Helz

Little Lamplight? I wouldn't really know. One of the first mods I installed was "killable children".

Baldur's Gate was superior to BG2. Fallout 3 captured the atmosphere of the Fallout universe perfectly, and paved the way for the best CRPG in years. Unarmed monks should be limited to praying and begging. Samurai armor/swords/warriors are not cool/superior/badass. DA:O was a worthy spiritual successor to BG2. Cooldowns and aggro mechanics are superior to memorized spells.

I just want to chime in that I hope they rethink adding variable body types. Height and weight differences add a lot of variety to the way characters look. I always notice when games feature NPCs wih variable heights, it adds something to the world. They've already got the tech for morphing clothing to the different sized races anyway, so I'd hope they'd be able to apply it to variations within the same race. Most of the strongest people in the world are fat. This isn't a new development, its always been this way. I've always thought it'd be cool for an RPG to make it so if you max out your strength, your character's weight would increase. Increasing stamina would make you leaner.

For some reason I thought I was the only one who had trouble with those ****ing things. Seriously, I hate them.

I think the WoW hunter pet gathering mechanic is pretty cool, and similar to what other people here have suggested (nevermind that its WoW, hear me out). There are multiple classes of pets (canine, feline, serpents, insects, birds, etc.) that each have their own attributes and skill trees. Its up to the player which type of pet you pick; you can tame any animal you want by soloing it in combat (so your ranger would have to do it alone). Once he's tamed, he'll start a level or 2 below you, fight at your side and level up along with you. Over time he gains loyalty as well, which might unlock new abilities or behavior. Unique animals have special talents (or just look cool) so you might be tempted to switch your leveled, loyal pet with something new down the line. You can have a few pets in your stronghold (or wherever) so that you can also switch between them depending on whatever skills you currently need. I advocate this system because it allows for your pet to be pretty unique, you can choose any animal in the game you want.

Stamina Damage is converted to Health Damage at a ratio of 4:1. [snip] This is assuming that there will be no abilities in the game that change that ratio, or even bypass stamina completely. I strongly doubt that's the case, because there are all sorts of interesting possibilities for attacks/spells that Obsidian would be overlooking. I voted for the first option, because otherwise you're just going to be waiting around for it to charge up anyway. If the developers want to throw in multiple encounters to force you to conserve your stamina, they can have them trigger in succession. FInally, to the OP, I can't say I like your idea for a hardcore mode that makes stamina scarce for low level characters, but bountiful for higher levels. I feel that higher levels should have more options for burning their stamina, but still be limited by it. Otherwise you've just trivialized combat for higher level characters in a big way.

I guess the one thing I'd want most of all if for my real life to improve as I level up in the game. Make it happen, Obsidian!

I felt like using my first post to quote you, because you took the words right out of my mouth.