Amentep

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gq44rH4Wgw

Again. Nope. Romances are a story telling device they are not THE story telling device. And I never said they were THE story telling device - I said that I see romance as one possible aspect of larger character relationships I want dynamic relationships; rivalries, friendships, relatives and more. I don't think every NPC should be romanceable. I even think that there are plenty of scenarioes and NPCs where romance makes no sense for the characters involved (even whole games - again if PE has no romances I'll not have an issue so long as the characters are well realized). I think we're closer on this than you think; the biggest difference is I see romances as one potential tool for Obsidian to use from the toolbox to create interesting characters in the game whereas you seem to not want it in the toolbox at all. Maybe its just me in my playthrough, but I didn't see tons of oppurtunities to have hot loving with Ignus or get kinky with Morte. Again, I am talking about party romances. And I'm not arguing you should have a loving relationship with Ignus, Morte, Vhailor... What I am arguing is that if you create a character where it might make sense for that character to fall for the PC (even if they are dirty and sweaty all the time). People who work together fall in love all the time, regardless of where they work. It also a lot of time doesn't work out which I'd also be for - I don't think just because a character is romanceable that the romance should only fail because the PC decides to fail it (or picks badly phrased dialogue that kills it because its unclear what it meant). I think that there could be NPCs who the PC can start a romance with that will fail; I think they should be able to flirt with NPCs who'll never romance them. And I think there should be NPCs who'll never, in no way, romance a PC. I think some NPCS should be able to romance each other if both are in the party without any assistance from the PC. If it makes sense for the character involved. Again my position is for romance to be one possible character defining relationship PCs and NPCs but not the only one and not even a required one. Again, DISAGREE. Romances do not ADD. They are a story telling choice . You can add to the relationship the player has with his party in other ways. I would argue that ensuring the player has sufficient intercourse options actually DETRACTS from suspension of disbelief and takes away from immersiveness. I'd disagree with you here unless you are of the opinion that character interactions entirely detract from the game. A properly written and motivated romance option should not, to my mind, detract from the game in ways that any other type of PC / NPC relationship would.

It think watching the recording and not seeing the actual questions as they asked, it give a different perception because I only hear the questions they didn't ignore and for the most part they seemed to roll with the stupider stuff that came up. I imagine if you saw the questions firing around you probably got a different picture of the people trying to participate in the chat.

I don't really care, to be honest. But, I don't see the point of telling a story that is primarily focused on telling a story and role-playing a character with joinable NPCs and not detailing the relationships that grow or fracture in the party. Apologies to Shevek up front for using his post as a jump off point for my ideas - I agree Romance story arcs are not required in all stories. With joinable NPCs I do want personality and interaction with them and if in the case of a particular NPC that might lead to a romance scenario I'm fine with that. Does it improve the story or a game? I think it can, but again because I see romance as one possible aspect of larger character relationships (PST would be much poorer without character relationships even if nothing in it is what we typically refer to as romances). IWD has no interparty relationships and many people dislike it (it also allows you to create whatever relationship you want in your minds eye, thought). Having prostitutes in games where paying them fades to black like BG and PST had don't make the game porno. Heck, being able to become a porn star in Fallout 2 doesn't make that game a porno. I'd agree that the PC could have a possibility of outside of party character being romanceable. Mind you most adventuring parties spend more time with each other than in a town, so again I think a joinable NPC should be a valid romance if it makes sense with the character. I think the problem with your argument is that I'd say - perhaps wrongly - that the largest section of people behind romance like it because it adds to the PC and NPCs story, not because they want to see pixilated sex with every character (Note that this is different from people wanting every character to be romanceable for "equality" purpose, which again isn't about sex every character alive but about making sure romance could be an option for their PC). Again, ultimately I think romance should be down to the character and what makes sense. And if Obsidian doesn't make any romances because it doesn't fit the NPCs and their relationship with the PC - I'm okay with that. Because in the end I want the characters to be well realized and romance can be a part of that and it can also not be.

Summoning magic: feral cat swarm

I seriously hope they would not trade in gold money, as that would be quite convenient... don't you think? Thinking about it a bit; Od Nua could be a haven for other adventuring parties as well - so maybe you end up trading with some of them (and fighting others?)

