Kore

I'm perfectly happy with clean modern english. Modern phrases and slang should steered away from where they don't make sense though. What I'd really like is for different classes(of society) and regions to have different accents though. I really loved the way the thieves in BG1 spoke, it was great fun for one quest line.

So who else will be spending the next week with their nose buried deep in BGEE?

Sure, I could go for this. Features that allow me to make tactical choices during combat are great, but just as long as they don't frustrating me when I'm exploring

Because that's what people funded, right? People funded an old-school, isometric, party-based tactical cRPG in the same vein as the old Black Isle games. That doesn't mean that it has to be mechanically identical to the IE games or the original Fallout games. If Obsidian thinks that it can improve upon the concept by borrowing ideas from other games, then they should do so. At least IMO. That said, I don't want them to get rid of the RTWP combat system. If PE wasn't RTWP I would be sorely disappointed. It is one of the key ingredients to the success of the IE game imo. If you remove the RTWP then it becomes a completely different game.

Half of those I would absolutely detest, the others I'm mostly neutral towards. I would hate arbitrary slowing down of my party as you suggest in ice or sand. The only merit it holds is realism which is vastly outweighed by the annoyance it would cause me. As far as I am concerned no part of the game should annoy me, we're playing a game so complete realism will never be reached and so sacrificing the realism that would be brought by making my party have to wade through a swamp is utterly worthwhile if it means I'm not slowed down. Having penalties apply to certain races at certain times or light bonuses could be interesting but it could be nearly as annoying as being slowed down. It entirely depends on whether I can alter it without it being annoying, e.g. a light ball spell or infravision, but then what is the point in that since it would just become a chore for me to do. No thank you. Spells only working outdoors sounds like it would break balance to me. If it's balanced then I'm happy with it, but if druids end up getting gimped because of it then I strongly disagree with this suggestion. Pushing people into fires, spells working differently in tighter spaces, taking cover and setting light to items sounds good. I approve of those suggestions as they add tactical choices to the game.

I think that dungeons too often are ye olde tombs that are now home to lost ones or it was over run by corrupted shadows/demons. Why can't we have a highly organised dwarven drugs operation in a clean professional zone.... Maybe I've been watching too much Breaking Bad though.

This is my opinion. I could have put it more eloquently myself

They didn't have one (...) Of course they did, at least BG1. Whole Candlekep area was one big tutorial. Well not really... It didn't teach you how to pick locks, find traps or the basics of combat. I guess the tutors were sort of a tutorial now that I think about it... Fine I'll semi concede this point That said I'd still much rather have the tutorial follow the BG2 format than BG1

They didn't have one, it took me until about my 3rd playthrough to work out how to disarm traps on BG1. They both had fetch and carry levels though and BG1 let you practice killing monsters in a safe environment.

Yes. I often get bored of chateaux irenicus before I even make it out, so yes to that, but don't make it like DA:O did and force me to a choke point every time I want to try out a new character. Whats the point in forcing me to spend 30 minutes or so with little actual gameplay? It's fine the first playthrough, but once you know that story bit it becomes drawn out and tedious. On topic of the thread, I too don't want to have to spend ages fetching and carrying, but I don't ever want to be confused about how to play. The tutorial in BG2 did this well imo. The tutorial didn't worry about giving it a sub plot, it was straight to the point and got the job done and then when you wanted to play the game you could dive straight in. If they force you to a short story of its own and that unnecessarily lengthens the time it takes to learn the basics of the UI and how the game works then that is wasted time on my part.

Fetch and carry for 45 minutes makes me sad.

The old necromancer, who retired, gets alzheimers and thinks he is still fighting in the war, he used the dark arts to animate his goods and became the first pastamancer! Now he is marching towards the town hall to conquer the city! Words cannot describe how much I love that.

I'm not so fussed about the inspiration. I'm more concerned about the content. Since this dungeon is going to be so large it will need plenty of quests and subplots within the dungeon to keep me engaged. Durlags tower got a bit boring for me by the end of it and Dragons Eye just seemed interminable, it just never ended and became a bit tedious in my mind. Puzzles and combat are great, but something that is going to be 15 levels deep will need its own stories and sub stories.

I like realistic armour, I agree with the majority of this thread there. One thing I disliked about the IE amour was the lack of diversity, I'd like to have armour inspired by various cultures, not just 14th century plate armour. I'd like to see spartan, roman legion, varangian, teutonic, russel crowe style gladiator, viking inspired armour, Van Helsing etc. That way I can play dress up a lot without it losing realism.

