simply tired of worn out, cliched story and gameplay ideas ("disgust for generic plots"), that's understandable. I'm not a huge fan of the "chosen one" archetype, I much prefer a game where I start out as a nobody and define myself through my actions. The typical "save the world" story isn't necessary, there are many deep ways to motivate a character to achieve something besides "the world will end if you don't" or even "you will die if you don't." These two just get the most play because people seem to like grandiose (world-ending) and direct (survival) motivations. None of these things being changed, however, would make it necessary for or even allow it to make sense for the player to assume the roles of multiple characters, especially without an RP reason as for why (and I fear that any such explanation would simply be a tool to employ this multi-role idea). That being said, I think that you have some cool, creative ideas for a different style of game altogether. I wouldn't mind trying out such a game, but inserting these ideas into PE is out of the question, there would be a large majority of fans (and backers) upset by a change like this in the style of play. Like I said, it's an interesting idea, but it's as different from BG and PS:T as was Icewind dale, and the team advertised PE as taking "the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment." So, a central hero/protagonist as was in BG, and the combat and dungeon diving from IWD. Seems pretty clear as to what style of game was implied by this statement.

That "one character" is supposed to be you... It seems that you guys just don't want to play games where you're playing the role of an individual. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's an entirely different sort of game when you see a mass of replaceable characters being controlled by the player vs. the player assuming the role of an individual. There's nothing illogical about the game ending when the main character dies, that is the end of your (the player's) story. It doesn't mean that the quest that you and your party were on has ended, just that your life has. That being said, I agree that random insta-death mechanics are often pretty lame and are not tactically challenging, so I'd agree with doing away with them in most cases. However, doing away with playing a single character that causes the game to end upon death is not something I'm okay with, it changes the entire nature of the game.

It really has nothing to do with this, "I have to protect this character" shouldn't be the mindset, it should be "I have to protect myself and my companions." You're simply not grasping the concept of playing the role of a character. Of course, if you were to permanently die, your companions may go on without you to accomplish your shared goals (depending on their motivations), but you wouldn't be around to see it, that's the point. You are playing the role of your character, so if they die, the story is over for you, not for the world or your companions. It has nothing to do with prioritizing yourself over the world or any other ego-related nonsense, it's about perspective and roleplaying. You are an individual, and in games such as these (BG, PS:T, etc.) you are playing the role of an individual.

"Because he isn't the main character" is common sense... You say that roleplaying the entire party is part of the story, but I disagree. The purpose of a game like this is to play the role of a single character. The control that you get over the other party members is a necessity due to the desire to have involving tactical combat, which requires a high degree of control due in part to AI limitations and in part because there's no real way (at the moment) to simulate tactical control of 5 others in combat as well as is allowed by simply controlling their actions directly. Minimizing the importance of the main character to the extent that you suggest means that there might as well not be a main character, as you're playing a constantly shifting role(s) of those currently in the party.

