Gromnir

it would be nice if none of us had heard of d&d and d&d rules, that way we could play pe w/o the baggage. HA! Good Fun!

"My point was that it's successful and the lead character is very much like a human, not an instrument of fate." you aren't serious, are you? what 'bout the protagonist seems genuine human to you? oh sure, being angry and vengeful is human qualities, but not the way they is done in that manga we read. am not shocked that berserk is successful... in japan. angry hero or anti-hero doesn't necessarily remove us from realm of hero story in any event. angry hero and anti-hero is hardly new. honestly, the odyssey reference we submitted is oddly more remote from the realm o' crpgs. odysseus offends a god and spends 10 years trying to get home. he ian't trying to save world, or revenge himself on a super villain. ultimate solution is not defeating monsters or solving impossible riddle. unlike most homeric characters, odysseus grows. HA! Good Fun!

Name one game that focused on this issue other than online games where players compete each other? Powergaming exist in every RPG game. You are talking about situation in which some skill or set of skills give significant game breaking power. That's called bugs and should be avoided. But it has nothing to do with preventing powergaming. huh? every game we has followed has seen developers concern selves with balance in favor o' powergame. harm from d&d 3.0 were not a bug, but it got nixed. why? heck, there were a particular amusing incident regarding kits and iwd2. josh offered up some potential kits that were quite balanced and creative. fans hated... not powerful enough. as a joke, josh offers an alternative... an avatar o' death. people didn't get the joke-- they loved the new-and-improved kit. were probable our favorite board moment o' the year. ... is this your first rodeo? HA! Good Fun!

if you forgot the dozen or so times josh has answered 'bout his influences, then you probable didn't genuine care 'bout the answers... which makes us wonder why you cares this time. weird. lord knows Gromnir doesn't read every interview or we woulda' known that the lockpick stuff were old news. heck, we typical ignore funroc updates as we has no idea who or what he is referencing. look, the interviewer took personal, but he admits that nothing new were divulged... which were our only criticism. sooooo, color us bemused. HA! Good Fun!

Little harsh but nice post. The problem with any forum dedicated to any one developer or game is that most of the people on it don't understand that not everything the dev/game touches is actually gold or a massive success in the grand scheme. Out of curiosity other than the extreme violence and highly adult themes of Berserk (both of which would never work in a American release without seriously being toned down) what was the issue? most of our posts is tending to harsh. oh, and we actual read the first manga issue before we dismissed. the characters is... not. is caricatures. super-powered swordsman with 2 metre i-beam-pretending-to-be-a-sword and bad guy wearing cobra armour drinking blood from severed head at end o' spear? please. scenarios is ridiculous over-the-top. dialogue is forgettable, and story is not near as original as some folks here seem to think. violence doesn't bother us. HA! Good Fun!

it looks personal to me. Would i have liked more meaty answers? Sure, but they probably save those for the likes of Gamebanshee and Sorcerer's Place. I was happy to even get my foot in the door so to speak. Our website hasn't been able to get an interview with a developer for years. don't know you enough for it to be personal. interview is too familiar for it to be personal. couldn't pick this interview outta a line-up. that were kinda our point. *shrug* grats on getting foot in door. on positive side, maybe josh feels some sympathy for you after reading our dialogue here... gives you better follow-up. HA! Good Fun!

If people enjoy "powergaming" (whatever they consider it to mean), let them. you can keep saying that, but perhaps you should try a different approach: ask self why developers keeps finding ways to prevent powergame. like it or not, and sometimes in spite o' what they say, developers put considerable effort into prevention o' powering through games. so, ask self the why question. developers has been doing for decades. they simply morons? HA! Good Fun!

really? other than the lockpick thing, we got virtually zippo from that interview. HA! Good Fun! Some of us enjoy interviews for reasons other than trying to glean some new micro-piece of update information. you wanted to hear of josh influences perhaps? no, wait, you has been on these boards long time, so you already knew answers to those questions. hmmm. you perhaps saved josh's portrait photo? am not gonna ask why that would be something you want, but who are we to judge? oh, and for sensuki, Gromnir is not half-orc. *shrug* don't take personal, but we just don't get much from these things that seems like they were cut-and-paste jobs from a dozen other interviews. is typical only the micro-piece info that adds anything. HA! Good Fun!

