MrBrown

I'd rather they not base their game on an existing PnP rules system. I don't mind converted PnP settings, though.

Bioware let Obsidian have KotOR 2 simply because BIO is more interested in making it's own IPs succesful, now that they have been succesful with D&D (several times) and with Star Wars. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with your wording, but this is hardly a case of the BIO CEOs coming before Fergie, bowing and presenting KotOR2 on a silver plate.

I personally would also prefer something completely original. For Obsidian as a company, the decision about their next game will depend alot on how succesful they expect KotOR2 to be, I guess. If KotOR2 is a success, and seen as one as the result of Obsidian's efforts (not simply because it's a sequal to KotOR1), Obsidian might be able to take the risk and go with something original for their next game. Also depends on how much pull Fergie has among publishers.

Another way of doing this (and IMO, better) would be that the secondary methods help out the combat indirectly. For instance, lessen the amount of enemies, weaken them somehow, give you allies, get you powerful items earlier, take away traps/stationary defenses, etc., anything that fits in the game. I think this kinda designing method would be a better solution than simply making all the classes equal combatwise, as that would lessen character development options for the player. Otherwise, I agree with you 100%. D20 is combat=primary method, everything else=secondary method.

I haven't played KotOR1, but the computer skill and spikes things sounds like it should be made to work like lockpicking in Geneforge. Basically, the difficulty of the task and your skill level should determine the amounts of spikes you need to use to perform the task. If you have high skill, you can do stuff without using any spikes, but if you have zero skill, it'll take alot of spikes (and the resources spent to get those spikes) to do it. This way, both the spikes and the skill are meaningful, and it won't become a case of having the skill or not (which kinda sucks because it means that whatever that task does would only be available to character with the skill; would mean that only pointless non-necessary stuff can be achieved with the skill).

@Macolio: I agree you on the resting thing. It serves no purpose but to waste the player's time in most games these days. As for the "console style character development", I'm not sure what you mean. If you're saying that your characters should be getting more than just a simple bonus to their attack roll and HP, then I agree. I think the best idea is to make character development interesting and give the player alot of choices. Not sure if some kind of a clear PC-RPGs vs. Console-RPGs division really works here, though. Lastly, don't pay attention to Sargy here.

I think it was simply assumed when Bioware mentioned (on a press release on their site) that they get more offers from publishers than they can handle, and that they gave one of these to Obsidian. This was shortly after KotOR came out, I think.

Stalking through the candy store, clutching a burning branch, cometh MrBrown! And he gives a bloodthirsty scream: "I'm going to f*** you until you're pissing s***, and roll you in creamy neugut!" <_< :ph34r:

I have a feeling a company the size of Obsidian will rely on the QA sections of their publishers or other companies they're working for (Bioware, for now). What little actual QA they do by themselves, will probably be done by the developers.

After FFIV, FF games seem to have started being more about the skill/magic system rather than the levelling up. Both in what matters more and what the player can affect more. Jobs in FFV, the Espers (or whatever they were) in FFVI, Materia in FFVII, etc. This attitude seems to have spread into other JRPGs as well. Personally, I'd prefer all the stuff would work relatively in the same manner / using similar math, but that's just me. Not like western RPGs do that always either.

The problem with the instant-kill/save vs. death stuff is, IMO, not in the fact that it kills stuff quickly, but rather that when implemented in most RPGs it tends to make it just a game of chance rather than requiring any skill from the player. If lightsabers would almost always kill on one hit in an SW game, then the majority of combat would just be move next to enemy -> attack -> hope you hit and he doesn't -> reload if he does. Not much player input, not much fun. I don't think making combat extremely dangerous like this is bad itself, the developers just need to make certain it doesn't end up a game of %s. One way to do this, for instance, would be to simply have a large party where the death or incapacitation of a single character doesn't matter much. More action oriented games are, of course, a totally different matter. Hitting and dodging the enemy itself takes alot of player involvement.

Will do. BTW, I don't think turning 3E into classless would be that much of a hassle. Most of the variant systems, however, seem to also want to turn it into leveless, point-based, and what-not. That's too far IMO, and you'd be better of making your own system at that point. Here's a somewhat simple idea I had for classless DnD: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?...light=classless It does require 'some' work in balancing the numbers, and changing class abilities into feats, though. :ph34r:

I think we've discussed this alot of time in various forums related to BIS/IP... I think the best way of fixing this problem (classless systems being harder to approach than class-based ones) is having templates, guidelines (or whatever you want to call them) that can choose the skills and abilities for the player. These templates should be created according to familiar stereotypes. Using DnD types as an example, the Fighter template would choose only combat stuff, Ranger mostly combat plus a little nature/survival, Rogue a little combat and alot of thievery type skills, etc. In an ideal case, these could be turned off or on at anytime. I think Arcanum had something like these, but I don't remember anymore (and I didn't use them in the 1st place ). BTW, talking mostly about CRPGs here.

