As I said before, the game is mostly based around exploration. The world really is huge, and the goodies hidden throughout the map are worth the effort. By venturing too far from the road, you might find chests with basic supplies like food rations, torches, whetstones or herbal packs that speed up the healing rate while resting, or maybe powerful potions that drastically boost your statistics, or simply a new sword or a set of armour if you are not satisfied with your current one. Normal chests can be either harmless, or locked, or trapped, or both. Many traps are lethal, and they can be ‘sensed’ only through a spell, so if you stumble upon such, but you are not quite confident about your lockpicking skill, it’s just better to let it be. Apart from these ‘normal’ chests, there are also Moredhel chests which have a wordlock upon them. When using such a chest, you are presented a riddle, and a few slides with letters. To open the chest, you must make the slides show the password (some of the riddles are really hard, believe me).

... and it doesn't end there. BioShock also uses audio superbly as well. Beyond the audio diaries, the monsters you're fighting often have conversations with each other before they realise you're there. Then when they attack, they're using phrases that relate to the game-world rather. As you walk passed the in-game vending machines, they kick into life and start playing a cheery song. Video screens will display short movies as you walk by on occassion and some rooms even have speakers with audio advertising. As you find and collect Plasmids (the game's "magic spells"), you're shown a short video. Again, it's simple stuff but it makes you want to listen to the world and think about what you're hearing for at least a while before you go ahead and blow the next monster's brains out.

I've started with the setting, main story overview, and major design elements (character system, combat, multiple ways to handle quests, non-linearity, etc). I didn't do all the quests or ways to solve them, of course. I'm talking about the concept phase here. For example, one way to keep the main quest non-linear is to have multiple factions interested in it. These factions shouldn't want the same thing as that would make your choice of a faction less important. So, they should want different things which would give you different reasons to pursue the main quest and would require you to make very different decisions once you are at the end of your journey. At the same time you can't be sent to several different directions at once, so your final destination should be able to offer and support different outcomes, etc. In other words, you develop the frame of a game first and then fill it in with the actual content.

Quests will have many solutions, most of which will only be available to a player character with specific skills. Thanks to the plot bypasses you will often come upon completely alternative solutions, for example, to convince someone to help you, you will use acquaintance with some important characters. It is worth to mention that certain choices in performing a quest will bear various, sometimes long-term consequences. Some of the suggested paths may also prove to be dead-ends.
As for the endings, we have adapted for ourselves the brilliant, but for an unknown reason never repeated solution from Fallout – the modular epilogue. After finishing the game and watching the outro presenting the consequence of the path you have chosen, you will also be able to see the fate of the world and its individual locations which you have influenced by your actions or non-action.

Another year is drawing to a close, and unfortunately, Prince hasn't put his lyrical mind toward partying like it's 2007. So instead, I've opted to don stockings, banana hammock, scarf and midriff jacket and get the job done myself with the official RPG Codex Year in Review 2007 Platinum GOTY Edition. Pre-order now for a signed photo of me in said stockings, banana hammock, scarf and midriff jacket!

The Witcher is one of the first games . . . well, ever . . . to actively hype its choices and consequences. This alone should make it interesting to the average Codex reader. The basic idea, in case you've been living under a rock (or, you know, have a life outside of games) is that The Witcher presents you with choices during the course of the game without clear answers. Only much later in the game do you discover the consequences of your decisions, which can have significant impact on the plot.

The difference is, dungeons tend to be more a bit exciting than storefronts and residences. Anyway, what do you have in the urban dungeon department? Discovering a well hidden, ancient door in some basement leading into unknown darkness somehow sounds more exciting then discovering a cave in the middle of nowhere, so tell us all about it.

