Preferred party size in Wasteland 2 [poll added]

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Everybody who's saying "oh, a group of hand-made pcs are just random stat sheets," well, so is your lead character. Use your imagination! You don't need a personality archetype spoon-fed to you. A few lucky rolls of the dice and a bit of game-mechanic-paranoia will help develop a personality in your head whether you like it or not.

Agree! My Wasteland characters weren't blank stat sheets. They had names. I usually recruited Rocky and Bullwinkle into my party. With a lack of detail like that, you have to use your imagination. By adding the detail of your character's appearance, Fallout set itself up for the Chosen One syndrome, because the story has to account for your character's graphical representation.

The Let's Play Wasteland video is a perfect example of roleplaying. "Lily and her rangers" came entirely out of the player's head and the game's sparse details. You provided your story, the NPCs had their own stories, and the two meshed into one and the irritating refusal to follow orders simulated the character's personality in the group.

The group interaction in Wasteland 2 can (if we want) be much more involved and detailed than Wasteland and give you character moments and illustrations that depict story events that result from using your personal skills with the group.

also i don't quite like the idea that there must be a very low cap or any cap at all on extra recruitables. If you want to restrict the player from picking up a small army on his way through the Waste Land, extra recruitables may be incompatible with each other (faction mechanics or whatever) or simply to expensive to have them permanently hired (salary? quests?). Balancing can be maintained through various functions, for example by the way Exp is gained and by the availability of equipment and loot and maybe also through limited AI scaling according to player's party size. So most options presented in the poll seem arbitrary to me.

Rally the troops... control the wastelands... pick your team and everyone else is a backup or replacement when one of the chosen dies... or if u feel like changing to a full melee raider squad or pack of snipers.

Agree and agree.

In my Wasteland 2 conception, using your personal skills to manage your group can be a way to raise skill levels and gain experience points. If you have low personal skills it will be hard to recruit and train NPCs and if you have high personal skills you can recruit an army of followers and reinforcements. All of which adds qualities to your characters and gives opportunities for story and character advancement and game choices. Maybe you want an army of followers, or maybe you want one very powerful recruit/friend who won't join a big group so you have to play one way or the other.

NPCs bring some history to the table, and you bring your imagination to the table. The game only has to simulate some simple characteristic, attributes or skills that gives characters individuality.

The discussion of the party size might be made irrelevant, without any strict limit on party size, but with some difficulty or personal skill that you have to develop to simulate training or recruiting your characters. Maybe an overarching Leadership skill, or maybe individual similar skills to what the NPC possesses that establishes some kind of personal or professional relationship.

You could make recruiting/training challenging, and keeping people in party agreeable challenging so like you might have to take time off from combat to rest and relax and to bond with your teammates. A NPC could start off as uncontrollable and become integrated as a party member over time. This training and recruiting simulation can be one small part of the game that isn't too difficult, and fun to play, and gives you a break from combat and exploration, and rewards you with character moments and experience points.

If it's difficult to incorporate party members, you can leave some incompatible recruits and others you don't need to hold the fort, send them back to their home town to check up on things, or send them off to explore on their own. There can be roaming adventurers like yourselves also in parties and also developing their skills and also improving their gear and your former party members and recruits could show up with them as friends or as enemies.

The game can semi-randomly generate NPCs who roam the wastes and you can encounter them and fight them or befriend them or trade with them. There can be characters who leave your party, join other parties and fight you. The permutations are endless.

The game can simulate stuff like that easily enough, by giving your skills and your actions an effect on the world and the characters so that by skill checks and attribute checks the NPCs will go one way or the other and change the story from there after you meet them. There should be a fair amount of city dwellers and shop keepers and so forth, but also NPCs who have their own lives and their own agendas that sometimes mesh with yours and sometimes don't.