"I really can't imagine how can You show something new and astonishing using the traditional hero story." we stopped with this. lack of imagination is such a terrible burden. HA! Good Fun!

well then, in retrospect, we got zippo from the interview. feel better? HA! Good Fun!

really? other than the lockpick thing, we got virtually zippo from that interview. HA! Good Fun!

the problem is those people don't necessarily have fun. again, the 2 most common complaints we has see for games is: 1) game were too easy 2) game were too difficult same game usual gets loads of complaints 1 & 2. let people do whatever they want to do does not mean you is increasing fun factor... 'cause people is stoopid. why has obsidian favoured point-buy v. rolling for stats in previous d&d games? why not just let people choose whatever starting stats they wish? these is games, so people wanna win. but the Win mentality is not a good in a game that is designed to be beatable by everybody. HA! Good Fun! ps please understand that we do not personally care if somebody powergames themselves into boredom. how you play doesn't impact us at all. nevertheless, we understand why it is in the developer's best interest to consider ways to prevent powergame.

am not sure if a poll works for us. armour class is not a d&d favorite of ours. that being said, you can't just change ac to dr (damage resistance) and keep all other combat mechanics from d&d the same. obsidian has an opportunity to do whatever they want with combat mechanics. as such, am doubting they go with a d&d-esque ac model. 'course that doesn't exactly shed light on obsidian's chosen alternative. we would like to hear obsidian's thoughts. is a square-one issue. HA! Good Fun!

extreme misleading. the reason why bg2 were created more dense by the biowarians is 'cause o' the overwhelming rejection by vocal fans o' the boring and tedious bg1 map-mowing. NO: wilderness nonsense YES: durlag's tower is good for us to be here and give you perspective on how things actual evolved. now, that being said, some folks did complain post bg2 that bio shoulds bring back map-mow, but such complaints is largely just proof that fanbases is perverse. even so, there were more than a few folks pining for ye goode olde days of mindless map exploration, which is why obsidian developers said in some previous update that there will be more wilderness explore in pe than there were in bg2, but with greater density and more... stuff. seems pointless to us. has good density on a city map with taverns and corspe-carts as 'posed to one with trees and rocks? *shrug* nevertheless, some folks wanna feels like magellan, so give'em their rocks and foliage. HA! Good Fun!

... obsidian is people'd by gamers who has been making and playing games for decades. am suspecting that if fergie walked into office today and asked general populace to come up with 30 detailed monster blocks, complete with stats and little sketch, he could have 150 response by tomorrow. bet they got loads o' ideas that were never submitted in previous game developments that they would love to use in this game. HA! Good Fun!

Surely the average gamer (who likes Planescape Torment for example) doesn't wish to be treated like a puppet on strings all the time. if the Average Gamer had bought and liked ps:t, we might not be having this conversation. ps:t did not sell by any measure that were relevant or meaningful in the industry. that being said, am guessing that as pe will avoid traditional publishing model and is being made by some of the guys that made ps:t, much of what you liked about ps:t will be in pe... but obsidian clear learned from ps:t. pe has elves and dwarves and classes and many of the "tropes" chrisA wanted to avoid in ps:t. obsidian has learned that you can still make a smarty game when you give folks the trivial stuff they want. make a hero story and focus on protagonist not mean you gotta do in the traditional way, and it not mean you gotta be boring. so give folks what they want... but different and better. oh, and we had to look up "berserk." ... no. just, no. HA! Good Fun!

http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/odyssey.html is a good read. *shrug* in any event, cursed by god is little different than chosen. is just a different kinda special. regardless, every crpg made since internet has been 'round has seen some number o' people reject the notion o' special protagonist. heck, various developers (including obsidian) has claimed to makes non-special protagonists. am doubting you ever get what you want. there is industry-wide recognized expectations of the Average Gamer, and that includes wish fulfillment. oh, and we as gonna just complete ignore anything you said once you started talking alignment... 'cause alignment is stoopid. HA! Good Fun!