There are three sequences in the main game which could be considered "urban dungeons." One is the old caverns beneath the Arena, where forgotten rubbish—and the occasional forgotten monster—is discarded. Another is an ancient tomb, cracked open by diggers hoping to tunnel their way out of the city. The creator of the tomb is still down there, so you can ask him all about how it was built, if you don't mind the smell. The third is a sequence which takes the player through a long-forgotten and roundabout path between two city districts, including a trip through the buried catacombs and a sewer system. The endgame also has aspects of "urban dungeon." All three certainly have their share of combat challenges, but the tomb and the catacombs sequences in particular are much more of a balanced adventure than a monster-bashing crawl.

7) The game promises choices and "huge consequences." An actual example would go a long way to back up these claims and fill the hearts of unbelievers with faith.

Luke: I’m sure it would, but I wouldn’t want to spoil too much of the experience for players. Let’s just say that I know the depths of loathing loyal Codex readers reserve for developers that talk the talk but fail to meet expectations when it comes to choice and consequences. I’m not only walking but swaggering, and not just because I’m drunk.

Alan: I will echo Luke on this one, in that we definitely do provide some big choices with significant consequences to the player. We made a conscious decision when writing the core story during pre-production to allow for branches in the story instead of a single linear path. The challenge was to make the different branches as polished as if we had just made one route, since polishing a single linear path would take only half the time. Revealing what these choices are would ruin the story, so you’ll just have to keep the faith.

5. What would you have done differently given a choice? Also, what are you best and worst DoP design decisions?

Looking back on the project, I would probably say something I would do differently is bringing in artists a bit earlier in the project. This turned out fine in the end, but finding artists and getting good progress on the artwork was pretty stressful for me during a lot of the project.

I think the best design decision of the project was including the covenant gameplay. Not only is this one of the biggest distinguishing features of Depths of Peril, but it is also the feature that led to other important unique things in the game like consequences to your actions and the very dynamic world. The covenants is one of those features that changes just about everything in the game. They adventure in the world, they can solve quests before you do, they start wars and raid other covenants including yours, they help out when the town is attacked, they can grab recruits before you do, guards, rumors, and crystals all are due to the covenant gameplay, they can destroy your covenant, and the list just goes on and on.

That’s where the game starts to shine so brightly that you completely forget about any flaws the game has and get lost in a well crafted gameworld. It’s like a dream come true – a non-linear game loaded with well-written dialogues, interesting quests, more choices than you can handle, and enough consequences and to make the game highly replayable. It’s hard to imagine a better feature list.

I can't stress it enough. The choices are everywhere. There are plenty of consequences. What you did may even cost party members their lives. Many characters respond to and recognize your choices, commenting on what you did and affecting your gameplay. I couldn't believe how many opportunities to do things differently the game offers.

You're no longer alone in the harsh, post-apocalyptic world. You have a father and not just any father. He's a scholar and a gentleman - voiced by Liam Neeson!!! - and you just can't live without him. Your love for your father is so strong that when he leaves you and the vault one day, you blindly follow him into the wasteland.

Twitch Guru: "The main character's father, a genetic scientist, mysteriously departs... "

Worthplaying: "......your father, one of the most important people in Vault 101..."

Emil: "So take the relationship with "my" father. He's my moral compass..."

Bethesda: "Neeson will play the role of the player's father and will appear prominently throughout the game. ...and provides the dramatic tone for the entire game"

Gavin: Your dad is like this warm, inviting guy. He's Liam Neeson! Who wouldn't want Liam Neeson as their dad, right?

Unlike physical stats, which can be fitted into the system through much more meaningful ways even if they can succumb to the same issues, social stats like Intelligence and Charisma cause more problems than those they set out to solve for a very simple reason. You can not force players to role-play their stats, and you can’t force those stats to help players role-play. This dredges up an earlier point – the absence of a direct mental link between player and character ends up rendering the adherence to social stats trite and ineffective. In the long run, the impact of mental and social stats that limit a character’s progress becomes either negligible or a hassle since you can not code personality traits the player does not have the ability to play nor can you give gamers a personality trait they have no idea of how to role-play. And in terms of how storylines are advanced, this causes a great rift as well considering many times players can see right through plot twists or narrative directions before the characters do.

