Yellow Rabbit

Bah. You, guys, surely looking at things through nostalgia goggles. Who needs these elves when there are cute orlans nd sturdy aumaua? Maybe even godlikes will get some attention, if one don't mind genetic disorders so much.

Well, if someone would try to summarize debates around quest-only xp system, it all would boil down to number of points around which very easy to run in circles. Points against quest xp (with "counterarguments"): 1) It wasn't in IE games which PoE supposed to be successor to. - Again "what does 'spiritual successor' actually mean?", eh? Debate's pointless. 2) No sense to start a fight without xp reward in the end. Avoiding it becomes really attractive. - What happened to sheer joy of tactical challenge and "loot is my reward"? - Point taken, but not every encounter is actually fun. Trash mobs become utter annoyance without kill xp. - Trash mobs are utter annoyance with kill xp too. Trash is a trash. - But xp rewards makes it at least somewhat bearable. - Right. There's just so much sense in 1 xp point per trash mob when you need like 20000 points to advance your level. - At least it feels like moving forth, not completely wasted time. 3) Character growth pacing feels wrong (in BB, that is). Several hours of... err... walking in wilderness with lots of blood spilled doesn't gain you a single level, whereas thirty minutes running around quest hub could gain several. - Looks like balancing issue. Tying bloodspilling in wilderness to some quests (or at least that Bestiary compromise) might fix the problem. BB doesn't do it right, not yet, but who can know about main game for now? 4) It forces you to do side quests in order to become strong enough for advancing the main plot. Side quests called "side" because they should be skippable. - Errr... Balance again. Maybe you'll be able to avoid that if you get skilled enough in this game. What kill xp supposed to change about it, anyway? Quest milestones in the main plot could work just as well as xp for going through its encounters. 5) Most, if not all, RPG fans accustomed to get xp for killing enemies. They will be displeased. - You're trolling me, aren't you? Don't you dare, I have nothing to eat myself. Here, take this: habit shouldn't have anything to do with fun. If quest xp system will be really fun (and it's going to), people will see that and like it. Or at least won't mind it so much. Screw the habits. tl,dr; Half of the quest xp complaints I've seen so far can be addressed with right system balancing. Other half can't be addressed at all because it's about feelings and habits. As always.

Dammit. I guess I've just failed Will save throw. Installing BG Trilogy yet again. PrimJunta, that's not fair! I have plenty other work to do! *sobs* Good luck with your reroll anyways

Depends on who you ask, I guess. Whether those really are RPGs and all that, I mean. You may remove that "w" if you feel like it I typed it just to hit category of games BG2 would fit in more precisely.

Oh, please. Narrow it down to "best piece of comic relief writing in an wRPG" at least. BG2 deserves to be admired, but there must be some bounds of reason. Btw, thanks for the topic, PrimeJunta! Enjoyed reading it a lot.

It would be nice if whole "spiritual successor to IE games" thing was less muzzy around its "spiritual" part. Some people seems to have contradicting images of what that actually means and what degree of similarity with predecessors is enough for PoE to go. Well, as Nakia keeps repeating, you can't please everyone. Especially preliminary sceptical ones who have their opinions already built up and solid.

I'm not sure I have right to say this not even being a backer, but anyways. Firstly, these guys making games for... what, 12 years now as Obsidian Entertainment and great deal of time before that in other companies. I think they're capable by now of taking to heart constructive part of any feedback and ignoring everything else. Moreover, I think they also fumbled by now where goes the line between objective and subjective feedback and when it's time to make their own design decisions as they see right. That said, what's going on on this forum hardly could offend them, although they should appreciate OP's care. Secondly, great thanks goes from me to Sensuki, PrimeJunta, Serfort and whole lot other guys and girls who chose to sacrifice their time and effort attempting to give really useful feedback on PoE. And their frustration is completely understandable when they clearly saw an issue, reported about it and it didn't change several builds later. Taking Backer Beta for what it is... well, game in this state hardly supposed to be shown to anyone outside of the house in normal circumstances, but open development concept obliges to deliver, so we have what we have. Work still in progress anyway. It's early to make conclusions.

I'm not a developer and my knowledge is pretty vague, but as far as I know most games architecturally divided to engine handling rendering/os interactions/other low-mid-level stuff and game scripts telling the engine what to render. For engine development most sense would make C/C++ with few asm injections here and there. And shaders having their own magic. What language will be used for scripting (i.e. to actually build the game) on said engine depends on engine author's liking. Could be anything. PoE's engine is Unity, which requires either C#, JavaScript or Boo for scripting. Though I'm not sure if someone really uses the last two.