I agree with the tendency for such things to turn games into stat-checking sims. But, isn't it part of the role-playing experience to allow a player to role-play a witless barbarian terrorizing the lands if he/she sees fit? I agree that the game should be challenging and involve player involvement, but that pretty much means two things: first, that your character's mental stats can't exceed your actual mental stats; second, that the game enforces this with limiting the available options due to mental stats. In other words, if you do roll a character with higher mental stats than you actually possess, then you're not going to be able to get the full benefit of it because the game requires you to prove your mental mettle (the mental challenge that you mentioned). These are apparent in the case of type-the-answer riddles, where even a character with max INT won't be able to get it right due to the player getting it wrong. On another note, multiple choice answers for a high INT character would at least include the correct answer, giving the character an increased chance of getting it right compared to a low INT character, while still challenging the player. The idea is that you're supposed to be playing a certain role, so character creation is an implementation of the honor system in the sense that your mental stats should reflect either your actual mental stats or the extent to which you plan to intentionally hold them back when playing your character. The game can't make you smarter than you are, and it can't make you less intelligent than you are (unless it actually stops you from giving the right answers). The game attempting to make you smarter seems like a problem to me, and brings about the stat-checking sim scenario you mentioned, as in order for this to work the game would have to supplement your intelligence and effectively play the game for you. I like the idea of the game stopping you from giving the right answers when appropriate. I think that if you want to make use of your RL intelligence in-game, then you should have to put points into intelligence (or intelligence just shouldn't even be a stat). In other words, the game should limit how much you can apply your intelligence based on your stat scores, and if this doesn't happen then the system is failing. A barbarian with 3 INT and 3 WIS should not be able to defeat the sphynx's riddle simply because the person behind the keyboard can. This doesn't mean that type-the-answer riddles can't exist, but I think that when the player types an answer to a riddle with that barbarian (let's say he types "42," which happens to be the correct answer), the barbarian should say to the riddle-giver: "33," or "2," or "monkey." He's a barbarian that the player has chosen to bestow with 3 INT and 3 WIS, and that should be reflected in the game. In the case of multiple choice riddles, with a low enough INT and WIS, the right answer just shouldn't be there. Obviously these riddles shouldn't be required to be answered to get through the game (or, if they were, I'm sure your barbarian can find some appropriately violent way to deal with the riddle-giver and move on). I do like the idea of doing away with the mental stats, but it seems like it would be very difficult to implement given the number of things that these stats effect.

No tutorial or, at most, an optional tutorial available through the game menu.

I liked the story you presented, as something that would bring a refreshing amount of depth to some town, though I'm not sure exactly what you mean by referring to it as a random encounter, as it seems that it would be best as something that is simply present in the game (which may be what you meant, just something that doesn't necessarily advance the main plot or reward the character). I'm in support of things like that, and of some actual random encounters such as were present in the Fallout games, as long as they're not too prevalent, which can lead to them feeling like a nuisance. As someone mentioned, many would end up wanting to be able to avoid them, which I think is a good reason to keep them appropriately scarce and to consider that they don't have to be experiences that don't advance your character(s) in some way, though some could be.

I think that idealy there could be a system that combined objective-completion xp and some sort of diminishing task-oriented xp, which could decrease depending on the number of times you've done a particular task, such as killing a goblin or picking a lock, while still attempting to not imbalance the xp in favor of or against a particular playstyle, such as all combat. However, as I'm certainly in no position to make such a system, I'm very much looking forward to the objective-completion xp system they're building, I'm sure they'll do it well and am excited to see how it plays out.

I generally used the auto-pause only for trap detection, as traps were often detecting as you were walking onto them, setting them off. Apart from that I used manual pausing pretty often.

I am, as a few others seems to be, against the implementation of player crafting. It almost always ends up trivializing powerful items and is also generally a tedious, unnecessary mess. I completely support there being blacksmiths, etc. in the game world with limited crafting potential, as in BG2 where there are parts of epic, unique magic items spread throughout the game which can be forged together for a price if all the components of an item are collected. To me, there is no sense in an adventuring party also being a party of expert craftsmen; it suggests that the skill required to create these incredibly powerful items is something which can be learned in the spare time of a party of adventurers that are (more often than not) in the process of saving the world from some impending doom. Also, in the case of crafting generic (non unique) items, having random materials (types of wood, metal, etc.) scattered throughout the world that must be collected by the adventuring party also seems absurd, even if you're taking it to an npc craftsmen to put together items which are enchanted in minor ways (slightly better shields, +1 swords, etc.), you have essentially taken up a side job of collecting scrap metal to be taken in and put together by the nearest craftsmen so that he can build for you something which he should already have the materials to build; in other words, in-game jobs such as collecting wood for use in making non-unique shields should be behind the scenes, not the burden of the party. I'm sure that there are exceptions that could fit into the story, such as a specific quest to get materials for a specific merchant whose stockpile of said materials has been stolen, so he's unable to sell you anything until you help him out. Just to be clear, I think there are some games in which player crafting makes perfect sense. Well, maybe not player crafting, but certainly player repairing. Good examples of this would be post-apocalyptic games where you are using technology that isn't being produced anymore, like firearms. A lone adventurer out in the wasteland would very likely need a way to repair his weapons if it came down to it, it's an aspect of survival in these games if they choose to incorporate weapon degredation. An argument could be made that they just shouldn't include it, but I do think it has its place when not overdone. I don't see this idea applying to a fantasy world as much, as most of the items produced by crafting can also be readily bought in most stores in a number of cities, it just seems superfluous to me. Those are my thoughts on the subject anyway, I'm sure however they end up handling it in PE will be acceptable at worst.

