Kjaamor

I agree on all counts, although I would add that I'm sure one of my fallout games actually came with the PnP version on the disk, not that I ever used it.

I'm going to go out there and suggest it has more to do with the fact that both Neverwinter Nights games are quite boring generally.

Ah, but then why am I worrying? Well, it comes back to my painting example. You paint in three different colours. I need to pick four paintings of the same colour - though you don't know what colour that is, but you want me to succeed. Are my chances better if you paint 12 paintings or 6? The motive behind the numbers is that we are forming a party of six from a PC and 8 companions. If we had a companion pool of 15 (I've advocated less, which I'll come back to), then you could have, to pick some western RPG archetypes, 5 angelic characters, 5 grim characters, and 5 comedy characters. People looking for any of the three archetypes can form a coherent party. This is why there is such an important difference between what might seem like superficially small numbers of party members. The figure that matters is not the number of companions, but the number of companions divided by the number of companion slots. If you have 8 companions to choose from, then only one full coherent party can be formed. Or you make two three and a two, and then no-one can form a fully coherent party. Five out of eight is very small for the purposes of this. Realistically you end up with overlap characters who might sit in either camp, which is why I've advocated 12+ rather than the 15 above. Yes they have finite resources, and that makes the prospect of 20 companions with 5,000 lines of dialogue each unrealistic. But do not forget that BGII was able to support 16 characters, with limited voice acting, all of whom interacted with the PC and with each other, had their own quests and reacted to outside events. Honestly, the way they are implied to be devoid of depth in this thread seems rather insulting. The subject doesn't close, so we come to the best conclusion we can at any given moment taking into account all the factors we can consider likely to be have a meaningful effect. I hope I'm a little clearer to showing why people are so concerned about the numbers involved, and why those worries might not be as rash as you previously felt. Also, at a risk of taking a cheap shot, it strikes me that your concentration on mathematics in this thread more so than the others we've shared might, possibly, be affected by the fact that you haven't played PS:T. It's not so much about the debt from the four million, it's the implications after that. It's a bit of an elephant in the room on these forums, but Obsidian need this to work. Regardless of the level of success of P:E, they can expect a lot less funding for future projects (which, in part, is possibly why they Obsidian/Inexile have taken on so much at once) from Kickstarter. They can expect even less still if there backers are left unhappy, even if they were completely above board in their promises. Equally, were P:E to be a huge success, it might even show mainstream publishing houses that the isometric rpg is not yet dead, which would only be a good thing for Obsidian. I still look forward to P:E, and as I have said earlier I don't even necessarily* believe that I will dislike the companions. I just feel that for what they stand to gain from the small party pool they stand to lose a lot more, and I question whether taking a risk on what is ultimately a very small difference is good practice. *necessarily because I'm still obviously bitter at the PS:T worship

Agreed, although I think it's six of that and half a dozen of desperately deviating from games I disliked. I might well be grognarding, but to my mind one of the symptoms of activated abilities is that it gives the feeling that everyone gets a mana-like substance and starts playing like a mage. That matters less in MMOs because you tend to be playing a single character and there is a need to make that exciting for all classes. It's a bit different in a strategy rpg. I'm not particularly against activated abilities, because I think they're basically included to prevent rest-spam, which was a pretty bad loophole the IE games left open. I only hope that they are well-implemented, leave the classes feeling like they play very differently to each other, and have a recharge rate that is practical for a six-person party game. If all six characters are using powers with a 1 second cooldown, as an extreme example, then combat slows to an unnecessary crawl. In the same way, unless your class has long charge times on their powers, then you need to make their cooldown powers limited and/or not a replacement for normal attacks.

I played the first Grandia, but not the second one. The first one had a lot of good ideas, and for a long time I thought it might've been up there with the better jRPGs. Unfortunately at the point in the game that good jRPGs up the ante, Grandia fizzled somewhat spectacularly, and joined the long list of disappointing jRPGs I've played. Had potential, but meh. I trust the second one was better, then? When people talk about Final Fantasy in terms of characters, they're generally talking about the ps1 and ps2 final fantasies. In terms of lines of dialogue and being multi-dimensional they really put all the western RPGs to shame, in my opinion. The caveat, of course, is that depth and dialogue is within the context of modern Japanese melodrama, and if you're uncomfortable with 'Skinny fifteen year-olds dressed up in outfits that look like they were designed with an Etch-a-Sketch, Endless gaudy cinematics and retarded angsty drama' then you would be well advised to remain clear of them.

