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In his defence, that one time he transported Human Torch into Galactus' fortress to fetch a weapon capable of destroying the entire Omniverse, his hand clearly just slipped.

If they do include melee attacks with firearms, I hope they account for that this is something that really only makes sense as a last resort, as guns generally aren't built to handle that kind of abuse. Smacking someone with a rifle butt is one thing, but if you use a pistol as a club, you better be prepared for the eventuality that that's all it'll be good for after that. I'm not sure if it's been confirmed if there'll be any kind of weapon deterioration or breaking, but at least in this case it'd definitely make sense to me that there's a chance of jamming or destroying a gun if you start swinging with it. I think the risk of this happening would work as a natural deterrent to over-using the "melee capabailities".

I think we're already past the "party leader does the talking" approach, which people have hated since BG. It made some sense in IWD (and ToEE) where you created the whole party from scrath (and was even then fairly annoying, as NPCs would initiate dialogue with whichever party member happened to be closest to them, and that's then who you were stuck with), but much less so when all the companions have established, distinct personalities the dialogue should by all regards reflect. Storm of Zehir featured a very neat mechanic that allowed you to shift between different characters in your party inside the dialogue, but this only worked because all your characters were essentially interchangeable adventures without any backstory other than what you yourself gave them. The most likely scenario to me is that of Planescape: Torment, with the PC doing all the talking and the companions just occasionally chiming in. I expect that the choices the player make are first and foremost the choices of the Watcher, in which case it makes very little sense for anyone else in the party to be speaking for them, even if they are just no-name companions recruited at the Adventurer's Hall.

I don't think Bethesda's games really make for a good point of comparison here, since they're built around a sandbox environment where the player can go everywhere the NPCs can. As the gameworld exists at all times whether the player is there to observe it or not (AI-handling-limitations nonwithstanding), having the NPCs simply appear in different locations doing different things for the player to observe would actually be much, much more difficult to implement than simply giving them a full daily schedule to follow. Of course, this is only true if the schedule is well-designed, a point which Fallout: New Vegas, while otherwise an excellent game, highlighted aptly: Because of poor AI management, if you happened to stray upon the NPCs at the wrong time, you'd find them engaged in all sorts of senseless behaviour, such as standing together in a tight bunch throughout the night because they had been assigned to sleep in a house without enough beds for them all. >_> As has been discussed in this thread, though, it's unlikely that PoE will take this approach, but will rather follow the tried-and-true scheme of the player being restricted to only small portion of the game world (a map) at any given time. As such, it only makes sense you'd only see a given NPC in a given situation, before they head off somewhere where you can't follow. Your suggestion of a stable but to a degree randomised NPC population who perform given tasks at a given area strikes me as a good one. To make things even simpler, I'd further make it so that time passes no faster ingame as in the real world. The NPCs would then only really need to be shifted around when the game clock "jumps forward" while resting, travelling, etc., reducing the intricacies of their AI management.

We will with all due likelihood see default party formations akin to the old IE games -- I see absolutely no reason why they wouldn't include at least this much. I think what OP is asking, though, is will we able to create custom formations by positioning the characters by hand and then locking that formation in place. The teaser gameplay trailer IMO suggests we will at least to a degree be able to do this, as we see the party moving two very neat formations, the other of which is a bit too uncommon to be a default one -- though this might admittedly be just the result of the party not being full and there as such being empty spots in the formation. I'm personally rooting for the system Temple of Elemental Evil had, in which you could freely arrange your party's formation within a limited-size grid.

QFT. Scrounger made keeping in stock an afterthought at the cost of a single perk (and LK of at least 5). In general I found that ammo consevation was really an issue for automatic weapons (and to a smaller degree pistols, due to having such low accuracy). If you rolled with rifles or energy weapons, you'd rarely need to use more than a handful of shots per enemy, though this too was to a degree a character progression choice: You had to invest in the skills and accuracy-boosting perks to really get the benefits of single-shot weapons.

