archangel979

Even if that's how you feel, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What do the combat mechanics and the lack of exploration have to do with the plot? Probably not much, but I need to insert my rant about MotB somewhere :D As for it being a good example for Evil campaign, not it was not. At least not by the example earlier given how an evil guy might become King. MotB only let you consume people with a arbitrary mechanic that said "oh now you are 2 point more evil because you pushed this same button again", and that is not much different than random minor quests in Baldur's Gate were you could lose some reputation if you chose an evil choice. It is still not a true Evil campaign. Actually, the really evil stuff is only available if you are consistently evil throughout most of the important plot points in the game, so I'd say it did a really fine job at that. I only really discovered what a magnificient bastard you could be in the final part of the game several years after release, which is a shame. Or how about the part where you devour the soul of a bear god and then use its pelt to fuse together a mass of evil souls into a new companion? Then potentially let that companion devour other people you stumble across and add their souls to its collective? Great fun. All in all, Mask of the Betrayer was quite good at letting you play not just a villain, but really a character with just about any motivation ranging from pure altruism to complete selfishness. This was because the PC's drive to get rid of or master the spirit-eater curse, at the bare minimum for themselves, made sense for anyone and everyone. And that companion was more fun in SoZ where you could take all characters you run into to him to be devoured for a substantial XP gain. That was an real evil choice where you actually tricked people into joining you and going out of your way just to sacrifice them to him

This comparison between Skyrim and DA2 is hilarious when both games are crap and pointless. Maybe you should compare good games instead?

To be fair, just because the first two maps are maybe not as detailed and awesome as you wanted, it does not mean the games does not have the awesome nice looking maps. Not all maps in BG1 and BG2 looked awesome (most BG1 maps is a bit of woods and some rocks and rivers).

Even if that's how you feel, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What do the combat mechanics and the lack of exploration have to do with the plot? Probably not much, but I need to insert my rant about MotB somewhere :D As for it being a good example for Evil campaign, not it was not. At least not by the example earlier given how an evil guy might become King. MotB only let you consume people with a arbitrary mechanic that said "oh now you are 2 point more evil because you pushed this same button again", and that is not much different than random minor quests in Baldur's Gate were you could lose some reputation if you chose an evil choice. It is still not a true Evil campaign.

You wouldn't need two paths. Mask of the Betrayer taught us that. All you need is a central goal which is not intrinsically heroic or villainous. The spirit eater curse provided plenty of incentive for either a hero or a villain to find its source, since it was going to eventually devour your soul either way. Finding a way to rid yourself of it was morally neutral. How you reacted to that curse, however, determined whether you were playing as a hero or villain. You could fight your impulses or give them free reign, help those around you or devour everything in your path. I wish the mechanics of that had been handled better, since it was indisputably less frustrating to reign in your hunger rather than dealing with your spirit meter constantly going down, but the principle was sound. Compare and contrast to the original NWN2, where the goal was to stop the King of Shadows. The simple question of why my Chaotic Evil Priest of Bane would give a fuzzy rat's arse about whether the King of Shadows swallowed up the Sword Coast was never quite answered. This was the central quest and you had to follow it if you wanted to keep playing. MotB was a short game with bad combat and almost no exploration (and that terrible soul draining mechanics that I turned off with a mod after 1 hour of playing it). I don't want a full game based on what MotB had.

My list: BG2 - BG1 - ME1 - KOTOR - DA:O - JE - NWN - DA2 - ME2 - ME3 - SWTOR

For a true villain RPG you need a game that focuses on that. You cannot make a whole game have two real paths. I mean you could, but it would not be financially smart.

Well I found Witcher 2 to be to console like and it had console RPG combat systems. As a result I am not excited much for W3.

I still find both Irenicus and Sarevok more interesting than Saren. Best thing about ME1 was the reveal about Saren not being the big bad behind everything and where you character is not a demigod or chosen by Force but just a human that is so motivated he manages to become the first Specter. Those are two things that stood out in ME in addition to an interesting SF settings that is a mix of ST, SW and some others.

Irenicus dungeon is filled with goblins Weren't those kobolds? OK, I don't remember any goblins and orcs in BG1 and I didn't miss them.

Do we really need goblins and orcs? I don't remember any in BG1 and BG2.