I've suggested some ideas related to this topic that you might want to give your yea or nay on at the Google moderator, or if you don't see an idea that matches yours anywhere, suggest one yourself:

https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=1f7176&q=1f7176.656a0e&v=4
"It should be a challenge and a skill to get new party members to work well together and build a cohesive group. The agreeability of the NPCs should depend on your PC's history with them and what you've done together. Call it camaraderie simulation."

https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=1f7176&q=1f7176.64d6db&v=4
"You should be able to meet joinable NPCs in random encounters and add them to your party, or negotiate with them, or fight them."

https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=1f7176&q=1f7176.656f02&v=4
"I want real alternate endings that that take different efforts, different characters, or different skills. Your actions and the NPCs you choose and the PCs you roll and the makeup of your party and their abilities should affect the order of events."

https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=1f7176&q=1f7176.65377c&v=4
"With a robust skill set, the game could give you relationships among the NPCS and different endings depending on your interactions, not just a single win scenario. Become mayor of a town! Stop the evil robot menace or join it and take over the world!"

https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=1f7176&q=1f7176.64e4f0&v=4
"If possible, there should be semi-random persistent NPCs who travel in parties and gain abilities and improved gear, who you can encounter on multiple occasions and maybe they can solve quests before you do."

https://www.google.com/moderator/#8/e=1f7176&q=1f7176.652fa9&v=4
"Save the pretty girl, let someone else save her, or let her die. If you save her she can join your party with benefits. If someone else saves her, she will join their party and you can fight her. Some characters will not join with her in the party."

- A note about this one - it's not worded very well because I had to be terse in my description. I posted a better summary here:
http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=559&p=8919&hilit=+save&sid=6d82df1f50a7cc9403f6cb3a96c4233f#p8919

[timobkg]

I agree with Psilos and Kide. A player created character + player controlled rangers with personality and backstory + NPCs would be ideal.

Part of the charm of Wasteland was that the party mechanic, along with the uncooperative NPCs and permanent death, allowed you to not be "chosen ones." You were a group of desert rangers on a routine patrol who stumble across an already existing terrible situation, and either clear it up or die trying.

NPCs were potentially hostile, not always helpful, not particularly loyal or brave, possibly not mentally stable, and were a serious risk.

Everybody who's saying "oh, a group of hand-made pcs are just random stat sheets," well, so is your lead character. Use your imagination! You don't need a personality archetype spoon-fed to you. A few lucky rolls of the dice and a bit of game-mechanic-paranoia will help develop a personality in your head whether you like it or not.

The one thing you can't have with the "lone wolf" Bioware "chosen one" teutonic myth nonsense is one of the most interesting features of Wasteland as well - the ability to split the party up into independent groups.

I don't see why you couldn't have all of the above with 1 main player created character (the squad leader) and 3 recruited rangers (player controlled), plus whatever NPCs you pick up (not controlled). The only difference is that it's your avatar, the squad leader, making the decisions, rather than a disembodied incorporeal entity making decisions for the squad. It makes the whole experience personal. You can split them the same way, controlling all the rangers, and have to put up with NPCs the same way. You don't need to be Commander Shepard, where the whole universe knows of you. But this way, your companions can have fully developed, fleshed out personalities, rather than the mini-personalities that you described. I would rather have more interesting party dynamics.

When I play an RPG with a main character, I create a detailed character in my head, complete with motivations and opinions and beliefs, and then I'm in-character for the duration of play. I can't do that for 4 characters simultaneously, and I can't imagine some of the other rangers liking or disliking my decisions or the NPCs based on their personality as well as can be done by the game itself. So, effectively, any player-generated character beyond the first is a husk of a person, if not just a stat sheet.

I've played Pool of Radiance, Wizardry, and similar RPGs. I'm much happier with the single main player character of modern RPGs. There's no need to put the player on a pedestal the way Bioware games do. It could play the same way Wasteland did, just with personalities for the other rangers.

[krellen]

I can't do that for 4 characters simultaneously,

You probably should play some more party-based games can get some more practice doing so, then.

[Psilos]

I can't do that for 4 characters simultaneously,

You probably should play some more party-based games can get some more practice doing so, then.

You might have licked to quote the preceding sentence too

and then I'm in-character for the duration of play

In-character clearly means in the role of one character, not four. Role playing is a lot like acting in a play as you take on the role of someone you are not, and I have yet to see an actor play four different characters at the same time.

[krellen]

I have yet to see an actor play four different characters at the same time.

Check out the third paragraph here. While Patrick Stewart is an absolutely stellar performer, you only have to be one-tenth as good as him to pull off 4 characters.

[Psilos]

I have yet to see an actor play four different characters at the same time.

Check out the third paragraph here. While Patrick Stewart is an absolutely stellar performer, you only have to be one-tenth as good as him to pull off 4 characters.

By "at the same time" I meant simultaneously, at the same instant, he may be playing four of them but he still has to act a character and then another, he cannot physically be both character at the same time.