I'm sort of torn on this. I understand that it can be a bit immersion breaking to have the "[...]" cues, but it can be even more immersion breaking to be sitting there, trying to infer the same information by scrutinizing the wording of the writers. First, you have to determine which is for which based on the intentions of the writers, and then you end up using the information in the same way you would if it had been clearly displayed for you, just with a larger margin of error. It's not always simple to understand which option is for intelligence vs. which is for charisma, etc. (sometimes a response can incorporate many of these core character statistics in some way, although the writer intends it to only represent one). I think it can be much less troublesome to just have the cues there but, if it's given to me as an option (which I'm assuming it won't since I'll most likely be playing on expert), then I'll probably end up turning the cues off, simply as an aesthetic choice (and because I don't really mind the aforementioned issues, though others may).

Yeah, I'm sure they'll figure out something intuitive for this, but I'll voice my support as well. I don't really mind having to scroll up as I did in BG for example, but I suppose that something like Frenetic Pony mentioned could be useful, a simple way to temporarily hide the combat or dialogue text so as to quickly find what you're looking for.

Whether or not the enchantments are clearly seen in the use of an item is largely dependent on the types of enchantments that end up being common. Weapons that enable the wielder to cast some spell x times per day, or almost all activated effects of magical artifacts, wouldn't just be discovered, especially if, as some are suggesting, there's no way to tell if an item is even magical or not by looking at it. Some of the ideas presented have been interesting, but most of them just seem that they'll end up making the entire process more tedious. So, as far as identificaion goes, my vote is to keep it as simple as it was back in the day or simplify it more, I wouldn't be happy to see it replaced with some more tedious system. I'd be happy with very little identification throughout the game in general: only a few unique, powerful magic items need to be identified by someone, and so are taken to the society of mages in the nearest big, big city. Also, having just a few of these items could allow for their identifications to become quests in themselves, quests to identify said items. Just a thought. Anyway, as I said, when it comes to identification, the more often you have to worry about it, the more tedious it becomes, and more tedious = less fun (in this case at least).

Well, a great deal of the serious fans of these old games (myself included) have played through one or all of them dozens of times over the years and, in doing so, have come upon aspects that just clearly seem to be lacking in some way, in that it seems that they could be made better. Some people played Baldur's Gate a time or two back in the day, and are looking to just essentially play it again today, and so these people are leary of change; whereas others have played Baldur's Gate thirty or more times and have come across things that could definitely be improved upon. Still, if I were to start a new file of an RPG today, it would be another playthrough of BG, or PS:T, or Fallout. I own DA and NWN 1&2 and many other of the more recent RPGs, but I still prefer those older games. The thing that made those games great was a large combination of things, and so I don't think there's anything wrong with attempting to imrove upon those individual components, without straying too far from the magic that made the games so great to play. Saying that something could be improved doesn't mean that it isn't currently the best representation of itself available, it just means that there is potential for improvement. The ie games and fallout were great, and potentially the best cRPGs ever made as a whole, but that definitely doesn't mean that the components that made them up can't be improved upon, becuase they can. As I see it, it's all about learning from the mistakes of the last decade and a half of RPGs. In the cases where branching out from that which worked well in the classics has proved to make for a worse game, use restraint when considering changing that specific mechanic. Consider all the things that have gone wrong since the games inspiring PE (and why they've gone wrong) and avoid those things, while considering all the great things about those games and employing them (or something similar) in PE.