With that said... Get rid of Intelligence and Charisma as a play mechanic that influences dialogue.

As a "twist," I’m going to do this interview primarily through visuals, which is how I think game interactions should be in the first place - mostly because a good chunk of human dialogue is essentially communicated non-verbally anyway.

Here is the basic overview: you go and fight monsters, gaining loot and experience in randomly generated areas. Now, here's the twist, you are not the only hero in this land of the brave. Other heroes, representing local factions called covenants, do the same "hero" thing - fight monsters, gaining loot and experience. Unfortunately, the town seems to be too small for all of you, and as C. McLeod once said "There can be only one!", so it's either you or them. You can use basic diplomacy to keep someone off your back for a while and/or make offensive/defensive alliances. The game is over when your covenant's lifestone is destroyed or when you destroy other covenants' lifestones. Naturally, the lifestones are well protected by hired monsters, NPCs, and heroes, so attacking a lifestones is like attacking an enemy base in an RTS game: come prepared and expect a lot of resistance and casualties.

Let's take a closer look now:

To show that Bethesda understands and, like, totally digs the setting, the game features exploding nuclear reactors in cars and mind-blowing "tell me it's a joke" handheld nuclear catapults. In the example described in the Game Informer article, the main character, undoubtedly inspired by the famous Baron Munchausen, kills two giant ants by shooting at a NEARBY car's nuclear reactor. A small nuclear blast destroys the car and the ants, but ignores the resourceful main character, standing a few meters away. The nuclear catapult is an even more retarded concept and, hopefully, needs no explanation. Using nuclear explosions in close combat in a survival game that watches your rad count is kinda stupid. Even for Bethesda.

6. What games/characters would you use as outstanding examples of great writing in games and why? What influenced you as a game writer?

Brian Mitsoda: Fallout was the game that made me transition from a career in film and apply at Interplay. I enjoyed that the story could be different to each player and I saw potential in reactive storytelling and the possibilities of game narratives. I was a bit naïve in thinking it wouldn’t sink into the same formulaic trappings of the film industry, but I look at games like Planescape, Psychonauts, and System Shock as examples of how interesting stories and gameplay can be intertwined in a way that can’t easily be duplicated by other forms of entertainment. Planescape, I probably don’t have to explain the sense of brilliant weirdness and fantastic exploration to readers of this site and Chris (Avellone, my boss) really hates it when people get fanboy on him (but you should probably dress up like Falls-From-Grace and wait for him in his car, he loves that.) The mind voyeurism/exploration aspects of Psychonauts and the smoothness with which they were blended into the game design, wow… more games should have that kind of story integration (and be that funny). For System Shock, I not only enjoyed the terrifying exploration of Citadel Station, but I don’t think I’ve ever hated a “bad guy� in any game, movie, or book more than Shodan because she actively taunted and harassed me in a way that traditional written medium bad guys can’t replicate.

4. How would you evaluate the finished product? Any lessons learned there? What worked well, what worked ... uh, not so well? What was the game's biggest strength/weakness?

I think the game as released is a high 7, low 8 title. To be honest, the major issues are due to a lack of polish. There's certainly a lot of stuff in the game, but none of it really looks or feels great. At best, the controls and features feel good, at worst they feel terrible.

For example, the camera. Programming got the camera in and fixed a number of its glaring problems, but for all the various camera modes you could run in, it was hard to find one that felt good. The toolset is also an appropriate example: highly functional, very powerful, not enjoyable or fast to use for many tasks.

The biggest problems during development were an unrealistic scope and a lack of focus on quality/fun from the beginning. It's arguable that the former resulted in the latter. With D&D games, it's easy to become consumed by the idea of adding every feat, class, and race you can find in various books.