[krellen]

By "at the same time" I meant simultaneously, at the same instant, he may be playing four of them but he still has to act a character and then another, he cannot physically be both character at the same time.

*shrug* It's turn-based. You only have to play one at a time.

[Psilos]

By "at the same time" I meant simultaneously, at the same instant, he may be playing four of them but he still has to act a character and then another, he cannot physically be both character at the same time.

*shrug* It's turn-based. You only have to play one at a time.

But is dialogue turn-based ? Is making decision turn-based ? That's when role playing comes in and that's when it's not turn-based, you don't need much role playing to decide weather you are going to kill someone with a knife or a crowbar.

and then I'm in-character for the duration of play

That means in the role of one character, for the whole game. That's probably what he meant, and that's why playing more party based games won't change a thing.

[krellen]

But is dialogue turn-based ?

I've yet to see a game in which it wasn't. The closest to non-turn based dialogue I've ever seen was Alpha Protocol, and that was just turns with a time limit.

[Psilos]

But is dialogue turn-based ?

I've yet to see a game in which it wasn't. The closest to non-turn based dialogue I've ever seen was Alpha Protocol, and that was just turns with a time limit.

Ok that is just fucking ridiculous, of course dialogue is turn based, but is it turn based within your party ? No, it's fucking not,
you are not taking turns between each of your character to talk, you talk as a group, so stop trying to turn what is meant into something else just so that you can contradict it. That would make sense only if this was a single statement without any context, but we have a context here so stop ignoring it just to keep the argument going.

[paultakeda]

The only difference is that it's your avatar, the squad leader, making the decisions, rather than a disembodied incorporeal entity making decisions for the squad. It makes the whole experience personal. You can split them the same way, controlling all the rangers, and have to put up with NPCs the same way. You don't need to be Commander Shepard, where the whole universe knows of you. But this way, your companions can have fully developed, fleshed out personalities, rather than the mini-personalities that you described. I would rather have more interesting party dynamics.

And when your personal avatar dies, does the game end? It doesn't matter how unknown you are to the map, you're still Commander Shepard because when you die the game ends. Or will you willingly let your PC die, trudge back to base and make a new one?

I thought not.

I've played Pool of Radiance, Wizardry, and similar RPGs. I'm much happier with the single main player character of modern RPGs. There's no need to put the player on a pedestal the way Bioware games do. It could play the same way Wasteland did, just with personalities for the other rangers.

But you do put the PC on a pedestal. Again, what happens when your PC dies?

That's the point of it all.

You can duplicate this in the original Wasteland very easily, by the way: create one PC, go out in the wilderness, die. Game ends. Congrats, you got your anonymous ranger who represents you, and there was no need at all to change the way the game works.

The instant you limit the game to having one PC and the other slots required to be NPCs created by the developer because for some reason you don't think you're creative enough to create them yourself, you have created a Chosen One game, no matter what you call it.

The original format of 80s CRPGs worked well: the game starts with a pregen party and you can keep all, keep some, or keep none. NPCs come along and they have their own ideas, but your rangers all follow you as your rangers are exceptionally trained.

This need to connect with your party by having dialogue written by the game dev is a form of ego-stroking. You want NPCs to talk to your PC as if they were you and again, that's a Chosen One game no matter how you cut it. There's nothing wrong with this type of game: it's just not Wasteland.

There are so many games like that out there now I am still confused as to why the backers of a game that needed to go with Kickstarter insist on it here when it's likely one of the reasons why a publisher wouldn't buy it, making the last two choices in this poll just as bad as having romantic vampires.

I should check the Double Fine forums and see if someone on there is insisting that it be a platformer with QTE like Uncharted because using a mouse to point and click is tedious and could slow down the flow of the story.

[Psilos]

There are so many games like that out there now I am still confused as to why the backers of a game that needed to go with Kickstarter insist on it here when it's likely one of the reasons why a publisher wouldn't buy it, making the last two choices in this poll just as bad as having romantic vampires.

The reason people are backing this game even though they want a main character while the original did not is probably because they have not been unable to play a top down, party based, turn based old-school RPG in a long time, and they prefer the more personal experience of playing a single character. It does not remotely compare to romantic vampires.

The instant you limit the game to having one PC and the other slots required to be NPCs created by the developer because for some reason you don't think you're creative enough to create them yourself, you have created a Chosen One game, no matter what you call it.