That would be fine, indeed. I don´t understand why people thinks their way to play is the only valid one excluding anything else. Some of you talk about replaying the game with other character, so you don´t want the "Heart of Fury" or "new game +" mode implemented. Why? Does it matter you? Will be there any kind of impact in your new game? Of course not, if you want to play with a new character, just do it. Just don´t press the "New game +" button. Anybody else who wants to restart the game with their old characters will just hit that button and everybody will be happy :D The point of these forums involving requests about gameplay, mechanics, etc. is for people to voice their opinions about what they do and don't want to see in PE. The point of specifically mentioning that you don't wan't something (or to what extent you don't want something, from disinterest to disdain) is just as important as mentioning the things you do want, there are limited resources in any game design process and so every idea that does make it could mean another that doesn't. Because of this, it does affect the gameplay of those that don't want to see resources used on a certain idea, that they feel could be better used elsewhere. I'm just tired of seeing the "Unless you're fully in support of this idea, then don't bother posting anything in this thread because it won't affect your gameplay at all for it to be included" argument. We all obviously care about what this game is going to be, so even just knowing that something undesirable (in my opinion) is in the game, even if it won't really affect my gameplay, shouldn't stop me from mentioning my opinion about it. Let people say their piece on each topic, that's the whole point of this site. No disrespect intended by the way, I have just seen this argument so many times on similar forums and I felt compelled to address it. I completely agree that each person's way to play is as valid as each other person's way, and that it's ultimately up to the devs to decide how to make this game, I just think we're all here to voice our individual opinions and shouldn't feel stifled in doing so.

I have no problems with players importing end-game characters into a new game file to play through as an overpowered death machine if they so desire (as could be done in BG), as I imagine it would take little to no effort to implement this, but I definitely wouldn't want them spending time and resources on creating a system specifically catering to this desire... Making a system to replay the game in a more challenging (while still maintaining something of your character from your last playthrough) way might be a potentially reasonable use of resources, but for me replay value in a game like this is usually about creating a different character and seeing the story of that new character play out as I make different choices along the way.

I would definitely prefer 2d portraits as in BG and IWD (and, as someone has already mentioned, perhaps a greater wealth of options than there was in BG), and the inability to select a portrait that belongs to an in-game NPC by default, I don't see any reason to include those as options. Also, of course, the ability to import custom portraits enables those that can't find something they like to simply import something that they do like.

Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate I & II, and Fallout I & II: these games define good cRPGs in my mind, and it's been quite dissapointing to see the decline of this genre over the years. I've played most of the "good" modern RPGs (usually not to completion), and none of them compare to these great classics. I'm very excited to see a modern game inspired by the best games the genre has to offer.

I'd like to second these sentiments, thanks to Obsidian for this, I'm truly excited to see the final product, untainted by the demands of a big name publisher. I was also unable to back the Kickstarter due to financial issues, and am seriously hoping that I'll still be able to back this project through paypal in a week or so, when I'll most likely be pledging at the $140 or $250 level. I understand that, as a few others have mentioned, it can be important to have your budget set before starting a project, but I don't think that extending the time for paypal donations will actually affect the project in any negative way; I think we're all agreed in wanting this game to be as good as it possibly can be and more money certainly won't hurt in achieving that, so I'm hoping that they decide to continue accepting money for at least a few more months. I would have no problem if they removed the exclusive items, mention in credits, etc. from the paypal rewards if they felt it necessary, I just want to be able to back this great game and the team behind it (and of course get some reward for my efforts as well).