Amentep

It doesn't matter to me - I'll be fine either way. But I'm with Gurkog; I prefer when the joinable NPC isn't an extra arm of the PC (unless I'm making the whole party). That said from an RP perspective you could argue that the PC gaining control of an NPCs development is just the influence of the PC on the NPC as they work together in the context of the party. In that sense, if you have an NPC who you picked up because of their "thiefy" skills, it'd be a bit of a disappointment for the character to then not be able to develop along a "thiefly" line which might happen if a pre-planned level path for a character (I had something like this happen in DA:O I believe where I used a thief mostly with bow and arrow and auto-leveled until I realized the character was putting all their points in blade skills (or was it the other way around?)).

I need to go back and finish the remainder the main story again and Lonesome Road.

To be fair, Japanese companies are still making Wizardry games (for consoles). Wizardry Bōkyaku no Isan was put out in 2010 for the DS; Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls released to Japan and NA via PSN in 2009. Still doesn't translate to this non-Wizardry like game being appealing to Asian countries (but maybe room to wonder if there's still a market for a new Wizardry game - totally different issue!) It's a bit unfair to say "Japanese companies are still making Wizardry games". Those games, albeit with the title on the box, has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with what we associate with the Wizardry series. I don't disagree that the Japanese Wizardry's do not carry the story of the original series. That said, the last of the Japanese Wizardry's I played (Tales of the Forsaken Land) probably had more gameplay* in common with the early games than Wiz8 did (my perspective on the core Wizardry Games is the first two or three games and Wiz8) even if the story wasn't related to the Sir-Tech one. YMMV, of course. My point was if we class "Wizardry" as a western style game then games of Wizardry's type - including games directly based on the original Wizardry - are still being made in Japan. But this doesn't translate into a "Japan will embrace an IE style game" argument. *By this I mean, opponents grouped on a static screen, not moving in a 3D environment ala Wiz8 and only the original Wizardry races.

I don't see why anyone would care about something like this, or if a developer (or even if Obsidian as a company) backed her Kickstarter. Obsidian as a company are apparently backing a card game that is made with stick figure drawings - OMZG! P:E is going to use STICK FIGURES IN THEIR GAME!!!!!

I don't know if anyone is working on it - but even with the flaws I see in Wiz8 I'd love another proper Wizardry game. Still total side issue to popularizing this style of game that isn't wizardry like at all.

To be fair, Japanese companies are still making Wizardry games (for consoles). Wizardry Bōkyaku no Isan was put out in 2010 for the DS; Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls released to Japan and NA via PSN in 2009. Still doesn't translate to this non-Wizardry like game being appealing to Asian countries (but maybe room to wonder if there's still a market for a new Wizardry game - totally different issue!)

I find Achievement / Trophy from XB360 / PS3 as apples to the oranges of the situational perks created in Fallout where doing certain things you get the perk that may have an in-game effect. Since I like the backgrounds of Arcanum and Fallout, I like the perks / traits /whatevers

Right now, I'm a bit biased because I've never actually enjoyed the mounts in games that have them. The ability to fight mounted is usually not well implemented (at least in the games I've played). That said, if the developers had a way to do it that'd be fun - I'd have no problem with it. But certainly not a priority for me.

You know its silly - and I'll say I can't defend it at all there was a lot of silly in DA2. The above "We'll attack the city to get in!" moment, the false dichotomy in leadership leading to the end where you just ramrod through everyone, some of the cameos, some of the companions, opponents dropping from the sky. And yet I still enjoyed playing it. It is a total guilty pleasure game for me.

To be fair, it actually is expensive (~$30,000 for a regular film) to strike a print of a film. If a film opens in 300 theaters world-wide and you are using film prints, you've just added $9 million to the cost of the film (without even counting shipping - film cans are heavy and usually come in 3-4 cans, dependent on the length of the film) before getting to the theaters. If you subtitle a film you're adding the expense of a new print and someone to subtitle the film too. There is a student film theater at my old university and sometimes they'd want to do a revival, but they could only afford to do revival showings of films that wouldn't need a new film print struck (due to the price added to the rental fees).

As someone who has always played both PC and Console games...I don't get achievements. A game being good will be encouragement for me to replay it, not trying to complete an artificial list of "things to do" by finding 1000 McGuffins in the Secret Dungeon.