I do not understand why people keep insisting on a single character automatically meaning "Chosen One". Yes if you play a single character and he dies the game ends, even though you could have some game mechanic making the second in command main character, it's more complicated but it could still be done. But even if the game does end when your main character dies, that does not mean he was the chosen one and that his cause is surely doomed, it simply means that the character you were incarnating got killed and won't be able to witness what happens after he dies.

Unless of course we have a different understanding of what a "Chosen One" is, I understand it as a character whose destiny is to do something of importance and that no other can do, and so as soon as he dies all hope for his quest to be fulfilled dies with him.

Following this definition of chosen one, a main character based RPG does not require you to be chosen one, you can just be a man, that happens to do something of importance, it doesn't have to be his destiny, it doesn't have to mean that if he doesn't do it no one else will, it just means it turns out he is the one to do it. We are not following the story of the character because he is the chosen one, we are following the story of a person that ends up doing something of importance. When I watch a movie (or read a book) like Lord of the Rings, Frodo is the Chosen One because from the beginning we know he's the one who has to destroy the ring, but when watching a real life inspired/historical movie like Schindler's list, we do not follow his story because he was "Chosen" to save Jews, we follow his story because he ended up saving some, which make his story worth telling.

And I'd like to play a game that works the same, where we play a character not because he is special and is "chosen" to do something, but because he will end up doing something of importance. And it does not even have to be about him doing something of importance, it can simply be about him taking part in something of importance. Even if you play a single character, and even if you make the decisions as leader it does not have to be about you, it can very well still be about your group, or even your organisation. When the story is written in a sequel for example, it doesn't have to be like in fallout 2 where people tell you "The Vault Dweller did this and that" it can be "A group of ranger did" or simply "The rangers did"

And as far as Ego-stroking and lack of imagination goes, as I already explained (for me at least) it has nothing to do with that, I simply want to have an Alter-ego with which I can interact with a world I normally could not.

BTW just a quote from what I wrote in another thread of how I'd see the ranger party done.

Personally I am for a main character that you control entirely, and then the rest of your squad having pre-definied personalities, so before you leave on your mission you can pick up to three recruits each of which has a general orientation ( medic, brawler, sniper, tech, diplomat, Swiss Army Knife etc...) and then within these general orientation you can choose their skills etc... and have full control over their progression throughout the game, while your influence on other NPCs progression might not be as thorough. Since you are their officer or whatever they will fully obey your commands unless you do something really against their principle.

And in case one of them dies you can get back to the ranger center to grab a new one like in the original. Then weather it's game over when your main character/officer dies or you transition to another of your rangers is another matter completely.

Yeah or just select their background when creating them.

I have had time to reconsider this, and maybe when you create the additional rangers in your group who are not the leader, you have to pick some perks for them that can both change their abilities and personality, for example a Berserk perk could mean greater hand to hand damage for example, but also mean a more hot headed character that is more likely to rush into a fight or complain that you don't let them get into a fight. So basically you create four characters, but as long as your main is alive, the others act as more obedient NPCs with also less dialogue choice, but following what perks, skills and basic characteristics they have they can have different dialogue options, just like your own character does, of course that requires more work, but a lot of NPCs that could join you in Fallout 1 & 2 did not have that much dialogue options. So I'm not thinking complicated stuff, just battle cries, saying stuff when waiting around, small arguments with other NPC, like in Fallout 2 when you had Myrion and Cassidy along, and just a more or less vague tone while in dialogue with them. So you have still created them, you can still imagine exactly what their personality is exactly like (Ian in fallout one didn't really have any complicated dialogues with the Vault Dweller, you didn't exactly know who he was so I often ended up imagining stuff about his personality etc..) and if your main character dies, you still play as a character of your own imagining that you created yourself.

So to sum it up, Focus on one main character and the other rangers have rather broad personalities, you make decisions with your main character but if he dies you have the option to keep going as another of the ranger, inheriting his abilities, and dialogue options. Then if you chose a perk like "honorable" for one of the ranger he can refuse to beat children to death and maybe even leave your party if you do to much stuff he doesn't like. Of course I realize this would require probably a bit of work, but I feel it is closer to the original while still keeping that more intimate relationship of playing a single character.

[krellen]

you are not taking turns between each of your character to talk

Dude, i don't know about you, but in real life, I don't go around talking over people and butting in. I wait my turn.

