Sinnorfin

I bring this topic up from seamingly being dead, but let me justify it by examining this feature a bit and hoping that future titles will make better use of visibility of the characters, I like this game very much, and i think it deserves better than be left behind a curtain of darkness obscuring most of the environmental art, and actually hindering tactical gameplay more than serving it. I for one think the gray layer is completely unneeded, the only purpose i see for its existence are the few sneaking sections of the game, where there are patrols moving, but even there, its dissapperance wouldnt take away anything from the experience as it is highly unlikely the party will be much affected by areas that were previously explored. The level design hardly calls for the grey fog. It's disapperance would only make the game more fun. Sneaking across Raedric's hold? Being unable to scout out patrol routes? Why not let you see those patrol routes but perhaps make them tighter, so that only characters with high skill of sneaking can make it? Remember that a roleplaying game should allways put the emphasis on the controlled character's skills rather than the player's skills, so these situations should be a test for your characters that you can play through not a metagame for the player to reload several times memorizing patrol routes and adjusting accordingly. The more expensive solution to this problem would be to separate maps into areas of visibility. For each of these areas of visibility assign areas to be uncovered from fog if a PC is standing there. Imagine a long corridor , which has a hole in it's wall, and beyond the wall, a small tunnel that leads to a huge cavern with fantastic giant rock formations and carvings. When you are in the corridor you can see all it's length, when in the little tunnel you see all of the little tunnel, a little slice from the corridor and a slice from the cavern, when stepping out into the cavern, the whole cavern gets out of fog. It lends to much better gameplay, making it meaningful to leave a character in a certain place (for example in a vantage point so the field below is scouted, or a doorway so you see the patrol coming in time )