He's the giant blue/green guy from the Planescape: Torment trailer that was on some of the other BIS games (Fallout 2? BG:TotSC?) advertising PST who, afaik, didn't appear in the game. He was clearly trapped by Od Nua - turned to stone perhaps? - while he was on his way to appear in PST, explaining why he never made it past the trailer. If you notice, he even appears to have the collar around his neck as seen in the endless dungeon drawing theory> (Of course this theory is leaky like a sieve if the trailer giant *did* appear in PST and I've just forgotten it. Also:

"The Four Million Dollar Game" (with apologies to The Six Million Dollar Man)

I'm okay with the "endless" path having an end. Things that stretch on forever do so because no one has found the end yet for the most part. In that sense, I thought the purpose was a Durlag's Tower kind of deal. But whatever Obsidian does I'm okay with.

I hope you mean "insane" and not "inane"... Well, inane means "silly" among other things... Yeah, but its silly as in foolish not silly as in funny. It means "insubstantial, lacking significance, meaning or point" Synonyms for inane are: vacuous, empty, senseless, blank, foolish, and vacant.

About the forum badges... Our forum account here and the kickstarter account by which we made our pledge are not the same thing. So I don't think we will see the badge appear automatically. They will probably send it by mail or stuff like that. I'd think they'd use the kickstarter question ability to send a question to backers about what your obsidian account is so they can add the forum tags. So it'll probably take time.

I hope you mean "insane" and not "inane"...

I was responding to Sawyer and Cain's quotes from the first page. Ooookay, I remembered the gist of what they said but not the use of the term degredation, so I had a COMPLETELY different context for what you were saying. That said I think that the issue that they're addressing is whether its right for a game whether to encourage metagaming (you can't stop it, but I suppose you could create systems that didn't actively encourage the player to get every 1xp they can). Yes, well, unfortunately, the Forgotten Realms is not a very well articulated world in terms of its thematic drives, so at times you get contradicting signals from the designers who created it. Generally, the idea is that subvering the gods is bad / futile. But because of the need to publish new material, FR designers have a habit of having these 'times of trouble' in which all the laws go kablunk. This is not solid world design. It is, however, necessitated by D&D commercialism. Mask of the Betrayer, however, is fairly well articulated in terms of its themes, and in the context of the D&D world presented in MOTB, what I said stands. I'd agree with you on MotB at least as far as I got into it (someday I'll finish it). But the god thing in D&D never really seemed to be against humanity usurping godhood (hence why the Lady of Pain in Planescape isn't stated, so players can never take her on).

The problem with the poll is that there are four "yes" votes and one "no" with no neutral option. The large total will appear to skew towards no; however 73.72% actually voted some form of "Yes", even if they disagree to how much the unscientific forum poll favors experience for killing enemies.

hahahha, that's hilarious.

I'm not sure how not giving XP for killing the townspeople is saying its proper / degenerate gameplay. Or putting a value judgement on it at all. Cyric - who killed Myrkul - was a mortal, as was Kelemvor who took over Myrkul's worship. Not sure how a storyline involving Kelemvor could ever imply its futile to subvert the gods since pretty much Kelemvor existing as a god is a sign you can do just that (even if it isn't easy).

If game don't have ressurection, it doesn't mean we need to change health system. We don't need to look further, just look at Fallout. Healing is also going to be limited - Fallout had stimpaks and doctors you could pay. Again not saying that the choice to change is right here. And of course there's the fact that Feargus seems to have said that they were still experimenting with what works...who knows what they'll end up with.

1. Paizo used 3.5 rules to create their own RPG - Pathfinder. 2. Nobody wants to copy game mechanics - just stay true to basic concepts. Paizo used the Open Gaming License IIRC which I seem to recall reading someone at Obsidian say was trickier (if not impossible) to use for computer games. Some of those concepts though involved the things that Obsidian thought was broken about the game (sleep spamming changing magic to a system that is supposed to vaguely approximates Vancian, for example, without being Vancian). I think the health mechanic, was changed however not to change sleep spamming so much as the lore of the game doesn't really support resurrection spells. Again this is all IMO and I could be wrong.

Wasn't really trying to argue with you - I understand your concerns even if I don't share them; I think that we each saw different things in the pitches so that we expected different degrees of fidelity to the IE games. I'm not convinced here; I can't imagine that Obsidian could just replicate the AD&D 2nd Edition rules in a new computer game and not have Hasbro sue them.

