Amentep

If it fits the story, if it fits the characters, if it fits the setting and if Obsidian determines its right for the game (the resources and planning needed) then sure. But I think it'd be very possible to create Project Eternity and make it a game I enjoy and want to play repeated both with and without romances.

If it were easily doable within the game, would anyone be interested in being able to set your characters to "subdue" a opponents rather than kill them all? This could lead to allowing capture quests (that don't involve beating all of the lifepoints away from enemies who then don't die because they're scripted not to) or quests where you could subdue someone not in control of themselves and try to save them; it could allow thieves to knock a swell unconscious & rob them rather than murder and loot their corpse (which they could still do so broader range of options), and it could allow the player to choose to let a character live who comes back later either to join or antagonize them (without, again, it being forced through scripting - "Hahah, you THINK you beat me! But I'll be seeing you again!" *teleports*). D&D used to do this, as I recall, by having you declare subdual damage (and certain weapons, like whips, only did subdual damage). Any interest? Or some other interesting idea? Or should it always be kill / sneak / speech as the primary options to resolve encounters?

I think the only way for that to work would be to look at the habitats of semi-aquatic animals, like a beaver, polar bear or otter or go magical and have a "water elemental". Truly aquatic (fishmen and the like) or amphibious creatures (Frog men) don't really fit (unless they just have characteristics only of water or amphibious dwellers but are typically land dwelling which I think defeats the purpose of having them) (Note I'm not saying having an Otterman race but look at the types of habitats and societies and adaptions the animals have and create a humanoid race that would have similar adaptions and habitats, then thinking through those adaptions into terms of race/character.). Someday I'd like to see an aquatic RPG where aquatic races would make sense. Mind you, I'd also like an RPG where the races were based on the Homininae (like Homo Sapiens, Homo floresiensis, Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Habilis, australopithecus, or something). Not really this RPG though.

Lord Chaos - sorry to hear of your loss and hardships; glad things seem to be turning around for you.

I'm in my 40s. No way I could give you even a short list of favorite RPGs (I am either easy to please or have bad taste, I guess ). So you'll have to settle with my first non-PnP RPG, which was SSI's Phantasie, which I played on a Commodore 64 back in good old 1985(ish).

Without C. Thomas Howell returning, it'd be "Soul Man" in name only...

Its kinda stupid, but I actually like the thread title Gods in Eternity a bit for some reason. Not sure if the plot is going to revolve around gods, so maybe "Souls in Eternity"? I'm crap at naming stuff.

Not really my intent to make a "dress up Barbie" suggestion; my point is that its unrealistic to be able to loot bodies and put their (probably damaged) armor on - particularly with no regard to size or body type (an orc, a giant, a gnome and a human can all trade clothes) and wade into the next battle and proposed a possible way to address that that could bring interesting useablity / versatility to blacksmithing and crafting skills. In addition such a method could be used to further customize the characters avatar (if that was wanted and desired) by giving use of the skill the option to customize a bit further. Wizardry 8 and Arcanum (which I'd forgotten) already used "size" for clothes to make really small / large clothes unusable by other groups. My problem with this (moreso in Wizardry 8 than Arcanum) was the lack of clothes in a specific size could create problems in the party (everyone's wearing superarmor exept the short/big character who is still wearing leather because no one has the odd sized armor*) It seems the vast majority of people feel like its TOO micromanaging a concept and prefer the usual abstraction which honestly I can live with. *Although I suppose in retrospect, this actually isn't that far off from real life.

I liked the magic vs tech as well My problems with Arcanum are mostly in other areas, not in the setting or world set-up. EDIT: That said I don't think this will be Arcanum 2, but I think that some of the good bits of Arcanum may show up here

Whatever it is named, it'll be pronounced "Throat Warbler Mangrove"

Generally speaking I read faster than most VO actors speak, so it tends to slow the game down to have to listen to dialogues. I really have no problem with no VO at all in the game; if it is going to be there I'd prefer it to be in specific cases (narration, starting dialogues of named characters, interparty shouts).

Yeah I liked that picture pretty well myself.

I manged years ago to get my DM to allow me to play a Lizard Man. I actually couldn't go in to towns (because they tended to attack Lizard Men since there was a hostile tribe nearby and that's all they knew) but it allowed us to work with the hostile Lizard Men in a way that the DM hadn't initially planned (because I was able to get on with them rather well eventually). Only problem was to get equipment I had to let one of the players use my money (or barter with the other Lizardman). I'm sure the gnomes were cheating me when they went into town. Anyhow, I like playing nontraditional races, but I think I'll be happy to explore the races Obsidian create and how they fit in with the world, so no real opinion on the issue I guess.

I really hope crafting is really thought about and worked out in an interesting fashion. My experience in games is that usually it either takes so long to gather the materials to craft that what you can craft is useless (like you say) or you craft something that is good for now and 2 minutes later whack a kobold who has a better sword than you meaning you wasted your crafting material (and gold, dependent on the system). So really crafting and looting are interelated and need to be thought of together, I agree. I think the problem with the suggestion is it seems to rail the player into needing crafting as a skill (since it seems there are many things that only a crafter can create). Or do I misunderstand?

Now I want deep sea diver armor in the game. I kid, I kid. I would like a game that sticks with things that look more like real functional weapons and not something you'd need superhero strength to wield or if armor to walk or, you know, stand up in.

spoilers: First one seems to be artificial and not appealing - much like donating to a church to improve your reputation (even if you're a homicidal maniac) in BG2. If a game was to have sleeping-around options (say, prostitutes) it might make sense, but I'm not sure its an appealing form of resource management (although certainly plays with choice and consequence) I think a way for divorce and consequences in such would be important if characters could get married. Let the NPC spouse get killed a lot = divorce. One thing I didn't like about divorce in Fallout 2 was that there wasn't really any consequence (besides a monetary / item loss penalty, as I recall). After the shotgun wedding, you'd figure dad would have come out with both guns shooting down the line in the game. in a recent radio interview, romances are still being discussed. Hahahahahahah, Feargus is funny.