It's nice that Bioware made something that people who don't enjoy RPGs could get into, but they don’t seem to have thought about the people who actually enjoy them. Jade Empire is pretty much Knights of the Old Republic - only shorter, with kung fu instead of lightsabers, a less obvious main villain, a setting that while not radically new feels fresh in the face of all the usual high fantasy drivel that pollutes the genre, and with considerable role-playing thrown in to the mix. This may be good news for those who enjoy Bioware games as it’s pretty much what you’d expect the game to be and in this regard, doesn’t disappoint. It’s a definite improvement on some of their design philosophies but don’t pop a vein, however; we’re still treading Bioware territory here.

It’s a harsh reality of the genre that, whether by developer influence or actual player demand, CRPGs have been trying to emulate Hollywood productions in order to present games with an increasing focus on emulating cinematic experiences. However, the result is often amateurish and embarrassing since the transposition from one medium to the other is made while disregarding the formal vocabulary of cinema and its context; something is lost in translation from cinema to videogame, and developers end up trying to implement narrative elements that run contrary to the narrative possibilities of the other medium. They look at movies and try to create videogames that behave – that play – like movies, which generally fails to build upon the strengths of the videogame medium and poorly uses the narrative structures of cinema. Some developers have tried experimenting with other approaches to the problem, trying to create situations where realtime player input is crucial and determines the flow of the story but these sequences often feel like compartmentalized and separated from the rest of the game; more in common with minigames than a situation that feels natural and fluid to the rest of the game and the gamer, if for no other reason than developers often can’t handle the complexities of the videogame medium and only propose simplistic input methods for these situations which in a certain way, present challenges and base interactivity that feel like glorified variations of classics like Space Ace or Dragon’s Lair.

4) The Sith Lords had a considerable amount of cut content, which caused much discussion in the community and the creation of fan projects with the intent of restoring the game. While the publisher had its share of blame, do you feel part of the issue may have been a lack of management focus?

I'm pretty good and taking the responsibility for things that happen on our games and I could, of course, say that there were things that we could have done to get more content in the game. But, that's always the case. Every game I have ever made has had content cut during its production. This happens for a ton of reasons. Often it is because we just planned for too much up front, which is partly what happened with KotOR2 and we had to ship before we were able to really polish the end of the game. I am still very proud of what we did with KotOR2 and I feel the excitement over the end of the game being "castrated", as I've heard people say, is a little harsh and melodramatic. Particularly when that is followed with comments about the second and third time that person played through the game. Having said that, I'm not excusing anything or sweeping anything under the rug. I want more for every game we make, and I feel we can always do better job at it.

8. Dialogues. What role do dialogues play in your game? Why? Are there great lines like "I saw a mudcrab the other day" or "Elvish, motherfucker! Do you speak it?" in your game?

Thomas: Dialogue in any RPG is critical to establishing the game world and advancing the storyline. Eschalon handles dialogue via a branching system with different responses based on quest flags. It is simple yet effective and allows the player to have multiple responses to most situations based on how they want to play their character. Overall we’ve chosen to keep the dialogue a bit leaner compared to other contemporary RPGs to more closely match the flow of a classic RPG. As for great lines, I guess the player will need to make that judgment for themselves!

Every now and then, a game comes along that sounds so insanely good on paper, that it doesn't really need salesmanship to get it out the door and into the eagerly grasping hands of gamers. But that didn't stop Bethesda hyping the ever-loving shit out of fourth Elder Scrolls RPG anyway. So is it the second coming? Is it even a decent game? These are the sort of questions that rattled through my mind as I sat back and watched the Patrick Stewart narrated introduction to Tamriel's Imperial province of Cyrodiil, where the game takes place.

How would you compare Mass Effect to Knights of the Old Republic?

It's a good question. In some ways Mass Effect is a lot like Knights of the Old Republic, so all KOTOR fans should be really excited. You have a starship, and you travel the galaxy, having all these really great moments. You have all these Mass Effect powers, which are a lot like Force Powers in the Star Wars universe. However, the main difference, which is where the game really shines, is the main character. I know the word "extreme" may seem overused a bit, but it's an extreme character who does some very extreme stuff unlike Revan who was a very blank character.

