Corvus Metus

My two cents. The cosmos itself should be sentient, although not necessarily sapient. It is the source of all things. The gods, however, should not truly exist. Instead, they are echoes of mankind's beliefs given a spark of life by the cosmos. They are manifestations of what man believes is true. They can die and be reborn as people change their ideals. Bare bones, but that's my ideas.

I'm telling myself that tiger gif is CGI. It will help me sleep at night.

Horror = Atmosphere. I don't need jump scares. I just need to feel on edge.

I'd just like to say that having a code or taking a vow, and even keeping it, isn't essentially a lawful trait. The context means a lot more than the actual action. For example, I've always felt that Minsc's oath to protect "his witch" was less because of duty and more about the warm fuzzies he feels by doing it. One topic, I'd rather see a Jan.

It depends. In my first playthrough, I'm likely to play myself - at least myself if I was in a fantasy world and had access to magical weapons and special powers.

Planescape: Torment was a dead serious game for the most part. But you also had Morte, who made reference to the Head of Vecna and whose voice actor more or less used his Yakko Warner voice.

You don't need to be Brienne of Tarth to be a female female warrior. You can be Julie d'Aubigny. Who was a real person, mind you, and was both a successful opera singer and a duelist. Who beat her male opponents. Throw in the fact that she was fiercely independent and bisexual, she'd be considered "fan service for the male-feminist to wank over".

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. Off topic here: I seriously dislike that American anti-intellectualism. I see no reason, why Braid was pretentious, just because it tried something different, just because Blow tried to express his views on life the way he did. But that's somehow typical for our time, when everything intellectual is automatically "hipster" or "pretentious". I'm tired of getting labelled as a "hipster" just because I like literature, or because I write poetry and read philosophy for fun or because I'm wearing hipster glasses (that I wear because of poor eye-sight and also because my literay heroes did - it's the same as people wearing their new-era-caps because of some hip hop stars). It seems that in our time, everything that contradicts pure consumerism, everything that actively tries to change conventions or to be different, an alternative tends to get labelled that way. It's the death of progression. While I have no clue who the hell Johnathan Blow is, I don't think there's anything instinctively wrong with that statement. If I play a game, read a book, or watch a movie my primary intent is to be entertained. If that entertainment can come along with enlightenment, that's fantastic. However, if the product is more concerned with being "smart" than it is with telling an enjoyable story-line, it tends to be dreadfully boring. Granted, I've very rarely seen this most mediums; most "artistic" stories are still entertaining but I've heard a handful of bands who labelled themselves as "a thinking man's <genre>" and it was usually junk. That being said, concerning topics such as sexism - if it's good for the story, go for it. But don't make things "dark and edgy" just to do it. Using a related genre; I felt the setting the World of Darkness table-top role-playing games were great - but I felt their "mature" Black Dog supplements were filled with sex and violence solely for the sake of sex and violence, with only a couple of exceptions.

Alexey Pehov, author of the Chronicles of Siala. Yes, the books are rather traditional heroic fantasy. Yes, the concepts he has are relatively common cliques. Yes, the entire plot is more or less the sort of thing you ran in your high school D&D campaign after re-reading Lord of the Rings on summer But I'll be damned if it isn't entertaining. He takes over-done tropes, give them a little twist (though not enough they're considered a subversion) and makes a story that you find yourself engrossed by. If you care too much about "depth and maturity" you might find yourself a little ashamed but at the end of the day, at least in my case, I couldn't help but recall that C.S. Lewis quote about childish things after reading it.

The thing is, I can't think of a single role-playing game were the romance sub-plots were important to the over-all plot. What if a character is celibate? Maybe he believes that by denying the flesh and allowing himself to focus on the spiritual, his magic is more powerful. Or maybe, the said character believes in no sex before marriage - and even if you romance them, they'll be no love-making until you tie the knot (which for whatever reason can't happen. Or maybe, just like some people in real life (see: asexuality) they don't experience sexual attraction. Maybe, like various characters in Song of Ice and Fire, a character is a child protagonist. Personally, I'd love an RPG to have a child party member. There are countless ways a character can be deep, without needing to resort to sex.

Almost every single romance in a computer role-playing game can be defined as either the NPC falling in love with their therapist or the "sex is love" trope. I personally wouldn't mind romance (even if I prefer bro-mance, relationships that focus on family, mentor-student relations, etc.) if it was well-written - in most cases, its really not. Could Obsidian do it? Sure. But as they've proven in KOTORII, they can right other sorts of relationships better. So why bother with romance?

A (computer) role-playing game with absolutely no pop culture references is one that I don't want to play. Not really, but they've been in the genre for ages. As mentioned, Baldur's Gate made the "Larry, Darryl, and Darryl" reference. In Icewind Dale II, there was a wardrobe which according to the hover text, bore the image of a witch and a lion. I'm pretty even Planescape: Torment (a game labelled "Serious Business" by its fanbase - unaware that most of the themes and "anti-cliches" are very part of the Planescape setting) made reference to the Head of Vecna. Hell, even Warhammer 40k, which more or less named the "grimdark" trope is itself a reference to various other science-fiction and fantasy stories. People who take this stuff to seriously forget that at the end of the day this stuff is all about nerding it up.

