Oneiromancer

Frankly I'd prefer the single initial ability to just scale with the character levels, so that it wouldn't become extremely underwhelming in the "endgame" or be unbalanced at the beginning (especially compared to the boni other races wil be able to get in their head slot). Also I think they should be treated as a "sub-race" of the other races and have the same attribute bonus as the base race. I don't think godlikes really need any other particular mechanic to them beside their "divine" ability and the lack of head slot/different appearance. So basically: + scaling divine ability + base race attribute boni - no head slot (or maybe another slot depending on the god?) - + Good/bad reaction from people depending on their faith or affiliation with the god/s By the way I don't know if this is the best place to discuss it but am I the only one who would prefer something more "subtle" for the death godlikes? I mean the poor things can't even see with those giant horns covering their eyes, they really stick out compared to the earth and air ones whose appearance is already quite flashy.

Simulating ancient times sexism is pointless anyway as the average fantasy setting is more of a mismatch of anachronistic morality standards (slavery is bad, racism is bad, ecc.), medieval and renaissance culture/technology and a usually completely non-sensical economic system. If you are going to whine about women not being used just as baby factories you might as well cut wizards creating matter from thin air with a snap of their fingers and some brow sweat and just make a realistic medieval setting.

I'll admit to disliking most of BG2's cast. Just shows how bad VA can ruin a perfectly enjoyable experience. I don't think it was a VA problem but mainly the fact that most of them were either extremely vanilla fantasy tropes, one dimensional characters with a "gimmick" or simply underdeveloped probably due to time costraints. There was a few exceptions but if anything those made the other characters look even more inadequate. Then again back when I played BG2 I was more interested in exploring a fantasy land and kick goblin asses with my adventuring party than being the group personal therapist. Also I don't think DAO fared much better considering you had far less npcs to choose from... and it had one of probably my most disliked npcs in a rpg in years: Alistair.

Basically this. Of course one might say that there is a point where a particular attribute influencing a specific action would be too "out there" no matter how abstract the attribute or action are. The (in)famous "muscle wizard" might be a funny archetype to play as but it's deep in the realm of "**** rules. The only rule we need is the rule of cool!" which isn't necessarily fitting for a setting like PoE. Unless I'm horribly mistaken and it actually works like that even irl. That would explain why Chris Avellone writing is so good.

Can you blame them? The average rpg romance is barely anything more than a choose-your-own-adventure pink novel where "winning" is about choosing the "right" options so you can have a completely meaningless romantic interaction. That's not even close to how real relationships work and a "good" romance would take a huge amount of effort just to try and simulate some kind of agency for a particular npc. You will never hear "Sorry I like you but I don't feel this is the right moment for me to have a relationship" "I'm not attracted to you" "I like working with you but let's leave it at that" "I don't like yes men/women sorry but talking to you it's like talking to an echo chamber" We can't have that because the player's feelings come before everything so we get horrible aberrations where every character is istantly attracted to you, has absolutely no sexual identity beside being "player-phile" and will fall in love with you as long as you push the "right" buttons. There was one particular interview with a Dragon Age 2 writer where she talked about some of the female party members like they were prostitutes from a brothel. Something like <<Yeah we have this sexually aggressive "let's do it right here" one or another with the virginal next door girl look...>> What the hell! I'm sorry for people who actually like it but I don't want that **** in my rpgs, it's worse than those forced romance sub-plots in hollywood movies. Man I still remember how weirded out I was when while trying to get to know Ashley a bit more she started to hit on my Shepard in a really awkward and plain way. I'm your superior what the hell are you doing soldier? I felt like a douche for brushing her off but jesus...

I think when you start labelling choices as "evil" or "good" you already failed. There's idealistic or pragmatic. There's selfless or egocentric. Someone may be a racist **** but could also be a loving husband and a trusted friend. Someone may decide that killing in the name of the greater good is perfectly morally aceptable. A century ago you could own a slave and no one would have bat an eyelid, nowadays the simply idea is repulsive to a great majority of the western world. Aside from the "Save the puppy - Kick the puppy" situation (which Obsidian is going to avoid like the plague I'm sure) I think a lot of the time the problem may also lay in the way the different sides are "shown" to the player. For example in New Vegas it was really hard to take Caesar's Legion side as your first experience with them is finding a pillaged village whose habitants have ben exterminated (some of them through crucifixion :| ) because they were "cowards" and lead by a morally bankrupt mayor. Yeah the NCR might have their fair share of **** and corruption but I think I'll side with the mentally sane ****, sorry Caesar.

They're going with a Baldur's Gate formula from what I understood: hard cap with different level caps unlocked by eventual expansions or sequels. I personally don't mind, I prefer low level D&D anyway and a huge amount of levels could either make the "numbers" grow out of control or simply devalue levelling itself.

Genitals and female breasts are different fertility symbols, they're not equivalent. You want the male equivalent? Here you go. Well it's not Kamitami fault either that female breasts are both considered a symbol of motherhood and an erotic taboo. Males and females are quite different on a physical level, there's really no point in starting a contest about which sex can be sexualized more, especially when we are talking about a highly stylized and unrealistic artstyle. There's no much to discuss really. I think everyone have seen the picture of Cadegund: it wasn't sexualized at all to begin with and they swiftly corrected the "boobplate" after the community pointed it out. I think it's pretty easy to see what will be PoE armor art direction.

