Amentep

Eh, I'd rather the humour come from the story/character/setting not referencing funny (or supposedly funny) things from the internet.

For the comic beek geekasm (as far as I kinda recall) - Dinah Lance aka Black Canary was the daughter of a non-powered costumed heroine from the JLA days. She started out as a brunette who wore a blonde wig, a leather jacket and some fishnet hose as a way of hiding her identity whilst kicking butt with martial arts ability and general "scrappy attitude", then picked up some sonic based scream powers along the way... JSA not JLA; Black Canary actually took over her 1940s strip from Johnny Thunder's strip where she was introduced as a sort of bad girl who eventually reformed. The whole thing with the daughter was really an attempt to justify why the GA Black Canary was still around in the early 1980s adventuring (in her 60s and with no powers), since originally it was the Golden Age Black Canary who moved to Earth 1 from Earth 2. The "Canary Cry" was originally given to BC when she immigrated after the death of her husband due to radiation from fighting the monster that killed him. When it was decided they needed to explain the age of BC, the writers introduced the idea that a curse given by JSA foe The Wizard had given the daughter of BC and Larry Lance the "Canary Cry" which she couldn't control and when no one could cure her, Johnny Thunder used his Thunderbolt to put the daughter in suspended animation (in which she still grew into an adult). Then to explain how this was supposed to work, they revealed that the Thunderbolt and Superman of Earth 1 arranged with GA Black Canary (who was revealed to be dying from the radiation from the above mentioned story) to have her memories of implanted into her daughter(!) so her daughter wouldn't realize anything had happened to her(!!) before sending her to Earth 1 where she initially thought she was her own mother(!!!) in those early adventures with the JLA. Then Crisis on Inifinite Earths happened and they created a much more straight forward continuity (unless you count the bickering caused by Wonder Woman being replaced by Black Canary as a founding member of the JLA). I actually didn't mind the continuity changes, but did think the writing was horrible on that show (the episode with the fast growing assassin baby was pretty much the last straw for me). The good just outweighed the bad, heavily, IMO.

It gets worse if you begin the game as a clueless wimp whose boots are clearly too big for him. - Lands of Lore1: you are the king's champion for no apparent reason - Wizardry 8: you're hired as bodyguards but you can't fight a rat without dying - Icewind Dale 1: you're hired as caravan guards when there are yetis and **** in the mountains who can kill you with a mean stare - practically every single Ultima This will probably not happen in PE but I just want to make sure that idea doesn't get lost along the way. To be fair, in IWD1 you're part of what's supposed to be a fairly large contingent of people, so I don't think its that crazy. You were joining a large group organized by a former adventurer, not supposed to be the sole defenders of the caravan.

Conversely, having romance feels artificial. Unless you're playing a squee-laden emo sap. Playing a video game feels artificial. Unless you're a computer. See: http://www.something...cial-forums.php for details. Edit: For the record, I think this SA article should be inextricably bound with Chris Avellone's opinion on romances in all extensions of this discussion going forward. I pretty much left BSN after the flood of people demanding that Bethany, the PC's sister in DA2, be romanceable. And I say this as someone who is generally "pro-romance" in games if it fits the story, character, etc, I just couldn't come to terms with people who felt like that wasn't just a good idea but an absolute necessity for the game. Of course it didn't hurt that I find the BSN to be terribly hard to use as a forum, either. I'll say this as someone who feels they are pro-romance I'd never stoop to say that any romance is absolutely necessary. I'll also always argue that any romance shouldn't ever be done at the expense of the NPC (ie violating their core concepts). I'd rather have no romance than poor romances that exist only to make the NPC the PCs virtual love slave, devoid of their personality that made them an interesting NPC in the first place.

M is an ancient symbol and that doesn't prevent the golden arches from being trademarked. I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the M is trademarked as a design - two arches that form an M - not as a letter (which wouldn't be trademarkable). Note that as an ancient symbol, the ouroboros isn't trademarkable (its considered a concept in the public domain), however you could make a distinct version of the ouroboros that is trademarkable - like ES:O's three snakes to one eating its tail. Also I thought Obsidian had dropped the traditional ouroboros from their logo, instead using a more abstract circle / sun motiff with a multitude of snakes (which would be trademarkable as far as I know).

Yeah I mentioned that in the post prior to this one. The other origins though fall under less reasonable rationales, IMO. You're pretty much railroaded to being a Warden without any ability to pursue other options (particularly egregious IMO is the human noble origin where you don't have the option of walking through the secret exit that you're standing next to instead of being blackmailed by Duncan into being a Warden).

I must have a mustache so I may exercise my little grey cells.

This is true to an extent. But a couple centimeters of snow doesn't really need plowing and I've seen some southern places still hole up and wait for it to pass. Now admittedly, I use "all season" tires, so maybe there's something about the tires in those southern places, but I do chuckle when light snow chokes out some towns. If you don't drive in ice very often, you're more likely to be a danger to yourself and others. Even when its a case of a couple of centimeters its usually easier to wait it out. That said I enjoyed the snow two Januarys ago - shut down the entire city for two weeks!

