Sacred_Path

Will the speshul update leave everyone's dignity intact? If so, I'm not interested.

speshul update you say?

Every conversation in the game would consist of 500 words minimum (courtesy of Lephys). The story arc with a clearly defined climax would have to take a backseat to the simulation of realistically fluctuating market prices of pieces of headgear, and it would take players all the way to the endgame until they could afford to upgrade their daggers to longswords (mcmanusaur). Then PrimeJunta would rip out the attribute system and **** up the flow of combat to infuse the game with dream logic. The game would end on a cutscene where the protagonist and his allies and his comely love interest get trampled to death by random hordes of bear cavalry (Monte Carlo). jk ilu guys

I'm playing Dungeon Siege 2. 4 Rings and it's already getting silly. I'm changing rings as much as I change all other equipment put together.

The party I thought about was: Auamaua Barbarian with a two-handed weapon Rogue (probably Vailian) for DPS Dwarf Paladin for buffs Human Wizard specializing in AoE elemental damage Orlan Cipher for crowd control Elven Ranger for ranged DPS Then I heard that Barbs probably won't make good tanks, especially without a shield. Also the Cipher seems like an uninteresting melee wizard and is probably better used with more knowledge of the game. After hearing about the archetypes of each class it seems to me there'll be no reason not to go with the standard fighter/ rogue/ priest/ wizard, with the fighter possibly exchanged for a monk and a rogue possibly exchanged for a ranger, and two random additions. I'm somewhat bereft of my high hopes for alternate parties and playstyles in P:E.

If you're of epic level and you have a stronghold you're going to be sitting in said stronghold a lot.

I've seen all kinds of iterations of monsters that don't just live in small groups and have something akin to a material culture. Seems a bit hyperbolic to support your argument. So you agree that lone travellers should be easy pickings.

^ the argument that killing NPC's should invariably result in a game over is pretty silly. Your band mows down rows upon rows of monsters, but there's never a monster alliance anywhere that hunts you down with a 100+ war party. Ideally, there will be smart ways of killing characters (i.e. lone travellers) and murders that are downright suicidal (i.e. a noble w/ bodyguards in his own hall).

When I was a kid, games scared me, put me in the zone and immersed me. Doesn't really happen anymore, but I appreciate the effort.

I thought I'd read that monks aren't tanks per se, even though they power their abilities with wounds.

which is expressed by slaughtering wichts and dragons left and right?

Because it's kind of counter-intuitive. If I want to tell a story about personal transformation, is monster-slashing the best way to achieve this? Like I said, the story can have a personal hook alright. But we also know that killing dragons in real time will happen often. So the result to me will be something like BG; you have a personal motivation to go adventuring and the narrative will allude to the protagonist often, but in the end it's about kicking monster butt. The accumulation of EPIC magical items/ spells/ special abilities is actually quite central to BG2.

Let me quote JES: PS:T certainly wasn't about combat, and while it had interesting locations, "exploration" wasn't the focus (you didn't search every nook and cranny of PS:T's maps). So no, I wouldn't hold my breath for a game like PS:T, but that's not what they promised anyway, as PS:T is only 1/5th of the IE bunch.

What type of game is that? Planescape:Torment was an introspective journey. KOTOR2 as well. MotB as well.IWDs were very localized, nothing world shatering. BG was the only EPIC, but that was Bioware. From what we know BG3 from Black Isle would be much more personal journey. Everything Obsidian has made was personal. I don't see why they would change that now. Correction: A protagonist with a personal motivation doesn't necessarily mean a personal story. It's about dimensions, obviously; if the outcome of the quest is confined to your personal sphere (and maybe those closest to you), it's a personal quest. IWD's were kinda limited geographically but definitely fit my definition of an epic adventure - they didn't touch on personal issues very much. BG1 was about taking down a murderous, powerful villain, much like BG2. Again, the fact that you have a personal motivation doesn't mean that introspection is a great part of your questing, unless you find the small scenes between chapters in BG where you receive your special powers to offer deep psychological insights. Of all the IE games, I'd only place PS:T in the "non-epic adventure" category.

