Malekith

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic. If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game. Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped. Yes. By your own words you admited that you can't please everyone and some people will always find something that didn't like in any game. But item durability is punishing(irritating and annoying,not difficult),for people who don't like it(which are many) unlike having 1000000000 GP at the end of the gaame that while is a design flaw for some people, it don't makes their gameplay excperience worse,

My thoughts in this: First issue: When unique items were in stores: * I don't want to buy unique items in stores I think the main problem with this is how much unique the item is and what kind of store. People like to think that unique items are rare,special things that can't be recreated and most people in the world haven't seen. When you can buy it from a store, it looses something af its allure. Possible solutions: Make a reason for the store to have them. Maybe a realy special store that it's difficult to gain entrance and deals only with special items? Bonus points if the seller is unique himself. (I don't think I ever heard anyone complain about the "Adventurer's Mart" or the Collector's Edition shop but I may be wrong). Second issue: When unique items were in dungeons: * I have nothing to spend my money on Good moneysinks: player house,player stronghold. That way you have something to spent your money on.If you don't want it's not the game's problem. Crafting consumables. Again if you don't want them, not the game's problem. Cromwell/Cespenar blacksmith. Have parts of special artifacts through the game and have a special blacksmith/mage to remake them. I think it's the only type of crafting everyone likes. Have more items than BG2 did and make the reforging more excpencive. I remember replaying the game solely to find parts that i didn't find in my first playthroughs. Have options in quest solutions that bribery/spending money in some way is an option. My thoughts on crafting in general: I think crafting has a place in the game as long as: It's for consumeables/minor trinkets,basic loot. Better yet if it's existing in it's own space like in the Witcher games. Have it only for cosmetic/color changes in existing items. What it should never do is devalue items found or bought. You shouldn't be able to modify legentary items or even worse making them yourself. IE games were the only games i have played that items felt special, had a history and were memorable. hand written histories were a part of the kickstarter pitch as well. The whole notion that you could make you own loot that is equal to these items devalues them way more than having to buy them from stores. Part of the reason for having a crafting system was to make consumables less common in the world. Only people who want to make/use them would see a relatively large quantity of them. Since crafting ingredients are stored and sorted separately from other items, their presence subtracts nothing from the carrying capabilities of players who ignore the system entirely Actually i love that. Item durability: That is the only thing in the update that i'm defenently against 100%. I have yet to see a game that item durability were anything else than mindless busywork. It's not strategic or anything. Unlike spirit eater mechanic in MotB or time limit in Fallout that were extra level of worry( and still people in general disliked them), item durability in Arcanum(the closer excample this update reminded me of) was an extra bother. In formspring you said that a good question for game mechanics is how fun something is. Answer me that. Where is the fun in returning to town to push the repair all button in a blacksmith every couple of days. For me is more of an irritation. Also,you answer of wasting points. How is it different from lockpick for example? If you put points in lockpick or ancient poetry or many other skills, and then take rogue companion, you wasted these lockpick points. Your party should cover a broad spectrum of skills. If you make skills that are better for every party member to have points in those, you will make all party members have the same skills. Not a good thing in my book. Stealth is the exception and not the rule that a skill should be usefull in all party members. Hope that i helped, at least to understand where some complains come from.

How is it diferent from Lockpick????? If you have it, and you take a thief companion you waste it.

Or you could go and pay a blacksmith/armor/whatever to repair them, you aren't required to do it yourself. Yep. And that is just a chore. Not a game breaking one, but a chore still. What fun does it add? As weapons don't break completely, it doesn't even add strategic considerations. It sounds very close to what Arcanum had, it it was terrible there as well.