Why so harsh? Romantic characters are realistic because, generally speaking, romance is a natural thing. Getting PC-NPC romance done right is not impossible, it just requires ridiculous amount of work from narrative designer to make it feel natural. NPC-NPC romance is much easier because writer is in full control of both characters whose relationship he wants to flesh out. I believe that is the reason why Obs decided not to bother with PC-NPC romances in PoE. But there is no freaking way to explain this to person who starts word "romance" with capital letter...

This topic is fun. In some controversial way. Let's say there is hypothetical RPG out there where neither protagonist nor his/her companions are antropomorphous folks. Let them be cute little slugs or brutal energetic lifeforms or whatever. Would there be just as many fierce demands to add romances for those as there are for characters in game like PoE? Just curious.

Ouch. Wicelo, hello and welcome in "I know better" club! It's good to see our numbers growing. Although you may want to learn the main rule of this club: all members are going to be completely ignored by whoever is busy with crafting that PoE thing. And rightfully so. About your OP: 1) Combat XP just not going to be there. Whether it for better, for worse or doesn't matter isn't clear yet. Being debated. 2) Don't worry, you'll have both options - make just main character and look for companions around or make full party from scratch. That is, when PoE will come out of the beta. It's still for testing, not playing, you know.

It's always funny to listen to RPG fans talking about Skyrim. "The game is utterly dumb! I played it for %over9000% hours and absolutely despise this game." The joke has dose of bitterness in it, though, since I tend to say something like that myself pretty often. Shame on me. Anyway, complains are fair enough, but PoE hardly have something to do with it. The games are different by default. Different size, different scope, different devs, different motives behind development, different everything. Only genre they have in common, but "RPG" is awfully vague definition.

Come to think of it, this topic would look much better being a poll like "Biofans, how do you feel about Bioware after playing DA:I?" and four options: "love", "hate", "couldn't care less", "quit with this stupid question already!". You know which one would dominate, Bruce, don't you? I certainly do.

Which kind from great variety of their fans do you mean? Actually I dunno... I've never been much about this "love or hate" matter. Games they make I can like or dislike, but I see no need to mix feelings toward game and toward its author. According to my personal tastes, they didn't produce anything worth playing since Jade Empire, and that one only because of setting (I just like Chinese culture), but that doesn't mean they won't in the future. Also, "mostly positive feedback on DA:I"? Seriously? Where?

That is actually what I wanted to say. Didn't put it well enough, my bad. Look, there's nothing wrong here. Games designed around concept of "fun" (whether they should be or not - another question), but fun is deeply subjective thing. Not every (wo)man finds reading to be fun. Even fewer find thinking to be so. If you are developer/publisher and seek to sell your game to as many as possible (and you have to, even if only to get back gargantuan development funds of "next-gen graphics") you ought to take a lowest common denominator and divide your game by it. You or me (the gamer) can like it or dislike it, but it is logically right. There were no other ways games could go. AAA titles cannot be intelligent by their own nature, so why keep accusing them of this? You can say that there's Obsidian, who manages to make AAA-games tolerable in this regard at the least and good at the most. But Obs was working only on sequels at first, therefore had strong base in every aspect including technical to begin with, lots of work already done. And even with that every AAA-game they made was severly broken at release in many regards except narrative. For the very first game they want to make without casual gamers in mind they had to go to KS. Moreover, inspiration plays a great role in creative work. I just cannot imagine developer being seriously passionate to make something like Skyrim. More like earning his/her money according to directives from above. Maybe I'm wrong on that one, though. ...The more I see of this guy Volourn, the more looks like his rep is well deserved. Odd.

Wow. Troll THAT fat surely could use some diet. Btw, here. One decidedly old interview with Laidlow about DA:Inquisition. "DA:I was inspired in a lot of ways by Planescape:Torment". Reaction of absolutely 100% people in comments is most amusing thing about it - "How dare you even pronounce that name, jerk!" Games have become whole lot better in terms of storytelling recently, uh-huh.

Looks like I missed your original point then. Sorry. The way I see it... No way it's going to be short. Darn. Okay, I'll advocate "trivializing" point a little. Let's say hitpoint bar is an abstraction. It actually is. In games with no direct player input (only indirect via commanding character what to do) the whole combat matter is fairly abstracted as well. "He took 3 hit points by the blow! Grazed enemy's arm, I guess." Justifying insta-kills and slight wounds becomes pure imagination matter. Tendency in aRPGs to simulate real life instead of using traditional abstractions would be a good thing, if authors would take this simulation far enough. But they make some things simulated while the others stay abstracted, and that tends to make game mechanics nonsensical mess. Player aims - he chose to hit the leg - depending on his skill and enemy's armor hit in the leg might insta-kill or just take a few hitpoints of the same exact enemy. Such inconsistency between simulation and abstraction is what hits the eye from far more than 10 meters and not even that of a Beholder. I'm not sure whether it may be called "trivializing", though. Btw, I've seen a good bypass of this problem once. In FNV. With low guns skill there aim was deviating wildly, making it very difficult for player to hit from afar, while upping this skill made aim steadier. Both simulation and sense are in place *nod-nod*