Unlike most other hack’n’slashers, The Bard’s Tale has no inventory to speak of nor does it have any loot that you can physically acquire from fallen enemies. All the items the Bard can acquire are either purchased at weapon stores and taverns, or handed out at several fixed points in the game’s story with the weaker equipment being automatically converted to the game’s currency. It's not hard to imagine some sort of brief setup on why this happens - considering the Bard's big mouth and penchant for making rash decisions, he might have angered some wizard or genie that made his desire for coin come true but at the expense of never being able to acquire items unless he spent the gold he cherished so much. But nothing ever explains the logic behind this quirky mechanic, ingame or otherwise. And since the Bard's equipment is improved once in a while by picking up better weapons and replacing the ones he has automatically with shinier and deadlier versions, why am still I finding poor weapons that are instantly changed to gold? Instead of just finding a ton of weapons the Bard won't equip and since automation was apparently a design goal, why not have enemies just drop gold right away? There's no point showing the player a weapon or item the Bard has picked up but won't be able to use. There could be a certain charm to the items you find on slain enemies but seeing Wolfs dropping the likes of picnic baskets and red hoods isn’t exactly pushing humor to new heights.

Bioware's younger brother kinda saved the year with Neverwinter Nights 2, which could be described as Baldur's Gate 2 meets Icewind Dale 2, which is great, because these are my favourite games. From Baldur's Gate we’ve got the epic story reflecting the choiceless life of the Chosen One, and from Icewind Dale 2 we’ve got endless waves of enemies and more combat than in Halo, which is another of my favourite games, so I'm pretty sure we are dealing with an instant classic and a game of the year material here. Any game that features a githyanki proctologist [spoiler] who will remove a two handed sword that got stuck in your ass during a questionable anal game when you were a child [/spoiler] has gotta be good. Don't worry about getting lost in the game though, it's one of the most linear games I've ever seen, and even individual maps feature super linear maze-like designs, firmly leading you in circles to your destinations through waves of unavoidable enemies. Every now and then you are given a dialogue option that can help you avoid 5% of combat in an area, to remind you that it's not a Diablo clone, but a fully blown role-playing game.

The depth of the character system really allows for some good party design and this shows in combat. There are all sorts of combinations one can pull off that take advantage of the strengths of party members. You can focus on going for direct damage spells to quickly take out single targets or use status changing spells to reduce enemy resistances then send frontliners to clean them up. You can have spellcasters depend solely on spells at every turn or equip them with ranged weapons to cause some damage while saving spell points for more drastic situations. Or just have Bards play their instruments and Gadgeteers use their gadgets while spellcasters cast Stamina on them. Working with each character’s skill levels is also important. For instance an Alchemist may create potions but if he is not skilled at throwing them he may fumble and drop it on the party instead. In which case a Ninja might be a better choice given his excellence with thrown items. Frontliners who have problems with our of reach enemies can invest in ranged weapons, bomb throwing, or protecting weaker members by taking blows directed at them. You can also hire RPCs which may benefit the party by bringing in skills no one else in the party has. Eight characters not enough? Open a can of Canned Elemental on your enemies too. Dozens and dozens of ways to handle combat are available. And honestly, how many other games allow you to play as a Faerie Ninja?

The orcs in Gothic 3 are not some wild beasts, roaming the land, but a well organized tribal society that knows nothing but war and respects nothing but strength. No wonder they have finally won. The buggers have always dreamt of world domination, but were defeated and stopped at every turn, from The Lord of the Rings to Warcraft 3, until Piranha Bytes developers of equal opportunities gave them a chance to run the show. And you know what, it kinda worked. The war is finally over - a fact noted and appreciated by many humans who were sick and tired of it. The towns and settlements are properly guarded and managed. The slave business (trade, management, and hunting) is a booming industry that has even brought the hashashin experts from the south. Great employment opportunities are available for human mercenaries who don't think that hiding in caves & forests, playing Robin Hood, is a good career path.