One man's "discomfort" or "annoyance" is another's challenge. You shouldn't presume that other people dislike survival simulation mechanics simply because you don't. Except that it doesn't matter. IE games hadn't survival simulation mechanics at all. Many people think that they were better for it, others who like survival simulation would be alright to have it in every game. My opinion is when a matter divides the community in half, do it like it was in the IE games. After all that's what we paid for and not Arcanum 2

That's why item durability is a bad idea. It prevents players playing the game like IE games completely ignoring crafting. Even if you can make the uber+124 Hammer of Doom with crafting, i would still ignore it. But with item durability, i cannot. Or are you propose to run around with damaged weapons because i couldn't repair my items? Or swap weapons all the time. It defeats the purpose to having unique weapons with handwritten histories. I still remember most of the items in BG2, their location and their histories. In most (all) games after 2003, i didn't bothered with items and at some point didn't bothered to change weapons,even if i found a better one. If the value of the weapon is only in the numbers, with no lore relevence and a special history, i just can't bother. This isn't Diablo.

There was nothing wrong with the line itself. To have it repeated over and over until all party members come close was the problem. It should be spoken once and thats it.

Speak for yourself. I prefer playing "villains" instead of heroes. In fact my all time favorite characters was in Planescape:Torment. Both the antagonist(Practical Incarnation, he was perfect and i could sympathize with him totally), and the protagonist. The "evil" path for the Nameless One in Torment was the best of every game i have played.

I don't think that's ever been Avellone's point though. He's been going for a good couple of years about how he thinks that a narrative designer should know when to step back and just let the players build their own stories with the game systems. I'd also note that as much as he insists on that, Obsidian still tries to also supply strong stories with choices and consequences in addition to that, and have often been more successful at that than actually providing a playground of game systems/rules. Or, basically, it's not the first time a panelist's point comes off as stronger and more absolutist when giving a panel than when actually working. If I had to guess, we will never see an FTL from Obsidian, but new titles will probably be closer to New Vegas in story/gameplay balance than Torment. * * I went a bit off the tangent and that's not necessarily what you were talking about, so sorry about that. The funny thing is that Arcanum is the game that is closer to what Avellone speaks. Let's see how he does.

That seems like a weird number for the level cap. Are they planning to raise it in an expansion or something? Well, expansion for sure but they have said that they want to make PE a series so PE2 nad maybe 3 as well.

Which one would that be? In PST, you can decide what the story of TNO is. In KOTOR 2, you can decide what the story of The Exile is. In NWN2, you can decide what the story of the Spirit-Eater is. In FONV, you can decide what the Couriers story is. The way I see it, all of the games he has worked on that are hailed as "RPG Gold" do that. I think what Chris meant in his quote was that when something happens in a game that the designer didn't script or plan, like in Skyrim for example when you figured out you can steal from people by putting a pot over their head or when the developers figured out that chickens were reporting you to guards when they saw you committing a crime, those instances resonate more with the player than any game narrative or dialogue that designers can create (which I disagree with personally). I think he was advocating making games with more emergent gameplay like classic x-com or dwarf fortress where interesting situations essentially create themselves through systems interacting with each other and the player in-game raher than leading the player along with a strong narrative story. I agree that this is what he meant, and i disagree completely with him on that. I wouldn't care about any of his games if he actually followed his own advice. Even New Vegas was praised for it's story and writting and not for "emergent gameplay", although that may happened because emergent gameplay is a given in a Beth game.

Glanfathan elves have none of the biases against orlans that other cultures do. Orlans are well-regarded in Glanfathan tribes. Aumaua are a minority in all of the "core" nations/cultures around the Dyrwood. The aumaua-dominated cultures to the (far) north and (slightly closer) south are about as technologically-advanced as the Aedyr Empire. I.e., generally pretty advanced but exceeded in some ways by the Vailians (generally the tech "leaders"). Any of the more "primitive stone age" cultures around the area?

Did you miss the part where they explain that an animat is created by binding a soul to an armor? How is that "tech magic"? Binding a soul to create what is basically an automaton? That sounds like a dilution of the "soul" concept to me. If anything, with the potential of dipping into the soul powers of living beings, there was a chance to avoid "golems" and similar variations of animated objects. Why? I mean, when we know that people souls have power and are the source of magic, doesn't make sense to use captured souls as batteries? It makes sense, i would do it if i was a wizard in that world. Even in other settings like Dragon Age and Forgotten Realms binding a soul to an item or a golem or whatever gave special results, but in those cases is nonsensical . In PE makes sense.