Did not expect this magic/ melee hybrid. I'm even more curious about the other casters in P:E to see how they relate to the ciphers.

Seems more of a problem with the alignment system. In a reputation system, donating gold at a church would probably not result in a rise in status, except with that church

And not just that, there are gamist purposes, too. Killing people is an easy way to manipulate faction ratings, if the game allows it.

Based on the discussion I've had with a lot of people (obviously not everyone so perhaps my perspective is skewed). From my perspective, the argument seems to come from roughly two groups, those who feel that the inability to not have friendly fire is unrealistic and believe that any hostile/non-hostile/friendly target should be considered, for tactical purposes, when throwing around area effect attacks or line of sight attacks. And then there are the other group, who seem to show up and say, more or less, "OMG, I got to chunkify the brats! This game is 1337! Its sooooo realistic that I can hack and maim all the kids!". This group is, IMO, not that dissimilar to the group that thinks "romance" in games means you should be able to have sex with your sister (like some on the Bio boards when Bethany was announced in DA2) or that slave ownership should be in the game so their PC can own slaves, rape them and kill their inevitable offspring. Its the latter group that I feel see these elements as "edgy" thus desirable in all games. I can't speak for THE INTERNET™, but for me, only the first of your points applies somewhat. NPC's being immune to friendly fire is indeed somewhat irritating, and I never played IE games on the default difficulty settting even though that prevented friendly fire only for your own characters IIRC. I think the first game where I even attempted to harm an NPC was Ultima VII. Everything was so interactive, and my childish self soon chased down chickens and cows to try and skewer them, and amazingly enough, I could. Only then did I even think of actually harming one of those friendly quest givers, and was quite elated when I could, even though it usually ended with you getting smacked around by telepathic, teleporting town guards (not cool). It's not like I ever felt the need to go on a rampage in UVII, conversing with characters was much too interesting for me to wish them dead. It was just a good feeling that in this interactive and (for my 12 year old self) convincing virtual world, people could die when they were hit by a sword. Me going out to slay dragons and quest for their continued well-being wouldn't really have made sense otherwise, y'know?

^ I think one good approach is to never make lone, low level hermits plot critical, because those are just asking to be killed. Since we will be(come) nobles in P:E, I wouldn't mind if critical NPC's would either be invulnerable (they aren't commoners anyway) or always have an armed entourage (or be high level magic users) making it realistically impossible to kill them and live.

party enters map - cutscene, camera showing off gorgeous background, banter - game resumes, dialogue popup yes please

In that case, I've taken note, but it doesn't really change anything. Yes some things will always be far from reality or even making sense, but that's not an argument against giving the player more options. A realistic economy at least sounds intriguing, and yes if you're given the choice between that and killable NPC's, there's much to be said for the first option. But the latter is much more easily implemented and balanced, so we don't really have a vs. situation there. BTW, where did you get the idea that killable NPC's are there to make the game "edgy"?

You can't imagine any roleplaying that includes the killing of innocent, or at least neutral NPC's for roleplaying reasons? I can't really imagine what your problem here is, but hey, we'll just have to roll with that. What about NPC's that are intentionally annoying, or simply stand in your way? I'd imagine quite a few players would have liked to teach that brat Janus (IIRC) in Divine Divinity a lesson. And teaching a lesson = killing them, usually, for lack of other options if nothing else. So is a lack of options the problem here? Partly maybe, but not entirely. Even if I have other options to deal with NPC's I loathe, I do appreciate it if a game gives me the hypothetical option to simply run them through, rather than making them godlike and invulnerable for no good reason. In my example, a Ring of Protection is nothing to sneeze at for a low level character in AD&D, so calling it desperate just doesn't cut it. It's simply calculating. Are you telling me you can't imagine playing a calculating rogue? A child could carry any kind of precious item, especially magical ones. They may also carry a lot more gold than your average peasant, depending on their social status. Again, you're calling very basic things into question here. Can a role encompass the killing of NPC's? Yes, it can. Killing all NPC's narrows down the list of potential motivations of course. But even that particular case, like psychopathy or service to an evil god, should be a real choice in the game. I am of course asking for realistic repercussions for whatever behavior you display; but making all kinds of behaviors viable choices is a great achievement for a CRPG. If you just say "being honest and religiously devoted to your task will kill you because you can't keep any gold/ equipment for yourself", and "killing NPC's will result in your fiery death on a stake, invariably", then you might as well not allow for these choices at all. So there has to be some middle ground. So you mean you can't understand why anyone would ever kill an NPC who doesn't attack you first.

