DarkWanderer

So... what you're saying is really: "collaborative checks in which 6 idiots with low lore can figure out a complicated task sounds bad"? 'Cause all I mentioned was collaborative checks, in general. You could easily limit the check, based on whatever criteria you wanted, to, say... 2 participants. Thus, if TWO people couldn't add up to 18 (for example) Lore, then you couldn't overcome it. Heck, you could even set a minimum threshold. "You can't apply your Lore skill unless you have at least 5. If you have enough people with 5-or-higher to hit 20, then congrats." That sort of thing. The idea is mainly to have a reason for more than one person to have higher ratings in the same skill. Not to just make sure every point in everyone's skill always matters. Also, in regards to the general discussion of how to regulate high skill checks and their rewards... what if, sometimes having too high of a skill actually hurt you? You know, sort of the "we're in a hostage situation, and they just found out Steve here can hack the security system, so now they've got him doing their bidding." Granted, being good at bluffing would negate such a scenario. But, even so, I'm curious to know if there might be applicable situations. More with performed actions than spoken info, maybe. Like... Athletics. You couldn't really bluff that. "Oh, I'm totally out of shape, even though my abs are more defined than a vocabulary word in a language book." This really applies to more general factors, and not just skills. Such as... equipment. Maybe there could be a check when you approach a certain person. If you're wearing common stuff, you're treated one way. If you're wearing all the best gear, he doesn't trust you. Something like that. Annnnywho, I'm thinking up pretty weak examples right now. Maybe I'll try again later. Well, if there were such restrictions, then why not i guess - wouldn't bother me at least xP As for negative effects of high level skill - sounds interesting, though it shouldn't be used too much - just in several occasions (per skill). About equipment value - sounds awsome - i was actually thinking about such things during many RPGs i've played. Eg. when you are wearing very expensive eq some peasants would be intimidated (or act submissive) just by your looks. If you enter some areas (bandit camp, bloody sect lair) with random eq - it would mean immediate fight, but if you bother to obtain this specific group clothing and equip it, you could not only enter the camp without alarming anyone, but maybe trade with group merchant, find out some usefull info, get some gifts from group members, get some mini quests or even do alternative way of completing the "big" quest. If you enter eg. Bleak Walkers HQ in some cheap clothes everyone would be laughing their asses off, but if you had good fighting gear, everyone would act towards you respectfully. Though all of this had to be also influenced by your reputation, at least most of the times.

I hope it would be continuation with possibility of implementation saves from PoE1 - i always liked that in the games (eg Mass Effect, Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky etc). I do hope that the level cap will be raised ... a lot (like 25 or even 30), with advanced character development (more variety of skills, talents, some perks). We dont know yet much about music in first PoE - but i've heard that it wasn't so important for creators - i hope they will put more attention to music in their future productions - as the good music could make HUGE difference in game experiance. Bigger world - imo ENDLESS Paths of Od Nua should have like 100 levels (like Palace of the Dead from Tactics Ogre) not 15 - i hope that they will do somethink like that in the PoE2 or even in the expansion to 1 - some epic dungeon with EPIC challenges and monsters - eg each 10th level with Super Boss, and 100th level with ULTIMATE Boss - that would be sweet. I think there is no need for mentioning that i expect epic plot and dialogues. I hope they will make some nice puzzles and riddles - in which people have to actually think - the joy from completing hard task is always great. More races and portraits. Like 1-2 new classes.

well - sure , maybe 6 companions each one having skill level 5 - could solve together level 6 or even 7 task - but in my opinion same 6 companions solving task of level 30 (6*5) sounds rediculous - and following this - it is impossible to solve hardest (genious level) checks with bunch of mediocre people - you should need genious for that (no matter if you have 2, 6, 20 or 100 soldiers - if none of them are profficient in disarming mines - they wont cross minefield - they only can move around (or die trying to cross/disarm)). EDIT: Besides - as far as I know the paper&pen games are all about tactics and strategy - the realism in such games matters very little - in PC role-playing games - as the tactical part have a big impact, the MAIN - most important component is role-playing part (in which words like "realistic", "probable" etc. matters).