You're the one being ridiculous; I'm sure you talk to yourself, argue things over in your head, go back-and-forth on things you're conflicted on: "Maybe I should have eggs." "On the other hand, bacon is nice too." "What if I had eggs AND bacon?" "Oh, that would be lovely." Your inner voices take turns.

Andy Serkis didn't need two takes to do this.

I'll also point out that a desire "to have an Alter-ego with which I can interact with a world I normally could not" was a large driving force behind the claim that first-person was the future of "RPGs", because it was more "immersive".

[paultakeda]

Unless of course we have a different understanding of what a "Chosen One" is, I understand it as a character whose destiny is to do something of importance and that no other can do, and so as soon as he dies all hope for his quest to be fulfilled dies with him.

If the game ends because the main character dies, then yes, that is a Chosen One. No matter how fleshed out that personality is by the writers or by you, if that one character dies and the game ends, ding ding ding. Wasteland has a Chosen Party, where no one character is important enough to warrant a game end but a party wipe will cause a reload.

Following this definition of chosen one, a main character based RPG does not require you to be chosen one, you can just be a man, that happens to do something of importance, it doesn't have to be his destiny, it doesn't have to mean that if he doesn't do it no one else will, it just means it turns out he is the one to do it. We are not following the story of the character because he is the chosen one, we are following the story of a person that ends up doing something of importance.

And in a party-based mechanic we are following the story of a group that ends up doing something of importance.

And I'd like to play a game that works the same, where we play a character not because he is special and is "chosen" to do something, but because he will end up doing something of importance.

That's the whole point of being a Chosen One. Like Frodo. Frodo needed a party to accompany him. He especially needed Sam to get to Mt. Doom. But in the end, the story is about Frodo, so yeah, he's a Chosen One. He is one because he decided to do something of importance.

And as far as Ego-stroking and lack of imagination goes, as I already explained (for me at least) it has nothing to do with that, I simply want to have an Alter-ego with which I can interact with a world I normally could not.

I don't see how that is incompatible with creating 4 PCs and picking one to be "you". I did that ALL THE TIME. In Wasteland, I had that guy in slot 1 and if he was in trouble the other 3 PCs would expend a lot of effort to save him. Did I need the writers to create that guy? Or to boost him up with some sort of "specialness" like being gifted with more skill points per level? No. He was my dude and he was in slot 1. The same goes for Bard's Tale, Pool of Radiance and any other CRPG where I could create a party.

Often, I'd have slot 2 be the female love interest. Yeah, it was in my teenage mind and there was no cut scene with underwear, but she existed and she was in slot 2. He would do anything to keep her alive.

I immersed myself and enjoyed that they were characters I created, inserted into a larger story predefined by game developers who left me with that freedom to create. I didn't need to be told which character I could romance, I didn't need to fill them out much more than picking race, class and gender.

Now today, I conceded in another thread that having a few more metrics that tie into the game world would be a fun thing to do (a la picking an origin so you open up a side quest). That's a new trick RPGs invented in this century that I am totally okay with being part of Wasteland 2. I just don't need a main character game. I can throw my money at those right now (and I have and I enjoy them immensely; DA:O was fantastic). Yet again, the reason Wasteland could not get made was because the publishers saw no interest.

I'm glad many younger RPGers and Fallout fans are on here and it's great to have ideas, old and new (and some reborn). But I see the party-based mechanic as one of the dealbreakers for Fargo that lead to the Kickstarter project. I've quoted this elsewhere but I'll put it here again:

Publishers just had no interest in a party based RPG and they felt like they would need to go up against the production costs of BioWare which are in the tens of millions of dollars.

Publishers want the success of Bioware and Bethesda. Main character. NPCs. Lots of back story to drive plot. 3D environment. Et cetera. These are great. But they already exist. Fallout is your post-apocalyptic Chosen One RPG. Enjoy it. Maybe you want a return to Fallout 1/2, you want Van Buren. Great. Petition for it. Maybe Bethesda will see the success of this Kickstarter and reconsider making an isometric old-school Fallout RPG.

Wasteland is a turn based, party based, top down RPG about a post-apocalyptic world. I hold that to be the cornerstone and it is unalterable. Beyond that, we are grateful we can explore ways of enhancing, updating, modernizing, whatevering the sequel in a forum where the developers are paying attention.

[Psilos]

you are not taking turns between each of your character to talk

Dude, i don't know about you, but in real life, I don't go around talking over people and butting in. I wait my turn.

