Amentep

I'm not crazy about lockpicking minigames either. This is partially because they seem to either err too much on the side of the user (making it relatively easy to lockpick any lock with a modicum of personal skill) or too much on the side of the locks (in which case even with a good skill the user has a hard time doing the minigame). Ultimately I'd like my characters skills to be their skills, not how fast I can bop some tumblers up. That said I actually wouldn't mind the idea of the lockpicking skill encompassing multiple types of locks in some way (maybe after X skill rank you add new locks to your repertoire showing your expertise?) or specialized equipment. I just don't think I as the player should be required to pick a lock for my character with my skills when they're the one whose invested the time in learning how to pick a lock.

You know, I'm amazed I didn't remember you were the black king! Awkward!

Are you telling me you would NOT want to see the devs bagelheaded and acting out a scene from West Side Story? Yes, I think ultimately such a thing would haunt me in my nightmares until the day I died. Or a real long time, at least.

I really felt like John Carter should have done better Box Office. Alas it'll be one of those films in 10 years people will wonder why it was a flop, IMO.

GM was...GM on BIS. She and ApocalypseCow aka Ace pretty much led the Red Light District thread. Ah, #blackisle. It was a lot of fun until it wasn't. Which was usually about 10 minutes after a new game came out and everyone scrambled to play it and stopped talking. Last time I was there, everyone was MMOing. Which reminds me, wasn't there board member chess matches run through #blackisle? I always got the short end of the stick on those. One time I didn't even get to move once the entire game and the only action I saw was when I got killed by Onkel and his (IIRC) toilet brush.

I've always thought it might be neat to see a system that treats the typical "HP" bar as something more akin to a 'hit avoidance" bar (HA) factoring the ability to dodge, parry, block and absorb blows with armor. This bar grows with experience, better skills and better equipment. Then there is a HP bar that rarely changes and represents injuries. When "hit avoidance" is exhausted, a blow goes to HP and any character could easily get killed in one final blow. HP bar goes down and only comes back with magical healing or days of rest. Maybe with certain % damage there has to be major or minor injuries. HA Bar goes down and it can improve back fairly rapidly (reflecting getting ones wind back) and repairing damaged equipment. Probably a bit more complicated than what anyone would really want though. So I just always see HP as an abstraction for not being stabbed in the gut or something until you run out, and then you are stabbed in the gut.

To my mind, I haven't been promised anything (cue Kresselak from IWD); so in that sense I don't think I can be dissapointed unless I hate the game. But I prefer to always judge a game by what it is (when I play it) as opposed to what I wanted it to be. I figure that's fair.

What is there not to get? Bagelheading, why bagelheading is desirable, why anyone would want to look like they have an O-Ring fused on their head. That sort of thing.

"Klaatu Barada N... Necktie... Neckturn... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word! Klaatu... Barada... N...[coughs] Okay... that's it!" I can see where it'd be reasonable for subduing a character you should have killed making a quest harder or vice versa. I don't think that every character choice should lead to a positive outcome, although I imagine it might increase the number of things you have to check for (thus making it more complicated as it goes on).

I'm glad to see this is going to happen.

I don't get it.

I did mention the "if it were easily doable..." which would include not a resources hog. And yes there are other non-combat mechanics. Sneaking and dialog are both fine non-combat mechanics. Subduing, though, at least as I see it would be a combat mechanic. its just a non-lethal combat mechanic.

I'm not sure opinion or consensus (mass opinion) really matters; you're never going to experience the subjective quality of the game until you've played it which will always be after the procurement (means regardless). Until then you're only really looking at what the buying public feels (which may or may not accurately represent the game). Also, I've played a lot of buggy games and never experienced a problem, and I've played games that were considered very solid and had problems - subjective experience is subjective. However to be fair advance word can get consumers motivated; in that way buggy games or games with promised features that don't exit/don't work/don't deliver could be identified by reviewers, pirates and early adopters affecting the life long sales of the game to some degree, which in turn could cause companies to rethink releasing buggy or incorrectly presented features on games (I think "over-hyped" is too subjective - I didn't buy Fable when it came out because despite of the early hype and promises it was pretty clear a lot of features had been cut from the game by the time it shipped, so can't really class that as over-hyped personally). That said I'm not sure that piracy serves as a consumer based risk mitigator in regard to purchases in a way that reviewers or early consumer aren't/wouldn't.

