Malekith

"Basically, there wasn't a whole lot I did like about [baldur's Gate 2]" I can post this another 20 times if you like. EDIT: Makes sense now. Tell me where you disagree with Sawyer exactly? BG2 is my favorite game off all time. But i don't have a problem with his comments. NPCs I like BG2 NPCs but Torment was way better and we knew from the pitch that they would follow Torment in this so no problem here. Imoen I agree with Sawyer. Never cared about Imoen and made it a point in all dialog options to say that i only cared for revenge. And then in Spellhold the game overides this and forces my character to care about her. Seriously? How can this be good writing? Characters Neutral. I don't have a problem with expressive characters, but Sawyer recognizes that his tastes are not the rule and most characters would be by other writers. Sawyer would not write any companions anyway. So what if some non companion NPCs are on the dry side? It's more realistic to have variety and i don't have a problem with dry anyway. Quest density. Here i disagree with Sawyer, but not with his solution. BG2 was great the way it was, but if the content was more spread out instead of Chapter 2 be half the game, where would be the problem in that? Sawyer doesn't propose for P:E to have fewer quests than BG2. Chances are it will have more as P:E gives XP only for quest completion and not kills. But it will have 2 Big Athkatla like cities, various dungeons,1 megadungeon, wilderness areas. And all of them must have objectives attached to them because with P:E XP system random exploration won't cut it. It makes sense for the quests to be spread out instead of consetrated in one city. Athkatla's content wasn't the problem. The problem was Athkatla's content compaired with the rest of BG2. Also i don't believe that Sawyer is so dictatorish that he will design all the game by himself and then use the other designers simply to implement his ideas and veto any other thing they add.

Normaly i would also disagree with this approach, but here i like it as i know that Saywer's dream game wouldn't be something like the IE games. It would be closer to Darklands but not quite. And i vastly prefer the IE games.

BG2 and IWD2 had perfect UI. I expect P:E to have something similar. NWN1+2 and DA:O had horrible UI.

Finally, you see the light! But yes, Arcanum is a mess. I tried 3 times to get into it and got bored. Only the constand praise of the game by people who i trust that liked the same games as i did made me willing to TRY again. And when it "clicked" to me i absolutely loved it. But it is a problem that for you to like the game you must try hard to like it at the begining until it clicks to you. That hurts the game.

The thing with Alpha Protocol is that in order for Obsidian to make a game with the "cinematic experience" they need more money than the kickstarter is able to provide. They would be better having 2 or 3 kickstarted games out there first bringing them money, so they could put 10 million of their own on top of the money they would make from kickstarter.

Wonder how grimdark they could make it. Can't very well go about executing mutant kids in a game these days (well that and maybe my sessions were too 'war crime' oriented. Says who? If you don't have to appeal to mass market, or publisers and retail stores you are free to put whatever you want in your game. I read an article about a game from japan where your goal was to rape women.You would stalk,iisolate and rape them. Retail stores in most countries refused to sell the game, and i don't think a normal person would want to play something like that, but the point stands. Without publisers you can make your game as dark as you want. I expect P:E to allow me to kill children.

New IPs WoD or Raveloft style RPG (isometric 2D) (Avellone's Hidden pitch, Torment spiritual succesor) Sci-fi RPG (isometric 2D, by Tim cain maybe?) Wild West RPG (isometric 2D) Non medieval Fantasy RPG based on ancient Sumeria,Aztec,Egypt etc.(isometric 2D) Licensed Warhammer Fantasy RPG (isometric 2D) Warhammer 40k RPG (isometric 2D) Malazan RPG (isometric 2D)

I want a WoD or Ravenloft 2D isometric game.

http://eternity.obsidian.net/

Icewind Dale is part of Forgotten Realms IP which is under D&D IP, which owner is Wizards of the Coast, who is owned by Hasbro. I was talking about the IWD brand which i think belongs to Obsidian. However, yes if they want to use it they must license D&D by hasbro Only ones that I could find belogn WotC http://www.trademarkia.com/icewind-dale-85043957.html and Atari, which is abadoned http://www.trademarkia.com/icewind-dale-77380064.html Ok, maybe i was wrong. I swear that i read somewhere that Feargus had the rights

Icewind Dale is part of Forgotten Realms IP which is under D&D IP, which owner is Wizards of the Coast, who is owned by Hasbro. I was talking about the IWD brand which i think belongs to Obsidian. However, yes if they want to use it they must license D&D by hasbro

Obsidian next kickstarter will be either: P:E 2 Avellone's kickstarter (New IP,Obsidian's P:T spiritual successor?) New IP (Tim Cain Project Lead) (or Ziet's if he joins Obsidian permanently) IWD 3 in P:E engine (I think Obsidian owns the IP) Personaly i hope Obsidian does P:E 2 with P:E sales money and kickstart a new IP, so they can have 2 RPG's in development at the same time.( Not exactly the same but you understand what i mean. Also more IPs are always a good thing for a company)

The exclusive bits are all completelly cosmetic and useless so there is no problem having them perpetually exclusive. Why should a non-backer care to have an ingame backer amulet that offers no bonuses and in the item description reads "Thanks for backing us"? Or have their character have the Backer perk that does absolutelly nothing? These things will mean something only to people who trusted Obsidian with their money and made this game a reality. For the others it would be completelly superfluous and even immersion breaking.