Alright, let's break this down: 1. You're convinced that there can never be a reason to kill a generic (by which I must assume you mean an NPC that neither offers a quest nor figures into one) child NPC. It seems that one problem here is your lack of imaginative abilities. One reason why I've killed/ wanted to kill NPC's in RPG's is because they offered dialogue that was boring/ annoying/ frustratingly silly or not coherent with the story or setting, and killing is usually the only way you have of shutting them up. They may also carry unique/ useful items. Please tell me, what are your reasons for picking the pockets of a fat, generic NPC in the Beregost inn? Apparently, the designers must have deemed it plausible that players would do such a thing, or that NPC wouldn't be carrying a Ring of Protection. Useful loot on NPC's is a tradition of the IE games, and P:E may well follow there. Then there's the many, many reasons you may have to kill a specific NPC for roleplaying purposes. This completely defies discussion as it's not your responsibility to tell people what concepts should figure into their roleplaying. You also make the obvious mistake of differentiating child NPC's from any other NPC's. 2. "Killing everything in sight" is an obvious strawman, because you might as well just kill exactly one child NPC in the game and still argue for all of them to be killable. Also, plz give a list of all roleplaying concepts that will be viable in P:E 3. Voting for killable NPC's = power tripping. It can only be related to power tripping if it has no significant negative consequences, ever. However, killing a single, unimportant NPC out of sight should have no negative consequences. We didn't get rid of stupid DnD alignments just to crack down on player choice with illogical, arbitrary punishments. Also, feeling powerful is important to quite a few CRPG players and is a frequently used argument against all forms of level scaling. Especially late game, it would be silly if players are afraid of killing an NPC because of the dire consequences, when you've been victorious against all kinds of odds.

I never said children, killable or not, are very high up on my priority list. I also knew that some people would get hung up on the word IMMERSHUN, but I used it fully knowing that this signals something of little importance overall. But we shouldn't forget that Obs are very conscious of realism, or maybe just internal consistency, of their game world. Hence they look at real world architecture and languages, for example. I also don't quite get why people use the strawman argument of "serial killing"; just as with any NPC, I might just end up killing one or two children. For fun, or because they may drop good loot, or because (best case) it's part of a quest. Really, the same reasons why NPC's should be killable apply to child NPC's, without limitations.

Children should be killable so you can kill them. It's kind of self evident. It also doesn't beg any clarfication, because since when do you need a particular reason to play around with a game? BTW, the only arguments against this ITT have been "there can be no reason, ever, to kill a child NPC", "I don't roleplay in a way that would includes the killing of children so other people shouldn't be allowed to do it either", and "not everything about a fantasy world can be realistic or internally consistent so nothing in the game should be realistic or internally consistent". Nop. I liked the crafting skill and item repair. I'd also like to see children in the game; and if they are in, they better be just as killable as any other NPC. Like I said before, immersion really is the one reason why you'd want characters of different ages in the game; it simply helps to bring the setting to life, and it also adds more possibilites to the writing. It also single-handedly does more for the maturity of the game if reproduction is a thing rather than everyone being full of magical contraceptives and engaging in cutscene secks without it having any consequences. If there had been a good argument made ITT why children should be in the game but not be killable I'd try to refute that now, but that's not the case.