You're the one being ridiculous; I'm sure you talk to yourself, argue things over in your head, go back-and-forth on things you're conflicted on: "Maybe I should have eggs." "On the other hand, bacon is nice too." "What if I had eggs AND bacon?" "Oh, that would be lovely." Your inner voices take turns.

Andy Serkis didn't need two takes to do this.

I'll also point out that a desire "to have an Alter-ego with which I can interact with a world I normally could not" was a large driving force behind the claim that first-person was the future of "RPGs", because it was more "immersive".

And there you do it again. When you'll bother quoting more than one sentence and addressing what I actually said, I'll bother responding.

[krellen]

And there you do it again. When you'll bother quoting more than one sentence and addressing what I actually said, I'll bother responding.

How about you provide the context you think I'm missing, because all I see you saying is "dialogue is not turn-based" - except it is - and "I'm not imaginative enough to play more than one character", which isn't the game's fault nor is it's the game's problem to cater to you because you can't.

[Seriously00]

I like the idea of a main single character as opposed to a party completely generated by me. As was said before, having a single character makes writing everything simpler but also more diverse. This character doesn't need to be the "chosen one" either, but I think a majority of the playerbase will load their game if/when one of their party members die (unless, of course, they're not attached whatsoever to that character).

Further, even if you did create a full party at the beginning of the game, I think it's only natural that you're going to be attached to one of the characters more than the others. You'll associate with them and in the end, will probably end up loading your game if/when that character dies.

With the full party approach, how do you handle dialog? Someone has to be the party leader who does all the talking. Or does it just select people to talk at random? With a single character creative process, the writers simply account for what that character can say based on skills, talents, etc., and then it plays how you want it to play. Other party members, fully written by the writers, can then add flavor to conversations through saying things that may or may not help which you don't have choice over.

Now, this isn't to say that isn't impossible to see pre-genned player characters having these same options, however, there would be a lot more resources spent on writing the dialog options well to account for the many more possible options based on a given characters skills. So, to me, if there was 4 player made characters starting the game, I would like to see at least four dialog options per character based on their skills, attributes, and other factors so that I feel like each character is saying what I think they should be saying instead of only having dialog options A B C or D which don't change no matter who's talking.

[Psilos]

And there you do it again. When you'll bother quoting more than one sentence and addressing what I actually said, I'll bother responding.

How about you provide the context you think I'm missing, because all I see you saying is "dialogue is not turn-based" - except it is - and "I'm not imaginative enough to play more than one character", which isn't the game's fault nor is it's the game's problem to cater to you because you can't.

of course dialogue is turn based, but is it turn based within your party ? No, it's fucking not,
you are not taking turns between each of your character to talk, you talk as a group

And it has absolutely nothing to do with the "I can't be bothered imagining more than one personality", I can do that just fine, It's simply that I want my personality to have direct and concrete influence on the world to make it reality, because otherwise it is just in my mind, it is not restricted by anything. If I act as four character, only the personality of the group will be defined and have consequences, the personality of each individual will all be irrelevant as far as game interaction goes and will all be left to my imagination and so they might as well not exist at all. It is not that I cannot Imagine these, but then what difference does it have than when I imagine any thing else at any other time ? What I am looking for is concrete consequence to the personality I have imagined to make it real.

[krellen]

Well, you're not going to get anything outside your head other than the party gestalt in a party-based game. Wasteland will be a party based game - anything else would be a FAILURE of the purpose of the Kickstarter, which is to prove that a party based RPG is still viable.

But I promise you when the next Kickstarter comes along - whether it's inXile or Obsidian or some other developer - that's going to be the rebirth of the character based, turn-driven, top-down RPG (so Baldur's Gate 3, Arcanum 2, etc.) I'll be there supporting it for you, even if you don't support me on this one.

[Psilos]

/snip

I already explained (I quoted it again just above) why I personally would prefer a single main character.

Then I don't know how to explain any better why I don't think endgame when main character dies means chosen one. But maybe Schindler's list wasn't the best analogy, basically what I was trying to say is : the game ends because the character you were incarnating dies, just like when I die my life ends. It doesn't mean I was the chosen one it just means I'm dead, and whatever happens after I die, I won't know. And it makes sense when playing a single character that when he dies the game ends since you were experiencing the world from his perspective and once he is dead he no longer has a perspective.

Then I don't understand how anything I have said would suggest I do not want the game to be party based. I don't think Party Based specifically means multiple PCs Party Based. But then again I might be wrong.