collaborative checks sounds bad - idiots with low "lore" can't figure out complicated task - even if there are 6 of them. At least thats my way of looking at this ... Well - thats true in case most games (the ones which are good to play once - and never come back to it again), but in games that give you many hours of fantastic gameplay, many ways of completing a game, many decisions to make, many classes to play - basically the game that you will be happy to replay many times (like BG and hopefully PoE) it would be better (IMHO) to gain somethink from specific skill level - could be somethink huge (like rare eq or acces to new quests), could be somethink moderate (like alternative way of completing the quests/ unblocking shortcuts) or not-really-minor (like some aditional lore info, entertaining conversations or easter eggs). Your second point is valid however - though i'm thinking that it could be prevented by scripting the most benneficial checks in that way - that storywise and mechanicwise it would be natural that only your main character skillpoints would be checked (or some other solution that would fix this problem). The "alongside"-thingy would be good, if there was somethink like critical failure - that would prevent you from doing rechecks (like in case of picking lock you could break it and it wont open anymore no matter what (or in case of chests you could also smash them, but damage some stuff inside or in case of door - it (smashing) could have bad consequences like allarming guards/owner - in case of town you would be punished verbally or materially and in case of dungeons/enemy areas - your oponents would be battle ready and well prepared for your arrival (higher ammounts of enemies?) OR in case of pushing the boulder out of your way you could strain your muscle/tendon and it would prevent you from rechecking this for some time - debuff-like) - but as far as i know in PoE you can do rechecks infinitely (though now it wont change a thing since there is no chance of success) and come back to specific check later on - when you improve this skill - so the success rate is pointless if you can recheck everythink infinitely xP PS: I hope that above text make sense, since I'm tired and I'm not 100% sure that whatever i'm writing is coherent xP

Thanks for quick answer I agree - they should give some very high checks - even if its just 1-2 for each skill - though having some nifty rewards for those

Did anyone bothered to calculate the maximal (in case we put all points into 1 skill and we play class favouring this skill) obtainable skill (mechanics, athletics, lore etc) level at top character level? And do we know whats the maximal checks for each skill (eg. which level of mechanics is needed to open the hardest lock or which level of athletics is needed to survive/pass the hardest scripted event)?

Im usually playing as male, though i like to have many females as companions

Basically - MORE EVERYTHING xP

Well - its a good point, however if you had to run over all merchants to sell your loot it would be pain in the ... They could though give gold limit to most merchants, but leave like 3 wealtiest in the biggest cities - which could explain that they have money to buy our entire junk and more...

Another class could be eg adventurer (traveler/explorer/alchemist/hunter) - which would have some skills improving exploration, ammount of collected ingredients (herbs,hides, iron ores), improved crafting/enchanting capability, gold looted, better chance to get rare loot, improved traps detection and such , but at same time with poor fighting abilities. Or they could add coresponding talents to utility talents for every class.

It would be nice if we could see the difference of approach to our player based on the race - give several scenes with specific NPCs playing eg as human and later as death godlike (I do realize that it would be hard to show during gameplay, and its not very probable, but still). Oh and this time, I hope that we can hear some music (music volume: max, surrounding sounds:off) of the different areas. Still - the most important is commentary - we will play the game soon enough, but the devs words are (...HOLY?) the most significant now imo ...

I asked this questions not long ago in another topic, but this is unknown info so far, so it would be cool if Josh (or whoever will be presenting) answer them during PAX: 1.) How looks companion advancement at the beginning of their membership in our party: let say we have party where everyone is at level 7, then we meet another companion and want to add him/her to our team - what level will he/she have - is it fixed level for specific character (eg. Sagani will always join as with lvl 6) or their level will scale to our - so it'll also be at level 7? And then - we can only influence this companion advancement from that point or can we distribute their talents starting from level 1 (maybe there will be feature in the options to enable/disable auto-levelling)? 2.) Are there any possibility/plans of adding 3 more companions (barbarian,rogue,monk) to the game - maybe in DLC/expansion pack? As the mercenary creation feature is awsome, and i will use it surely on my n-playthrough , it is always better to have some companions with actual "soul and character" - especially in this type of game. 3.) How strong impact have our actions on the companions? Eg. playing as a good guy, while having paladin from "dark" order as a companion will affect his talents - or just what he says? I know that this matters when our main char is paladin, but is it true for companions as well? Can companions leave us if they dont share our means/perspective?

