Kjaamor

I'm totally on board with this, as long as they make each installment have its own successful endgame. I'm one of the few of who think that people are getting a little ahead of themselves talking about sequels before the success of the initial game has been established. Planning for a wide series is great, but just don't pull a Shenmue and have a grand design that never gets resolved.

I'm more of a "War. War never changes." kinda guy. Like dramatic narration of the intro, and narrated summary of the outro, but generally I'm not so keen on chapters. For me they create a sense of linearity that I'd rather do without.

As an aside, I always liked the RPG idea of belonging to another class giving you potential solution to quest problems. E.g. IWD2 in first map, you have to give someone your healing potion unless you're a cleric and then can heal them and keep the potion (although this is actually terrible use of the idea, because parties with dedicated healers have less need for healing potions, but whatever). I think that sort of thing is great as long as there is a degree of imbalance between the classes in this regard, so, say a Druid provides more helpful options over the course of the game than, say, a wizard - who may be superior to the Druid in combat to provide overall balance. Ymmv.

Agreed. Also, just to reinforce the need for a system such as this, IWD2's exp system was actually broken to the point where it was easier with fewer party members. I agree that soloing or small parties should be possible, but if you're encouraging people to use six slots as a default then I feel that should be the easiest option.

Looking back at the way I phrased that, I think I was a bit unclear as to my thoughts. I enjoyed playing the first map; exploring, managing my party, levelling up and combat, but towards the end of that first map I'd learned how to manage my party to full functionality, I'd maxed out all my characters' levels, and I'd worked out the best approach for combat so that barring a series of incredibly unlucky rolls I never got in trouble again. Then the game gave me a second, larger map, with the same management, the same levels and the same combat. All that was left as an incentive to play was the exploration, and by the second map that had become quite lacklustre in my eyes. All the second map did was give length for length's sake.

If memory serves correctly, when Orcs Troll.

For all I loved Fallout, one of the things I think it did poorly was the addiction roll. I know we constantly debate save/reload spamming on these forums, but I just think that addiction should be something surreptious and not something you can just reload to avoid. Maybe make the roll at the time and keep it hidden, and then expose the result several game days later. I'm not particularly arguing from the immersion standpoint (although that's obviously a bonus). I just think there's an opportunity for a good gameplay mechanic there, and if drugs are going to be in we should make the most of it, rather than the consequence-less bonus of Fallout. See, personally I always thought that given that adventurers predominantly seem to hang around in taverns, accrue vast sums of gold but have no property to store possession in, and have careers based almost exclusively around violence, that alcohol and other such things would've weighed in pretty heavily. Again, to drag a gameplay event out of it, I would love a "[not particularly]hardcore" mode where at the end of each day you have to spend gold to feed your party, but the amount they spend/what they spend it on is automated based upon each member's personality. "Saving up for that mithril chainmail be damned, this dwarf wants his keg!" etc.

Standard Kjaamor in such games tends to be a dual-wielding dps, specialising in sustained damage. Probably looking at Barbarian for that. Personality wise, it's very standard Neutral Good. Don't mind breaking the law to help people, but generally look to improve laws so they help people better. Realistically, I'm not going to assign too much of a personality to my character at this stage for the simple reason that they're going to be railroaded into certain dialogue options no matter how good Obsidian are. The tale will tell the character, really. EDIT: Race is invariably Elf/Half-elf/Human in that order ruling out races that significantly comprimise the efficiency of the class.

I liked Minsc first time around, and I loved Jan second time around. However I couldn't stand Morte from Torment. The subtleties of the characters played a big part, but I think an equally significant factor was that I had the option of taking Minsc or Jan, but was pretty much railroaded into taking Morte. Quirky characters can be great when well-written, but I think they always work best as an option. Since P:E has a relatively small companion pool, I'd argue against going in for any Jan/Minsc-style heavy quirkiness - although some Edwin quirkiness should fit in just fine.

Shadowrun Returns is a terrible game and, though I concede that such things are far from my speciality, doesn't even look that impressive as a set of mod tools. Indeed, if they made the game on the basis of community created content then it says very little for their own design skills. Expedition: Conquistadors is a game filled with promise that, in my opinion, blows its load about 1/3 of the way in. The first map is great, but by the end you've pretty much seen all there is to see. Not much reward to go around on the second, larger map. That said I played it not long after its release and it's been patched about a million times since then so maybe they've added in a lot of gameplay. FTL is awesome. In terms of P:E, I remain pretty optimistic (for all I'm constantly complaining on these forums) and I'd credit Obsidian to be a rather more capable outfit than Hairbrained are.

Today, his wikipedia entry reads: xD

Oh, of course. It is just that non-interests should ideally not substantially interfere with the flow of the game.