I don't mind the D&D settings. The majority of the fantasy RPGs out there use similar Tolkien-esque settings anyways; even if D&D suddenly disappeared, I doubt this would change. I do mind the ruleset though. I'm just totally bored with class-based. IWD2 introducing 3e toned this down a little, but with ToEE I'm getting angry at it again. Classless, please. (I'm fine with most of other aspects of the 3E rules though, just not classes).

The GC still has those small disks, right?

@Iolo: In Japan, animation and comic books in general are made for people of all ages. Naturally, different shows are made for different ages/groups, so a show made for 8-12 year old children doesn't have nudity (or doesn't use in the same sense) while a show made for 18-21 year olds might have. Japan also has animated porn (and it's not an oddity there). Obviously, things are different in most western countries. EDIT: Oh, and don't listen to that roshan says about it.

Well, judging by the amount of people asking for STDs in Van Buren and the people getting angry at Atari for taking out the Tim-Cain-Brothel from ToEE, I think it's about time western companies start making porn games as well. BTW, if you really want to know what hentai games/dating sims are about, I suggest you take a look at getchu.com, and click around. (I wonder if I'll get in trouble for posting this...)

On the BIO boards, when you click on the dev symbol besides the thread, you'll see all the posts any devs made on that thread (and only the dev posts, excluding the post that started the thread). I never had trouble searching for all dev posts, unless I wanted them from all forums on the boards (which I never did). If you want this kind of function, then I can see a special search function being useful.

I like this feature as well, really easy to search for game information from the dev posts on the BIO boards. However, I think it'd be cool if this could be extended to member groups (developers, moderators etc.) and then possibly also a specific user's contact list. Dunno if it's possible with this forum soft, but at least an idea for the future.

Was there ever non-pirate C64 gamers? <_<

I do agree that it's more realistic and enhances the roleplaying that way, but it's a matter of what kind of game it tries to be, like I mentioned previously. The combat does suffer because of this, and I think there should be some attention put towards that rather than just shrug it off with the roleplaying excuse. This is one place where TB might not be the best choice; FO combat would have been alot faster in RT (though with the range in it's combat, it's not a clear cut choice). Of course, it could have been handled in other design decisions than changing the combat itself, such as lowering the amount of enemies in battles or making the enemy movement faster etc.

To add to the above (and going a bit off-topic), I think one step in making a good Computer RPG is disregarding PnP rules. Which isn't easy, as known settings sell. I don't mean that a developer should forcibly try to avoid taking anything from PnP, but that their first thought shouldn't be "let's make a CRPG version of ruleset A".

What I meant is, IMO, it doesn't work or isn't the best option always, if simply taken after PnP. With changes (the most basic one being adding full party control) TB can work alot better. For example, (IMO again) FO combat was boring because different choices for your character were few and more importantly most of the time in combat was spent watching party NPCs or enemies do their actions. Full party control (differs from PnP) would have made the combat easily alot better on one strike. Adding more options, such as crouching or reactive actions (ie. FOT Overwatch) could have also made it better. 2nd example (still IMO), TOEE suffered from following D&D rules too closely. While a simple Normal-Action/Move-action/Fullround-action works in PnP, CRPGs are just better of with action points or something similar. Likewise, it had alot of options that could have been combined into fewer or completely removed in a CRPG (ie having to choose an action to try to break off from spider web, when there's very few things you can do while webbed in any case).

That almost makes it sound as if TB is old-fashioned. I think it is... alot of turn-based games have (to me) seemed like they were just trying to take the default PnP approach to combat. This doesn't always work well. On the other hand, some RT games seem to just copy their RT combat from previous RT games, and not-surprisingly this doesn't work that well either. Well, I think TB makes for great tactic games (hence my earlier comment that TB needs parties... there's not much tactics with only a single character), but since good tactical combat isn't what every RPG out there is aiming for, not every game is going to have (or needs) TB combat, IMO. I think making a good (TB) combat system is about making the game fit around the combat system, as much as making the combat system fit into the game.

... With full party control. Otherwise there's a huge possibility combat is boring and drawn-out because more time is spent watching computer controlled combatants doing stuff than the player actually playing.