If this means that Obsidian makes a game that isn't half assed, it would be awesome but I'm not going to hold my breath. Every time I bought an Obsidian game I've felt dirty and cheated. I won't donate a cent and I won't buy the game unless there's a free demo I can try.

Actually, that does look odd. What I wanted to say is: The ones from Unicron for opinion and others for information. Apart from that, I count more on recommendations from people here than of, lets say IGN. Because after some time you get the gist of what people like and what not. Especially reading through the Skyrim thread made me aware that I would like the game. And I do, oh how I do.

I've already mentioned Commandos 2 in this thread. It's no RPG, but it's a good example of how you can take a fixed top down perspective, apply a 3rd dimension to that and not lose anything in the process in terms of environmental complexity and interaction. As for top down 3D RPGs, there is no shortage of examples already. But yes, there's a definite bias towards bringing the player closer to the action.

Very true, art is subjective.

Being able to explore the Planescape setting in first person would be cool.

I'm going to have to vote No on a new Planescape. Obsidian has a bad tendency of making mediocre sequels to excellent games, NVN2, KoTOR2, Fallout: New Vegas (I consider it a sequel because Fallout 3 was a sequel to Fallout 2 in the same was WoW is a sequel to Warcraft ToC).

Planescape was a game where you could play with any style and still be rewarded with a unique yet successful game. But with the modern FPS having sabotaged every genre, especially the RPG, I have little faith that Obsidian would treat story, character development, and alternative quest lines for different playing styles on the same level as the combat. My second concern is the diluted level of detail. Modern RPGs need a ton of recorded dialogue to reach half the level of detail in the text based Planescape. In order to come close to the level of detail in the original they will have to put together the largest amount of recorded dialogue for any game to date. Unless they opt for text based and completely sacrifice the 18-24 demographic I doubt people out there should get too excited about this.

I want a game like the original Planescape without it being a sequel, but I fear if Obsidian went through all the trouble to get a Planescape game up and running they would lose sight of the core fanbase and instead chase after the wallets of the rabid Microsoft FPS fanboys. They would be better of starting with a blank slate and creating a fantasy game aimed at the 30s demographic who still enjoy the late 90s isometric RPG. If Chris Avellone pitched a completely new game concept I would be interested, but until that happens I'll not hold my breath over this.

Would it be gamepad/controller enabled? Derp.

In the interest of keeping costs down and development time manageable...

I'd like to see them take their Dungeon Siege 3 engine, implement an optional turn based combat mode, and set the game in their Alpha Protocol IP with a similar skill system and branching spy story.

Jagged Alliance meets Evil Genius.

I honestly cannot understand why people think KOTOR is an excellent game. Do you mean it gameplay wise here or something? I reinstalled it recently since I've been playing KOTOR2 a lot again and wanted to compare, and I suspect I'm losing 1 point of IQ for every hour I play it. It's like reading Cliffnotes adaptation of children's (ages 3 to 6) book.

Back to topic - Planescape is out of question due to copyrights, I'm afraid, but hey, Obsidian's perfectly capable to create their very own crazy setting. Anyway, what I would love to see the most is Alpha Protocol's reactivity sans its annoying shooter bits, no matter the setting. Unless it's steampunk and then I'll have to sell myself to bank again just to fund them. :(

Too bad Planescape is out of question. It's such a diverse setting that I cannot help to wonder why there aren't more games based on it, while D&D has been done do death. Torment was based in Sigil and offered only glimpses of other planes. I would like to see more of the extreme good and evil planes. Even focusing on one offers almost limitless possibilities, considering all the layers, deities, notable places and creatures in it.

It's funny/interesting how people's experiences with Obsidian's games differ -- as much as I enjoyed the original NWN's Hordes of the Underdark expansion, I felt the vanilla campaign and Shadows of Undrentide were very weak and consider NWN2 and its expansions a much better series overall. The same goes for Fallout: New Vegas vs. Fallout 3 -- I got bored with FO3 pretty darn fast, but love FO:NV and am very impressed with the DLC's they made for it. I have never considered Obsidian being a developer aiming for the "18-24 demographic". Their stories, characters, and themes have always felt deeper, more mature and more interesting to me than what most other developers are putting out today -- especially companies like BioWare who, for the past 5-7 years, have been blatantly obvious in their attempts to make their games appealing to EVERYONE and their grandmother, their blind dog, and their retarded cousin jimmy. I also think that aiming for certain demographics, opting for full voice over, making stuff "actiony", etc. are things that make publishers drool... And seeing how a kickstarter project would allow them to develop a game "without having to argue with a publisher", as Chris puts it, I think that kinda stuff would not really affect them here. I think that Obsidian is the most likely candidate in the industry today to do what you suggested and, again, I don't really understand where your impression that they're the type of company that would "chase after the wallets of rabid FPS fanboys" comes from? Either way -- from the comments to Chris' blog post it seems most people agree with your suggestion (and so do I) so we'll see if anything comes from this. The key here is that it would allow Obsidian to make a game that they really want to make, and that the fans really want them to make, without any of the usual publisher hassle. There's great potential here.

My opinion as well, it's Bioware's biggest derp in my opinion. I get soooooo bored whenever I try to play it. Never finished it.

Regarding the story and NPCs I'd fully agree, my own gripes with NWN2 are more on the technical side. Besides, if you just compare NWN and NWN2 purely as single player games with official campaigns to play through, there's no doubt that NWN2 is much more interesting, but the original concept of NWN and what makes it great was not the campaign but its modding ability, that it's an easy tool for everyone to tell their own stories, plus its multiplayer mode. From what I hear in NWN2 it's much harder for a single person to create a good module, let alone whole worlds, and the multiplayer mode doesn't appear to be as smooth as the one of NWN (in any case it's much more demanding in terms of resources). They chose to make the overall quality of the official single player product superior but disappointed many in the modding and multiplayer community.

You remember that awesome science fiction triology you loved as a kid. And how psyked you were when they did a prequel! And how great that turned out to be....

This is how I feel about a PS:T sequel. Even if it's only a spiritual successor.

Obsidians biggest hit (under the brand) was imo Alpha Protocoll, because it was unique in a lot of aspects and was just great entertainment. Yes New Vegas was also great, but that was easy to achieve as a lot of groundwork was already there.