Rabain

I like to mess around with portraits in my spare time, it's relaxing for some reason. I had already created something that looked like the old base male paladin from BG1 (currently my forum avatar) but it was Luckmann the other day that caught my attention when he mentioned wanting an Edwin portrait so I thought it would be interesting to see if I could re-imagine some of the other BG1 portraits using existing PoE portraits. They are all existing portraits cut up and thrown back together in photoshop. Not sure if I had any success, Jahiera and Dynahair are weak I think, but here is what I have so far. Human Paladin / Jahiera (?) as Nature Godlike / Edwin Odeisseron Dynaheir as Avian Godlike / Minsc as Aumaua / Imoen as Orlan

I think this is something worth releasing in and of itself. I'm sure there are plenty of players and hopeful Devs-to-be that would be interested in this insight into a Development Studio. As a backer I'd even go so far as to say I wouldn't mind if it was free to the public, if the intention was that it wouldn't see release other than to backers (no idea what the plan is).

It would work better if there where 4 satin drapes and they were centred directly behind the weapon set numbers, this way they would line up with the boxes below showing the equipped weapons. In the current version the vertical line of the drape with the V shape at the centre bottom distracts the eye from the symbols between them..

I was messing around with one of the portraits I saw for PE that looked like the original human paladin one from BG1 except it has the hand in front similar to Ajantis from BG1. I used a chin and neck from one of the other portraits to get rid of the hand, still haven't quite got things right.

Not sure if this is any better but I made some changes, less curved chest, slightly bigger bicep, beard, 5 o'clock shadow.

What would be the problem with enemies just checking if they are engaged, if the original target is nearest enemy and if not attack nearest enemy? This way they would get no Disengagement attack as they would just stop to attack the nearest enemy instead of passing through its engagement area and suffering an attack. The player would have to make sure the nearest party member was capable of taking that attack, be tanky, isn't that what we want? Alternatively be immune to Disengagement attacks until you are in melee range of your original engaged target. Alternatively only activate Disengagement attacks if Engaged for X seconds with the same target or if below X health already (simulating the weakened reaction to blocking an attack while trying to retreat from melee). I don't know if there are Disengagement abilities currently for any class but I think there should be, especially for melee. Melee should know how to retreat from combat, push your opponent or fake an attack and step back out of range, turn and flee. That can be simulated easily with some kind of Disengage ability but I guess that isn't really related to engaging in the first place.

As much as I like the IE border UI I really dislike losing screen space. Add the option for a transparency slider on the UI and it becomes acceptable.

No healing spells maybe but no healing items seems a bit too much. It is easy enough to make a potion or bandage that is a minor health buff but is only per day. It even makes sense, 2 bandages really have no more effect than one on the same wound, you don't drink a bottle of medicine in one go just because more is better right? It is kind of hard to believe that there is no basic medicine in this world, everyone would have to be brain dead not to realise that even sticking your hand over an open wound prevents rapid blood loss, oh look a piece of cloth wrapped around serves the same purpose. Instead it's a case of, I'll just light this fire, lie down for a bit and I'll be okay. How stupid are these people? It seems like this is a thing just because it is on a list somewhere...no healing. If we go along the lines that combat wounds are major while everyone else is using their herbal remedies for colds etc then characters need to rest for 4-6 weeks after each major combat and I think we can all agree that seems silly too. It is a game after all. This doesn't make the game easier, it makes it more realistic and more interactive. Trying to get a character to bandage someone mid combat, chugging a potion without getting hit in the face, both add to the gameplay. Health, Stamina and Damage are just numbers. No healing doesn't make sense except from the perspective of making the game more hardcore, so just add no healing to the list of things in hardcore mode. Make the campfire double healing effects and you got your adventuring day extension with more realism and resource based, cleaning wounds with hot water and bandage, boiling up potions etc, makes sense to me. Infinite potion chugging in the IE games was bad but going to the opposite extreme seems just as bad to me.

From looking at some of the recent gameplay interviews Josh has done it seemed to me that there wasn't much looting going on. I don't know if it was just Josh or whoever made the gameplay footage having gone through so many times they just skipped it but the first looting of anything seems to happen after several kills and then they go into a cave. Usually at the beginning of games we are killing rats and looting barrels etc and that is okay but when you kill wolves and other people I'd expect there to be something. At the beginning cash is always an issue and I can understand limiting intake but enemies wearing armour etc that don't even have 1 copper on them or some armour or weapon to take just feels wrong to me. When you have nothing and you kill someone who looks like they have something (nice armour, weapons etc) but it turns out their armour and weapons are glued to them it just feels bad. Throw me a copper for my troubles even if it is via broken armour and weapons. Maybe this isn't a big deal as the start area seem fairly short but if there is more to those areas than we saw before the biawac and the cave I hope looting is a bit more than just unlootable bodies. Half the fun is clicking that dead enemy and that feeling of expectation as to what I might get.