I think this is something that's easier to accomplish in (non-sandbox) 3D, since you can more easily imply that you're ever only seeing small portion of the city, the rest of which can be seen stretching far into the landscape -- Mass Effect did this very well, especially in the Citadel, where there was always tons of bustle in the background. Of course, same can be accomplished in 2D, but it kind of doesn't have the same impact when you're just told it's a vast, busy city without being able to actually see it. Anyways, despite the need to then resolve the question, "Why can't I go anywhere I like?", limiting the player to just some portions of the city is still IMO the best way to create a sense of scale. This is what IE games generally did, anyhow, whether this was made explicitly clear or not. If you look the combined ingame areas of Baldur's Gate and take it to represent the whole of the city, it wouldn't be a city so much as keep, with generously only some hundreds of residents. In contrast, the lore places the population count at 42,000, which is obviously a bit more than what you see ingame. As long as there's enough NPCs to make the portion of the city I'm in not seem abandoned, I'm happy.

I was actually just saying on another another threat, this should actually be the other way around: It's the cruel and selfish that should have it easier, not those who try to do right by everyone. The context I brought this up was as an alternative mechanism for level-scaling: Instead of the game adjusting to the player's level to allow those who skipped a lot of content to be able to finish the main quest, it should instead make the player choose between doing things the easy way or doing them the right way. Betray an ally to avoid a difficult battle, torture an innocent child to death to complete a magical ritual that will grand you untold powers, abandon the villagers you were supposed to protect to divert enemies off your path -- it's easy to come up with ways that sensibly reward the player for choosing evil, and I myself would dearly like to see them implemented, if for no other reason then because it then makes choosing good all the more meaningful. On the issue of the law-vs-chaos, I tend to see the problem of having to choose between Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil (capitalised here indicate I'm using the normal D&D definitions) that of the chosen setting. Most cRPGs take place in civilizations where laws are by and large intended to uphold peace and justice, so it immediately follows that abiding them will tilt the player toward good, while breaching them will push them toward evil. I'm hoping that in PoE we will see more moral ambiguity in this regard -- it's an original setting, after all, so nothing's stopping Obsidian from having the player navigate inherently evil laws. All of the examples I gave above could potentially result in shift toward Lawful, rather than Chaotic: Perhaps you are sworn to out any member of the faction your companion belong to the authorities, and in sheltering them you break both your vow and the law of the land; The child could be a legally purchased slave you are legally at liberty to what you want with, and the ritual itself a contract with a Lawful Evil deity; The villagers might be the target of an ethnic cleansing undertaken by the realm, and betraying them viewed as an honourable thing to do -- like outing a criminal. Finally, you noted how it's disturbing how in many RPGs the kind-hearted hero will finish the game with a kill-count in the triple digits, and I agree. Killing in self-defence or to protect others is one thing, but often the games reward (or at least don't punish) you for killing someone deemed a "bad guy", which is a very black-and-white and dissatisfying way to look at things. I hope PoE will at least to some degree acknowledge that people aren't inherently good or evil, but instead provides us with the option of trying to figure out why the bad guys do what they do, and maybe even help them. The hero should be someone who has to struggle to provide everyone's story with a good ending, including the bad guys'. The villain, meanwhile, is the villain not necessarily because their goals are sinister -- the most compelling villains are always those who themselves believe they're on the side of good -- but because they don't care who gets hurt in the process of reaching those goals.

I can't even look at the title of this topic without this playing in my head. >_> Anyways, barely even enough information to speculate, but my guess is that the Watchers are individuals who possess a unique supernatural ability, mostly likely related to communicating with and/or controlling spirits. I'm outruling more mundane skills since that would make it a trait one can choose. For the same reason, I find it unlikely it's a condition inflicted by any mortal agent. Deities, possession by ancient spirits and otherwordly lineage are still on the table. The Animancy bit further makes it seem to me that if there is an organisation for and/or by Watchers, it's a secret one.

