Gorth

Strangely enough, the few games that seems to offer the option, I only spend short time after the main quest to do a bit of exploring. Yet for mysteriously reasons I still resent games of a more "open" nature that suddenly slams the door and tells me game over. I guess I just like the choice to continue rather than the actual continuing for ever and ever.

Thread pruned a bit. It gets a bit tiresome. If people can't disagree without implying those who disagree are morons or otherwise socially challenged, it might be time for more heavy handed measures. I really don't like that, as there is little love involved.

I see about 300 votes. Which out of say 47000 current backers is slightly more than 0.6% represented. I.e. it tells not to take poll numbers seriously beside the entertainment value. What you get are the few who care enough to vote for or detest it strongly enough to vote against (and the odd trolls who just like to annoy people).

Sadly, my knowledge of D&D mostly originates from the old SSI games and later the modern interpretations in the IE games (and NWN2). I don't think those games paid so much attention to the subtler mechanics of the game system(s)

Crossing fingers and hoping for Storm of Zehir type map (and by extension, encounter) system.

Save our wetlands! Since people seems to be campaigning for just about everything else from the silly to the sensible, I thought I would strike a blow for the classic stuff. Some of my favourite crpg environments the last 28 years of gaming has been swamp and sewer levels. Things that spring to mind are the swamp lands of The Witcher (which was my absolute favourite part of that game) and a number of sewer levels in games like Baldurs Gate and a few older FPS games. The slimy black mud that clings to your legs, all the way up to your armpits, the smell of rotten eggs, the "squish squish" sound of your boots slogging through waste and filth, what is there not to love? Seriously, hand on your heart, would it be a role playing game if there wasn't a quest to go down in a sewer and solve the rat infestation? Come on, don't deny your roots! Give me gloomy wet lands with a sense of being alone with all the dwellers in the deep, waiting to lash their rubbery tentacles around my legs and drag me to (not so) unexpected demise, the sense of relief when finally spotting a patch of dry land between the reeds with a copse of crooked and diseased trees where I can light a small campfire and chase away the darkness. Just sayin', frogs and herons needs to live somewhere too!

Being a bit of a Jagged Alliance 2 fan, I liked how healing/injury was handled there. If your team mates ("companions" in PE terms) takes enough damage, they start bleeding to death and collapse on you unless you divert a pair of skilled hands to provide first aid. When combat was over and you had patched up those who had fallen enough to stabilise them, you could either leave them to heal slowly over time while you moved and and did other things. You could always return and pick them up later. Alternatively, you dedicate some of your (occasionally sparse) manpower to assist their healing process, speeding it up considerably. That was still, while you were free to go around and do your own thing. Another option was to send them to the hospital (a dedicated healing facility), where you could buy your way out of it and drop off injured companions, sacrificing money instead of your valuable merc "man hours". I don't mind the idea of "combat drugs", that temporarily improves performance or speeds up the recovery process. Needs that extra Oomph? Get a shot of some mix of adrenaline and something that suppresses fear. Got cut up badly in a fight? A nice potion of stem cell juice might help speed up the process at a premium price... or a delicious bottle of souls from freshly squeezed kids or whatever gives people a regenerative boost. Just rambling a bit. Encounter design and recovery from encounters sort of have to match each other to be fun IMO.

Not updates per se, but if you click on his posting history and check his last posts, things do look rather grim tarna Oh, and his old forum was called Tarna's Coffeeshop if I remember correctly.

Obvious answer is obvious, yet true none the less. I've spent my "disposable" income for two months and there just isn't more on the indulgence budget, even if they offered Jagged Alliance 2 grade combat.

Humour is a very subjective thing. Some get a laugh out of slapstick, some get a laugh out of Monty Python (I'm one of them, but I don't really want MP references in my crpgs), some get a laugh out of the absurd and some just get a laugh out of somebodys mishap/accident/whatever. You are never going to please everybody. Some of my favourite "lol" moments from an Obsidian game is probably from Kotor2, which had some of the absurdity of MP (without being MP). Some of the dialogues from Nar Shaddaa made me startle myself when laughing out loud. I'm sort of hoping that is the style and tone of humour they are aiming for.

I don't think so, unfortunately. Lan and Internet shows as 'Disabled in Demo'.

*makes note of the name 'merat' in his little black book of doom*

I think the tool set and workflow of the IE is so obsolete now that you can get similar look and feel on a different engine at lower cost. Not to mention that the pre-rendered sprite animations looks really old now (probably the one part the aged least gracefully). Infinity Engine was after all written with a completely different type of game in mind (it was intended for RTS games when it got "repurposed" for CRPG type games).

I was supposed to read the email?

To be fair, there is only a limited time window to edit your post (I don't remember the number of minutes) and when responding to different posters, it's easier for those replied to to re-reply so to speak without having to sort through a quote mountain. Actually, there is also a limit on the number of quotes you can have in a single post, but people rarely hit it.

I'm curious when they are going to introduce Paypal for those without credit cards. The initial "take off from the ground" target has been reached with a fairly good safety margin.

On a more serious note, I got the impression from one of the interviews that "mages" could wear platemail and still do their hand waving stuff. It's entirely possible that they wont stand out in a crowd just by their dress code.

Psychers and mutants *should* have to wear visible stigma, making their crime against humanity plain for all to see with the naked eye.

Good thinking.

Ooh, class warfare! (I know, bad pun). The only classless game I remember from top of my head is Oblivion. Not sure if I really like their approach to specialisation and skills. Not sure either what would be a better alternative. Something like VMBL's "backgrounds" which gave you starting traits/feats/whatever? Maybe it is just irrational fear of that blank slate in front of me that needs filling out.

I think I got them for $2.75 each or so when they had a sale a while ago. Mind you, I had already bought the original CD version, then the boxed set version, so I didn't feel too bad about getting the download version cheap. It's a price range where your biggest loss is going to be the time invested if it isn't to your liking

Well, it might have been a good idea to stress that point, because you are being *very* insulting suggesting on a game developer board that people ripping them off is good for the developers. I'm fairly sure the Obsidian guys disagrees with you.

I have to confess I haven't played either of the IWD. I wanted to play them recently but the general opinion about them all seemed to be same, they are an excellent Action RPG but don't have much of a narrative or interaction with your party members like BG. Is this true? Well, there is no "canned" party banter if that is what you mean. You create your entire party of up to 6 characters yourself, mixing and matching skills and abilities to suit your style. The story itself however is IMO superior to the Bhaal spawn stuff. You just have to get used to the silence, because you (or some mates if you play multiplayer) have to roleplay the adventuring party rather than a single protagonist.

I haven't felt I had a purpose in life for the last 30 years. Now I settle for indulging my whims and try to enjoy it

Thanks guys. I'm probably going to give it a try. I might not become a regular player, but I would like to know what people are talking about