You do well to not believe that, because it isn't. I have many other issues with PS:T, although as I've said, most of them are mechanical in nature rather than stylistic. The immediate things that spring to mind apart from the companions are the combat, the manner of levelling and combat development for the main character, the death system, and the stat-based dialogue requirements and rewards. Specifically, not just the having dialogue options unlocked by stats - Fallout did this brilliantly - but the way successful dialogue rewarded you with stat bonuses. Then later dialogues would only unlock bonuses if you had the previous bonuses. By the end the gulf in two different players stats could be absolutely immense, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you give the 'losing' player any chance to catch up. Anyway, I digress. The point is, I might have forgiven or even failed to notice these 'failures' had I been accompanied by a party who inspired me through all these things. Instead, to my mind, I had a party that I felt was taking the piss out of both me and the setting. I assume that when you get far enough in, the style of this changes and the characters unveil a hithero unseen level of depth. I won't say I didn't give them a chance, but the last of my interest had been used up before we got to that point. When I talk about BG, I refer to the last proper installment of the series, BGII. Although BGI has slightly more depth to its characters than it often gets credit for, the second one took it up a notch.

I voted Final Fantasy in a public poll so I have to point out that since jRPGs tend to sit closer to interactive fiction than western rpgs you would have to be fairly surprised if their characters didn't have more depth to them. Obviously this isn't always the case, as in FFXII, but then that was a horror show imho. Also, 'depth' isn't always a good thing, as in the one that came between FFVII and FFIX. And now back to hiding under a rock.

I don't disagree with your point that more things does not inherently result in a wider variety of things. But I am pointing out that if you restrict your numbers then you inherently restrict your maximum spread. Your argument in terms of PS:T (as opposed to pure statistics) is that they designed the game with the characters to be of a certain style, and more characters would not have neccessarily increased the variation. I am suggesting that if the character limit was placed first, then they restricted the level of variation that they could've acheived. I'm also continuing my (and I shall have the good grace to call it this) assumption that having a player be able to make a party full - or in PS:T even half-full - of npcs that he doesn't actively dislike is a good thing. Are you painting for yourself to hang it on your wall, or because you've been paid four million dollars by a group of backers many of whom you can reasonably suspect will not want a melancholy painting? I know it sounds like a very unfortunate view of the creative process but realistically when you develop a project such as this you are a commerical artist, and that comes with the unpleasant burden of having to please your customers.

I've used mods on several of the IE games, and on those rare occasions where the modding is done well it adds a new dimension to the game. From that, I suppose I could agree with the OP's assertion that P:E's longevity will, to a certain extent, be determined by its modability. Yet that said, there seems to be a ridiculous level of hyperbole regarding mods in this thread. The majority of mods that consist of anything other than minor adjustments are inevitably horribly written. The best mods are inevitably the ones which focus upon restoration of dropped content and even then it is plain to see which sections have been conjured up by the modders to link the chains.

I accept the point that you're making (indeed it is very similar to several points that I myself have made in this thread), I was merely pointing out that the the people who liked PS:T found the characters very interesting, and that to say they needed to be more interesting was an oversimplification. It would be more accurate to suggest that they needed to be more widely appealing, if the original line is to be pursued. What holds true in your example does not hold true for the companions in an RPG, for the simple reason that those blue, specifically-stylised paintings are all independant of one another and devoid of external requirements. Not least of which would be the need for someone to pull five paintings from nine that you paint to form a coherent and well-rounded exhibition. They do not, in your example, demand or even benefit from the juxtaposition of other paintings to fulfil their potential. Let us try the painting analogy (since we enjoyed food so much last time) from my point of view. You paint in three different colours. I need to pick four paintings of the same colour - though you don't know what colour that is, but you want me to succeed. Are my chances better if you paint 12 paintings or 6? That's a rather binary logic you've got going on there, that while not exactly untrue doesn't seem particularly useful from a development point of view. I certain hope P:E wouldn't subscribe to the notion. Practically, would PS:T have failed any of the people who enjoyed it if it had twelve potential companions with the variation and depth of those from BG? I don't feel that it would have. Yet that might have meant that it didn't fail me and others here (particularly since my other gripes are mostly with its mechanics). Again, I reiterate my point about you hedging your bets as a developer.

Please see this thread, it's been discussed before: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63940-concerning-the-vo-budget-for-project-eternity/ Edit: Tldnr - No.

BURN THE THIRD-PERSON SHOOTING BLASPHEMER!