I think before people start taking something Josh said in an interview as gospel they really need to look for more information. You can't just say because Josh said things are hard that they are too hard for fans, how do you know that a fan isn't actually a better programmer than anyone at Obsidian for example? As much I like Obsidians work, the people who work there are not the best in the world at everything. What if all these passes are unnecessary to an area actually working but just add effects, lighting etc that maybe can be gotten around some other way? Need information. You start simple and work forward, thats how most modding begins. If your first area is an unlit black surface with no doors who cares, if you can get it working in the game you have taken a step forward. Similar difficulty was talked about when people started modding the IE games but over time modders developed tools to make what seemed extremely difficult much more user friendly. Perhaps what Obsidian don't have is the time and the money to invest in developing all these tools, modders on the other hand have as much time as they are willing to commit, even if it takes years. The IE games have proven that. Also Josh no doubt underestimates some of the people who are fans of the IE games and are watching PE if not taking part on the forums. People who grew up with RPGs, the IE games and are now 3d Modelers, Programmers etc in their own right. Even if Obsidian are willing to provide information but can't provide tools perhaps they would be willing to give the modding community a head start by providing that template area mentioned above as a Unity package. You would assume Obsidian will have some form of Patcher for the game right? Well there is the beginning of a mod installer too. I'm not trying to belittle what Josh said I'm just saying that most of the time where there is a will to do something, there is usually a way.

I think limiting yourself to real world credibility with regard to usage for materials is rather...limiting. You are saying bronze is worse than steel in every way yet don't blink an eye at a guy who throws fireballs out of his hands? We can very easily have bronze, iron, steel etc and have them all compete with each other once we layer any kind of magical forging on top. Maybe different metals conduct magic differently, maybe certain metals simply will not work with magic at all. For all we know steel armor might be great at stopping the lead ball from a firearm while being less effective than a bronze armor at stopping a fireball from setting you on fire. I know I'd be very disappointed if every weapon in the game was steel this, steel that, steel steel steel just because steel is stronger and everything else is pointless. Then we could also mix in the various races and their use of different materials. Maybe the Glanfathans use primarily lesser metals but are generally magically imbued in some way or maybe Orlans use Bronze because it is easier to mine where they are and over time their Bronze is Masterwork and considered the equal of at least Iron. With a fantasy setting you can make up pretty much whatever you want so long as you have some form of readily usable magic in the setting. I'd rather see that type of variety than everywhere just being Iron, Masterwork iron, Steel, Masterwork Steel and Mithril.

I think people are focusing too much on heavy hitter. To me heavy hitter means he does a lot of damage but when someone focuses on him he takes a lot of damage, that is the trade for doing a lot of damage, otherwise it isn't going to be balanced. You won't want your rogue running ahead of everyone else straight into the front line of the enemy, you will want him either flanking or stealthed for an attack in the rear. You will not want him going face to face with anyone if there is a Defender type in your party that could take those blows instead. You won't be able to just stick a shield and some plate on a rogue and have the best of everything, again that won't be balanced. There will be some trade off, either some abilities will not work in heavy armor or the abilities you need to take to wear and use heavy armor / shields will mean there are a handful of abilities you didn't take to increase damage. I think the latter will be more likely as this works for any class. Want to stick a mage in some armor? Well maybe you need to train heavy armors etc and therefore you have not taken some other ability that would boost your magical firepower. Meanwhile a rogue in leather armor is making the damage of your plate wearing shield bearing rogue look like some wench slapping a handsy patron in the local Inn. Maybe if you want to solo a rogue or mage it will be worth investing in armors or shields for when brute force is required. Otherwise the goal is synergy within the group, the Defenders hold the line and take the incoming damage while the heavy hitters whittle down the opposition and the Support keeps everyone fighting as long as possible.

Fighter - Brawler ; fights Wizard - Thaumaturge ; it's magic Ranger - Archer ; does what it says on the tin Rogue - Braggart ; ****y swaggering fighter Paladin - Knight ; less of the god more of the skill Priest - Votary ; worships something Monk - Scourge ; of both himself and others

Arboreal: root = arbor = latin Boreal: root = boreas = greek Did you not understand what I was saying? You cannot have latin and greek derivation of words in a game where the language is based on roots from a prehistory that does not include latin or greek. Therefore it is perfectly fine to consider that in the game world Boreal derives from Arboreal.

The only reason the IE games felt like a buff party before a fight was the sheer number of spells and the rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock thing going on. Personally I think eliminating prebuffing is unnecessary or at least we could do with an explanation of how spell defences work. I mean there is no need for 10 buffs if the offensive spells being used are balanced. Prebuffing could be useful for spells like a Stoneskin armor buff if you were trying to solo a mage or something. A spell that isn't really a prebuff but just a generic defence spell you maintain on your character as much as you can. I mean if Stoneskin can be cast and lasts 8 hours then it is just a management thing rather than a prebuff. I'd rather have the mana pool (or whatever it is) to cast a handful of both offensive and defensive spells in battle than have to spend 2 minutes before a fight buffing everything in sight or have to die first in order to figure out I should use protection from fire instead of protection from cold when the big bad guy casts his doom spell mid fight.

