kanisatha

At least one fan of the IE games disagrees with you, and I suspect I am far from alone. What I wanted was a return to the isometric PoV with beautiful individually designed maps, to tactical real time with pause combat, and to a deep story. These were the things the made IE games great to me, not the individual mechanical elements ported over from tabletop AD&D, and certainly not the arbitrary party size limit. Hear hear! I'm really getting tired of the "Only I get to say what qualifies as a true successor to the IE games" crowd. So maybe some of these sentiments will make some heads explode: PoE was an awesome successor to the IE games; PoE2 is shaping up to be even more awesome; BG2 was not all that it's cracked up to be.

This transcript actually has a lot of interesting information. I was particularly happy to see that something I posted for in the Fig forum is now on Josh's radar: having a UI screen in our stronghold where we can simultaneously access the inventories of all our companions and not just the ones in our party.

Yes, if it will give me a Baldur's Gate ONE style open wilderness exploration map.

+1 Eder is my favorite companion of all and he is always in my parties as well.

Will you make this available as a YouTube video? Sometimes the Twitch recordings don't have close-captioning which I need. Thanks!

Great thread and awesome list, OP! One thing I'd really love to have is a UI screen (perhaps in our stronghold) where I can access the paperdolls and inventories of my PC and all my companions simultaneously. I really love managing the equipment of my companions including even those I don't take with me as a part of my regular party.

I strongly support 6, but I agree with those here saying this is a done deal. We're stuck with 5 whether you like it or not because changing it back to 6 would require way too much new work to replace work already done on the game. But what confuses me is that there are some people who like and support the reduction in party size yet who also keep insisting we need 8+ companions in the game because "that's how many there were in the first game." Seems inconsistent. If the party size is now smaller, I don't see any point whatsoever for anything more than 7 companions, and even that is a wastefully high number for me. Many people who've played through PoE1 are naturally going to gravitate towards taking along the 3 companions returning from the first game. So, for many, they're only going to have one party slot available for any and all new companions.

My unhappiness with this could be assuaged if they make it so that any "required" NPC that has to be taken along for a quest will not take up one of the five party slots.

@Infinitron, thank you for digging up the story. I knew I remembered it correctly!

Not reporting rumors. It was in a mainstream gaming news site (but can't remember who right now), and they were citing the information as coming from an email sent to them by Feargus himself in which he says they've wanted to shrink party size for tactical combat reasons but from their Tyranny experience decided that four was too small so they settled for five.

Already brought this up in another thread, but party size would be my big issue. I read in one of the online news stories that they've decided to reduce party size to five. My big wish would be for them to reconsider that design choice. But party size is fundamental to the whole game so if those accounts are true I doubt they'll be open to changing it at this point. Very unfortunate and very unnecessary. Really unhappy about it.

Backed it at the $45 level. Had intended to also invest a few thousand in the game but holding off for now after reading in one of the online news stories that PoE2 party size has been dropped to five. If true, that's something that really pisses me off.

Don't see why it needs to be either/or. Obs is a reasonably large company and they've often said they can do three major projects roughly at the same time. Me thinks the JES team will first do PoE2 and thereafter Sawyer's historical RPG project (which btw I'm excited by as well). The Cain/Boyarsky team I would guess is working on a vampire/werewolf game set in contemporary times. And then there's the Armored Warfare team which can transition to a Pathfinder cRPG. The smaller Tyranny and Pathfinder card game teams will continue to do follow-on work on those games. They can potentially do it all.

Did they actually say that they wanted to do a Pathfinder cRPG? [speculation hat] What if the mystery Unreal Engine project is a spiritual successor to NWN2, but set in the Pathfinder universe? [/speculation hat] HA! This is what I've been speculating on for months! I think they could sell a Pathfinder-based game as a spiritual successor to NwN2, perhaps first-person, 3D, modular, with emphasis on moddability and DM tools. Then they can keep releasing official modules post-base game release, and we'd have fan-created modules available as well, just like with the NwN games. And yes, they very specifically have said Pathfinder cRPG. I've heard of the D20 issue, but I would bet WotC would be willing to provide a license for its use if necessary because I can't imagine they'd want to suffer even more negative press and fan reactions given where they're at right now. But what could keep them from being supportive is if they already have a similar concept game in the works using D&D rules, possibly the new Forgotten Realms game being developed by Beamdog. If so, then I think Pathfinder fans would accept Obs using the Pathfinder setting and lore but a different rules system if that's the only way to get a Pathfinder cRPG.