Not really my intent, but I suppose I should have anticipated it... I like disarming mechanics but most games it never seems to either (a) be effective or (b) make much difference. Same with trips.

Oddly enough, I feel like making bad choices and having to go back to an earlier save is appropriate negative feedback. In games where you just respawn and keep hacking with a xp/gold penalty it just doesn't feel like there's a consequence to really, really bad decisions. In that sense some kind of permadeath supports choice and consequence. I dunno, depending on what script was set up, it was very easy for BG/IWD characters to get pulled after enemies in my experience leading them to being alone and surounded. Fallout 1 and 2 was also bad for this, as I recall. I seem to recall in BG2 you have to change to D&D rules (or am I thinking IWD?) for the character to still get "chunked" and unable to be brought back (portrait removed from the party).

I think there are a few old timers who don't do anything but lurk in addition to the ones who've posted.

I could see that happening - although I imagine if people had no information in the game players wouldn't continue to try it everytime... ...aw who am I kidding, there'd people who'd try to subdue everyone just to see what they say.

I want to romance a mugwump. You want to romance Republican party members who wouldn't support Republican presidential candidate James Blaine in 1884? (I know its a follow-up on the reference to Naked Lunch. Or well maybe the 1960s band, The Mugwumps) I have to say I'm generally against sexual slavery in games (to pull this vaguely back on topic) and wouldn't consider such a thing as part of "romance" options either.

I never liked BG2's mechanics because it was relatively easy to get "killed" via spells that should have been cancellable by the party ending the game. I think I prefer the IWD method that TPK is what ends the game. Since it is PC centric (unlike IWD) perhaps when the fight ends the game fades to black and has the PC awaken at a a church being brought back by the NPCs giving the illusion of the PC actually being out of commission (penalty of X days past and X money lost maybe?) That said KoTOR and DA mechanics work find in games where the tactics mostly involve dog piling the enemy (ie I never felt combat in those games were tactical so much as a war of attrition on each side). but maybe that's me - I'm not the best tactical player in the world unless its fully turn-based combat.

Right, I can see group subduing being a problem; but if I'm fighting a party - lets say the quest requires you to find something and in the path you get attacked by another party. It'd be neat if you could choose to stave off killing one person who you subdue at the end of the fight (maybe even having to prevent them from fleeing) to interrogate later

I'm neutral as long as its balanced and doesn't distract from the gameplay to deal with changing coins from pockets to balance things around.

I like to fight in swamps. In caves. In tunnels. In city streets. In buildings. On snowy ice glaciers. As long as pathfinding is good, I'm good.

I agree; I really want some depth to the characters and how they relate (or not) to the PC or others. I was entertained by BG2's party antics - some of which wasn't PC Centric - (Korgan pursuing Mazzy or Mazzy forcing Valgyar to be her squire for example) and some was (Edwin or Jan's dialogues). But I don't recall any of them having the depth of the romance dialogues (but my memory may be cheating here).

For me, it depends. If romances are in the game I want them to fit the characters, story, game and setting. Because of this it is entirely possible the answer would be "0" or "52" depending on what the game would support and work within its confines. I see romances as one possible avenue of PC-NPC relationships which could include friendship, platonic love, mutual respect, or enmity. To me, "Romance" is your character and an NPC developing a relationship through speech and action that involves romantic feelings and/or commitment toward each other. I do not believe that this needs to end in sex - depending on the structure of the story it might make perfect sense for the two characters to not have sex at all and yet their relationship is still there. Part of the problem many - including myself - have with romances in video games is that they are PC centric to the extreme. The NPC gets sublimated to the PC and the romance only fails if the PC slaughters baby kittens in front of his/her intended. I'm not for that. I think for a romance to work right, the PC should meet some "criteria" established for what the NPC would pursue (or like to be pursued) by. I also think the player should be able to flirt with a "flirty" character who would never actually have a romance (essentially the PC should be able to fail at romance for reasons other than the PCs choice just as bad choices could fail any relationship in the game).

I usually play multiple characters through so as long as the game is fun and I want to play it repeatedly a game+ option isn't needed. I do enjoy game+ options in games, though, simply because sometimes I just want to take my original character and blast through the game somewhere down the line.