Goddard

Tell me this, intelligently does this mean to you we should remove the ability to cast anything before hand. We should make ALL creatures weaker and only cast things that you can recover from? OR 1. This isn't Meta information. It is knowledge about the world you "live in". Games now assume you know nothing of the world and they are all created for the lowest common denominator. So how can this be incorporated into a game and not also leave out the people that know nothing about D&D or world lore? For me when I started playing BG I knew nothing about D&D and I was a child. I learned about D&D, forgotten realms, the sword coast, the monsters, and Elminster and Drittz etc..etc.. 2. Since we already have things like perception and intelligence and game clues and stories why not make it so the player can pre-buff AND also get clues as to what you might be facing. This adds more variety. This also matches closer to a real encounter. If all you want to do is run from one encounter to the next you are basically playing Diablo. You click the number 1 or 2 button. This has its place and can be fun, but this is not what I consider learning about the world and it doesn't make you much care about the monster you face. You don't need to learn the lore or care about the type of enemy you have. You know that the game developers have already watered down everything to make it so you can overcome the situation as long as you fit within the level requirements. Usually this is limited by some gate keeper that stops your progression. The cool thing about BG was if you were tricky you could get into all sorts of interesting situations even though you were very low powered. Again some people thing this is some how a fluke or a bug, but it is just a different way to play. Some creatures having some weaknesses and having some things you can exploit can be fun. I am not saying ALL exploits are good such as spamming a AoE effects to a dragon from a distance. Obviously this is a matter of creature intelligence.

You want to talk about a chore. How about enchanting items. How about having to sell 500 shields, swords, and other crap items. The idea that this was done because you wanted to avoid a "chore" seems out of place considering more chores that were introduced. Here enchant this item, you have 5 things to pick from and an arbitrary limitation that isn't based on the skill of the player or anything. How about killing a dragon and getting a very vanilla two handed sword you could of found at a merchant and enchanted yourself.

I played NWN2 and didn't like it nearly as much as Infinity Engine games. NWN2 had a much better story then NWN, but NWN had many more great D&D aspects that made it something you could play for ages and yet NWN still had the problem that the graphics were horrible and I think it is just the nature of isometric games. I won't mention more about how badly NWN2 was hurt with its mod size restrictions at the start. Isometric games are beautiful and leave a lot to the imagination. At the time they forced the game creators to be imaginative instead of adding a bunch of graphical pieces. Like in PoE I think the times you have to jump, or fly through a tunnel is awesome. That is an improvement. When you click on a trap it sends the best man for the job. That is awesome. Things like that make sense to me. I could list off a ton of things I like about PoE so again this is just constructive criticism. I also really loved the graphics and buffing had a direct impact on your stats sheet you could visualize. D&D games in my experience are all about the character, party, and story. Also if you were really into BG the whole entire "tiresome"ness bit you speak about could of easily been put into a macro like in NWN also you would only ever have to go all out in the most difficult of battles. I can understand how it would be easier for game developers to control things, but that is why I am saying. Less restriction and more intelligence is more fun. I for one don't want to do things just because the industry is doing them. That makes a game exactly like ever other game. Why is that fun? I got this game because I like Infinity Engine games and not NWN2 or the Witcher or whatever. Why is it people still play a 20 year old game today? Because it is awesome and it has aged extremely well. Now that we have the enhanced edition it works on everything. In most RPGs the whole entire premise of this fantasy land is usually built around you being a hero. Being hero and being powerful, smart, strong, or cunning all mean you empower the player. The idea of the fantasy land is you are in the land and you control your character and the party and you can do whatever you want in this land. Not being able to cast your own spells in this land is a strange restriction to make along with the other things I mentioned previously. In most games especially single player games it is extremely easy to cheat. You can use a cheat console, write your own scripts, open a hex editor, alter packages, change library files, alter the binary itself. It makes no sense to limit a single player game in my opinion. The cool thing about the Sword Coast is the fact it is high magic. High powers which means more fun to explore and play with the game.