For me the perfect dialogue system will be Planescape:Torment's many dialogue options and acts through dialogue, combined with Alpha Protocol's narrative reactivity in the world.

Not quite. While those are examples of branching storylines, I'm speaking directly to dialogue in a broad sense. I'm hoping for there to be some mechanic in play that makes almost all dialogue choices affect the game world vis a vis the dialogue options available or not available in the rest of the game. It would be nice if the role playing a person does via dialogue choices affected how all fleshed out NPCs perceive the PC. Does this make sense? I can try to be more elaborate if not. Alpha Protocol has the perfect dialogue for you i think.

Exactly. And like Planescape:Torment where you could interact with the invironment through dialogue.(steal,snap someones nech)

Adventure game with RPG elements > shooter with RPG elements. I prefer RPGs also, but i would like Walking Dead clones more than Skyrim or Mass Effect 3 clones. Obsidian has kickstarter for their true RPGs.

Off-topic, but when you will return to BG2 LP? It has been ages

Curious. I mean, you already saw the Bloom consept art,right? How is the screenshot diffirent? What did you expect?

I don't know if I agree with what Malekith said, but "semi-linear" is a good definition for KOTOR2 though perhaps it emphasizes linearity to much. You have some room to go through events in different orders and plenty of choices, but there are still chokepoints and a rough summary/outline of the story would be largely the same for most players though the experience is personalized. Taken to an extreme you get stuff like Alpha Protocol, which is very boxed in terms of level design and exploration (it has set "missions" you go through) but thanks to some system design choices and some scripting ~*magic*~ the end result is very personalized depending on the playstyle of the player (well duh). Which, by the way, is why I'm not necessarily sure I'd group it together with New Vegas that takes a sandbox approach, which obviously influenced the way the story was designed and the storytelling tools (plus, y'know, different engine, different expectation, different timeframe etc.). Oh, i didn't meant that it was similar. I grouped them together simply as games that story was not their primary focus and went for a personalized experience. The same reason that i put BG2 in the same category with P:T while they are completely difirent. I just meant that if a game focus is to provide the players the means to have their own personalized story, that story won't be as good as a more focused experience like P:T or MotB where the players had choice, but more or less everyone played the same story. I don't want a JRPG linear story either. Thats what i used the term semi linear. KotOR 2 is another good example for what i mean. Idealy, i would want a main story same as P:T, but with many unrelated side stories, maybe faction wars etc. unrelated too the main story. MotB and P:T felt linear because except for the main story there was little else to do in the world

I'm not holding my breath. At best i expect something like New Vegas. Good story, but not something that will get praises in reviews. unless they don't go the nonlinear path all way through. Open world =! nonlinear. BG2 was open world but it was fairly linear in the main plot.

The best stories in video games are always semi linear. Planescape:Torment, Mask of the Betrayer, Baldur's Gate 2, Witcher 2 etc. On the other hand non linear stories are at best servisable (Fallouts, Arcanum).Until now at least. New Vegas and Alpha Protocol are not famous for their stories. Not a flaw, as they had diffirent focus and New Vegas would be a poor Fallout game with a linear story. Fallout 1 is the same. Great game but noone played it for the story. Yet Josh said in an interview that he would like to try for a nonlinear, find the waterchip approach. If someone can do this, is Obsidian, but until now they haven't managed it. Your thoughts? What would you prefer for P:E? A story in the vein of Planescape:Torment and Mask of the Betrayer, or more open like Fallout or Arcanum?

They don't seem to be described as owners, but founders. Not necessarily the same. "Founders" would have an ownership stake, but it can actually be a small minority stake depending on the sources of capital for starting the company, etc. From your phrasing, I can't tell if you're saying you know particularly about Obsidian, or if you're just saying founders are owners. This 5 are the only owners i think. Not by the same perscentage, Feargus owns the bigest share and the other's shares may vary, i don't know.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-list-of-incline.81530/ Here is a list of promishing "old school" games for any who is interested.

Good luck in Durlag's Tower then.