While I'm generally all for puzzles, they should be such that they take the character's skills into account, rather than the player's. My rock-stupid barbarian shouldn't be able to solve mathematical quagmires just because I can, nor should my brainiac wizard with expansive knowledge of lore be stumped by simple riddles I can't think of the answer to. Of course, there's not much point to the puzzles unless it's the player that ultimately solves them, but I'd still like to see the skills and choice of companions of the character at least figure into the process. So for example, when presented with a riddle your character's intelligence would determine how many options you're given to choose from, with very low intelligence perhaps even hiding the correct answer, which one of your smarter companions could then point out to you if present -- and if they like you enough.

Optimal design would IMO be no scaling, with critical path such that for the best outcome you do need to be very strong party by the end. Allowances should instead made in story, so that you would have to choose between doing things the easy way or doing them the right way. For example, you could avoid a difficult fight by sacrificing one of your companions. Sell out the villagers you were supposed to protect. Forego a large reward to sneak by the enemy instead. The first two examples should highlight the large bonus in terms of roleplay to this approach, as it would give the player a tangible reason to choose evil, which is how I think it should be: Those who betray and think only of themselves should have an easier time than those who try to do right by everyone. Such allowances could also be imposed, similar to what Bioware did in Mass Effect 2: You can forego a lot of the content, but that will result in you being unprepapred to face what comes, and there will be casualties. ME2 was absolutely perfect for playing an over-confident would-be-hero who rushed into danger, with those who (foolishly) trusted Shepard ending up paying the price.

The Endless Paths mega-dungeon will feature lots of puzzles, as is only appropriate, and as the dungeon is supposed to be such that the player can't just race through it on one go, I would imagine some of those puzzles will also be challenging. It's nothing that has been confirmed, but there will likely the situations similar to what you had in Planescape: Torment, where you will have to utilise some item or bit of knowledge gained elsewhere to solve the puzzle, without anyone pointing the connection out to you.

Well, the game being crowdfunded does change things, since (in theory) the game's production costs are already all covered and Obsidian only has to answer to the backers, who did specifically want an oldschool game. That being said, I wasn't only talking about modern cRPGs. In Black Isle games, too, you could crank up the difficulty and still have a pretty easy time at it... aside from certain boss fights. >_> Not to say the games couldn't be difficult, but that usually required creating a character or party with serious lackings or disadvantages, in terms of roleplay or game mechanics, i.e. handicapping yourself. I do hope the handicaps, if there are any, will come with some manner of upside, though, as discussed above. To me the absolutely best scenario would be unqiue disadvantages that lend unique advantages, both of which are recognised in story and dialogue. Something like being able to play as a deaf character would be fantastic, though I realise it would've been a very large development investment. Then again, so was the low-INT dialogue in Fallout.

Obsidian's forte has always been writing, so I'm not exactly sure what is the expectation here. The nature of MMOs in and of itself excludes any one player having even a slight impact on the gameworld in a manner that would be consistent across all players' games. Whenever playing with others everyone has to pretend the others didn't do the exact same quests, too -- even more so if you take the Guild Wars approach and have everyone be the one hero of the realm. Roleplaying in MMOs invariably comes down to either persistent soloing (defeating the point of playing MP in the first place) or essentially just ignoring the stories the devs create and making up your own. The latter you can do in any MMO -- I don't see the point in hiring the best writers in the industry to hand you a blank page.

Well, that's just usually how it goes. Would be nice if the vanilla difficulty settings catered for both those who want casual gameplay and those who want a real challenge, but in practice there aren't great many RPGs I can name that I wouldn't have modded or wanted to mod to be more difficult. Not because I'd feel there's more merit to overcoming larger odds -- it's just a game, after all -- but because the story feels much more meaningful when the protagonist really has to struggle to get where they're going.

