Amentep

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.

I understand your points of view and don't entirely disagree - but wouldn't 'godlike or planetouched' races be just as 'out of place' as someone who was affected by one of these states? I'm not sure there is a huge distinction there and as we know godlike races are already confirmed for the game. Vampires and lycanthropes and in some stories, ghosts, are predators of humans. Possession is totally based on another entity sublimating a person and taking over its body which is generally seen as bad if permanent (if not permanent, like someone being possessed by a spirit guide temporarily and the spirit guide is a permanent partner then I'll take back my objection; I was thinking more along the lines of "Exorcist"-style demonic possession). I think that's why Vampires and lycanthropes show up as monsters in video games (along with other predatory creatures, like Lamias or Harpies). This doesn't mean a good game couldn't be created around them though! But I think for me I'd want that game to start out with the goal of playing in the specific world of vampires and werewolves. Godlike/planetouched typically aren't necessarily seen as beings who eat people. They could very easily be like the demigod heroes (Heracles, CuChulain, Ansel) as well as, presumably, demigod villains so would be more open to varied opinions in the world.

Hmmm, , I'd have a hard time believing - if vampire, ghosts, lycanthropes and posessed states are treated similarly to how they are historically in human culture - that you'd have anyone who'd be willing to work with you once it became "known" what you were. Yes I know that you're supposed to be able to solo the game, but I'm not sure I'd be for solo-only content (or more specifically content that forced soloing) as something that resources should go for. Mutated - maybe if the game was Gamma World...

To be fair, exploitation films actually tend towards doing just that - offering elements such as sex, nudity, gore, violence just for the intent of getting people into seats, with the sex/nudity stuff being specifically aimed at arousing people to get their patronage. This presumably isn't different from other media dealing with the same issue (Hentai games being the thing that immediately springs to mind with relationship to video games). The problem with the argument IMO is more rooted in the idea that people who want romance only want it because they're getting their jollies from it. If this was to follow every player who wants an "evil path" through the game must be sociopaths and every player who saves the world in a game must feel like they saved the real world outside or the game. Its really not a one-to-one ratio, IMO. While I support romances (within reason, ie that the game designers want it, plan for it, the setting supports it and the resources are available to do it), I also support character relationships in general. Two straight characters of the same gender should be able to go to the town pub and have beer and a character based interaction that expounds on the character or setting or quest. So I suppose, realistically, what I want is the ability to have an NPC be a well drawn character through multiple types of interactions that are appropriate to both the PC and NPC and one option for the appropriate character/setting/game might be romance but not the only type of interaction the NPC has with my PC and not a required interaction either.

Well I'd like to see grappling but doubt its possible (and somehow my mind keeps conjuring up ideas of trying to do it IE style with repetitive animations which would probably look hilarious). There is some appeal to the idea of using the wrong "tool" and getting a weaker result (taking longer to subdue, subdue could result in injury/death). Could also be penalties for being really strong as well (since it might be harder to not use lethal force) but maybe a bonus for some other trait (dex/finesse/int?) assuming there is traits. I'd be happier with the idea of their being an absolute chance to fail in subduing if there was still another way to force the opponent to be defeated non-lethally (successful disarm followed by trip allows a chance for opponent to acquiesce?) otherwise I think you'd just be encouraging players trying to subdue with the express intent not to kill (to get information, lets say) to just reload and retry.

I always like the idea of the PC and the World's Inhabitants being able to do the same thing, so I'm all for Bandits being able to take down the player, or if the PC walks alone down a city street possibly being knocked out from behind and waking up without what he was carrying. I like all of your suggestions actually, they'd certainly be interesting to have in a game.

There is gender dimorphism in lizards and cats, though. While lizards can have slight difference (slightly larger head or tail in male to much larger males to different colors), most cats do have a size difference in gender (and that's excluding the obviousness of maned lions) and certainly when I've been around others with pet cats, telling the males from females at a distance wasn't too difficult without looking for the obvious sign. I'd agree mammaries shouldn't be on any species that isn't mamalian* realistically, but I suppose the creators would need to determine if a "Lizardman" was a mammal who has characteristics of a reptile or a large reptile. *presuming that species weren't diety created which could mean anything, really.

I like the idea, but I'd only agree to it if the player is not forced to chase panicked enemies down (like in Fallout - particularly annoying when you couldn't find the hostile on the map) or have the decimated force inexplicably decide to come back and attack you with even LESS than they started with just because their panic timers have timed out. Ideally for something like this I'd like it so the player either has to actively try to pursue the characters (no mercy!) or else the panicked characters actually leave the area.

Most people (excluding the undead or The Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) die of either shock or blood loss when dismembered much, I think. Although if there was a way to do it where you could target a limb and chop it off (say, a leg) it'd be cool if you could keep the person alive as an option to interrogate them (or, you know, be evil and chop other parts off like you're Kevin from Sin City or something). Might be a bit much to deal with properly though (but not a bad idea).

You can subdue and then dismember but you can't dismember and then subdue* Sadly subduing and dismembering is not a symetric property. *I suppose you could dismember the living dead and then subdue the head or something from biting, but I think that's probably the only case you can dismember and subsequently subdue in, and if the head is still moving then the arms and legs probably are as well and you probably want to react Evil Dead-style rather than trying to subdue them, just obliterate.