Oh, and since we are on this topic - the name "godlike" isn't bugging me as much as "cipher" - in my opinion old and clear name "psionic" would be A LOT better ...

As i love the idea of new classes in the expansion i would rather go in different direction eg. summoner (or something similar - necromancer, beast tamer)(which obviously goes with multiple variants of summons for all ocasions and auras/buffs empowering them). Maybe some new race and class specific only to this race - like Winged® Vartan© (influence of Tactics Ogre played recently xP) or (since we are already in TO topic) Fusilier (profficient with gunpowder - so active skills for pistols/muskeets + some explosives). Though Mechanics ain't bad either Although I would probably more enjoy increased level cap (new skills/talents for old classes) than new class xP Ofc both would be perfect ^^

Awsome!!!

Well as for "Godlike" - the similar race was in NWN - Planetouched (wchich were subdivided into air/earth/fire/water genasi, Aasimars and Thieflings). They could also use name "Celestial" or some name which already exists in RPG lore (like Aasimar or Deva for instance) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_planar_races) or create brand new name for them.

First playthrough will be with Aumaua Wizard as a main character (always starting with magic classes ). As for the reason - i take race which have the best stats/abilities for specific class or from the story/role-playing view is the coolest/most appropriate. In this case its obviously the former. And due to this I do sometimes play as halflings (thiefs) and gnomes (mages) - e.g. in NWN series.

i dont have such worries - just several playthroughs will resolve any class problems xP (besides, i dont know if you know but you can command your companions and lvl them up - so as long you choose rogue as your main character, you can have fun playing all those classes in a single playthrough xP)

They do, but lately more in the backer beta forums. Here's a nifty tracker which digs out the dev postings for you: [ http://pedevtracker.azurewebsites.net/ ] Josh especially is pretty good at answering questions on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/jesawyer/ ] and Tumblr [ http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/ ] also. Cool, thanks

You're asking us or the developers? Because there is no way one could know about most of your answers since noone has played the game itself (just a limited beta). Still, we know there is going to be an expansion (maybe adding some more companions too?) and, taking from the developers' early updates and Obsidian's/Black Isle's past works, we can assume there will be high companion interaction. Do developers show up here once in a while and share their knowledge with people? Well i'm asking anyone knowledgable really - I'm super hyped about this game, but i'm not checking every single update and info about it, so many things are unknown to me. I thought that most of my questions would be known by now to most people since its not that long till the premiere (26 march - if they dont move it again, but i'm pretty sure that was the last reschedule). And even if nobody knows it yet, i hope someone who have contact with developers, will read my questions, ask devs about them and then pass their reply to us.

Well about changing portraits in game - as far as i know its not known yet (though i doubt that), however surely there will be some fan-made editor with such option (it exist for other Infinite Engine games, so i dont see a reason why wouldnt it be done for PoE ... and besides i think i read about it some time ago that (i think) EEKeeper wants to implement PoE editor in it (hope i didnt broke any forum rule just now xP )

Imho portraits are A LOT better than screenshots ... but its just me xP

True - well there are things much more important than portraits - so i prefer that they improve other aspects of the game, rather than "waste" time at portraits xP

The ideal would be: (number of classes (11) * number of sexes (2) * number of races (each of godlike subrace as a separate race) (9)) = 198 pictures. Well - small chances for that to happen, thats why i'm counting on wonderful modders society

What are you talking about? We wasn't talking whether expansion will exist or no - but what form will it have. And we haven't even once mentioned PoE 2 ...