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nikolokolus

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Everything posted by nikolokolus

  1. nikolokolus
    It's difficult to critique a UI until you actually start using it, but as Zed points out above I can see a few "issues" cropping up with the way the portraits and hotbars are grouped together, but hey, it's a work in progress, so there's not much more to say until the game gets into beta and get my grubby fingers on it. Otherwise, great update Rob and nice peek behind the curtain.
  2. nikolokolus
    The level scaling I witnessed in Fallout New Vegas got it mostly right. I could tell that certain enemies were changing over time as I leveled, but it was mostly invisible and didn't make me roll my eyes like it did in Oblivion It was really no different in a game like Baldur's Gate really. The critical path of the game was scaled to your level (mostly) and if you really went off the beaten path you probably stumbled into some vampiric wolves or sirines before you were able to handle them.
  3. nikolokolus
    Not to start a war, but the combat in the IE games was mostly crap. Pathing was a huge problem, it was nearly impossible to block or otherwise keep heavy hitters off of your squishy mage types, tons and tons of trash mob fights and pretty substandard AI (everybody remembers kiting right?)
  4. nikolokolus
    On the bright side, Obsidian is freed from the idiotic constraints that D&D's alignment system puts on game-play; the "good" and "evil" options in dialogue should no longer be a concern. From what I understand the game is supposedly about interpersonal and inter-factional relationships and hopefully our dialogue choices will reflect that. But I'm not too worried about it after playing Fallout New Vegas and Alpha Protocol. The dialogue and its presentation of morality and ethics in those two games was top notch which leads me to think that the dialogue in P:E will mostly sound naturalistic and and won't be tied to "gamey" morality systems that we were stuck with in the past.
  5. nikolokolus
    Some blend of Baldur's Gate 1 and the Icewind Dale games would be fine by me. Although "ambiance" is kind of a nebulous concept, I guess I'm referring to a mix of art and design, a main protagonist that isn't some "Chosen One" douche bag, and a focus on exploration as much as narrative.
  6. nikolokolus
    Storm of Zehir's overland map was its best feature (the dialogue system wasn't to bad either) so I wouldn't mind that kind of map, but in this game with all of it's axonometric 2.5D environments and "old-skool" sensibilities, I'd like to see "ye olde" Baldur's Gate "parchment" map with areas of note accessible only after traversing one of the game's areas.
  7. nikolokolus
    The name Ixamitl (not the dress so much) instantly made me think of some words in the Basque language. Not to say that Obsidian was inspired by Basque culture, but that's the fun I guess in creating cultures from scratch; they can stoke peoples' imaginations in different ways.
  8. nikolokolus
    Personally I dig Tim's and Josh's take on the monk class. It's different, it has a lore context, and it seems like you can build a character concept around the class ... no matter how much it diverges from the original D&D conception of a monk (and the 1st ed. AD&D class had a lot of mechanical differences from the 3 - 3.5 incarnation). It all remains to be seen how everything fits together, but frankly the more original and less dependent on D&D the more excited I get. Not that I hate D&D and its core concepts, it's just nice to see Obsidian is putting their own creative stamp on the classes that we all take for granted instead of taking the easy way out and just rehashing the same old tropes.
  9. nikolokolus
    Blame Gary Gygax I guess?
  10. nikolokolus
    I pitched in enough money for beta access as an add-on during the kickstarter, but I've completely cooled on that. I'll end up choosing something else from the add-ons available because I really don't want to spoil this game for myself. Maybe some people don't mind spoiling the story and are happy to dig into the game early and if they paid for that privilege then I say good for them. However, Unless Obsidian gets really detailed and systematic feedback from people with beta access, the utility of a massive beta phase probably won't yield as much benefit as some people might think.
  11. nikolokolus
    Filthy casuals ...
  12. nikolokolus
    Precisely, it's just a money sink and a resource management game mechanic; no different from healing potions, limited capacity ammunition, spells-per-day, or gear with a wear and tear condtition. It doesn't have to be burdensome and in fact I think it could be kind of fun if done well.
