Malekith

Its mistake,MISTAKE,people.I said so even in the title.Yet some people voted for nope? Unbelievable... All of you who voted mistake,well done. As for the others, who cares about your opinion anyway...

We know that in P:E will have a crafting system.Would you prefer something along the lines of NWN2, or something like BG2 where the "crafting" was done from a blacksmith for special items and you just foung the item pieces? I prefer Bg2 way as it was more interesting and it felt more part of the game and the lore as opposed to a "game within a game"

Just a mistake

Yes, it did, any you and I have vastly different takes on what is fun. I understand your above examples were extreme to make your point but all you have to do is glace at your combat text to see if your attacks are having any affect (unless thats removed too ) and adjust accordingly. Its even still within the realm of roleplaying as its completely reasonable that your character would notice ineffective attacks. You also ignore the fact that HEALTH ONLY GOES DOWN. I doesnt matter how brilliant you are when everyones sitting a 1-2 hp. At that point a single hit will kill you regardless of you being at full stamina. You have no choice but to leave, rest and return. Its not up to skill, any successful attack against you and youre dead. If I have to do anything 100 times in PE to learn it then the game is irretrievably broken. And I dont need a punitive mechanics to teach me Im doing something wrong, thats what dying does. I respect your playstyle but thats not for me. I thing your problem is that you think of the mechanic as if it exists in a vacuum. Its the same thing that happened with the cooldowns. If the rest points are 10 areas away from each other and the said areas filled with boss fights,then you will have a point but it will be not the systems fault.Just broken design. You dont think that the designers will test the game so that a player who plays the game reasonably well won't come to a situation that he has to backtrack 5 maps back because the next rest point is another 3 ahead?

Just a reminder: Icewind Dale II was the only Infinity Engine game to have a dialogue skill (three, in fact). BG, BG2, IWD, and PS:T and related expansions all used ability scores and other more-or-less fixed character attributes like class and race. IMO, if you're going to have stat-based unlocks, I'd rather do that type of unlocking because it's often easier/more sensible to spread the checks out more evenly. I completelly agree. What i don't understand is why can't we have the unlocked options without the game saying to us what stat unlocked that option. I explained my opinion better in my previous post: There sould be no indicators that you use a stat. Just dialog choices. That some of them are available because you had the right combination of stats/knowlege/reputation its not something the player should know about. Its more natural and makes you follow the dialog without metagaming it. Also it helps with replayability if you make a diffirent character and have completelly diffirent dialog choices EDIT: As long as you can disable it in Expert Mode i have no problem.Thanks for the post Tamerlane

I think Josh has said that he doesn't like doing it that way, because then people don't even realize that they have different options. Interesting. Source? I just hope that in Expert Mode the visible stats are disabled. And i don't think that if people don't even realize that they have different options is true. If they read carefully the dialog they should understand their options. What exactly seeing that your charisma enabled you to use that option offers you?

There sould be no indicators that you use a stat. Just dialog choices. That some of them are available because you had the right combination of stats/knowlege/reputation its not something the player should know about. Its more natural and makes you follow the dialog without metagaming it. Also it helps with replayability if you make a diffirent character and have completelly diffirent dialog choices

I like all the things Sawyer says individually,but his whole approach feels too...gamey, i don't know...overly balanced. While this can be a good thing,it can also make the game feel souless and artificial. Hopefully Obsidian's excelent writing can offset this

Yes and Yes. Old games are old, the thing is today many of us have played newer games that not only "look" better but have better gameplay and are easier to simply sit down and play too. You can say whatever you want about Dragon Age 2, and I agree it is a par game, but if you boil it down to pure gameplay versus gameplay I think you are insane if you try to argue any of the infinity engine games are more fun to play. They are clunkier, slower, have terrible UI's, and don't have near as many options for characters to use with the exception of casters. Also I will say this. Very very few people are immune to the rose colored glasses effect. I loved the original thundercats cartoon when I was a kid. As an adult you would have to pay me to even think about watching it. Second insane person here. I won't say your opinion is stupid, after all opinions are diferent, but you need to understand that more "action" in gameplay isn't better in the minds of all people.DA2( and 1 in a lesser extent) had pretty boring combat and 98% of the combat was filler in my opinion.IE games had my favorite combat to date(not PS:T but who cares about the combat in that game )

First horror games was from isometric perspective. Even Gorky 17 was rpg horror with isometric And exactly how horrified did you feel? I don't scare from horror movies either. Thats not the point. Its the atmosphere of the game that matter, not how much you will be scared.Diablo had horror themes.If you were scared or not its a completelly other matter

Well, personally, I want P:E to be a fun video game and not the next champion of the "games are art" crowd; leave that **** to pretentious indie developer douche bags like Jonathan Blow. Why not both? P::T was the closest example of video games are art i can think of but it was still a fun game

played Skyrim for 80 hours... can't make it out of the crematorium in Planescape: Torment. *smashes face into desk* You, sir, perfectly define the spirit of everything that has gone wrong with the modern gamer. This is a little uncalled for. People have shorter attention spans these days, it's just the way things are, it's not something to mock someone over. PS:T was a great game for its time, but it is old now, I think we can all acknowledge that. There is no reason a gamer shouldn't want a more modern game, enough with the "I'm too tough for modern features" mindset, sometimes an upgrade is good. Not for it's time.PS:T is the best RPG ever hands down.(except maybe from BG2)

The wildernes areas is the reason i don't like BG1 as much as the other IE games. For me BG2 and PS:T had the perfect area design. In P:E i want BG2 type of game stracture as PS:T was a difirent kind of game.