If it was a new IP it would have been even worse as people would not buy it and play it because of their love for DA:O. Then it would just be a subpar RPG and word of its lack of quality would go around soon and sales would plummet.

Yes, Chris has more impact in how Torment: Numenera is going to turn out.

I think new Torment: Numenera is going to be that, PoE is supposed to more like Baldur's Gate but with more free form story.

Except as it was stated, evil does not need to do that or act that way. He can act all good and civil if he wants as long as he achieves his ultimate goal. Just because this option to kill or shake exists in conversation it does not mean you need to take it. Hanibal would not, he would choose the seemingly good option to pretend he was a good guy.

I am going to miss effects that last beyond resting.

The only thing you can really do evil in BG1 is murder and steal. You can turn down the good quests but you lose the advantages of doing so and do not gain anything substantial in return. There is really no evil path, there is a psychopathic path and non-psychopathic path and it is to your benefit to do the non-psychopathic stuff. That was a big criticism of BG1 at the time. Sure and there are a few big evil options in IWD2 as well. As shown by the option to side with the Duergar. I thought the issues he had with the essential non-existence of meaningful evil paths are not solely for IWD2. Actually I thought there were nice RP moments in IWD2 just mostly confined to the first town. I am not sure what you are talking about here. They mean a great deal in that game. More than the others. You could be one cold bloodedly cruel bastard. I have to admit I didn't have the stomach for it. I think we might be talking about different things here. I am talking about the game supporting Evil characters, you are talking about game being full of clearly evil quests. Game does not need those to support evil play through as long as the quests are not obvious Good ones like only options being saving people or turning down rewards. Both BG1 and BG2 offered evil play because you were not forced into good actions and all the quests you had to do were easily explained for evil characters as well. The games are RPG = Roleplaying games, you are supposed to make decisions based on your characters even if that is a subpar option at times. People are obsessed about complex game mechanics supporting everything, that is not needed, you already had reputation and open ended quests. I know in BG2 I tried to have around 10 reputation character because I wanted to have a mix of neutral/evil companions in party and early in the game my reputation fell down to 7 and I had to do some good action I didn't really want or pay money to temples. The game offered enough evil options if you ask me. What you guys want is powergaming no matter what you do and choose. You want the story to follow your whim instead of you following the story and the world. This makes the world less realistic and it not proper roleplaying. Just like people that complain in D:OS that choosing conversation options does not give them mechanical bonuses they want. That is also not roleplaying. I always choose what my character would say, not what kind of bonus I will get for it. Mass Effect that was mentioned was a bad example in my book, it always presented two options and you were expected to go either full good or full evil (like Kotor and I hated that in Kotor where going full good or full evil would unlock great benefits not open to gray characters).

Granted but his criticisms easily extend to the other IE games as well. Do they? In BG1 you could be saving the sword coast from great evil or just trying to find out who killed Gorion and is trying to kill you so you can kill them. At no point does BG1 force you to do good things with good motivation. All good quests you can turn down. In Bg2 you even get a few opportunities to state you hunt for Irenicus and not trying to save Imoen. That is clearly a good or evil path. And two options in Athkatla (Shadow Thieves or Vampires) are both Evil and it more than one person said that Paladins are the ones wronged here as they would not use services of any of those two options. IWD is just like IWD2, Torment is very personal game and good/evil means almost nothing in that game.

As a guy that will not be a part of Beta, I invite as many people to stream it as possible

Yea, IWD1 and 2 were not really known for their roleplay qualities. They were not designed for it as well. For Evil characters you have to provide internal motivation like becoming more powerful or some revenge scheme. Or my Evil God wants me to do good things for The Greater Evil

Diablo 3 UI does not work here. In D3 you have 5 classes and 5 illustrations for this UI, PoE would need a different one based on your race, class and gender (at least) and still people would complain their character has red hair while UI one has black or something.

WTF is this lol?! When they mentioned big heads I thought we are going to get conversations like in Fallout with special NPC where you get the head and shoulders of the person filling the most of the middle of the screen lol. What is the point of this?!

I just wish you asked them about pathfinding issues from the demo.

I forgot how good IWD2 char sheet looked.

+1 to more permanent corpses. Also if there will be animate dead spell I want it to work of corpses and not thin air.