Malekith

I agree. I like PoE, but i would like their next game to not follow the same direction, to be designed in a per case way with little to no uniformity in the system and hard counters turned to eleven. If it was completely alien/original setting on top of that, i would donate way more than i did in PoE. (and Avellone as the lead designer) Avellone as the lead designer? Be careful what you wish for here. Also how would Avellone on top of a alien setting lead to BG3? PS:T = best RPG ever created KOTOR 2 = Second best game Obsidian ever made behind MotB as far as i'm concerned Alpha Protocol = the ideas in the game were terrific. The execution not so much but i was under the impresion that Chris came late on the project to salvage it, so to blame it on him would be like blaming NWN2 OC on Sawyer. FNV DLCs > Base FNV. Granted, they were made on top of Sawyer's system, but it's not as if i want Avellone to design the systems of the new game, just to decide the vision and the overal direction. And the only BG3 i want is the one Ziets described on formspring, which was prety original/alien. Hard counters galore and no uniformity in the system are the things i want, or to put it differently, BG2 design sensibilities instead of IWD2/Sawyer ones.

Now if someone replaces the item icons with BG2 item sketches...

I agree. I like PoE, but i would like their next game to not follow the same direction, to be designed in a per case way with little to no uniformity in the system and hard counters turned to eleven. If it was completely alien/original setting on top of that, i would donate way more than i did in PoE. (and Avellone as the lead designer)

Wall of text was because half of it was descriptions. And i loved every single one of them. I prefer books to movies as well. With unlimited money you could pay for next gen graphics and those descriptions would play in front of your And have the game in third person/first person view? No ****ing way, get out of here. Or do you propose to have the game swich to tp from isometric every dialogue? That would be jarring while the well paid professional actor would not falter in his job or would be replaced by another better one. You have unlimited money and don't care to scrap what first one did so far. True Open world filled with PST level of story and conversations would be epic. It doesn't work like that. Every story has unique demands. What you want is open world with PS:T level of individual stories/writing That is achievable. But the spesific story/theme/pacing of many stpries can't be told in an open world format. PS:T couln't. Too much player freedom messes with that. For some narratives the events have to unfold in a sertain order, and the way the player came to these events also matters

Finances heavily restrict which design options(not to mention how many at once) are available to you. It's always also a question of finances. The point is even if you have unlimited money and all options are open to you, fully voiced free-world isn't the best design direction, just one direction among many If you have unlimited money than that is the best design decision lol. You can fill that world with best stories, quests, reactivity, have NPCs all be voiced by talented voice or movie actors, everything that modern sandbox games like Skyrim don't have but fools still come on these boards and boast how they are better. You can hire an army of good developers and good team managers and have it done in reasonable time. You should not have said unlimited money lol. You also didn't say that the sales of such game should be more than the cost :D PS:T story couldn't be told as effectively in an open World game, it would screw the pacing too much. And sure as hell i wouldn't want all those walls of text( i love text) voiced, it would be tedious and i can read them way faster than the actor can voice them. And i can't imagine a voice actor voicing a novel's worth of text and managing to keep his voice fresh and passionate and not sound bored.

Finances heavily restrict which design options(not to mention how many at once) are available to you. It's always also a question of finances. The point is even if you have unlimited money and all options are open to you, fully voiced free-world isn't the best design direction, just one direction among many

UI and combat feel. More IE/RTS, less NWN2 (that includes combat kinaesthetics, feedback, animations and spell effects)

Summing up the tread: Everyone in this tread has sexual fantasies with Volourn. For someone ugly as he says, he must be his sparkling personality :wub:

The disappointment was mostly based on the fact that DA2 wasn't exactly like DA:O. DA:O was a CRPG, DA2 was an ARPG. People who got over it enjoyed the game (like I did) and people who couldn't get over it whined. And whined. And whined. And some are still whining even now. DA:O, which is at LEAST 20 hours too long for how much meat there is to it boss battles sucked in both titles... While i agree 100% to this ( more than 20 hours to be frank), DA2 had the same problem. It's unique. quality content was less than 5 hours altogether.

Probably. Don't get me wrong - there were things I genuinely disliked about DA2: redesing elves, redesigned Flemeth, the lack of tactical camera, gear oversimplification. But the combat system was epic and for me this outweighed all shortcomings. Couldn't disagree more

The disappointment was mostly based on the fact that DA2 wasn't exactly like DA:O. DA:O was a CRPG, DA2 was an ARPG. People who got over it enjoyed the game (like I did) and people who couldn't get over it whined. And whined. And whined. And some are still whining even now. What you say implies that these people will pass on DAI if it's an Arpg

Doubt it, they managed to hype this one even more then DA2. Too bad the memory (and disappoinment) of DA2 is still fresh. I think a lot of people will wait to read reviews and hear other people's opinions before buying this. You overestimate the memory of gamers, and underestimate the hype machine of EA. DA:I will sell twice the amound Witcher 3 will, regardless of the games' quality.