Maybe it is just a derivation of arboreal? Arboreal, 'boreal...boreal. It is a fantasy setting after all, they could be called Northern dwarves even if they lived in the far south just because that's where they came from 10000 years ago and that's still what they tell everyone they meet.

Just have a Pony Express type of Post Office thing in major towns and some villages. You can just check the mail when you arrive in town, how often you do this is up to yourself and reflects just how good a lord you are for your people. For major attacks you could just get hints in advance of bandit attacks increasing and give orders to hire some extra guards or whatever. There isn't going to be much fun for any player in an overwhelming attack you had no way to plan for. It is up to you to hire / train guards or build enough defences to keep your stronghold safe while you are away.

I don't feel like BG2 ever gave me more than I could handle. In some ways Athkatla made me feel a bit like BG1 before Cloakwood and BG city. There was a lot to see and do, after which things became much more linear. The only thing I'd worry about with staggering quests is that it could lead to either a large number of quests that go undone either because they are simply left behind as you move on with the main story or you couldn't be bothered once you reach a certain level and are ready to move a bit faster. This could have the opposite effect of the intention, if you want the world to feel more busy with staggered quests you run the risk of it feeling empty if there are only X number of quests available at one time. What I'd rather see them do is focus on what games like BG2 got badly wrong (Irenicus Dungeon) rather than something that was a big bonus for most people with a minor inconvenience (the number of quests in Athkatla). Irenicus Dungeon is great first time and gets much more frustrating / boring with each play through, whereas for me at least Athkatla has so many options that each playthrough felt different as the order in which I could do things was quite large.

I think Resolve will prevent Might from being pumped for a tank/healer. Without cheating you can't really pump all stats. If you are on the front line getting hit all the time, being able to cast spells isn't going to really help if you get interrupted all the time due to a low Resolve. As a tank you'll want some decent Constitution score and as a caster you'll want a decent Int value...can't have everything! Might is fine as a description of the stat, just the short version Mig is odd sounding. Given the amount of space on the character sheet they could just use the full word for all the stats. It will really depend on Int I think for casting if Might becomes overpowered. If the AoE range is decent without a big Int score you could pump Might for damage and still get a decent hit out of an AoE spell. If your AoE covers one enemy and 2yds around him with a mediocre Int then I think casters will want Int. As for healing, I thought we were still on the "no traditional healing spells" model? If that is the case there isn't much to worry about with regard to Might and Healing, healing could just be things like paladin abilities that buff stamina for a short period. Correct me if I'm out of date on anything...or just plain wrong. I can't really see the downside to the current system considering the developers are the ones designing the encounters, they can make it work.

The text to the left does pop a bit more indeed. Also it is worth looking at the image as a whole rather than focusing in on some text and then comparing it to something else. You won't ever have that option in game. That being said, on the Records screen the text does appear to float somewhat and I think that is because the white text is so different to the background, to the left on the Stats section the text is matching the paper background. Maybe some tiny dropshadow on the text to make it a part of the background? The thing to remember is that this is a photoshop mockup, we can give our opinions and preferences but a lot of us have different tastes. Obsidian can just take it all on board and make their own decisions. It is by no means the final version but I think the layout is not terrible and is a very good place to be at right now, I think most would agree with that.

Yep, I already made a post about it a couple of pages ago. What can be seen can never be unseen. That's what put me on to it, to give credit where credit is due. At the time I hadn't noticed that she was a paladin as I read the update on my phone. I thought it was worth highlighting again. I feel bad, well not really, maybe a little bit.

I guess it's too many years of MMO's where most paladins are Palalol or Paladina, any name with Pal as it's start on a paladin class is going to hurt. It's all good though, I usually play a paladin on my first play through of any RPG that has the class so I probably won't have room for Pallegina, I can pretend she doesn't exist. The least they could do is give me the dialogue option to comment on her name.

I hope Josh is at least planning to guide the voice actors when the time comes.

It all looks great so far, good job. On the Character Sheet perhaps it might be an idea to Bold or Colour the stat numbers at the top if they are being modified in some way by gear or spells that may be removed. I know we can see this below but scrolling up and down to know something is not as good as knowing it is being modified at a glance. I'd also agree as mentioned above that double spacing is too much unless this space is reserved for exceptionally long modifier lists (and the spacing can't auto-expand). On the name of Pallegina (I'd pronounce it Pal-lay-jeena), I initially liked it when I saw it, had the same flavour as Giovanna. However considering that she is depicted as a female paladin, it is too odd, basically reads as Paladin with a vagina and once you've read that it's stuck in your head. If she was any other class,okay....sorry!

I guess it is down to what players want. Bumping for some is distasteful, but a decent way for the party to step around each other without taking a trip halfway around the map. I'd be happy if the AI just bumped like in BG2 and just notified me if they couldn't get through somewhere and were actually considering taking a long route before actually taking it. The last thing I want to see is someone I wanted to move to the front start a marathon journey through some side halls that would actually get him 10yds to the front 5 minutes too late.