While the last point might be a logical truth in and of itself, in reality there are other linking factors which unfortunately mean that increased numbers do result in increase variety. One example of this is party compatibility. If you have only 2 companions to make a three person party, and you're having any depth of interaction between that party, then those two characters have to be thematically compatible to maintain any immersion. They don't necessarily have to agree or be socially compatible, but they have to be tied to a theme. Really, though, the best thing to do would be to play PS:T and see what I mean compared to BGII. If nothing else, an awful lot of people here regard it as a superb game and it is certainly worth a pop if you've missed it first time around. For me and many others who didn't like PS:T, the style of the characters and the way they were all intertwined was a factor in why I did not like the game as much as BGII. It contributed to me stopping playing. On the other hand, of the many complaints I've heard thrown at BGII, the companions as a whole have never been subject to such frustration. Thus, the BG approach is better. I don't think that's an argument anyone is actually putting forward. Everyone finds the characters they like interesting enough. The issue is whether or not P:E will contain enough different characters for people to find the ones they like. Honestly, the tldnr of this thread is basically just BG Fanbois versus PS:T Fanbois, discussing an immeasurable concept of depth. When the game releases, people who don't like the characters will cite this thread ("I told you they should've made more"/"I told you they should've made less with more depth") and those who do will have forgotten its existance. As much as I hate DA:O on so many levels, I must admit I thought that one of its few strong suits were the companions (romancing aside). I generally ran with Alistair and Morrigan and I found the two of them to be some of the funniest characters I'd found in any game. Yet the humour wasn't off the wall or immersion-breaking but rather was very dry, and seemed to come from the characters rather than at them. The way characters would spontaneously interact to have a go at each other was also deeply pleasing. The Mass Effect series is criminally overrated, woefully misplaced when its genre is described, and was the most significant single-game factor in the disappearance of RPGs in the mainstream. Personally, my favourite would probably be KotOR, unless we're talking jRPGs, but since I always feel like that gets the torches and pitchforks coming my way I'll just shut up about that.

Ffordesoon, I still doubt your numbers. I'd also like to point out that PS:T is one of those games that those who love it truly love it, and tend to shout louder as a result. In quieter discussions, polls, and most importantly sales, BGII pummels it. What I can't doubt, and I accepted the truth of this upon reading it, is your assertion that backers would bemoan the depth of the characters were the number of companions increased. With that said, I suppose I am flogging a fairly dead horse in terms of the numbers game (but I think that has been the case before this thread even got started). All I could possibly hope to achieve would be to encourage Obsidian to include as much variety as they can within those nine. Frankly, I think that will fall upon dead ears, too. Of course your later point on the betrayal people feel when something they perceive has been promised has been taken away is why me and many other BG but not PS:T fans have become increasingly troubled with P:E (To say nothing of the fans who like IWD best - both of them). EDIT: Also, I'm going to bed.

But if every dish is served with asparagus (we're here now, let's just run with the food), then you're going to feel upset if you paid for a full meal and got that. Sure, you could not eat the asparagus (adventurer's hall), but you'd be cheesed (:D) off. Especially if one of the reasons you came to the restaurant was that they promised to have great depth to the vegetables in their dishes. The point of the less than eight versus fifty argument is that the games that Obsidian have been involved with have had a greater thematic spread of characters when it has been possible to create numerous parties. When there has been so few npcs that they would not fill even two seperate parties those games have often had npcs that were stylistically joined at the hip. When there has been enough to fill several, there has been genuine differences in the style of those npcs.

I mentioned in another topic that it often feels wierd just being in some of the more heated debates, because knowing that you're in a public forum with the people involved in creation it often feels that what might otherwise be discussions turn, often as we bounce our opinions off each other, into quite direct attacks upon the work of the developers. Of course I have opinions, of course I have concerns, but I hope I haven't been a **** about it. In another thread, I also mentioned that I find it amazing that the Dev's even read this stuff, because if it was me I would just find it a mountain of stress. Well done and thanks to the developers, however passionate about minor issues I might get.

If the developers had been talking about 'PS:T-style characters' whilst also acknowledging the flaws within the companion system of PS:T then I wouldn't be concerned, but the fact that nothing to that end has been offered makes me think that there is a very real danger that all the companions will be cut from the same cloth. I agree that input upon the main storyline in a meaningful manner (although frankly I'm dubious as to whether PS:T meets that, but anyway...) is important, but other options should still be there. I'm referring to KotOR a lot because I think it was probably the game of that era that handled this best, but with many of the characters there was no getting away from the main storyline and themes approached in the manner the writers had obviously intended. Yet if you chose, say, Jolee and HK, your experience could be totally different because it customised the theme to your party.

Minsc was two dimensional, compared to Morte (and, if we're being honest, most of the other characters from BGII). The point is that some players like that. I know plenty of people from whom HK from KotOR was their favourite companion of all time. Personally, I find him vapid and irritating as a mainstay with a few moments that make him better suited to a youtube compilation than an assistant protaganist. Yet if you give players choice, everyone can be happy.