In principle, this could be managed by adding a setting that makes it so that you only exit the loading screen upon pressing a key. That being said, I can appreciate that creating even a modest amount of detailed images would be a lot of work put into a feature few people would be likely to use, though perhaps existing concept art could be used? It would be foresightful of the devs to at least leave placeholder screens that could later be filled by them or the community.

is this the same thing as giving self a handicap? for example, many fallout traits had a bonus and a handicap. the thing is, the handicaps could frequent be nullified or ignored. sure, gifted gave you a penalty to skill points, which were easily overcome by putting some o' those extra ability points into intelligence. small frame would result in a decreased carrying capacity, but would boost agility by 1... and that additional agility point could actually be spent on any ability. giving self handicaps so as to be getting a "better" character is typical in pnp rpgs, but it always stuck us as a bit silly. HA! Good Fun! I'd argue it's still very much a handicap. Gifted gave you penaltly of -10% to all skills, and even if you put all 7 SPECIAL points gained into Intelligence, you were still left wanting for whopping 148 skill points over all 18 skills (for FO1), with the bonus from INT accounted for. +7 INT would give you 14 extra SP per level, with -5 from Gifted, so it wouldn't be until level 17 (21 being the maximum in FO1) that you could've have recouped the penalty to your skills. Of course, you'd get the advantage of the massive INT bonus all the while, but especially in the beginning would be at a serious disadvantage skill-wise. Same with Small Frame: A quick calculation reveals that the only way to nullify the Carry Weight penalty with the one SPECIAL point gained would be to have Strength < 1 / (25/15 - 1) = 1.5, giving after the increase STR of 2, which would be a rather serious disadvantage on its own. The point is, the advantages gained from the traits may trump the disadvantages, but it can't be said the former would automatically nullify the latter. You get a better character in the sense it's more focused on the things you consider more important, but there is still a price to be paid for that.

Oh, this is indeed a good point. It's even more frustrating when the dialogue invariably ends in combat but the choices you make in it still matter, so that you have to pay attention to them each time. On the other hand, I do like it when the villains bother explaining why they're attacting you, instead of falling unto you nilly-willy, which always leaves me wondering if I had unwittingly pissed them off somehow (by pick-pocketing the wrong character, for example) and a peaceful solution would've been possible. The best practice, IMO, is to provide some manner of short-cut ("Pleased to meet you. Let's get this fight over with.") that won't incur a story penalty for the dialogue missed.

I'm actually replaying Planescape:Torment at the moment, and the dialogue don't IMO really have the finality OP speaks of. Yes, you frequently need to make decisions in dialogue, and those decisions open new dialogue paths and close off others, but for most part you can just cycle through the options indefinitely. I get where OP is coming from -- the character should come off as real people, not walking encyclopedias (people of Morrowind, I'm looking at you) -- but personally, I absolutely hate it when I have to choose just one thing to ask, and then my character inexplicably becomes unable to ask anything else, even when they had all those interesting questions lined up just a moment ago. For me, one of the best features of P:T is that you can ask people the most meaningless, asinine questions. You can ask every single person in The Hive if they know where Pharod is even after you already know how to find him, and they all have something different to say. You can ask about who they are, what they're doing, and about anything else they might happen to have knowledge on. Most of the time the information gained from these conversations is completely trivial, but every once in a while you stumble upon a gem of knowledge that will come in handy in some unique way. That's how it works in the real world, too: You never know who might have the most stratling insight on a given matter until you ask them; if you only ask the usual suspects, you only get the usual answers. Bottomline is, not everything needs to have a function. Any game where you can just walk around for hours talking to NPCs and learning about the world around you always gets high marks from me.

This. Daggerfall had a similar system which allowed you to choose special advantages and disadvantages, and the net effect of these then affected how quickly you'd advance in skills. That being said, I'm definitely one of those people who'll handicap themselves just for the challenge, especially if the game in some way acknowledges the handicap in e.g. how NPCs react to you, as opposed to it just being a stat penalty.

It's very basic, and maybe not exactly what the OP was going for, but the one thing I want is to be able to toggle between walking and running. This seems like it should be given, yet there are a lot of RPGs who'd have the PC running around like a lunatic all the time -- The Witcher inexplicably had walking animations but no option to actually make the PC walk, and the feature had to be modded in -- or have the player jumping through hoops, like Obsidian's own NWN2, which had you holding down shift to walk. Just a single keypress to alternate between walking and running, is what I want.

I'll just leave this here...