  13. nikolokolus
    Any good RPG needs its share of ten foot poles, spikes, rope and yes, iron rations. It would be nice to buy days or weeks of party food and have that slowly deplete over time with the need to replenish supplies occasionally through purchase or foraging. Maybe this give the ranger, barbarian or druid something else to be useful for? It shouldn't be onerous and a giant chore, but it should be a small money sink and something that has to be managed ... or maybe this should be reserved for expert mode?
  14. nikolokolus
    That defense didn't work for guys that made Napster and ran sites like the pirate bay. But that excuse/defense work very well for american weapon industry, isn't it? You forgot to mention Hitler
  15. nikolokolus
    That defense didn't work for guys that made Napster and ran sites like the pirate bay.
  16. nikolokolus
    C'mon peeps. You know you wanna pledge. The editor alone has me drooling.
  17. nikolokolus
    Dynamic shadows from the scenery is almost certainly not going to be implemented ... not unless the environment artists/programmers can come up with some serious code-fu.
  18. nikolokolus
    What's more important, shadows that move in real-time or extra attention being given to gameplay, the feel of combat and the depth of the story? I know my vote goes for the content and not the "shiny bits" especially when it already looks so damned impressive already. That's not say that there aren't things left to be iterated on for the dynamic scene elements, but I'd hate to see them waste tons of time and money trying to get shadows that move across the landscape in real-time (unless that ends up being trivial to implement it).
  19. nikolokolus
    I want a pony!
  20. nikolokolus
    In a world that hasn't yet figured out the printing press, why are we to assume that this society would suddenly figure out mass production and Adam Smith economic philosophies? Hell, maybe there's a well organized Luddite faction in the game that seeks out and sabotages technology? Maybe the gods (or their agents) suppress technological advancement? There's a hundred plausible reasons to explain why a society might stall out at a given tech level. In practical terms It could be that there are no potatoes in this world, thus no abundant, cheaply produced, energy rich food, which means no increased birthrate, which in turn eliminates a large cheap labor pool, which in turn disallows the mass production of goods and stunts advancement. At the basest level. I'm guessing Obsidian wants to create a fantasy world because they'd like to possess an IP that they can revisit in future installments of Eternity games. If they want to make high-tech RPGs then why do they need to "break" this world? Wouldn't they just create a separate fictional world from scratch?
  21. nikolokolus
    Assuming this is a fictional universe subject to the whims of its creators and not "natural" forces of technological revolution, I'd say your fears are baseless.
  22. nikolokolus
    Go look up what a wheel lock firearm is and then come back and talk to me about your concerns over the "modern technology" that will be in this game. Secondly, just because a certain technological level is achieved in one fictional universe, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden it's on the fast track to industrialization. Hell the thing that really drove industrialization in the late 18th century wasn't the invention of the firearm (which was historically a hand-crafted weapon made by a gunsmith) it was the invention of the steam engine and a ready supply of coal. No matter the technological level of a society, if you don't have a cheap, abundant energy source then food production stays mostly at a subsistence level, populations don't expand geometrically, and industrialization never occurs.
  23. nikolokolus
    Far exceeded my expectations ... and those expectations were pretty dang high. If the game looks half this interesting and immersive, I'm going go spend 90% of my time just staring at the screen and forgetting to fight the baddies and talk to the NPCs. Uh-maz-ing.
  24. nikolokolus
    The people running kickstarter ought to be ashamed. They violated their own terms of service (particularly the "no funding my life" rule). That said, I don't see much point in camping out in the comments section and constantly spamming the same critiques over and over and over. If people want to flush their money down the toilet on that thing then I say let them. But it does make me wonder about the long-term stability of the platform when the rules seem to be enforced so erratically.
  25. nikolokolus
    This kickstarter really deserves some more love. I mean for god's sake they've got way more than the typical high concept stuff you usually see (didn't stop me from backing P:E or Torment of course). This game is practically already playable from the looks of things. Swen and David have done a great job of interacting in the comments section on the kickstarter page and Swen's blog are larian's website is very unvarnished and forthright. In any case, really hoping this can make it to 1 million, I think they could really make something special here. And god knows we could all use more good RPGs after so many console-ized pieces of poo foisted on to us since the advent of the Xbox 360 and PS3 started to really dominate game development.
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