Boo's Brother Hoo

I think Obsidian might be overlooking a vast untapped resource. Lephys makes a great point, plenty of fans would be willing to do voice overs for free (or some novelty payment like an NPC with their name). The could put out a few lines of sample dialogue, and ask people to send sound recordings of themselves voicing it, with the signed agreement that they will not be paid for any voicing used. The cost associated with it would be paying someone to sift through the videos and find the decent ones. The people picked could be contacted for more lines. Would work just fine for minor NPC's, and you really only need first line and one line voice overs to get the feel. I'm sure there are more complications, but its an untapped resource nonetheless.

I also have been hoping for a more dynamic "reputation" style system. I like the premise, just needs a way to be made more important. I also mentioned in another thread I'd like it to be invisible during game (less likely to metagame or whatever) but maybe have a summary of what kind of person you were at the end of the game. Being judged by the gods would be an interesting way to do it, or just a GTA style list of achievements.

A few days on these forums and I can already spy the guy who likes to argue.

And if that doesn't work, you could threaten them with some Yoko Ono! EDIT: Or Michael Bolton. HAHAHAHAHA I just youtubed Angel by Sarah McLachlan to listen to it after Lephys suggestion, then watched your GIF to it as a soundtrack. Epic.

I like the general idea a lot. I don't know that it has to be all that complicated as some unrelated intro screen, and during loading screens, it might be seen as annoying advertisements. The main menu screen should just have a "Like this Game? Support future kickstarter for a sequel!" button that links directly to a site that gives various easy options to donate/pay for/buy etc. What would be really funny is if there was a tongue in cheek side quest about an author of a book or something needing help combating actual pirates taking his books, and then at the end the guy says it didn't really matter because he was paid to make it in the first place, but it'd be nice to write a longer one with the extra proceeds.

Steam isn't DRM? Why don't you send Steam an e-mail asking what they will do once you decide you don't want to sign their new terms and conditions. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/im-longer-buying-games-steam-opinion/ Thank you for contacting Steam Support. We can permanently deactivate your account for you, remove any stored payment information and clear your Steam games profile.

I feel like the expansion to Baldurs Gate 2 tried to depict a full scale battle outside the city under seige, but they just had generated npcs file out of the sides of the map as you killed them. I would like to have an actual strategic show down against 30-50 decent NPC's with my party and maybe 10 henchmen. But then again, can that many characters even fit on screen without it just being a huge blob?

I like the idea of having more than one metric to determine how NPC's interact with you. I'm sure it complicates dialogue writing immensely, but it would really increase replayability. The player character could be viewed and interacted with by NPC's based on things such as: Good or Evil Nice or Jerk Rich or Poor Success/Failure with Quests How they are dressed and more... But not only do I want to be rated on these things by NPC's, I don't want to be told until the end of the game. One of the things that kind of annoys me in game is when I see some yellow text that says "You just moved 2 points towards evil, you just moved two points towards lawful." Those kind of messages encourage meta gaming to me. It should be a complete mystery what your karma or ratings are, except by judging how the NPC's interact with you. Especially if when you have choices of dialogue answers it isn't so obviously Good Neutral Evil. Then at the end of the game, you get a summary of what kind of person you are, maybe a short scene where a god judges you and explains why he has sentenced you thusly. I also think it needs to be harder to play as a good character who accepts rewards, its always the best way to maximize loot and quests and its hard to break from that mold. (Dialogue wise) Could just be me.

Does it matter if its pirated? I thought the whole purpose of this crowd funding was the customers who want to support the game paid for the game to be made. So at the end of the day, when the game is finished, everyone involved got paid. I'm sure they would very much prefer to make a profit as well, and a few of the top guys might make very little relatively, but I don't think they are expecting to do much in the way of sales beyond the 75,000 people they already have waiting. Its a niche product. In fact, now that I think about it, crowd funding video games makes a lot of sense. Have your fans pay to develop it, and you mitigate risk of a loss to investment. I actually hope it becomes a thing, maybe like "boutique" gaming, where developer units offer up various ideas to their fan base and build to order if funded, rather than trying to mass market every single game they make. Edit: I also hope it catches on with the movie and television industry. Imagine shows and movies built for a specific set of audience with their input in mind, paid for by that audience in the first place...oh the opportunities...a Wheel of Time mini series...

When I first played Baldur's Gate 2 as a kid I read a lot of the books and thought I was finding hidden quests by doing so. Then as time went on I realized there was no way for me to find any of the described areas in the books, simply because the writers didn't even add those areas to the game. So disappointing :'( I even exited every map area from every side/path to make sure they didn't lead to new places. Still, considering the effort and resources involved creating gameplay, I don't think the creaters would want to spend it making super hard to find secret areas/missions. Sadly

I'll tell you what needs to happen. Someone needs to make a game/program that a modder can use to create a feature length awesome game from scratch in a matter of weeks. When that day comes, we won't have to have arguments about whether features should be included in this game or not. Then again the entire industry would probably be out of work...

I agree, debating the merits of stuff like this can be a fun exercise, but lets be serious...does anyone really care enough about what the money is called or how realistic it is? Enough to add plenty of man-hours and money to the budget of a game? I certainly don't, just like I don't care all that much how dead bodies are dealt with. Example: Fallout New Vegas had 3 different currencies. Cool concept. Then about 5 minutes later I ignored that and systematically converted everything into caps. NCR bills and Legion coins were just as meaningful to me as old-world money, the light but somewhat valuable trading item.

I have noticed a few suggestions in these forums remind me of features already available in Red Dead Redemption. And let me tell you, they were cool for about 5 minutes. Stuff like repeatable quests/jobs, bland random encounters, business's, etc. strike me as stuff more suitable for an MMO or sandbox, both of which are struggling to not be boring. Its a shame, because a lot of those elements are things us gamers asked for, but they just don't seem to pan out very well in turns of inspiring gameplay mechanics.

I hope I don't get snarked all over, being new to the forums, but I'm going to throw my two cents in as well. The OP's example of that Lich in Baldurs Gate 2 was spot on btw. I loved that it seemed ungodly impossible and frightening when I first walked into its room, and then later in the game I took it down with superior spells/gear. I guess the problem with level scaling (or as ffordesoon really said it, noticeable level scaling) and probably how the OP felt is that it kind of makes experience points and leveling up seem rather pointless. I mean if I play through the game like someones holding a gun to my head, skipping every optional quest and side story like its carrying the plague, and yet I can still beat all of the major story line game points, then why even have levels? They clearly don't mean anything if all your opponents are scaled to your level. Combat ends up being grindy and repetitive and not tactical at all, to me anyways. That being said, I'm sure Obsidian gets that and is striving very hard to create a situation that most of us are happy with

Evoker makes a really good point. What a lot of people (including me ) want is a bunch of (or even infinite) games packaged into one, so that my choices literally affect the world I am in. Sadly, such a thing is not feasible yet. Not until someone plugs the brains of our favorite writers into a computer and creates an AI that can build story as you play anyways... Baldur's Gate 2 format was pretty good, but perhaps just a bit more open. The more major cities filled with actual content the better.