Amentep

As I recall, in Icewind Dale 2 a number of the portraits that got used were used because they had been created for BIS for another game (I seem to recall someone linking to Justin's page and asking about if the art they hadn't seen was from IWD2, Feargus said no it was from a cancelled project, and people asked if they could be added to IWD2 as portraits and that then happened). Anyhow, if you can do custom portraits, I'm not sure who does the portraits will matter that much (other than making the game given portraits feel as if they "match"). I actually used some of the portraits from Invictus (horrible game) myself.

Oh you mean stuff like rapid cooldowns? Or do you mean Spell spamming? Well we've been told the cooldowns aren't like cooldowns we've seen so I personally am giving them the benefit of the doubt until I see more about how it works. That doesn't mean I don't understand a lot of the dismay some of this has caused in terms of expectations from past implementations, though. Did they say something like "Yo Dawg I heard you like cooldowns..."? I do not believe that I have ever heard anyone actually say that. Or am I missing something...?

I don't have a facebook account, but good luck to them in that goal!

2.9 million, they put them back in 3.0 million, they take them back out They could make billions.

I like the ideas of backgrounds ala Arcanum where your stats or abilities may be shifted based on who you were before the game started and is recognized in the game. I'm not that crazy about having innate special abilities because I'm a special birth ala Bhaal Powers like in BG series. But that's just me.

They could make the pottery neon to show the SOUL POWA imbued in the plates. I suppose I should comment on the original suggestion; while I like thinking outside of the box, I think its hard to really think about how a class like this would be practical in adventuring. You couldn't really imbue a painting with skill on the fly without it being a gross simplification of the process. I think a magical bard has some traction just simply because music is an "in the moment" creation in ways the visual & written arts are not. Well that and I want to see Scott Pilgrim / Kung Fu Hustle musician battles (as linked in the Paladins & Bards thread).

And see I'd like the low int/wis character to just not be able to get it and have to have an alternate path.

...Black Isle made Icewind... And Fallout and PST and KOTOR2. To be pedantic, Fallout came out before Black Isle was formed inside Interplay. BIS developed Fallout 2 though (as well as PST and IWD and Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance). And that's it; Stone Keep 2, Fallout 3, BG3, Torn, BG:DA3 were all cancelled. Obsidian made KoTOR2 and while they have a lot of the same people, they're not really BIS pt 2 either, IMO.

I wouldn't mind A, B, C choices if low int and/or low wis characters couldn't get the right answer unless they'd found the proper answer somewhere else (scroll, book, or for really low INT puppet shows in the middle of the big city ) This could also be a point where a party member could jump in if it was a game critical point. But realistically how could my 3 Int, 3 Wis Barbarian answer *any* riddle other than by Me as the player knowing it without some in-game reason - someone telling him the answer, or he read it in a book and repeated it constantly so he didn't forget it walking 10 paces to where the riddle giver is from the book he read it in, or you know, that puppet show that he sat and watched with the little children. EDIT: the problem with writing the answer quiz like, IMO, would be spelling errors or missing the exact wording looked for by the game to "solve" the riddle which might create issues (or worse, logically equivalent answers that are rejected due to not being the one the creators worked out).

Oh you mean stuff like rapid cooldowns? Or do you mean Spell spamming? Well we've been told the cooldowns aren't like cooldowns we've seen so I personally am giving them the benefit of the doubt until I see more about how it works. That doesn't mean I don't understand a lot of the dismay some of this has caused in terms of expectations from past implementations, though.

I honestly don't see what this rant has to do with the topic. At a guess, Umberlin didn't find DAO's tactics or non-pause combat interfaces sufficiently good enough to believe that there is anything within the system worth looking at in regard to PE. At least that's what I got from it, YMMV. And to be honest, given what we know about PE's presentation and what they're going for, I think DAO is a bit too far away from the kind of things I'd want them to look at (and I enjoyed DAO).