My favorite is Infinity Engine games and it has pre-buffing and it made the game fun to me. Granted the intelligence of the creatures at time left room for cheese(which is completely on you), but with a spiritual successor I was hoping they would add more power to the game. I mean before they had a good reason to let the creatures be slightly more dumb. It required more CPU cycles whereas now we can afford those cycles and I would much rather have freedom along with intelligent encounters over a puking animation, or item enchanting any day.

Pre-buffing is an essential tactic. Knowing what location you are in and what monsters you will face based on that fact adds more options to a game. You have to modify your spell book. Go to a store to get specific potion/scrolls you might need. It actually adds a lot to a game. Removing pre-buffing removes lore. Imagine if a game actually included lore based area checks and provided extra clues of the surrounding area based on intelligence or reflexes or something. It makes sense and is pretty normal in most D&D games I have played. Also the restrictive nature of a game that makes you have powerful spells you cannot use except in situations they want is limiting and is the opposite of "infinity" in my opinion.

That is pretty stupid. You can reload if you don't like the outcome of anything. That is the nature of this style of game. It is also an easy way to see the different outcomes from a choice. The thing that makes you want to avoid that frustration of reloading is you try and rest in inns or safer places. It is especially frustrating when you are playing with a few friends in multi-player in BG.

Allowing something doesn't mean it is required. You are allowed to kill anyone(almost) in the game. That doesn't mean you do it always. Freedom adds to playing styles for a role playing game. The ability to do things in the game that make sense makes things unpredictable and more fun. If people decide to play more hardcore, or for example a checkbox to allow or disallow pre-buffing adds to the level of difficulty in the game. I played BG on GameSpy and we would sit in lobbies and brag about being 100% legit and other requirements to one up each other. We knew if you did some super munchkin cheese style you could "cheat" at the game. That isn't the point. In a single player game no one is going to be hurt by "cheating" besides the person playing. Even in multi-player we talked with people in the lobby and then launch the game. If they did something stupid we would just boot them and start over. It isn't a big deal. Allowing more play styles lets people enjoy the game how they want to enjoy it. I am saying it is better not to force people to play this kind of game how you want. People figure out ways to make things difficult or new in these types of games. My friends and I played as Bards, or some of the weakest characters just to see if we could for fun. Sometimes we would play as Mage/Fighter/Theif and totally destroy dragons solo. Being able to play a character that is weak and almost a commoner and a godly character is role playing. It is fun. Not everything in the game needs to be controlled.

It is pretty low on the list of important things in my opinion when considering all the other problems was my point. Obviously an interactive environment is always fun, but having the creature pass out, dance, or puke on themselves doesn't add much when that can easily be added to some text. Obviously if you have the budget/time to focus on the more trivial pieces then awesome.

Currently some fights enemies pre-buff already. They instantly have a spell applied to them, cast an AoE spell and then summon something. Also the most effective effects are used continuously. paralyze or knock down is essentially what fighting this game boils down to. The buff spell is not lowered. It is increased because now you have to decide if you can kill the enemy before it can reach you or should you defend yourself. So instead of using a wide array of spells and having the spells be more powerful you substitute grinding. It is not fun. If I wanted to grind I would play Diablo. What is wrong with people using the spells they know how to use? It doesn't make sense. It just restricts use cases and makes fighting linear. You play a character that is continuously caught off guard basically. No one casts dispel magic, no one has any magical resistance deduction spells cast on them. No tactics are really used. We have no abilities that have to be countered. We basically only have party formations before a fight and using walls and doors. Those things aren't bad by themselves, but then you limit it that removes the dynamics.