Where would Obsidian's Pathfinder license fit into all of this? Both Obs and Paizo have said repeatedly they want to do a Pathfinder-based crpg, and I imagine given Pathfinder's large fan-base they could easily either crowdfund it or find a big-name publisher to bankroll it, so ...?

Yes but it's going to be PoE2, which I'm very excited about don't misunderstand, but I'm far more curious about their mystery game.

Eder, Aloth and Pallegina are returning. I was so happy when I saw that teaser screen. Eder doesn't get much love from PoE fans but he is by far my most favored companion and I always have him in my parties. Also like Aloth (and Sagani) quite a bit but not a big fan of Pallegina (and Durance). So all in all a good deal for me. I suppose which companions return depends on whether their writers are still with Obs.

You guys should seriously move on this. I think the niche exists for a 'spiritual successor' to the Neverwinter Nights games (a highly moddable modular cRPG with DM tools, etc.) but using the Pathfinder setting rather than D&D. After all, within the NwN games the parts made by Obsidian were the best, so those games' legacy belongs to Obsidian rather than to Bioware imho.

Please, no! I hate timed anything in my games, which is yet another one of the many reasons I don't care for the Elder Scroll games. I play crpg's to escape the stress of my real-life, so don't need that kind of stress in my games. I like to take my time and explore every last little thing I can in every location and every quest. I easily spent close on 300 hours playing a single run-through of Dragon Age Inquisition.

Yeah the saving grace for TToN going turn-based is that combat situations are supposed to be few and far-between and usually resolvable in non-combat ways. That's why I am sticking with that game and still looking forward to it. The difference between a preferance of RTwP and TB, as I see it, is that people who prefer TB can still get a reasonable simulation of that from an RTwP game that allows for auto-pause at the end of each turn, whereas for people who prefer RTwP a TB game just simply sucks with no way around it. Based on the numerous glowing testimonials about ToEE I would love to be able to play that game. However I have checked out ToEE's gameplay on several Youtube videos, and I find it's TB system so incredibly tedious and aggravating to me that I just can't bring myself to play that game which is rather unfortunate.

Is this sarcasm or surprise? Surprise. Turn-based is the opposite of exciting gameplay, for me. My brothers from other mothers! Turn-based is immersion breaking slow-death gaming that so many indie crpgs use these days, guess its easier to make/balance etc. I'll add my voice to this as well. Turn-based really sucks. Combat is already my least-liked aspect of crpg's, and turn-based combat makes it even worse by painfully dragging out aggravating combat sequences. I too was really pissed when Torment went turn-based combat after I had supported the Kickstarter.

I feel like I must politely but strenuously object. D&D isn't limited to Forgotten Realms, and Pathfinder has some really, really cool sub-settings with nary a grumpy dwarf or fat hobbit in sight - check out the Strange Aeons or the Iron Gods APs for example. ^This. Pathfinder is not a singular setting but actually a collection of very varied settings. And they are mostly very well developed. Also, I can appreciate the sentiments of those who're tired of games in high fantasy settings. But at the same time for others like myself, sword and magic is all we really care for as a setting for an RPG. I simply cannot get into guns or lasers so I'm never going to play a Fallout or Star Wars game no matter how good it may be. Obsidian already has the license for Pathfinder; the setting and the game mechanics are thoroughly developed so very little resources need be expended on those major aspects of any new game; and, the setting comes with a reasonably large existing fanbase. So a Pathfinder CRPG would be a relatively low cost and low risk but high return game for Obsidian. Thus from a business standpoint, it makes perfect sense to do it. And best of all, Pathfinder is perfectly suited for a Neverwinter Nights style game, meaning you build a moddable base game, and then you release a series of new modules for the game for years thereafter. As was evident from the survey, Pathfinder already comes with a very long list of mostly-popular game modules to work with.

Yeah me too. I mean, they already have the license, and they wouldn't have to expend resources on creating the setting, lore, and game mechanics. So the focus can be entirely on creating a great game - an awesome story plus all of the best elements of roleplaying that RPG fans crave. And, for marketing purposes, you already start out with a large and passionate fanbase. What could be better than this?! It seems to be a no-brainer for me.

^This, except for strongly preferring RTwP over TB. Combat is my least liked part of RPGs and TB takes way too long to get done with the fight, leaving me aggravated and frustrated. TB would be palatable if combat were brief and occasional.

Fair enough, but my point is that shouldn't it be time now for some details about this game? Has there been any chatter elsewhere outside of this forum? I'm not on that many gamer forums myself.