Archmage Silver

Every class should have their own place in combat, and as a result classes should do better in combat situations most suited to them, possibly outperforming other classes under those circumstances.

Yes, you can use controllers. Those would be KB + mouse. I don't know why you'd want to use anything else when we're talking about a PC-exclusive RPG.

I'd be fine with one of these scenarios, but any more and it's going to be detrimental to the game. Just don't make the opponent a game progress fail-safe like Arkanis Gath from BG II, I hated that guy. There have to be better ways to handle fail-safe systems. Now for the actual encounter, I'd be fine with something like Lothar the Master of Bones from PS:T or a creature of similar power. Or possibly just something like the Lady of Pain... although she just used to maze you when you irked her enough. Something clearly beyond the player's capability to defeat would be the best option in my opinion.

Voted for the Pimp My Stronghold option. Xzibit will install me some arcane color-shifting windows and enchanted stables with chrome horseshoes +3.

I'd rather not, because that makes me want to cancel my pledge. I'll think of it as Baldur's Gate II instead.

Nope.

I'd start memorizing Lower Resistance, Greater Malison, Finger of Death. Or Disintegrate instead of FoD.

Nice work, the shields are looking good. Always nice to see what people picked for their emblem.

You're completely missing the point. And I'm not "moralising" anything - I'm stating the actual facts of the matter, which you are choosing to ignore. Do as you wish, but ignorance is not an excuse for anything.

People like you are detrimental to this entire conversation. Phobias can't just be "willed away" - they're rooted in the unconscious mind. The conscious, logical mind can't just forcibly remove them. Their scope is as varied as the people who suffer from them - some people have minor cases of phobia, which can be treated much more easily than severe, debilitating cases of phobia. While I don't suffer from any phobia myself, I do have an interest in psychology, and seeing people like you post ignorant comments is just all too common. I can't reply in all instances where this happens, but I'm making the effort here, because saying things like "Grow up, man up" in order to help someone suffering from a phobia is just stupid. Without actual therapy or a self-help plan people suffering from phobias won't be able to gain control over their unconscious mind where the phobia in question is concerned.

There will probably be an unofficial mod or two that change the spiders to wolves or creatures of some sort. The balance issues can be addressed by giving the new stand-ins identical stats and similar abilities to the spiders. The loot lists / manual loot placement can be handled in the same way. This will require some tools though, so the timetable for these mods is still open. A lot depends on whether Obsidian will released modding tools of any kind.

There needs to be a certain amount of these, otherwise the replayability factor of the game is resting solely on choosing a different class and a different set of companions. In my opinion the situations these kind of quests should be present in are as follows: Class-Specific Quests - Wizards Aren't Paladins1 Fame/Infamy Quests - Your Reputation Precedes You 2 Skill/Attribute Quests - Barbarians Make Poor Diplomats3 Affiliation/Guild Quests - You're Not An Insider 4 1. Classes should have at least one class-specific quest, e.g. Paladins should get a quest from their Order. No sense in other classes being able to get, much less solve these quests. 2. You'll get a certain reputation with people depending on how you act in the world. If you're known locally as a ruthless mercenary who isn't shy to butcher anyone who gets in your way, you're not likely to do much business with the pacifist priests in the Temple District. 3. If you have an unkempt appearance and your oratory skills are less-than-convincing, you'd be hard pressed to find employment with anyone seeking a diplomatic solution to a problem. 4. If you join the Thieves Guild in one city, the City Guard in that city might not offer you any work. Try the other city, and the City Guard there might not care about your affiliations in the other city. That's my take on this topic.

Baldur's Gate II style for me. PS:T has a good system, but I think it's just a bit too heavy on the text-per-slide side of things.

It's done manually, so feel free to head over there and register.

I think MCA might be the original Internet Troll. I'd rather post praise of Dragon Age 2 on the RPG Codex forums than piss off MCA. He's scary.

I'd like to see Disintegration make a comeback. A flash of green... then nothing.

BG II Mod Addendum: If you're experiencing graphics card related glitches with the IE games, try the IE Direct Draw Fix. This is also a WeiDU mod.

I voted for a similar game to the Baldur's Gate series. I would have added shades and flavors from the other games as well if that was possible.

If the goal was to add support for 3D vision or equivalent, I'd think Obsidian would have mentioned this by now, i.e. during the Kickstarter campaign. The logical assumption here is that there will be no such support.

Suspension of disbelief is important, otherwise you've got a flop game. Add "realism" until you achieve that point where the player is willing to suspend their disbelief and play the game.

I've lost count of how many times I've played them over the last decade... You should be in for a much smoother experience with the fixpack. The other mods like Tweak Pack and Ascension add a lot of ease-of-use and story features as well. Personally I limit myself to Ascension and components from Unfinished Business on the story side of things, just to keep the game near vanilla.

No problem. Ascension has been around for so long now that sometimes I think everybody who still plays BG II knows about it, but I guess I should keep mentioning it just in case.

Nice new greeting from Josh to get the update started - he certainly has a sense of humor, and I'm not talking about his Halloween face paint. I think we can all understand if Darren is a bit busy right now, so I for one am fine with the fulfillment site's current schedule. Congrats, Darren! The preliminary armor system sounds like something worth pursuing, as long as armor diversity can be maintained without mechanically making it infeasible to use some of the armor types featured in the game. Should something like hide armor be supplanted/made obsolete by leather as an "improved version" or does that effectively kill the visual concept of the rough-hewn rawhide-wearing ranger or barbarian? I think they should be made obsolete by the more advanced armors in their "class", because that's how it historically progressed as well. There should be exceptions to this rule though, such as enchanted armors and "lesser" armors made from a superior material. E.g. rawhide armor made from wyvern hide should outperform deerskin leather armor. If armor types like hide (or scale, or mail) should remain viable on their own, how should that "upgrade" be expressed to the player? Functional descriptors like "fine scale", "superior hide", etc.? Cultural or material descriptors like "Vailian doublet", "iron feather scale"? Olde tyme numerical descriptors like "scale armor +1", "half-plate +2"? I'm all for cultural and material descriptions, they're much more interesting to me personally than the other two options. Something like Vailian Coral Armor could easily be one of the local specialities for non-metal armor types. Is it okay for an upgrade from a visual type of armor to maintain its relative position to other armor types even if "realistically" that upgraded armor is now probably superior in protection to other armor types? E.g. an armored jack or brigandine armor is probably more protective than even nice suit of leather armor... but mechanically, we're presenting it as an upgrade of a padded (doublet) armor type. I'd be fine with the highest possible padded (doublet) upgrade being on even terms with a leather cuirass (tier 2). No need to artificially sustain their relative positions.

It's pretty good IMO, and I wouldn't run BG II without it, but you can read the latest ReadMe to get a better picture and decide for yourself if it's worth your time. Ascension was originally made by David Gaider from BioWare in his spare time, so the basic premise for it is sound for me at least. As for installation, you'd normally install Ascension before any other mods, even in its current WeiDU form. The BG II Fixpack would follow right after.

Yeah, I should post more around the OOoE forums as well. We'll see, but hopefully I'll be around for a multiplayer game or two. For BG II, don't forget these two essential mods: BG II Fixpack Widescreen Mod Optional: Ascension BG II Tweak Pack Unfinished Business