I would prefer BG2 density, BG1 empty maps were very boring. But i definitely would prefer areas that don't unlock only if you have quests associated with them.

I agree with Karkarov completely... What is happening today?

How is that any worse than being able to become better at diplomasy or picking locks by cleaving goblins? Combat XP has also the same problem. I agree with you. I think that the Elder Scrolls does a decent job of increasing skills by performing said skills rather than arbitrary experience levels. This is a very high level issue with computer RPGs, and obviously the ES system is not going to be used here. It just feels to me that reducing the potential sources of experience can potentially hamper motivation, but it's all about the execution. If they do it well, I don't think anyone will notice/care. I find TES system terrible, even if it's realistic. Skill by use systems are broken. Throwing fireballs for houra at a tree to better your spell casting is terrible gameplay, even if in reality(as it is in Tamriel) is someone throws fireballs for hours at an end he would become better at it. Better gameplay>realism. Thats why i approve the quest only XP. XP is an abstraction by it's nature. That way you can be focused on the narrative's objectives and cut out the "grinding just to become stronger filler" If i'm in a hurry and meet some random orks in the wild, if i don't want to waste my time i can avoid them or come to an agreement with them without be punished by losing XP. I lose the loot of course but that is acceptable as it makes sense

How is that any worse than being able to become better at diplomasy or picking locks by cleaving goblins? Combat XP has also the same problem.

This is subversion, not deconstruction. Here's an example: Spec Ops The Line. Love it or hate it (personally I adored it) you can't deny that the game was trying to say "Call of Duty sucks, and this is why." The game you're talking about is one that says "Baldur's Gate sucked, and this is why." You could make a damned good game about that, but NWN2 is not that game, nor is it trying to be. Mask of the Betrayer is almost "Forgotten Realms sucks, and this is why" but it never quite goes that far with critiquing the problems behind the setting's design. The closer i can think of is P:T "RPGs suck, and this is why"

That's what we are asking. More "cruel,selfish,ruthless,ambitious,sadist" and less"MUHAHAHAHA I'm the eater of worlds" evil. More Tywin Lannister, less Joker. Not that is imposible to a bat**** crazy character to exist, but it's imposible to roleplay such a character inside the narrative of the game, as such a person wouldn't give a **** about anything every other type of character yould care about.

In this situation what "evil" option would you prefer? Not have one? Why should a selfish and ambitious character (i'm not using the word evil because "evil" and "good" are relative and bull**** terms, everyone justifies his actions in his mind) even bother with an old lady and her cats? Not every option MUST have an evil/good/neutral option. It's too gamey and by default can't be realistic.

^ A hundred times this. PS:T was one of the few(the only) games that allowed for a trully evil playthrough without punishing you, but the effects were felt by your companions and yourself mostly because it was a very intospective game. You can take that as a start and expand it. Don't forget, people do evel actions because evil pays better,not for the kick of it. The same should be aplies to the gameworld.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo...

Similar with BG2. You will have your companions with the dialog and their quests as the default. The diference will be that unlike BG2 where you could create your own party in multiplayer and import it to the game, PE will allow you to do it in game.

I don't like the empty space where MCA's video is, while the UI seems too cramped. I would prefer some decorative elements so the UI is not so cramped and more spaced out. Also, BIGGER PORTRAITS ffs.Art is an importand part of the game aesthetics, and the character portraits are a very distinct part of the art. The UI should cover the full lower part of the screen( the empty part is useless anyway, no one would cramp his party there in the corner with the UI blocking his characters moving to the left). Just as well to use it to space out the UI, add bigger buttons,bigger portraits,some decorative elements etc.