5. You've also mentioned that you feel that a "purely turn-based system only addresses a minority of today's RPG audience". Even though I agree with you 100%, unfortunately, here is a simple question: why? Do you feel that the era of turn-based RPGs is over and no TB game, no matter how successful it is, can bring it back? Or do you feel that a TB game simply can not be successful these days, at least not the way a Baldur's Gate-like game can?

Bernd Beyreuther: That is a good and very interesting question. I don’t think that a round-based RPG can not be a success, quite the opposite, I played “Advance Wars� obsessively for several weeks on my DS not long ago. I do believe that you can still make turn-based games that reach the masses. In fact, we are working on several concepts in this direction, especially with the new portable systems in mind.

It is another question, whether an RPG that aims to captivate and entertain – which needs to have cinematic, dramatic, emotional aspects in addition to the rules and combat system – is well served by interruptions. I believe that the intellectual, pondering chess-like style of a TB game does not mix well with atmospheric elements, story and emotion, as it breaks the player’s immersion.

Augmenting the skills are traits, one-time purchases which enable new attack modes, or make a character better at managing the weight of his or her armor or weapons, or make certain types of attack more or less effective. Traits are point-buy and each has a unique cost, so no two traits are necessarily exactly alike or equivalent. We are presently planning to include negative traits as well, allowing you to "buy" points by taking a permanent hindrance.

2. You must have realized that the game won't sell as much as an action RPG or at least as a somewhat familiar RPG with orcs and elves and knights in shiny armors would. Yet you made it anyway. Why?

Our goal was to build games specifically for hard core role playing gamers. Both Mat and I had worked at video game companies before, but it didn't take much foresight to tell where the industry was headed. Overhead costs were soaring and people were becoming much more conservative with what kind of creative risks they were willing to take on a game. They lacked originality and required no thought whatsoever. So, we decided to proceed even though there was not so much money to be made initially. It was more important to us to build a sustainable business model based on the creation of good games. We thought it would be feasible because our margins would be lowered via exclusively distributing through the internet.

5. The game is being labeled as a fantasy RPG. What role-playing elements does it offer?

I would rather say that our game is more an adventure with RPG elements. First of all we have an advanced spell system, which is non-linear or offers a choice between enemy parties. Some quests or options of their accomplishment will be connected with your character development. And, of course, there will be character development. The hero has about 30 skills and a traditional for RPGs inventory/doll.

9. Tell us about factions. It's been mentioned that you can join more than one faction, and that you can leave a faction. Can you explain how that works? Also, why did you decide to move away from the "join one faction and stick with it" model? Any Orcish factions/clans?

We have increased the degree of freedom in most aspects of the game. To create a coherent gameplay, the guild-concept needed a little more freedom, too. The general idea is to turn limits into options. In the predecessors, joining a guild meant being forced into only one third of the game. So in fact one would have to play the game at least three times to get the big picture. In Gothic 3, the hero can pick out the plum jobs and sympathize with more than one guild, or with none. Whether or not a guild offers him a quest does no longer depend on his affiliation to the guild, but on its attitude towards the player.

13. How does Gothic 3 handle choices & consequences? How important are choices and what would they affect? Would my character (not the player!) ever get a reason to regret a previously made choice?

Gothic 3 is all about choices in the first place. Yes, there are great sword fights, powerful magic, a lifelike gaming world... but yet choices are the main gameplay element. The player can literally shape the world and influence the story through the way he's handling things. Most decisions have to be made in the field of human relations. The way the player is treating others influences their attitude towards him, and thus their cooperativeness depends on the right choice of words. With a dexterous tongue the hero can even talk a whole city into a revolution. This can also backfire on him, of course. If he falls out of favour with someone, he will most likely not get useful hints or lucrative quests. And yes, if the whole world wants him dead, he might at last regret his choices.

However, with Morrowind I think we saw that our kind of game appeals to a wider audience, given the game’s success among more casual gamers who are neither ‚hardcore’ nor ‚RPG geeks’., Gavin Carter

That quote is probably the best and most honest description of Oblivion I’ve ever seen. It’s a game for casual players. Hardcore fans of the series or RPG geeks need not apply. You shall not find depth or challenge in Oblivion.