As amusing as the topic is, I sometimes wonder if the linguistical stylisation within P:E isn't going to border upon the obtuse. I know that this has always been a game for people who enjoy more than their fair share of text-based descriptions, but half the updates seem to contain things I have to stop, think, and then give what is patently a hideously inaccurate guess as to their pronunctiation. It isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but since Josh has been very keen to express that this is an interest of his, I just hope someone in production is there to politely remind him that it isn't necessarily an interest of everyone else.

My first preference will be all companions over any adventurers, but in the unlikely event I find companions distancing myself from the story rather than immersing me into it, then I'll swap people out for adventurers. I sincerely believe and hope that this will not be the case, but I will not settle for substandard npcs if they are all that presents themselves.

You realise you could spend the time you're giving to sarcastic attempts at being a smart-ass instead bothering to actually understand the incredibly simple point I've been making?

As hard as I might suspect? To make these sounds sound like they were recorded in a city, you either need to record them in a city or record the voice in a pure consistent form that can be overlayed onto sounds of city. If you are overlaying noise (and noise is not the same as the "background noise" you're thinking of) on top of existing recordings then the "silence" from track 1 will muffle and distort the "sound" from track 2. Please do not try and explain how things work to people who plainly understand them better than you do. EDIT: And again, all this nonsense is making it sound as if there is even the slightest bit of debate about this. There isn't.

...but the vast majority of actors will train at some form of drama school, graduate, and then gain work in their trade of acting. Their profession. In the interim, they are not exactly "non-professional". They have the profession, they're just not working. We went through this last time, Lephys. Two professionals, two semi-professional home recording setups, two different sets of acoustics. Bang! Two very different sounding recordings. Sure, you can mix that out, but then you're paying the sound engineer rather than the actor. The joy of in-house recording is that - even aside from the fact it allows direction - is that you have the same consistent acoustics around the voice acting, even if your accounting department is doing it. The issue many of us have with mods is not actually the sound of the actors, but the unwanted sound around the actors. Even aside from the legal aspects, community submitted voice acting requires far more quality control than simply removing the 'stick mic and Windows Sound Recorder' files. You're sifting through files on the basis of acting, quality of recording of that which you're trying to record and quality of recording of that which you're NOT trying to record. Presenting the issue of quality as somehow being binary is absurd, and even if we, the community, personally sorted out the 2,000 submissions into 10 we thought were any good the chances are the engineer would be able to point out the sound inconsistencies and why he would strongly advise against using them.

Although I don't have a direct developer comment to support this, the general feeling is that since PoE will be a party based game, you're looking at far greater party management than in games such as Dragon Age and NWN2. It will be quicker and easier to switch to characters, and to give instructions. In terms of AI, because of the party-based nature, the expectation is that there will be less party AI, because it shall be your role to manage the entire party (rather than one character). In this sense in particular, party management and AI shall owe more to BG and IWD than NWN or DA. There is likely to be some basic support AI to aid in minor fights (e.g. see enemy - attack melee/see enemy - attack ranged/see enemy - run, etc), but in all major fights you shall be expected to micromanage your party. In the context of DA and NWN2, I appreciate that this must sound very draining and disappointing, but appreciate that PoE is not aping either of those games. Rather, it is aping IWD2 where the above accounted for almost all of the gameplay. It was very enjoyable, too.

See previous thread. Short answer, I'm still asking everyone to walk away, and am beginning to wonder if half the people posting aren't just trolling.

On the madness side of things, it would be nice if maybe there could be some depictions of characters with mental health issues that; a) Didn't automatically make them violent towards everyone around them. 2) Didn't have the "good" quest ending where you euthanize a person with mental health issues. Honestly, I get so sick of the way mental health is written and it seems particularly bad within video games. It's one of those topics where the "research" (such as it is) is for writers to look up other writers inaccurate bollocks and then regurgitate that. Even if you don't find tarring people with mental health problems with a horrible and inaccurate brush incredibly offensive, at least try and strive beyond what is currently there for the purposes of good writing.

I don't think I shall ever come across as a more maddeningly superior bell-end on these forums, but this is one of those topics where people who truly understand what this means are all voting one way, whilst people who don't understand are making it sound like there is some sort of discussion. Hiring professionals is cheaper and better. Walk away.

The first time I saw this topic brought up was here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63940-concerning-the-vo-budget-for-project-eternity/ Anyway, no. Community voice acting = More expensive + far poorer voice acting than in-house/professionally hired work.

*Enter obviously stupid thread* *Like amusing replies on first page* *Try to leave* *Instead post inane comment* *Leave*

How very colourfully put.