Well... that's... stunning I'm not religious at all, but I'll admit I'm not educated. As for being fool - I can't decide. But following the logic of that picture - male necromancers should be blessed with huge penises (life giving) I'm not sure there is any truth in Obyk theory (especially considering how much George Kamitami loves to draw big breasted women whether or not the characters are necromancers) but you're confusing genitals with breasts and procreation with feeding. While huge male genitalia (especially erect ones) can be a fertility symbol they would also not fit the nurturing theme Vanillaware's necromancers have. A necromancer with a constantly erected huge **** summoning undeads through the "life-giving" powers of said sexual organ would be quite amusing to play as, though I guess it would also be more controversial than a big breasted sorceress. edit for the record I wrote "peni s" not sure why it was censored

I disagree on this, very much so. It would make for a really boring game. Variety is good thing, as can be seen from BG2 which is the more popular game. Variety =/= Quantity If magical items (especially powerful one) are too common there's a huge risk of completely killing the excitement of finding them, a math game in which you periodically change your sword with one with a slightily higher bonus. I disagree on this, very much so. It would make for a really boring game. Variety is good thing, as can be seen from BG2 which is the more popular game. variety is good. overloading the game with junk items is bad like in BG2 that you mention, from the start you can find really nice looking stuff in shops, but by the time you can afford them, you have already found better items in the areas you visited and are left with the question: why should anyone have any reason to buy this? or certain overpriced stuff in adventurer's mart that simply had nothing to offer for the money you had to spend if to get the money you need in order to buy a +2 sword, requires you to pass through a dungeon in which you find +3 weapons for the entire party, the existence of the +2 sword is meaningless. the designers should have made that sword +3 with some special ability that would rival the one you found, giving you a reason to consider buying it and thus creating variety. also if you have the "sniper's crossbow" (a heavy crossbow that gives +3 to attack, +4 to damage and no specials) cost 30k, then you have the no name heavy crossbow +4 that gives +4 to attack +6 to damage for 21k in the same shop, in a game that has no requirements for the equipment, is anyone going to consider buying the first? it would be even worse if that guardian you had to kill in order to get where the shop is had a heavy crossbow +5 hand placed among the loot It was especially bad in Throne of Bhaal with shopkeepers selling magical artifacts like they were peanuts... It felt more like I was playing fantasy Dragon Ball Z than anything but that's D&D epic levels for you.

Well, it's a bit too soon but because my first character in Baldur's Gate was an half-elf ranger I will probably play as one in PoE too, changing my race to godlike for variety sake. Also I really liked the portrait of that black female godlike with feathers in one of the screens and I think a ranger (or druid) with weird "animal" features would be something cool to play as. I'm definitely going to try an aumaua fighter or barbarian (I know, I'm a boring person ) on my second playthrough.

I agree with all of your comments on the armour as a functional suit of armour. I wasn't suggesting that the armour would work well in the real world. I was saying that I prefer fantasy armour that looks good whether or not it'd function well in the real world. On my side of the fence, we call armours like those suggested on the first page of this thread "horrid", even though they're historically accurate, functional suits of plate from various regions with various styles. They're just boring as heck to look at, in my opinion! Yay for spikes, thick shoulders, thin vambraces and poofy sleeves! Well the problem is that even on a purely aesthetical level some people simply don't like those things. Personally I think that things such as big spikes and thick shoulderpads tend to make the armors look extremely overdesigned, cluncky and ugly. It's a matter of personal taste of course but I think it's also important to be coherent with your setting/game artistic direction; in Dragon age: Origins some armor designs in particular stood out like a sore thumb in a game that had an art direction with a largely grounded and realistic feel to it (they abruptly changed that in the sequel which had a distinctly high fantasy/cartoony art direction). That said you don't need to go completely in one direction or another. Games with a mid to low fantasy setting can benefit from designs that are subdued and yet still colorful and eye-catching. Look at these ones You don't need to look like a goofy He-Man character or have spikes coming out of your giant shoulderpads to look interesting

Voted for "The Leaders of the Band". I'm interested in seeing how similar (and different) in design they will be from 4th ed. D&D leaders. I quite enjoyed playing as a Warlord because of all the "indirect" damage and planning necessary to get the most out of his abilities. Though it seems the Paladin will fit a more similar niche I'm still curious about how priests and (especially) chanters will work.

I hope PoE will have a lot of auto-attacks and modal abilities and very few active abilities, most of them being extremely impactful on the course of the battle but with long cooldowns (once/twice per encounter, once/twice per day for example). While playing Dragon Age: Origins I found myself enjoying using the 2 handed warrior but I also rapidly found how dependant it was on spamming active abilities to keep up with other classes damage and how quickly going through the motions of spamming those abilities every single fight became extremely boring. I couldn't image a full party of four 2 handed weapons guys and I think having a party of 6 (?) skilspamming heroes could become pretty fast a micromanaging hell of spacebar spamming, queing up your "dps/actions rotation" to get the most out of your characters. Or eventually you could also have the same problem a lot of MMOs have: having a preposterous number of skills of which a small number is used in a rotation while 9/10 are extremely situational to the point you even wonder if they are worth a keybind. tl;dr Few active abilties with more impact > a lot of active abilities with minor impact This imo would resolve also the problem the OP raised as less, more impactful active skills also mean more oppurtinity to make them very distinct and useful.

I don't think the real question should be IF we want more stretch goals but HOW adding new stretch goals would inflluence the game development at this point. Who could be against more companions or quests? But how much additional time willl be needed to add that content without damaging the quality of the things that had to be in the game in the first place? Would we had to wait 1 more month? Or 3 more?