The restrictions placed on PoE 1 to me made it less fun and restrictive. I know the argument is attempting to balance encounters, but coming from IE, or GemRB it just feels very limiting. For example what is the logic of not being able to drink a potion or cast a spell before a big fight that logically to the characters is imminent. Why does it seem like all the spells are the same, but just "does 5 more damage". Why is resting limited? I can carry 50 swords but can't carry resting supplies. Also isn't the whole limiting resting is more apt to a massively online multi-player game? The enchanting seems like it would introduce some more dynamic character builds, but then the game creators remove that dynamic character builds by limiting stacking of effects to a fault. Like, I am already limited to wearing two rings even though I have 10 fingers and hell 10 toes if we get down to it. I say the enchanting of items makes more sense in a massively online multi-player game, but seems out of place in a single player game and even more so since you aren't playing online at all and it actually kind of takes away from the in game items you find from fighting a "boss". It seems like none of the items are truly epic. Wouldn't it push the engine further to open up the system and allow more interactions and more craziness? Instead of limiting everything wouldn't it make more sense to have more intelligent AI systems? Also dancing and puking and all that other animations adds nothing to a single player game. Maybe in NWN it made sense. You could role-play with other humans. I mean maybe in a few situations it will make sense so you can have some people dance in a tavern and things can feel more alive, sure. Please consider this constructive criticism because I really do love this style of game. Maybe all this will change in PoE 2, but figured I would give my perspective and experience.

I find the items in this game to be insanely boring. None of the items really have any clear great effect, they don't stack and even the item icons sometimes have the same icons as other "great" items or "superb or whatever.. It is really overly controlled and boring. http://www.ign.com/wikis/pillars-of-eternity/Armor You can't make some unique configuration to give you an advantage. Enchanting could be fun, but is so gimped. You don't practice enchanting and it takes no skill from the person and it doesn't really fit into a single player game.

Didn't realize that. To me this could never be a BG2/Infinity engine replacement if it doesn't have a multi-player component. That was one of the things I liked most about BG2.

All very good suggestions. I especially like the fill out divorce papers suggestion from Bazy. I am doing this as we speak.

You tell her how cool it is to play it together and, since it's actually a single player game, just dispatch her to bring you more beer and snacks as you play. Didn't really understand that.

small LAN parties are great for a game like this. I am loving the story so far, but man it would be great if my wife could play with me...especially if I am going to spend hours doing it.

Really surprised that this game doesn't have co-op play. What is my wife suppose to do when I am playing this?

I was doing easy with the tutorial walkthrough mode and it keeps repeating a sound. I had to disable the Sound Effects so it wouldn't be annoying. Just thought I would let you guys know.

I really, really, honest-to-god, have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I'm not surprised a lot of people I know never played BG online for some reason. We would arrage competitions online and everyone would duel based on different rules everyone agreed on. Crazy enough one of the sites is still up - http://www.angelfire.com/rpg/ubgc/ - or more history - http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/327/t727563-baldurs-gate-mod-library/ Most of the sites aren't around any more as they were created by kids and teenagers that used free website hosting haha

Have you never played Baldurs Gate online? It had all of what you are talking about. Yeah multi-player probably would be what you are thinking, bu in BG you could set permissions on who could pause and other different actions on the party. Also did no one ever remember TeamBG(http://www.teambg.org/e107_plugins/newsfeed/newsfeed.php?show.1) tools, or all the awesome mods. There is also something called GemRB ( http://gemrb.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start ) which is the IE engine except open source... I played on GameSpy way back when I was in middle school/highschool but even before that online you also had something called MPlayer. A lot of the people that played Baldurs Gate told me about it, but I started playing when Baldur's Gate 2 came out.. at least online. I actually got the demo of BG first and loved it, but they stopped you at the end of the Naskel mines quest....haha I was in Vamp clan and a bunch of others that later went into Neverwinter NIghts ( http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vampmodteam/About-Us.htm ) or http://vampteam.net

On the Surface Pro 3 you can increase performance by getting a USB fan and pointing it at the top right corner of the machine. The Surface Pro 3 has thermal throttling.

I did a ton of PVP in IE games. GameSpy anyone? Remember all the clans? That was a ton of fun.

Randomized loot systems seem like a cool idea to programers, but probably not good for everyone else.

I was thinking about it. I'm all geared up for some RPG fun.

I really like the stories from D&D, but I think it can be fantasy and still have an excellent story that has magic and dragons, or other random creatures. Before D&D many stories had those elements. I think we should all really try and develop an open source creative commons lore similar to that of D&D since hasbro, or what ever mega corp got ahold of it ... the rules constantly change and it has gotten retarded in my opinion.