I don't believe that there is a formula for how an RPG would be good - otherwise they'd all be good and everyone would be following the formula.

I think that's coming very close to a TRON class...

^I think he thinks you're trolling with the PE = DAO comment. I think the origins were a neat idea, and I did enjoy them. I wasn't as crazy about the plot railroading, but that became obvious as their intent early on when it was stated that you *had* to become a Warden. So essentially the game became "clear out four zones to get to the baddy" with some dialogue changes based on which origin you picked. I liked DAO and DA2 for what they were (rather than what I wanted them to be), but frankly I'm not sure there's anything game mechanics wise I'd want to see PE use.

I tend to agree with this sentiment, but not entirely with its logic. Here's my take: Kill it with fire. Put a sharpened cross through its heart and bury it at a crossroads. Then pour in a crucible of molten lava (Whence it came, I haven't the slightest). Finally, place a monolith on top, an obelisk with glyphs of warding would be even better. I agree; I don't really care about extra content as long as the content isn't going to effect the main game at all. I finally played through FALLOUT NEW VEGAS with some of the specialty packs and...didn't really change the game at all. You got some "neat" stuff to start with, but nothing that you'd miss if you didn't have it.

I like reputations affecting your party members, but I didn't like that BG gave you an "out" for High/Low reputation by allowing you to game its system (donate to a church to raise rep, whack a villager to lower). Yes if you're RPing properly you wouldn't do it, but IMO it was a gameplay design that encouraged players to think about how the system worked, not about what their actions really were (well that and the fact that I think they assigned "goodness" to far too many actions).

You'll hate WICKER MAN more if you've ever seen and appreciated the original film. I watched DOCTOR NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE over the weekend as I'm making my way through Bond films in the lead-up to Skyfall (plus its been ages since I've seen most of them). Also re-watched TRON: LEGACY. The middle section which didn't seem so long first time around seemed a lot longer this time.

Ya swung back from "kooky" to "creepy" again Sargy.

I loved the way Troika's TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL did it. You could adjust height within the racial type's height limits, hairstyles and hair color, skin tone within racial type and of course gender and race altered the look as well. It made for characters who could look different from one another despite being the same race and class and was generally noticeable from the isometric view.

I've never had a DM refuse to allow a session to break up anywhere in the campaign - including in the middle of combat. So I'm not sure where the "save" issue comes from. Mind you PnP games don't allow you to restart from a previous point (unless the DM is really generous) That said, what might work is a mechanic I've seen in some games where you can do a "permanent save" at only specific points (home, hotel, camp) and then an "interim save" anywhere. Interim saves are deleted when they are loaded. Thus if you screw up after an interim save you have to go back to the last permanent save but you're not utterly screwed if you find life suddenly requires you to step away from your computer either because you can use an interim save to pick back up in the middle of the dungeon.

I don't think the inclusion of the Adventurer's Hall is going to make the developers think "*whew* now I don't have to come up with anything interesting!" I'm sure the role of the companions - or what kind of companions we get - actually isn't going to change.

I never played 4e; there were some things in the manuals that looked good and things that looked bad (IMO). Really disliked the "4e" version of Gamma World though; it seemed fairly clunky (and I didn't like the previous version of Gamma World either so I can't say I'm too surprised). But when I used to play D&D we played fast and loose with the rules anyhow; the mechanics (or fidelity to the mechanics) wasn't always something we went with, so even if I played 4e, it'd probably be a hybrid 4e+House rules Frankenstein's monster.

Well like I figured, grappling is a no. What about Monk as high mobility fighter - more attacks and ability to cover the screen, but less damage than a traditional fighter?

Or how people would strip Khalid in BG and send him to fight alone so he'd die and they could have Jaheria without being forced to have him. I wasn't the only one who did that? From what I gather a lot of people did!

Or how people would strip Khalid in BG and send him to fight alone so he'd die and they could have Jaheria without being forced to have him.