I really like the concept of Ulcaster, it was just a pity that they didn't flesh it out more. I also really liked the way that Firewine ruins worked in that it wasn't a linear "here is a dungon entrance, now go kill the boss" type dungeon. It really encouraged exploration and you could access it from multiple points. It was just cool. Also ferns. Ferns are cool. I also like the idea of a bank vault. Does a dungeon have to be "epic"? I quite like the idea of having a reasonable sized dungeon, maybe 2 levels or so, based in a bakery and the quest topics were fairly mundane. You still have to overcome challenges, but generally they need you to use your non combat skills to complete it rather than fighting everyone. I just think a bakery would be fun

If a character is level 1 when I recruit them then they're useless to me. They should be leveled, but I'd like for me to be able to specialise them myself. If it's not an option for me to spec them myself then I'd either need them to be specced intelligently by designers. In BG the proficiency points of some characters are wasted if you recruit them at high levels. In addition to this I would need to be able to recruit them at the beginning of the game so that if I want to powergame with them then I can. I think Obsidian have promised that all will be available from relatively early anyway so I'm happy about that.

Not at all, I'm saying that randomness can negatively affect gameplay enjoyment because it makes parts of the game tedious. While there is extrinsic enjoyment to be had through finding the chest full of treasure, there is no longer intrinsic enjoyment to be had because you know exactly what is there and what is not so curiosity is no longer the driving factor to exploration. It essentially becomes a grind.

I think that if players intrinsically enjoy looking for traps and not knowing which monster is around the corner then perhaps a single rogue like dungeon would be good. That way players who enjoy it could simply keep going back to it; call it the Keep of Shifting Walls and you're set. I would perhaps argue that while you're completely right that positioning should be a factor in tactical gameplay that randomising dungeons completely would be unnecessary since you could simply vary the designs of each bosses lair or add moving parts to various boss fights. This would achieve that goal without annoying those players who does enjoy randomly placed traps and mobs for the hell of it. I consider it the game world equivalent of stubbing my toe in the dark

I'm not sure that this poll properly allows me to demonstrate my opinion. Tactics and decisions are important to me. I need a good story, that is indisputable, but the gameplay also has to be engaging. Whether this means epic boss encounters, sneaking around some bandits, poisoning the drink of an ambassador or talking my way out of a beating isn't so relevant as long as it is engaging. It is worth mentioning that I enjoy powergaming though, so having challenging boss fights is crucial to that so that I can formulate my spreadsheets accordingly.

Sure this makes sense, I'm happy to agree to that. I will just say that for me exploration is only intrinsically exciting if there is new content for me to find. If I know what the content already is or that there are traps somewhere, but I don't know where then that's simple time wasting for me and I'd rather get on with finding out about new content or furthering the story. Of course I'm simply questioning here whether randomising the map is the best way of non trivialising the game. You have made some good points though.

My opinion on this very heavily depends on a few factors. On the one hand, yes respecing often makes no sense, but on the other It's bloody annoying to pick up Shar Teel late game and for her to be specced with 1 prof point in small swords, 1 in large swords etc. In addition to this, my opinion depends on whether it is easy to screw up or not. In many games I spec early on for the hell of it without much comprehension of what it means for late game. If speccing is complex and requires me to do relatively extensive background research before I commit then I want to be able to respec to some degree, but if it's simply a choice between schools, between favoured weapons, between kits etc then sure, I'm perfectly happy with no respecs. If respecs were implemented though I would rather it was only to reoptimise your character. Completely redefining the role of your character is stupid.

I'm not massive fan of druids in robes. I'd rather see them decked out more like rogues, but with less subtlety and more "Yes, I can turn into a wolf, I can heal wounds, I can call lightning and I can literally grow more armour. Do your worst". As a long time druid this how I role play as. This of course doesn't mean that druids shouldn't be able to wear robes if they like or that robes shouldn't be a viable choice, but I want to be able to play my druid as a hard defiant defender/avenger of whatever it is that I choose, not just a "nature wizard".

You have to ask at that point, what is the point in randomising the map? The shape of the map rarely adds anything to gameplay for me, it is predominately simply the back drop to the story and combat that takes place there. As long as it is suitably badass and makes sense then it fulfills all its requirements afaiac.

Personally hotkeys aren't too important to me since PE will be a pause based game. The minimum that I require is space = pause, Q (not A, not F5, Q! ^^)= quicksave and pressing the hotkey for a page, such as map, while the map is open closes it. For some bizarre reason it really annoys me when nothing happens when I press M with map open. Fully customisable works for me though

To some extent I like randomisation, but I'd rather we on the side of too little rather than too much. Ideally I'd like the choice. I am a power gamer, sometimes I prefer a good spreadsheet to actually playing the game itself. This requires me to know exactly what is available and where to find it. With too much randomisation I can't do this; rather than making a choice ahead of time between the long bow of awesomeness or the short bow of badassery I have to make do with whichever I stumble apon first. Despite this I do like having some play throughs where I don't know what is available just so I don't make a beeline towards greywolf and his +2 long sword. Personally I,'d like the option to decide if things are randomised. Obsidian have enough resources I feel