Actually I agree that too much micromanagement can kill a game (I'm not a big fan of inventory tetris or food mechanics), which is why I say its a minor thing. On the other hand if blacksmithing is a skill it could be a way to add value to that skill without its value being in improving degrading armor (which I don't mind that much but some people think is to much micromanagement).

The problem was that Anders was changed. He had almost no connection to the Anders from the earleir game. There was NOTHING to indicate anders was anything otehr than straight. So to not only change his character but also personality - it was see by many as betrayl. If the devs want ot give the "masses" a gay/bi character so be it. But they could have made a new character, not buther an old one. Not that it affected me, I hate Anders. Eh, Anders was changed by taking on the Justice spirit so I took all of the changes in the character to be because he really *wasn't* the same person anymore. Still hated him, though.

Who is to say your character, by how you've grown them, isn't someone that knows 'what this is'? That's always been the point of the lore skill, to me, in part at least. That idea that you have to go to this person to find out about X makes a person wonder at some point, if they know, the knowledge exists, so why couldn't your character be the sort that researches such things, and thus have such knowledge themselves - provided you built them in such a way? Not to discount your point on going to the local shop for a scroll/identification, mind you, because that is a legitimate point. I don't find identifying it with a skill you've chosen to invest in is a bad thing at all, it's not boring, it's a way of defining your character. A lore skill check is used for far more than identifying an item besides. It's not very realistic that your character knows every legendary item ever created in the universe of PE with a maximum lore skill. Of course, this could be true for more ordniary magical item (like the mentioned longsword +1 or armor +5% fire protection) but in my opinon not for the real legendary items. It would be much more fascinating if you have to reveal the hidden information about them little by little (like a quest). I really don't like super-human characters who know everything in the universe. I agree, but I think the high lore character in this case might be used to advance the quest in a different way. Low lore character goes to shop; shop can't identify it. Refers to specialist, specialist sends party on quest to retrieve items that he needs, eventually can detail the item. High lore character can't identify the relic but knows of an item that might have something about such an artifact so essentially sends himself out on the same quest (in this case unlike the specialist who may be able to give the low lore character options on which item to get first, the high lore character has to find each item to reveal the need for the next item). Once the high lore character gets all the items they can identify the relic with the bonus that now that the high lore character has researched this type of relic he may now be able to identify other relics from the same time period or culture.

Its a minor thing - certainly not of major import - but I've always been vaguely bugged by the fact most games allow you to loot items from any sized opponent and immediately wear them. Wizardry seemed to address this by having different clothing for small party members which created the problem of never finding the right size clothes making them extremely vulnerable. I've often wondered if a system which forced you to "fit" looted armor and clothing would work within a video game (maybe it already has in a game I haven't played) and wondered what others would think of such a system. I'd include within this fitting system a way to customize the armor some (engrave it maybe) or change colors on clothing to fit what you're looking for aesthetically so you have the best of style and function. Anyone else interested in such a thing, or is it just too much detail where it isn't needed?

Plus if they put in a lore check they have to make it do something or no one would ever use it. And if you're wanting to play as a learned sage (maybe talky or magician) being able to "know stuff" would be your thing in the game and I think that kind of character really calls for a lore skill. But that doesn't mean that your PC is automatically an expert and I could see even with a lore skill in play a benefit to someone with more arcane knowledge (as both a trainer for character who want to be know it all and those who can help identify for those who don't have an egghead in their group). You can even still have quest related knowledge gathering; the PC could recognize that they need certain rare books to identify a particularly arcane item and starts the quest off there.

I think kill XP is fine in some games. I also feel that making the XP based on completing a quest rather than on how many things you kill to complete the quest is fine as well. Ideally as long as I feel my character is progressing in the world, I'm not sure I terribly care how much how I actually get the XP as long as its consistant and logically implemented and not doled out in a fashion that I feel like I played 20 hours as a kid with a wooden sword and then suddenly became a knight with a vorpal blade...

You can easily have sex without romances being involved. You can also have romances without sex being involved. I think the latter is where most of Obsidian's past coverage of the subject has gone (with the possible exception of NWN2 with the tacky Elf stalker "romance", which felt completely out of place). While i loved Nwn 2 and mask of the betrayer even more, the romance options were , well.. terrible. Only Gann was decent. Stalker Elf, Self-righteous Paladin and Baldy Bald Wizard not so much... did i mention the wizard was bald? Very frigid too but mostly BALD. Nothing wrong with bald women. I think, reading through a good bit of the thread that one worry that comes up is the idea of the "tail wagging the dog" that romances are suddenly the most important thing in the game. I think also this ties into a problem with many recent romances in RPGs where pretty much saying "hi" to a romanceable companion starts the romance. I don't think this is the right way to go about it. If they're going to include romances with companions, I think it should be something that the player has to consciously start (or, if initiated by the NPC has to be after a number of conditions are met - not just adding them to the party like pretty much all of the romances in DA2).

Well I think ME1 is the best game but for combat...well to be honest I thought the combat was fun in all of the games*. *Note I have a high tolerance in this regard and results may not be typical

Week last couple of weeks in the US Boxoffice + a deserved R rating was probably stacking the odds against the film a good bit. I'm not sure I buy the idea that the Stallone film from a 17 years back really had any effect which I've heard some people mention. I also gather from what I've read of US critics that they largely didn't get it.