Sorry, just couldn't idly stand around... Oooops. Every sharpshooter in the world just winced painfully. From everything more than 10 meters shoot a person in the eye is a chance taking depending on many factors even from a pistol, let alone crossbow and especially bow. Skill matters a lot. And, yes, archery never dominated warfare before firearms popped up. Partly because of teaching somewhat skilled archer took an awfully lot of time, and they died easily if an enemy managed to get in melee, which cavalry was often able to accomplish. That's irrelevant to RPGs, of course, but... I'm hurt. Regarding Skyrim, I don't think comparing its role system to something D&D-like is viable. They're just different, not "worse" or "better". Learning to do things by doing them makes perfect sense, in Skyrim it's just taken beyond last line of absurd by some abstract value of "level" tied to it and absence of stats and restrictions in general. Bethesda understood KISS principle in a wrong way, yeah. Very wrong way. [here goes some nasty comment about raising conversation skills in D&D 3.5 with xp earned by endless killing.] "I'm learning how to be courteous with that person by butchering him/her! No person - no need to be courteous, and I always know where to put extra belongings, yay!" I know that happens only with a lousy DM, but ruleset allows that and in videogame there's just no DM, so what you're going to do? I'm agree with the point that mixing player's skills with character's skills to succeed in some action is stupid, though. Viable gameplay wise, but stupid in general. I hope you'll forgive me a little lecturing on OP in the end (it was intended to be imho, but... well, it happens. Sorry. ). Every argument about what an RPG should be and what not loses its scope pretty quickly because of lack of definitions. Genre originated in PnP gaming was never decently defined for computer gaming. "Role-Playing Game? I can roleplay in Call of Duty, you know. So it's gotta be an RPG, by genre name. What now?" Bad thing is, there's no way to deny such statement completely. It has some truth in it, strictly speaking. Some. Old-school RPG fans take for basis a complex system, consisting from ruleset that makes character feel alive, world that gives him a place to live and deep book-like narrative tying those two together, but that's not obvious for newcomer or casual bystander used to simplicity. Matter of tastes in the end. Big videogame developers trying to appeal to both sides and thus releasing freaks of a games with no sense for a dime inside. It's not their fault, it's their job, sadly. That said, RPGs are not going downhill. They've always been a niche sport, and with computer gaming developing they came out of their niche and was deformed by big ugly world. tl;dr Skyrim is s***ty, but somewhat fun game. I hope that Bethesda will remove the former and increase the latter, but that's never going to happen. Cheers :D

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Tolkien who popularized tall-slim-pale-immortal-humanlike-folks-with-pointy-ears as "elves"? There were other differencies, but exterior was that. From Tolkien this image went into Forgotten Realms in several variations, and, well, into pretty much all rpgs PoE wants to look like, so it's okay by me. Also, iirc elves from FR could breed with anyone willing to try, so it's a wonder there left some pure-blood species of a kind at all. I'd feel insulted if I'd was a faery from German/Celtic ethnic tales. I think.

Sheikh, you're taking casual concern and good wishes toward favourite game-maker to the extent of mental dependency and stubbornly repeating that it was there from the start. It was not. Stop. "Only Siths deal in absolutes" © OWK

Nah, it's not trolling, coindependent or any other kind. It's just this.

A pity it isn't something comprehensible... Thanks a lot for confirming anyways Ancient Geek doesn't seem to apply, though. If any halfwitted halfling can learn it in a few hours kicking undead passers by, what can be Geekish about it?

Looks like everything that could be said on topic had already been said. *shrug* People having fun now. Why not?

All right, I'm stuck. I've dug through every last one nwn community I know about, and Google already hisses at me wordlessly when it sees me going to ask about it again, but I've found nothing so far. Seriously, NOTHING! So, what's this all about... Does anyone know/have the list of spell chants in nwn2? That damned verbal component, what chars are actually saying when casting a spell? I just can't make it out listening, and my curiosity is going to eat me alive. Nasty sharp-toothed thing. P.S. Here's not a right place to post such questions, I know and apologize for that. But link to NWN2 General Discussion forums takes me to Bioware community board, which is kindly offering to log in through either Origin or Facebook, or register there in case I didn't yet. Thanks, but no thanks. Not today. Not ever.

No need to get nervous, mate I think, everyone lurking around this board have realized by now that you hate any talk about money irrationally, but this topic actually isn't worse than any other to speculate on regarding PoE. Just get along with it