The issue I have is not that restaurants should be banned for serving asparagas, simply that if restaurant chooses to only make dishes from asparagus, however tasty asparagus-lovers might find them, then it is going to run into trouble. And winning the award for best restaurant in 'Asparagus Weekly' is not going to appease the restaurants funders of which many do not like asparagus. Again, the point more broadly is that the asparagus...er...sorry, characters of PS:T were all of the same thematic style and if you place all your companion eggs (Oh, god, more food metaphors) into one basket then you will run into trouble. Obviously the P:E characters will be different to the ones in PS:T, but if they're all cut from the same cloth then the problem remains. And, of course, that problem remains even if I personally LOVE all of P:E's characters.

While your initial point makes a lot of sense based on the numbers you're working on, those numbers are plucked from your imagination as a PS:T fan. 90% of backers loved PS:T's companions to death? I seriously doubt that. Indeed, if you polled the backers and asked 'Which game's companions did you like more? PS:T or BGII?' then I would be astonished to see a PS:T bias of greater than 60% at best. The other point in your opening paragraphs that I do believe, is that a large number of people involved in the development of P:E are PS:T fans, not least of which is Josh Sawyer who from what I have read seems to cast PS:T in a significantly more positive light than BGII. This is really troubling for me and the others who didn't like PS:T's characters, because those character's were, as a collective, horrible and immersion breaking. Many people dislike one or more of the BG companions, but I've yet to hear anyone who said they disliked all of them, because they were distinct in style. PS:T's were not. You ask me later, what if I hated all twelve? Well for the reasons I've just stated this is a very real concern! The short number and the repeated worship of PS:T suggests, to me, that P:E is heading down the 'All our companions have this style, if you don't like them, here's IWD' line. The other final point I will make, is to counter not just a point you made, but a point that seems to have been in every second post in this thread: The concept that this companions justify their limited numbers with their depth. I honestly don't think you'll notice, and I know that's bold and I can hear every PS:T fan on these forums and beyond shouting at me and shaking their fists but I don't think you would. If the characters have the depth of BGII's, and you enjoy the game, you'll talk about the characters having the depth of PS:T. But if the characters are part of a thematic-clique that you don't like THEN you will notice, because it completely spoils the experience. So to that end, I believe that Obsidian have more to lose from just making nine similar characters and saying that they're deep than making fifteen and saying that they're deep. (It kinda freaks me out that Josh Sawyer sometimes reads these things because while I believe in the point I sometimes feel like I'm being a bit of a **** to him)

To reiterate what I've said earlier, PS:T might not have felt even remotely stingy to you, but to me it was desperately so. Not because seven followers for five slots is, in and on itself, particularly stingy, but simply because I disliked so many of them. The likes of Morte and Nordom, however much you or many others loved them, were so aggravating to me that they were a major factor in me stopping playing PS:T. Increased character depth is fantastic and even people like myself who are concerned with the number of party npcs would dearly like to see more depth in the available followers. But, as has been stated before, if the personalities you put depth into are dislikable to players then you're shooting yourself in the foot as developer. The point is, in terms of party npcs, you hedge your bets. You make enough variety in personality that all players will have something that they're at least comfortable with. The old bbc rule of 'Something for everyone and everything for someone'. My concerns on numbers stem not so much from an arbitrary figure being reached than they do from the way PS:T is repeatedly cited and put up on some sort of pedestal in this regard. With that, I become increasingly concerned that we are going to get a clique of npcs who share...not so much personality, but at least style. If I were to get halfway through P:E, and then decide that I can't bear my party a second longer and go to the adventurers hall and IWD one out, I'd feel extremely cheesed off.

...and while we wait for games, we meta-debate on forums with our rulebooks.

Spider sections that are very dangerous to reaffirm their already creepy state. The occasional optional fight that is more difficult than the dungeon's boss. Limited need for backtracking. Puzzles.

Personally, the only two things I care about when it comes to Magic within a game's world are; a) That it sets out rules for itself and behaves within these rules rather than being the universal get-out clause 2: That magic in the story is not incongruous with magic in the gameplay If it can obey those rules, then I'm really not fussed about form or function.

How much control would you like to have over your main character's backstory? It might not be terribly helpful to the poll, but I selected all but the last option. I love character creation and I almost always think the more options the better. The downside of the above, is that it makes it trickier to weave the personal into the narrative (although I appreciate that many people here are seeking the opposite of this anyway). In the past this has been done most succesfully when games have kept restrictions on the history of the player character. Baldur's Gate is a good example of this. KotOR is an EXCELLENT example of this. I wouldn't regard myself as apathetic about this, because I'd be excited about either approach. What I would say, is that if Obsidian haven't already committed to the latter, I'd like to see as many options as possible in the former. Should Project Eternity offer different starting locations? I could rant about DA:O and what went wrong there, but I'll just keep it short for once and say that I don't feel different starting locations are necessary or a particularly useful use of resources. (edited for formatting, which went a bit strange)