Wombat

Hmmm, very likely. Yeah, so don't bother. It's O.K. by my side.

O.K. I agree with the idea but I don't like to change the user name. So, just increased my pledge by 8USD while keeping the reward same. Don't bother putting my name since I have no ploof except the pledge must have been slightly increased. In any case, I'm increasing my pledge till the end of the Kickstarter.

That doesn't seem to be a strong argument. I've seen philosophies that define gods as omnipresent and even non-sentient forces. Which ends up meaning gravity and electromagnetism are gods if you think about it. So is someone that believes in gravity not an atheist because they agree in a force that another philosophy declares to be god?Yeah, if someone thinks he can utilize such power, it sounds like he is an atheist - like Mechanism, which regards the world as a gigantic machine. However, it's just a matter of definition, though. I any case, it's the same principle which makes me think that, if the designers define soul mechanics too clearly, it just makes there are two kinds of technologies.

I don't deny that, either. At the same time, though, God in the Bible can be brutal, and Christians, too. So, who is "amoral" and brutal here? As I wrote, even under different cultural schemes, human beings have something common as well as uncommon. Employing various ideologies, ways of thinking and of lives to explore humanity is, I think, the core concept of PE.

Basically, I agree and they can also be sympathetic and understanding just like human-beings. At the same time, I cannot but feel this view of "amoral" gods are established by other religious schemes especially Christian culture, which even has the tendency of denying part of sexuality. Greeks are more open to naked bodies, for example. Also, these "amoral" gods played models of virtues a certain classes (e.g. militants - Spartans are known to be an eager worshiper of him) and symbols of community (Athena). Being "amoral" from a view point of other cultures don't necessarily mean that they are malicious. In any religious/ethical schemes, there are human lives which may have something both common and uncommon. Religious variety was well done in Rune Quest - the designers wrote supplements in the way that how each members of religious schemes see the worlds and people under other religious schemes. I think this would fit to what Obsidian is doing but it cannot be the only way. I like some ideas from Obsidian but, yeah, I may feel bit bitter with the presentation of gods in D&D settings. That said, generally speaking, it is true that larger rooms for interpretations would make the world feel deeper, allowing the players to interpret/explore. Oops...I guess I'm spending too much time on these boards. Damn, you Obsidian! Belated thanks to the update.

To maintain power? Power from/ over what? How? Over the people. They are probably either powered by faith (like in Discworld) or just powerful who are very mortal and need followers because of their limitations. In that, they don't need to be malicious but my curent concern is that this may make them mere human beings with special powers.

Wonder how much room for interpretations allowed in the soul factor. The truth seems to be that there exist the cycle of souls, which makes, outside of the attempts to analyze this soul system, other religious interpretations of the worlds are untrue and lies. This, basically, means there are two types of technologies in PE world - one can be found in our world while the other is unique to PE world, which tries to reveal the mystery of soul magic. Except that the their technology is still at Renaissance level at most, this reminds me of Arcanum. Related with this, does the gods exist in this world? This may make soul factor less mysterious. How about refraining from calling all the polytheist concepts are untrue? If "the gods" are not visible and can be only contacted through ritual and/or someone like "awakened" souls (shamans and/or priests), for example, they may be powerful souls in different planes. IMO, one of absurd thing in the Forgotten Realms' setting was that the gods actually came to the world. I know it is still early to judge and it's my preference that there should be varieties in interpretations of the world to explore more aspects of humanity, though. So a crossbow bolt would be too slow to break the veil? Because I imagine it would be a lot cheaper and reliable to use. Well, speaking of which, conventional whips is much faster than even these projectiles and exceed the speed of sound, causing sonic boom.

I once had a similar system for tabletop RPG magic, with different runes. Each rune had a corresponding skill value, and gave its value to the spell's value total. As you grew in level, you could use more runes in a single spell, and individual runes became stronger because your corresponding skill increased. Combining different runes altered the spell's effect (eg. Fire + Blood was a blood boiling spell, but when you added a Blessing rune to it, any time an attack drew your blood, it became a little gout of flame, damaging melee attackers). The different features of the same spell (range, damage, AoE, duration, etc.) was influenced by the order of the runes (if you put Blessing in the first place, the duration increased, if Fire, the damage, if Blood, the range... etc.). Players had a lot of fun experimenting. Problem is, it would be too much work to implement such a system to be worth it. When the number of symbols increased, it can get quite confusing, too. I came across a similiar system.

With IE, what bugged me was that, if I order magic users to use ranged, they try to near the enemy since their weapons tend to be short-ranged. The problem with this is that it breaks the formation and letting them near the enemies (while they are as weak as flowers). Wasn't there an option to keep the formation just letting them shoot what entered their ranges? BTW, I'd like to have detailed script commands, too.

I think there must be a certain kind of resource management game-play which makes threat area adventure interesting, too. Quick list about possible "degenerations" (Off the top of my head) Severe injuries/Disease/Acid/Poisons Possible solutions: Medical treatment/healing magic/healing potions Possibly related skills: Medical/Brewing potions Fatigue penalty/sleep/hunger/thirst Possible solutions: 6-8 hours resting/consuming food rations Possibly related skills: Survival/(Maybe)Spot(to find a safer place) Spell casting ability/Special ability Possible presentaions: Rune Quest-like hybrid system of both spell point (mana) system and spell slot system, D&D 4E Action Point system, and Cool-down system with some abilities which require much longer recovery time (thus resting). Possible solutions: Resting/Preparation ritual (ingridients) Possibly related skills: Magic crafting skill (Some magic may require ingredients)/appropriate Ritual skills Weapon/Armor efficiency Possible solutions: - Possibly related skills: Crafting skills which can be subcategorized as Armourer/Weapon Smith

Well, at least, in my case, my concern is possible misinterpretation/misunderstanding from some backers. If Obsidian do their best in showing reasonable amount of info before the Kickstarter pledge deadline, there shouldn't be any room for them to complain in the future.