7. Choices & consequences. CD Projekt has mentioned previously that different paths have different consequences, and that there are no right or wrong choices. Can you elaborate on that?

Because we present a fantasy world that has no true distinction between good and evil there really isn’t a right or wrong choice. The Witcher is morally ambiguous. Within the story there’s a large political struggle occurring between the races and Geralt is struggling with his own existence. As a lone wolf you are not affiliated with any group, but your reputation, based on your previous actions and choices, has a major impact your future actions and choices.

In Fallout 3, I wanted to make a serious attempt at balancing firearms through the availability of ammunition. I believed that ammunition as a valuable commodity made sense in a wasteland environment. Low-power ammo would be relatively common, but the stuff found in high powered rifles, machineguns, plasma weapons, etc. would be much rarer. The firearm specializations would have come through perks. I didn't really want to take depth away from firearms; I wanted to make firearm depth comparable to the depth of the unarmed and melee skills. As long as the nature of firearms and ammunition was made clear to the player, I think it would have worked.

Completing quests will have consequences, improving your relationship with some races, and completely pissing other races off. Also, those damn aliens lie to you and a seemingly innocent mission may turn into an insult to another race. I was once asked to deliver a rare animal specimen to a certain planet as an act of friendship from one race to another. Turned out, you have just delivered an abused ambassador back to his native planet in a cage. Needless to say, a few quests like that will ensure that next time you are in the neighbourhood, you will see battleships speeding toward you to inform in an up close and personal manner that they would really like to see you dead. If you do manage to land on a nearby planet, you will be taken to a local prison, which is a lot more fun than it sounds.

I take no offense to your honesty. But stay right where you are, a missile is arcing its way toward your home right now, and there is a lightsaber-wielding Jedi on top of it.

Okay, so character resonance - I do think Kreia was a deep character, personally, but I can see how you would feel that way with some other characters... people were strangely divided on Bao-Dur, for example, and G0-T0, while I enjoyed him and I thought his voice actor was awesome (Daran Norris from Team America), he never really clicked, and that's my fault. I also tried to add more personality to T3, but I'm not sure how well that turned out, either.

7. What other non-combat activities are in the game? What does a skill like Cartography do? How do they affect gameplay?

All the Skills are based on a 1-100 range, with 100 being godlike and would require a lifetime of devotion to achieve. Cartography is a good Skill to talk about: the automap in the upper right corner of the screen does not work at all until you have at least one point in your Cartography Skill. With just one point, your automap will work but it will only produce a crude outline of your surroundings. The more points you allot to your Cartography skill, the better the automap will look as color and details emerge. Eventually you can even get creatures and NPC locations to show up on the automap if your Skill rating gets high enough. Other non-combative Skills such as Lockpicking, Skullduggery (trap disarming), and Move Silently work the same way.

2. Turn-based vs real-time, your thoughts? Disclaimer: I'm not asking if Bioware would ever make a TB game or which system is better. I'm asking for your own opinion, preferences, even bias - anything goes.

I enjoy a good turn-based combat system. “Temple of Elemental Evil� did it very well, I thought, and I remember the first “X-Com� game being one of my all-time faves (though it’s not an RPG, of course). I remember when “X-Com: Apocalypse� came out, however, and it was going from turn-based to pauseable real-time combat and the fans of the series were in an uproar – me included – enough so that the developers put in a way to optionally use the old turn-based system instead. Much to my surprise I actually found that I enjoyed the real-time combat more. It was faster, and so long as I could still pause and give orders I still felt I had the ability to oversee and control everything that I wanted to. When I played “Baldur’s Gate� (which was before I started at Bioware), I found I really enjoyed the pauseable real-time combat there, too, even if it could get a bit hectic during large combats. Full real-time, however, the kind where you can’t give orders while paused – that stuff I just have no time for. It’s the main reason I don’t play most RTS games.