Disagree. If all paths result in the same reward, then the best path becomes the fastest path. really? fastest is best? ... clearly we has been playing these games all wrong. HA! Good Fun!

is some likely unnecessary overlap with barbarians... 'less you add stoopid stuff like spells and pets. first rangers were American colonials who were combining english and native american styles o' warfare. now, keeps in mind that Gromnir is understandably resistant to using the "barbarian" term for indians (our cousins tell us that "indian" is pc again,) but it is pretty much spot-on as far as general gaming labels is concerned. so, rangers = folks who use barbarian warfare skills. hmmm. ideally we would have rangers resemble hawkeye, uncas and chingachgook more than drizz'le, but how does one distinguish from barbarian class? give guns? am thinking guns is too small a difference in and of themselves. ... is just one reason we loathe class bloat. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure what a fraction is in the present context, but it sounds like something we would enjoy. got our vote for more influential fractions in pe. am calling dibs on 10/6... big lewis carroll fan. HA! Good Fun!

the 3.0 ranger were a steamy pile, but monte cook variant, 3.5, and pathfinder versions were all quite satisfactory. in point o' fact, we were most likely to be playing a ranger with some rogue levels thrown into the mix... when we weren't playing clerics. got a particular fondness for priest characters, but a butt-kicking combatant with ridiculous skill points = win. HA! Good Fun!

funny more than cool. http://www.spike.com/video-clips/gytf2i/land-shark HA! Good Fun!

btw, you can try this for fun if you is ridiculous bored. takes a 3rd level bg1 fighter with all 8 stats and put him in all best gear and give best items. now create an 8th level bg1 fighter (max level with totsc installed) with statistically standard rolls and all mundane gear. unless you is purposefully trying to get the level 3 fighter killed, he will win every single time in a mano y mano battle. 'course, these kinda things not happen in ie games, which is why creating such scenarios is pointless. that being said, gear is overwhelmingly determinate in the ie games. do not use ie games as a goal. HA! Good Fun!

A 1st level character with all that gear will still get his ass kicked by a higher level character without that kind of gear, though. an eventuality that would be unlikely to occur organically in any ie game, so is hardly worthy of notice. the thing is, your relative efficacy in the ie games had far more to do with gear than abilities. once 3.0 were released, things changed for d&d games... a bit. character builds actually became meaningful with the release of 3.0 version of d&d, but gear were still having overwhelming impact. regardless, ie games is Not what we is wanting to use as some kinda developer goal for gear impact. "So your counter example is a character with uniform stats of 8, with one that managed to get every best piece of gear in the game? And by the way, that equipment's true functionality is heavily affected by character specific stats like THAC0, # of attacks, hp's, saving throws, etc that are heavily character derived." *chuckle* not need the best loot in game... which, btw, virtual everybody ended up with anyway. point is that the lowly halfling with craptacular stats is gonna be pretty much as effective as the heroic builds... 'cause in the ie games, your base stats didn't really matter. it were gear that mattered. HA! Good Fun!

... ie games did a good job? take a halfling with all stats being 8. in bg2, give him red dragon armour,helm of constitution, hammer o' t-bolts... whatever else. see, by mid levels, starting stats in ad&d and d&d becomes almost negligible... character actual abilities not matter. is all 'bout gear. so, while we agree with initial premise that the clothes should not make the man, the ie games were hardly the example we would be wanting to use. HA! Good Fun!