Generally I support the idea that anything the PC can do an NPC should be able to do (and vice versa).

I'm in that category actually, I never played the original. However I've heard a lot of good things about it, I like what I've read about it and when Wasteland 2 came up on Kickstarter I was happy to support it. Compared to that, I played all of the IE games.

Not even as a food source for the flesh devouring blob when its iron rations have gone stale and its only half-way through a dungeon?

I'm terrible at mildly complicated strategy games - might be why I don't respond well to games that make me pre-plan for too many things. Give me a few resources to manage and I'm okay but too many and I just start having no fun trying to keep up with everything.

I wish I could remember the game I was thinking of that I had that happen in, but alas I can't.

That explanation from whoever at Bioware doesn't make sense - there's really no difference in a 1-50 scale have 29.56 vs a 100 to 5000 scale have 2,956. I mean the numbers are abstractions anyhow, but the idea that "big numbers" is better is ridiculous, just like the idea of making normal items "white test" and rare items Green and unique items purple means anything but the arbitrary designations the creators gave them. I hope that kids today don't look at an arbitrary 10,000 and go "Kewl!".

While I understand the sentiment, my experience with food mechanics is actually the opposite of urgency. You stock up on all the food you can carry at town, then use rations to get to the dungeon, then 1/3 of the dungeon is cleared you run low on food, now you HAVE to go back to town NOW or else run out of rations before you can get to a store, so you go back to town then restock and go back to the dungeon and now you have to walk back down to where you left off (hope monsters don't respawn) and so on. So while I understand in theory food mechanics make you go "We can't just stand around here - our food is going to run out!", my experience with them is that the instead make you go "Wait evil baddy, I need about 12 more days to go restock on food and return because I don't want to starve and die while stabbing your horde to death."

*whew* I edited because I was afraid I wasn't remembering right and thought it'd be kinda wrong to be incorrect.

You'd be amazed at how spectacularly unlucky I am in internet games like this. Haven't heard of her (and a few other former BISers) since Sammy/High Moon closed their forums.

I've never found food mechanics fun*, but as long as it is optional (like how Fallout: New Vegas did it). That said if it can be optional and not a problem to develop it for those who'll like it - sure why not? Sleep mechanics I think I like more as long as its simply a stat penalty and not a "YOU MUST SLEEP OR DIE...HOWEVER YOU CANNOT REST HERE AND YOU CAN'T LEAVE THE AREA WITHOUT FIGHTING 1000000 ORCS BUT YOU CAN'T FIGHT BECAUSE YOU MUST SLEEP" kind of thing. *To me its needlessly micromanaging things; again if we are looking that we're playing a character and their skills and knowledge and not mine are important, that I'd like to think I'm playing a character who knows how much food they need to bring with them and if nothing else how to subsist if they run out rather than make me plan their dietary intake for days on end. I think this is why we just went with a flat upkeep fee in town to abstract food mechanics in most PnP RPGs we played. At least with sleep mechanics you have something that can directly effect travel and adventuring without requiring the micromanagement of items, unless you have to expend bedrolls to sleep or something.

As long as halberds, flails and morning stars are in, I'm okay. Well I'm okay if they're not in too.

I really disliked the "New Area Cutscenes" in BG1 for some reason. If I saw that lady throwing the slop bucket out on that guy one more time...! But not really a big deal.

Thanks for the reply; I think part of the problem is we know its going to be "like" old school isometric RPGs but with the features not more nailed down its easy to suggest things that aren't easy to implement or not necessary given what their goal is. Its also easy to take the fact that we're not literally looking at a new IE game to think of it as a new game full of possibilities forgetting what we know about the game already.

Don't your first two sentences basically contradict one another? Lets say a developer like Obsidian wanted to write a story and include something that a significant subgroup of RPG players dislike in their glorious new RPG. Would you spew your hate and vitriol on their moronic idea or would you accept that its a stupid notion that everyone should be able to enjoy games in any way they want? Cause it seems to me your opinion is suggesting "I should be allowed to spew hate and vitriol on any idea I consider moronic and that would make it so I couldn't enjoy games in the way I want". Or am I missing something?