Sorry, I did a terrible job of wording it. My point as that games, where you are locked into a specific backgrounds (Alpha Protocol, Planescape Torment, Dragon Age 2, Witcher, Mass Effect) actually have the most roleplay. You actually feel that what you do matters. Because devs can concentrate on the story and on player's experience instead of mashing in apparent variety like they did with countless classes and races in NWN2, something which was utterly pointless in single player. Actually I don't disagree with you that you can do more in-game with a character whose background is created by the game makers. You can be very specific with references and history and reactive to that. Note, however, that DAO doesn't have you start out as a Warden, it forces you to become one through the course of the game (well the prologue), so I don't see it as exactly the same thing (your mileage may vary, of course).

Most of the southern states don't put much money into snow/ice removal since most years its not a major issue (that said, the mountains in Tennessee get snow a good bit). It is true though that most people in the south can't drive in snow. Or on Icy roads. And most of the time when it rains. Or when the sun is shining in their eyes...

Picking an origin also locks you into a specific scenario, but its my choice to lock myself into that background. I liked that. I wasn't crazy about being forced to be a Warden in DAO. I accepted it as part of the game, but it wasn't an element that I was crazy about because your character was railroaded into a choice by the game that forever altered them. (EDIT - I actually liked the Dalish Elf origin because at least then the choice being forced make sense as the alternative is death/transformation from the taint that is otherwise uncruable; compare that to say, the Human Noble origin with Duncan's "yeah I'll save you from being murdered...but only if you become a Warden, otherwise I'll let you all die" bit) Alternatively, PST gives you a pre-made character that you can only define so far and I had no problem with it because that's how the game was set up. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate DAO because of the Warden aspect anymore than I hate KotOR because I have to become a Jedi. Its just that my preference would be for games not to force that kind of thing on me. A game like Arcanum, for example, puts you on a main quest because of an event that you can't avoid, but the event that you can't avoid doesn't radically alter your character. But I'd rank this as a "preference" vs an "I hate this and never want to see it" kind of thing. Funnily enough, I never said there was something wrong with it.

You're missing one: Crap! Can't believe I forgot Dalton.

Might as well have the full set -

Perhaps you should play the Elder Scrolls games? The IE games never were, and PE will not be a sandbox in which you can implant all your head canon. You will be forced to do things, and things will happen that are out of your control. That is the nature of telling a story, as opposed to making you LARP ala Skyrim. Not be unfair, but where does does not like an element of an IE game equal to "you should play the Elder Scrolls games"? Did I say I wanted a sandbox game? No. Did I say I want to LARP a video game? No. By your logic, Icewind Dale is an Elder Scrolls-esque LARPing sandbox game because it doesn't railroad you into a set history of being a Bhaalspawn or Warden or something similar.

Feelbad clichés are just as bad as feelgood clichés, IMO.

I liked the giant beard and swamp hat combo Obsidian provided in Alpha Protocol. I think facial hair - moustaches, beards, giant beards, van dykes, sideburns, muttonchops, etc are all invaluable. Even for isometric characters whose face you don't see (they can be on the paper doll, shut your face).

We should get an ending where only the main character can do something, but because of...poison gas, yeah that's the ticket... they die when they do the something only they can do to save the world. This despite the fact every other party member is immune to the poison gas. EDIT: I typed "save the line" - what the hell?

There is no one size fits all (oo er) answer to romance and sex. Some couples have sex very early in the relationship; some couples have sex very late. Some people pursue a relationship just to have sex, others for something else. Trying to make generalizations isn't going to work.

IIRC confederacy tried that. It didn't work out too well. Didn't the confederacy as a whole not work out so well, regardless of anything else?

I haven't voted because I'm not crazy about the poll options; I'm not against unwinnable encounters, but don't want to quantify it beyond supporting the idea provided the lore of the game supports it (whatever "it" is).

What? Yes it does. The rest of your party waits a bit as the rogue does his thing. "But that is boooring" you might say? Your face is boring. If you want to go from point a to point b without any enemies knowing, you can only take your stealthy characters. So basically you'd be forced to fight every encounter you want to avoid, unless all your characters have high stealth. Unless rogue exploration can identify a path that the others can take that wouldn't alert the guard, or the path of least resistance, or even secret paths.

You mean have a bunch of single issue focused parties all clamoring for a seat in senate/house? Nah. A viable third party option would go a long way though. Or go full on George Washington who advised against a party system at all -

The nice thing about LoP is that the setting pretty much tells you not to mess with her. That's a far cry from being railroaded into a fight where the party is defeated as a story point and then two hours later whip their opponent in a re-match handily. As long as there is plenty of notice, I don't mind creature far beyond our ken to be around. There to add color and flavor and also remind us that as awesome as we may become, there's always something awesomer.

Is it just me, or does the background on that Doritos bag look like zombies trying to grab somebody and not (presumably) partying people?

PS:T did have an influence system Sort of. Without mods, there is no way to see it. If you can't see it, there is no way to evaluate which responses or events are netting Morale or not. Why would you want to know you're netting morale? Seems to me you'd want to play a RPG where your choices matter and making choices based on what your character would do, not in order to min/max the relationship numbers. As long as the game is giving you feedback on your choices, there's no real need for any other kind of visual metric, IMO.