CaptainMace

I'm fond of talk-a-lot characters (like Jan Jansen from bg2) and funny ones (like pretty much all of bg1).

No need to fight guys, Sensuki already admitted that BG UI is awful...

Don't really care about these things. NPCs turning towards the dude that talks to them is enough imo.

Well though i'm pretty stupid, I still consider myself able to read. So no. A bit of dubbing for some specific dialogs is enough already. God the first Fallout had an epic voice acting <3

Yeah that's not the topic but thank you for this original point of view

Ok I think we're on the good way for a PE spin-off, a management game maybe ?

Gotta say that I love the Karkarov UI, and that the one from BG is absolutely awful (not a surprise that the Enhanced Edition allows the player to hide it, which is welcome).

Already changed in my mind. And it's a pretty badass name, Pillars of Nosgoth Eternity.

The dude is basically saying that we should try to play the guitar with a bass, and adds the argument that if you add two strings to your bass, you can actually play the guitar as with an actual guitar... Dude, why the **** didn't you buy a guitar to begin with...

The amount of hate the people who have basically been funding video games for years get is sort of funny. I like Obsidian games I really do, I gladly funded PE. But to insinuate EA or anyone else for that matter is some scum company and little guys are not guilty sometimes of the same things is just wrong. Hell I couldn't even play the opening cinematic of New Vegas it was so buggy, not only did it look like crap due to some form of glitch but if I didn't skip it my game would crash. That's the tip of the iceberg on that game too. Meanwhile EA also has in house developers that they own and or manage themselves. You guys may have no respect for the people who make Madden or Fifa games but I am pretty those are video games too and EA doesn't just "distribute" them. Hell as average a product as Amalaur was it never would have even made it to market without EA. Yeah I agree with you, ZeniMax Media did a **** job at QA for New Vegas More seriously, never said EA was scum, just that they're not in the same financial situation - again. And don't have the same source of funding. I never said publishers don't ask for money, I mean, they're basically here for this only purpose (and publishing, which is useless now with all the downloadable clients, which is why so many games use particular (and sh*tty) interfaces). That's the kind of point of view that only concern the buyer, for the guy who present his project, it's obviously not just a pre-order sell...

Yup I see it now, I admit I didn't read the whole message, sorry for that :>

What I really mean is that, from what we can read from the official wiki page, the Druid class seems to suit its lore in its gameplay (it can shapeshift and cast druid spells) and It's not because it's close to the AD&D druid class (I don't want a D&D system). The wiki makes a distinction between abilities and spells (seen on the magic wielder classes pages) and all I say is that I don't understand that some abilities (like the paladin's ones) seem to fit more a spell book than an ability set of a character. And, finally, I never said they ripped off these abilities from multiplayer games, I said they felt a lot like ones you have in multiplayer games. The barbarian rushes in, the paladin has auras, the warrior has a sh*t ton of abilities in fight that usually fit a game where you're playing a single character, for the simple reason that without these, it would be boring (we all, I think, attempted to play multiplayer BG and we could all see how boring it is for any class that doesn't wield magic). All I say, again, is that I don't understand why you would give several auras, for example, to a paladin to chose from if I'm already gonna mannage the cypher, the druid and the chanter. I don't consider that more management is better management. This being said, if there are still people who don't understand that a game isn't just writing or gameplay, but is the combination of both, they probably won't get my point. WHEREAS, i'm absolutely aware that the soul-related lore can actually perfectly suit all of that (though, I hope it'll be more than a concept like the Force in Star Wars : something nobody really knows about that explain anything and that you gotta accept), but I'm confident, I mean I'm here 'cause I love some Obsidian games I've played (New Vegas is like already classic for me) and I know their writing, even if it can lack originality or such, never disrespect the player involvment in the story. And what I mean is that you don't need a ton of activables/toglables/passives-to-chose-from to render that.

Definetely something important to note, let's be elitist already. To answer the OP, seems that the combat will mostly feel like Dragon Age (or any MMORPG-style game) where all classes have all kind of active and toggle abilities and you gotta manage 6 characters simultaneously if you want to succeed in the toughest setup. Was already pissed by that in DAO, and it only concerned 4 characters (but maybe is it because DAO had a boring story development imo, can't say). Already fond of abilities names like "shake it off !" for the paladin, really feels like a MMO. the only class that did not have any active skills in IE games was the fighter. the paladin had special abilities and spells, the ranger too, the druid - wizard - sorcerer - cleric had the most, the barbarian had 1, the thief had 3 and needed to be positioned properly for the backstab... so yes, classes in the old games did not have all sorts of active abilities Dunno if you really missed my point or if you wanted to act smart. I note with interest that you consider the fighting system of the IE game and the one from Dragon Age are the same. I although wouldn't consider stealth and spells as abilities because, first, they are not, and also because they can be used out of combat. The fact Paladins have to chose between several aura effect, the fact some classes have alternative ressources (wounds, focus), the fact that barbarians have splash damage all feel like mechanics that suit a multi game where you play a single character (I could come with a lot more skills, like the Fighter ones for example, but you get my point). EDIT : Oh I just read your signature, don't mind my first sentence.