I can't think of a single role-playing game that's considered "classic" that uses the "Super Demon" archetype. And even the game where it is used, Dragon Age: Origins, it isn't bad itself but the way Bioware played it. Multiple times, they've tried to play off the darkspawn as less "faceless horde" and more "Lovecraftian horrors" but seemed to have dropped the ball on that. 'sides, considering Obsidian always balances their games to have villains with clear motivations (Kriea, Ceaser) and villains who just do evil "for the lulz" (the Fiends, in FO:NV) I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about an archdemon.

If someone can't think of a single, memorable jRPG villain they haven't played very many jRPGs. Off the top of my head; Magus from Chrono Trigger (who despite joining your party was never redeemed), Luca Blight of Suikoden II, most antagonists in the Suikoden series in general, Lucifer's portrayal in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (though you could argue he's not a villain), Mastema from Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (see: Lucifer). Hell, with the exception of Luca Blight, there isn't a single Suikoden villain that is actually evil. Likewise, off the top of my head, the only villains in wRPGs I think are great are Irenicus, Kriea, and most of the named characters in Ceaser's Legion. Anyway... I want a character I can sympathize with as an antagonist - but still want to kill.

Can someone give me a "happy ending" in a recent role-playing game or even a classic one? Hell, I could likely count the happy, Disney-style ending in fantasy fiction that I've read on one hand.

I rather like this idea. Though rather than put the main antagonist, I'd put the real antagonist. Maybe you hear about the BBEG's master throughout the game - and even when you beat him the game's still open - and if you go to the last level your fight his boss or something.

Considering the point of P:E is to do a throwback to the IE games, I'm pretty sure they'll have an import/export feature. Likewise, they're going to have a "Heart of Fury"-type mode. That's been confirmed. So whether or not you want a "New Game +" it seems like we're getting at least one.

If I can't do a quest, I shouldn't get it. If something happens, I'm required to talk to a certain NPC, and I've killed that person, I should get a "quest failed" comment.

In combat, I want full control. In story, I want my characters to be independent. If I have Lawful Good-sort in my party and I decided just to murder an innocent commoner because he bumped into me, I expect him to react.

It's funny you mention Song of Ice and Fire... While it does have a lot of deep characters, it also has its share of characters that are villains. Cersei, while realistic motivations, is a character that everyone I know loves to hate. Few people can see her ever being "redeemed" and even fewer people want to see her redeemed. Likewise, Gregor Clegane and Ramsey Snow are pretty much put in just to be vile, depraved sons of *******. I like motivated ​ villains - but I also like to be villainous. I don't like the whole "I'm just misunderstood and not really a bad guy" thing that some people do, especially for a primary antagonist.

So, because he's got a good voice actor? That's a pretty poor justification. Yeah his VA was awesome, but i in no way call him the best written due to it. I call him average at best, honestly. I thought Loghain far outdid Irenicus in terms of characterization and his justifications. Not just a good voice actor, but likely one of the best performances of all time. Mute his escape from Spellhold, at his lines seem pretty hokey. Yet when you listen to them - you more or less hear everything that made him; his arrogance, his contempt for everyone but himself, and his malice. And personally, I felt Irenicus had better characterization, even outside of his voice acting. Irenicus' journals, scattered through Spellhold, made him - of course, Loghain might be awesome in the novels - but the world of Dragon Age in general didn't interest me enough to pick up the books.

Irenicus wasn't the best video game villain because of his background, but his characterization. His voice actor nailed the dialogue perfectly. If Obsidian said, tomorrow, they secured David Warner as the voice actor for P:E antagonist... Well, I'd be pretty happy.

If your character's intelligence, knowledge in medicine, or some other skill or ability is important to the conversation I personally would something telling me that I my character knows what's up. Likewise, if P:E has some sort of morality or karma system, the differences between "[Lie] I'm going to kill you if you don't give me the information" and "[Truth] I'm going to kill you if you don't give me the information" can mean quite a bit of difference.

Auto-pause, mainly. Enemy sighted, enemy defeated, trap detected, character killed. Rarely used manual pause, unless I was playing a wizard.

Sure is are a lot of members of the PC Master Race, here. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see the Project: Eternity developed for console for a variety of reasons; mainly interface and control nightmares, not to mention that the cost of porting the game would take a major hit on the game's funding, as well as potential funding for any possible sequel. That being said, while people are quick to play consoles for the death of the classic Western role-playing game and I'd argue they'd play a part, blaming consoles exclusively is missing a point - even console games themselves are being simplified - so are movies, television shows, and pop culture in general. What was normally a small but lucrative niche business is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Companies no longer cater to their old demographic, because the money is in the mass market. Don't forget, that console gaming is suffering too. As a fan of all sorts of role-playing games (including jRPGs), the genre as a whole isn't the same as it was in the late 90's, early 2000's. Company Final Fantasy XIII to Final Fantasy VI. Remember folks, the spiritual predecessor to Shadowrun Returns was an SNES exclusive and to this day, Avellone still sings the praises of Chrono Trigger and considers in an influence to his design style, as said in an interview. Don't blame consoles, blame the modern gamer - I have a friend with a top of the line gaming rig - but enjoys all the mainstream AAA titles and "modern" gaming more than classic - its not the system, its the gamer.