PS:T is half the people's favorite game, but it had some very obvious flaws. PS:T's story, characters and writing were the game's strenghts, and are the things PoE seems to nail already as no one complained about that. But.... PST UI was attrocious, PS:T system was bad, and the item's presentation was memorable for the most part because of how wacky-grotesque-unusual the items and their icons were. BG2 had way better UI, item presentation and combat mechanics, and that are the part's PoE is also worse than BG2. So, PoE will propably be a great game even if only for the narrative, but most people are hoping for something more. We don't want a PST/Fallout 1 (great content with subpar gameplay/systems/UI) when we could have a PST/Fallout 1 mixed with BG2 (great content with great gameplay/systems/UI)

Dunno, just felt a fair bit of rigidity from Josh during past UI discussions. I think the following is pretty reasonable: Split the UI into three chunks and be able to juggle the order of them and add some extra menu buttons and have a solid background artPortraits Menu Log Portraits Log Menu Menu Log Portraits Menu Portraits Log Log Menu Portraits Log Portraits Menu 2. As per my suggestion - move the log to the left and add some extra menu buttons To be honest #1 is probably the best solution, Wasteland 2 was able to do it I'm glad it's not just me that thinks both the Main HUD and Inventory need work I don't know, don't the 1. solution mess with the solid UI if you are able to juggle the individual parts around? A better solution would be to move combat log to the left or middle, have the seldom used rest/attack/pause etc.part of the UI right, and design the solid UI around that placement. After all, i haven't seen anyone disagree that the part currently in the middle could be moved to right with no problem, even from tha camp that considers the log equaly useless. And i don't think Josh is rigid about UI,remember at first he said that the game will have only a solid UI, and then flipfloped and said they would do two diferent UIs. I find most propable that he is at a loss. W2 had the exact same problem, changing the UI completely 100 times and still going. It doesn't help that there isn't a single game that it's UI had a possitive reception in the last ten years. I have heard people say Bethesda UIs are crap, Witcher 2 crap, ME crap, DAO crap. And it's not because of consoles either, because even PC centric games like DAO, DOS, ToEE, NWN2 have a huge crowd of detractors. And here we see that IE game's style UI isn't appealing to some people who want minimalistic UI. There is not a unified opinion on what a game UI should look like.

Cheers, but I am pretty unoptimistic about any changes to UI screens other than the stash window becoming larger, nevertheless I will fight to the bitter end! Why is that? I think Kaz or Sawyer has said that the UI is the final thing they will lock and it'll continue to be workrd on until the last moment. At this point half the forum has problem with the current UI, so it stands to reason they will work on it. Or did i miss anything?

True dat

I have no doubt most of the major bugs were known, that's the nature of a Beta, but it's the volume and types/areas where they are that are my concern. Regarding the release date - my main concern is they will hatch this in a "we'll patch as we go" mode and deliver something substandard - that would be a disaster and I doubt they would do this given their experience, but who knows how much money is left? They didn't get a whole lot to support this long of a development cycle (it adds up FAST). The concern would be that they release the game because they simply have to for financial reasons - sh*t gets real, you know? It doesn't only happen when publishers are breathing down dev's neck to wrap it up; everyone has to eat and take care of their families. Edited: a word If it comes to that they will release it at Steam as Early Access. That would cover the cost of additional months of development, even a full year. And to be honest i hope they do since i want the final release game to be awsome and sell 2 million copies.

It worked in ToEE Eh, what? It didn't work. ToEE had the worst UI ever made, along with the 2 NWNs

They didn't, and propably won't happen.

Looks like you have no argument beside "its my personal oppinion". I design UI's for years. Its my job, I might know a little bit more about it than you do. You design **** UIs for years. Not the same thing. I would honestly prefer the UI to hide half the screen than something like Temple of EE or NWN2 floaty minimalist nonsense

It's not locked, it's not even finished yet. And thank god for that because as it's now is bad.

^ That. Sensuki's UI is better than the current one as far as functionality goes, but both are bad as far as aesthetics go. I would like that Sensuki's placement is used in the solid Ui. The minimalist one can look whatever, zero interest in that. You can even let them rearange the features completely.

If you want a non linear story, play Age of Decadence Early Access. It's exactly what you describe. But it's extremely hard to do this kind of story, as the amound of scripting required is ridiculous. AoD is in development for 10 years now by an indie studio, and the game isn't ready yet, though it closes. No major game company can afford to spent 10 years making a game just to have a true non linear story.

They are. But you can't add the unique abilities yourself. In BG2 terms, you can make Celestial Fury a +5 weapon and tweak it's elecrtical damage on hit , but you won't be able to give it Magic Registance or Vorpal hit.

You like Fallout 3? Well, that explains quite a bit actually. Yep. Fallout: New Vegas is a gem with a turd at its core. Fallout 3 is just a turd. Could somebody....ANYBODY.... ANYBODY who saw and knows why I linked those reaction images and noticed why... Please just acknowledge you exist so I don't lose faith in humanity and throw myself off my balcony. Thank you. Because he mentioned FNV as F3. But if we ignore his mistake, he has a point that if someone finds F3 gameplay ****, he will find NV's also. Content is what makes NV a better game.