Well your message would make sense if EA and Obsidian had the same financial situation or the same role in the industry. I've nothing against financing the developper but I'd feel kinda confused if the distributor asked for money, i already consider him useless so...

Definetely something important to note, let's be elitist already. To answer the OP, seems that the combat will mostly feel like Dragon Age (or any MMORPG-style game) where all classes have all kind of active and toggle abilities and you gotta manage 6 characters simultaneously if you want to succeed in the toughest setup. Was already pissed by that in DAO, and it only concerned 4 characters (but maybe is it because DAO had a boring story development imo, can't say). Already fond of abilities names like "shake it off !" for the paladin, really feels like a MMO.

Yeah I agree with you. Although, we should keep in mind that there is a way between the "all characters are alike" (bethesda for example) and "i've built such a unique character, he's totally useless" (like Diablo i guess ?). I'm aware that a lot of people actually like these systems that penalizes the player who's spent his evolution ressource in useless stuff/wrong combinaisons (because they see the illusion of a demanding gameplay etc...) but I'll always consider it a confession from the developpers : "we have no idea how to build a proper RP system". I think New Vegas is a good example of system in between, where you can build different kind of characters (=different kind of gameplays) without having to study the system for hours in order not to end up with an encephalopathic mold. If a game features some skills, perks, talents and other abilities, it better give the player : 1. The feel that upgrading these things has an impact (which you don't find in Skyrim for example) 2. The possibility to play without em if we can chose not to pick em (always have the worst time of my life when I try to play Fallout 1 as a Intel-Luck Energy Weapon dude... Though it gets better through the game, gotta admit).

It's simple, we kill the batman we get rid of the notion of "least effective choices". I think that's basically the kind of things they want to avoid with the system they announced concerning skills/perks/whatever (some combat talents and some non-combat talents which do not use the same ressource, if I remember correctly, might be totally wrong though).

Wow, this lack of spoiler alert is disturbing. There's a difference between setting a plot (you're Joe, you're hungry, leave your house and go buy some stuff ffs) and giving the player to chose his origin. In the first case, the elements given to you are relevant and needed for the story to exist, in the second you can chose some useless/irrelevant background that will either not or lightly impact the rest of the story. The debate isn't "should the PC have a history at the start ?" because the answer is always yes... The debate is about choosing between different origins. "As far from a blank state as you can get" yeah let's try to keep our sanity here please.

It's actually way more immersive when the character starts blank. Fallout, for example, makes you play a dude from a vault and that's really all you have to know for the story to start. I don't like extended background/origins for PC because i'm still disappointed about the little impact it really had in DAO (and, again, the fact that some are better than other is not an excuse), It's irrelevant as someone said above.

Ah well that explains why I didn't feel much when I played with my daish elf. I didn't know I had to choose an origin that actually affect the story Because, to be honest, all impact it had was that dalish elves would ask me about my clan. That's all the impact it had on my game. So you'd understand how bitter i was (and still am) about origins in this game.

JFSOCC is telling you that, actually, picking an origin between pre-generated ones and picking a trait is the same exact thing. Plus, I didn't know it had any impact on Mass Effect storyline, whereas it really affected almost nothing for DAO. For me, the best situation is the New Vegas one.

This is indeed really annoying. You forgot to mention that professionnal voice acting implies same voices for hundreds of NPCs in the game, but also same voices between different games, and I don't know if that's the case in original version, but I can tell you that the french voice actor of Uriel Septim from Oblivion does a sh*t ton of game voices over here, and I can't bear it anymore... I like partial voice acting better, and I think the Fallout system was excellent, giving full voice acting only to the most important dudes of the game.

I'd like good and natural reactivity in the party. It's something I haven't seen since BG2, in which it wasn't perfect to begin with, but promising at least. It's always a pain to see someone who belongs to x faction/people/city have little or no reaction when the PC decides to trade/talk/ally with its enemy/rival of any sort. Although I've never understood why there was no interactions between more than 2 party members at a time in these games, why can't we have some banter-like events between three of them ? It would not only be more natural, but also make people want to try different party combinaison only to see how they behave together.

As someone who played his ranger through the whole BG saga, you shouldn't be surprised about that kind of stuff though, as you said, we can't say much about PE and, from what we know, all classes seems to profit way more usability than their equivalent in ad&d.