Generally these new things don't make as much money as these with an old IP or Spiritual succesor of old IPs

Robert Jordan and mature in the same sentence doesn't fit. I don't say he is a terrible author but worldbulding aside his work is nothing special if you read it as adult instead of as a teen

Not a great fan either. (blasphemy! I hear my high-school English teacher say)His prose maybe considered the be the greatest, but if you have to make characters who are evil because they are jewish or black, then you're not just racist, but also not very good at characterization. His Kings are noble (mostly) Shylock (the jew) is bad, because he is a usurer. (because why not use stereotypes) In Titus there is this famous line "Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did Would I perform if I might have my will. If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul." Said by a moor (black man) why, because he was black and thus evil. And then there is people saying "oh, but racism was normal back then!" "think of the times" But as much as the racism bothers me, that's not what disqualifies his works from greatness for me. It's the fact that he uses one-dimensional characters in the first place. I mean, how one-dimensional can you get? Also you can't judge him according to present standards.Its like judging a medieval era noble for treating peasants or women as lower than himself and saying that he's a terrible person.When an entire culture has diferent standards than today the same rules don't apply. For his time he was forward thinking(Shakespeare)

Torment. No competition. After that Mask of the Betrayer,Arcanum,Icewind Dale1+2 Also if you don't mind to move away from fantasy Fallout 1+2

I just hope that inXile cooperates with Obsidian.I can't imagine Torment without Avellone. And if Fargo does a Torment game while Obsidian does its own Torment spiritual succesor with Avellone they will just get into one anothers way

The first book was awful IMO (it was his first novel and it was originally written as a screen play), and I nearly gave up after the second book even though it was a great improvement over the first one. They do get a lot better however, if you persevere. Many people think the same but most of them change opinion on reread. Have you finished the series? If yes, my advise is to read Gardens of the Moon again.Chances are you will have a completely diffirent experience

Prosper's kickstarter soon?

That you don't understand is that the OP said what writer P:E sould take inspiration from,not hire him to write the game.So the prose of the writer is irrellevant.His ideas and worldbuilding matter. Patrick Rothfuss/Susanna Clarke:The prose is their strong point. In Rothfuss case he sure know how to write but his worldbuilding and more importantly the plot leaves much to be desired Robin Hobb: I can't comment in that.Personaly i prefer Grey&Black morality but that is competely subjective George R. R. Martin:I agree China Miéville/Sanderson:Both have very good strenghs to be an inspiration.Mieville because of his not traditional fantasy and Sanderson with his magic systems Steven Erikson:In this i disagree.As yourself said he has terrific ideas and his worlbuilding especially is unmached.Your only complaint is the prose.I don't agree but as i said it's irrellevant .Obsidian won't hire him to wright the game for them.Wrighting for games is vastly different than writing novels and i would trust none of the above authors to do a better job than Avellone and Ziets

I second Steven Erikson, author of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Avellone in a comment did mention Deadhouse Gates so he has read at least part of the series. Other than that, G.R.R Martin and Joe Abercrombie are good influences,as is Scott Bakker.For a mix of technology and magic Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Shadows of the Apt series has an interesting take in the matter

I like the consept of Elder and New Gods in Malazan.The New Gods are the ancient Greek type, but the Elder are more primordial and for the most cases forgotten and no longer worsiped.To not copy Malazan, you could make the Elder(the few that are left) using the Aztec gods as a blueprint

You think small. How about Drug barons,corupt politicians, mega corporations, weapon industries? How about to manipulate and start a war for your gain? To have the choice to steal from a shopkeaper in game is not what i'm talking about.The examples you give are more of the stupid, in your face evil options.have you ever been in a position of power when you had to make a decision to maximize your profits but that would lead 100 families in poverty or cause enviromental damage? The "evil" option doesn't have direct consequences for you. It's simply a matter of conscience. And in a fantasy setting i can think of much more interesting examples

Really I find it less realistic because of this, it removes bad and good people/choices and replaces them with one choice/personality, grey. Realistically some factions/characters should be grey, but not every single one. We should have characters like Kreia, but we should also have characters like One of Many, Bishop, etc. Not just paint every character in one colour. And lets not forget the worse thing grey mortality does, the removal of being the villain. It forces the player to be the hero. New Vegas forces you to be a hero???