No, what I'm saying is the TARDIS in Fallout isn't an ad for the BBC or Doctor Who. The nuclear waste barrels in Planescape: Torment wasn't an ad for Fallout or Fallout 2. The kids from the Dungeons and Dragons' cartoon in the form of portraits in a store in BG2 isn't an ad for the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon or the cartoon's rights holder (and BG2 is probably a bigger ad for buying D&D products than anything else in the game could possibly be). They were easter eggs. If Obsidian decides to make a kerfluffles marshmellow gag in the game, and it doesn't break the setting and it doesn't say with it "Buy Kerfluffles marshmellows NOW!!!!!!!111111one" then does it constitute an ad? Or a gag? To me its a gag.

Ok, so you haven't played it, but nevertheless think that it's a good game and good mechanic. Okay. I didn't say I thought it was a good game or good mechanic. I happen to think it to be a good mechanic since I came up with a similar idea independently when discussing possible ways to handle combat several years ago and had mentioned it again recently. You wanted examples; Darklands has been a fairly well regarded RPG since I first came back to computer gaming and joined the old BIS boards. Josh in particular has remarked on the game as being a good one, so its not surprising that it'd be looked at for some inspiration. Most people who I've talked to regard it as a good example of the kind of mechanics Obsidian is talking about. YMMV but for me they listed they wanted to pay homage to the Infinity Engine games. They don't have the D&D license (or, for that matter, a license for the actual Infinity Engine). They listed Fallout, Arcanum, TOEE, NWN2, FONV in various bits and bobs about the project early on. So for me, I never felt that this would be "IE Games part 2: The Return". I can, however, certainly understand everyone else reading their own interpretation - just as I have - into what they've said about the game.

Intent and setting. First off advertising has to have a financial incentive from the advertiser. The likelihood that Pepsi is going to spring $500 to put something like "Ogbart Born 321 Died 340 due to lack of Pepsi" that is going to be seen at best (atm) by ~70,000 people worldwide is pretty low (compare that to putting Pepsiman in SEGA's Saturn version of Fighting Vipers which was presumed to reach the Japanese installed userbase for the Saturn (the character was not used in US and UK markets). Add that that many players may never find the tombstone...unlikely there would be any appeal for the company to spend advertising dollars this way. Second I think Easter Eggs are built in ways that fit the setting. This may be a unique monster, but it may also be the D&D Cartoon kids portraits in BG2 or some of the Fallout 2 easter eggs like the TARDIS appearing (which fits in with the sci-fi setting of FO2 at least, as opposed to the TARDIS appearing in IWD).

I'm sure, that you can provide some examples. I've not played it, but DARKLANDS (MicroProse 1992) is cited by Josh as the inspiration for the health/stamina combo (there's some debate as to whether the mechanic to restore stamina is similar to, or faster, than Darklands).

I think the "problem" they're trying to address with this change is that XP as you suggested favors killing monsters giving little reward for the player who would rather sneak around the monsters because they're super-stealth-dude(tte)s; essentially they're trying to expand past the "combat is the only viable route" or "combat is the optimal route" method of many games (including BG and IWD). *thinks about it* Perhaps the problem is they're trying to think through the problem for all player scenarios? If you're creating a well balanced party then should the game be balanced toward a balanced party? Your fighter kills the monster, your wizard solves the riddle and the rogue disarms the trap. The group gets all the XP. But a single player soloing might be able to kill the monster but not solve the riddle or disarm the trap (fighter) or solve the riddle, disarm the trap but not kill the monster (rogue). A specialist party might be able to do two of the three (like the wizard party solving the riddle and killing the monster, but not being able to disarm the trap). However if the XP is assigned to the goal and not the individual actions the player is rewarded regardless of play style or party make up? Of course the counter argument could be that in party based games the assumption is a balanced party and the player who chooses otherwise is opting for greater difficulty (because they have less utility and more possibility to not earn xp). EDIT: Really? Censoring part of a username? lewl.

As much as I'd like to see grappling in the game (having suggested a grappling model for unarmed combat before the monk was confirmed), I'd see little point in it if there wasn't an animation to it. Having two combatants just...stand at one another with a grappled icon floating over their head just wouldn't work for me in a video game.