At this point I think you're just trolling me, but that's not the kind of "tricky" narration I was protesting, but rather the easy and efficient I was endorsing. As said, however, the problem sets in when you make the stylistic decision of using the narration common in movies. For example, take The Hobbit: We begin the Bilbo settling down to write his tale, the first few sentences of which we actually hear narrated. Then we switch to "normal" movie narration where things just happen without anyone actually being there to desribe them. And I have no doubt whatsoever the third movie will again end with Bilbo, setting down his pen after writing down the very final thing we saw in the story proper, likely again with a bit of actual narration. The implication here is that everything we saw was the story as told by Bilbo, and this actually explains a lot of the apparent inconsistencies between the LotR and the Hobbit movies: Why Saruman comes off as a bit of a buffoon; the orcs are much fiercer and more colourful; the elves are insanely skilled but kind of silly; and the unlikely coincidences just keep cropping up. Bilbo will not only be inclined to embellish the story a bit, but will actually have to make some stuff up, as he wasn't in fact there to himself witness it. The same approach has been applied to a lot of games, just replacing the "normal" movie with "normal" gameplay. Again, having an NPC bridge the gaps in the story is perfectly fine. That's not narration in the sense I'm talking about, but just another bit of dialogue. Things become problematic for the many reasons I have already detailed when you explicitly imply the whole thing is a story being told, which you're basically doing just by having the narrator start the tale and then having them finish it. I know a lot of people don't care about the distinction, but it is there.

Thanks for... disputing I have a point and then proceeding to present my conclusion as your own, I guess? Having a narrator in any other function than to "sum up or skim over events" (or narrate between the chapters, as I put it) is tricky and unnecessary, which was exactly the case I was making. Most of the games that have been brought up as examples here, such as IWD2, the narrator has not in fact been there just to bridge the gaps, however, but is understood to be telling the entire story even if they're not actually narrating everything. This is a basic technique that was adopted to games from movies, and it's fine in movies but absolutely sucks for RPGs, since because of it the player won't actually know what happened and what the narrator just says happened, which diminishes the meaningfulness of all the choices you make. The options I gave were how this could be done properly, and what difficulties that would entail.

As a writer myself, I really have to say there are some serious hurdles to clear if you want to do the whole character-narrator thing right. There's basically three paths you can go down: 1, The narrator never ever leaves the side of the main character (in this case the PC). I'm sure you can see how this might present a problem, unless you make the narrator some kind of a spirit or a talking hamster or whatever that you can have following the PC around without actually interfering with gameplay. Still, the narrator's point of view will be limited; they can't for example ever know what's really going on inside the protagonist's head, which is admittedly less of a restriction in an RPG than in a written story. 2. Flat-out admit that since the narrator doesn't always know how things went down for sure, their account isn't reliable. Dragon Age 2 recently did this, and it can actually work as a neat gameplay mechanic, since you can explain e.g. loading up a save as the narrator going, "No, wait, I remembered wrong." The problem with this approach, and the character-narrator approach in general, is that the player won't in the end know what actually happened, either. This is IMO a fairly important point role-playing-wise. 3. Make the narrator omniscient or at least clairvoyant. This option is the easiest one to pull off, but unless you have some concrete reason for why the narrator is only ever observing and never intervening, it's going to severely restrict the story paths you can take. One option is to limit the narrator's knowledge to the protagonist, specifically, or give them no means of helping or warning the heroes. Alternatively, you can make this, too, a gameplay mechanic: When you die, or meet some other unfavourable result of your choices that may make you reach for the load button, that was just the narrator showing you what might happen in the future. So in conclusion, having the entire story narrated by anyone other than the PC is tricky as hell -- to pull it off properly you have to integrate to the whole affair pretty deeply into core gameplay. A lot of RPGs -- Witcher 2 most recently, I think -- have done this half-assedly, and it's at least to me always been detrimental to the story. Having an NPC narrate something that goes on "between the chapters" is fine, but unless you're going to go all out, I think it's best just to have the player as the narrator: You determine how the story unfolds. To me that's the bulk of the appeal of RPGs right there, anyhow.