In that case it should be all right. I don't have any insider knowledge or experience in game development but, from what I've seen so far, PE seems to be on the right direction to my eyes, at least. I, simply, wouldn't like them to fail for both the sake of Kickstarter and the love of RPG™. In any case, it's just a suggestion from my point of view, as well as other every single post of mine. I can be wrong as well as others and I'm glad to be wrong about the possible mess. lol@your expression.

There are many good RPGs without Vanican system and, personally, I'm not worried much, thinking of Sawyer's works (now with Tim Cain). Just enjoy speculating here.

From Swen Vincke's blog @Larian Studios I think the entry is a honest opinion about Kickstarter from a developer. So, I felt it risky of Obsidian to start Kickstarter with little info. I've already been surprised to see posts where some people even expect AAA game level graphics with full voice recording. In my case, I expect a deep and responsive world presented by "2D" graphics (Sorry, no tech specialist here!), reasonably good music/ambient character voices, and, of course, well-written narratives while the game-play being tactical, requiring a certain level of stragegies. So, I agree that it would be suitable for Obsidian to explain how much money is going to cost and some details about the content, at least, before the closure of the Kickstarter funding. Nobody here wouldn't like to see the possible bad scenario like above. Of course, some people will never be persuaded but I think avoiding risks of misunderstanding will eventually help.

I'm another advocator of resource-management over mechanical time-limit since It means more player-side responsibility rather than one-sided limitations given at the whim of the designers. I share the reorganization of the problem but solution may vary. Vanican/memorization system is the sole reason for old D&D to have camping/random encounter system. Did my guess fail or Sawyer has another system for resource-management in mind? Too little info at the moment. This can be a possible solution. With Vanican system, the players may prepare "wrong spells" for their upcoming obstacles and there are no DM in CRPG. Also, reagent system can include some crafting and resource management. Yeah, what we need to know before any judgement is how actually whole the system work.

I agree that beta testers should have experience in that area, which rules me out, and devotion to the project - money may show a certain dedication but it can backfire: some people may be disappointed especailly when they have "spent more" than the others. Internet and these "unsatisfied customers" are not good combination.

Can you explain a bit more for those of us who haven't played the game? Something along the lines of various groups of clerics that follow different deities? Yeah they had different gods that your cleric would select and if I remember correctly they would grant differently abilities. Some god's weren't available to certain alignments though. Precisely speaking, IWD2 and ToEE had the deity, which are shared by divine classes such as paladins and clerics. I agree that factions should have various classes inside of them. Likewise, depending on their beliefs, it would be natural to have other classes under the same deities. If the belief is not warlike, they may not even have "paladins." It's same with good vs evil scenario. I mean, exaggerated political influences are rather tied with "epic" scale story than whether there are two factions (goog/evil) or more than two factions. Personally, I'd like to see more humble campaigns, too, though.

As long as the story feels completed and some stories cannot feel completed with some tragic scent. That said, generally speaking, Obsidian writers are good at writing such endings. As already mentioned, Planescape: Torment is one of them. Actually, I think this is one of the essential factors which make the story more tolerable to mature audiences.

Two sources already. O.K., then. I guess the pastral days on their boards are the thing of the past. One of the reasons why I'd like PE to stay low-budget is, once people find it's a possible way to make good money, things began to be complicated. cf

Chaos cults are kind of RNA to DNA in Gloranthan setting and, you can see heavy influence of Lovecraft there. Worshiping them would make you something totally alien, not need to mention it would make you stop being human - both mentally and physically. Even having contact with them is dangerous.

This reminds me of chaos cults in Rune Quest - they are totally odd and can be very dangerous. Although the rule set allowed to play any creature as characters, the setting made it impossible for the players to play their roles. There are other examples like Dragonewts, who are intellectual but their way of thinking is hard to be simulated by human-beings. They'd belong to "Huh" category in PE. They often make things even more complicated in the middle of various conflicting factions.

From Fomspring As the OP wrote, he does sound willing.

There will be camping / survival features in the game? lol @ your avatar. I meant his ideas of Jefferson but...I saw quite many ideas from his past ideas already in the game and, what the ranger class is for? One of the planned abilities for rangers in Jefferson was that they can spot hidden caves, for example. I wonder how many of these non-combat ablities will be avilable in PE but they must be very valuable in wilderness adventures.

In terms of crafting, I found myself more interested in immersion factor such as hunting/making items out of killed creatures, or plants/making use of environments in dangerous wilderness areas. One of the things I liked about BG series is that traveling wilderness really felt dangerous and the spell memorization factor of D&D worked well with resource management (This aspect has been totally nerfed in later works by Bioware). So, I think Sawyer's focus on camping is right on the target. Gothic series are generally good at this but I'd like to see more depth in this regard.

I don't want the devs to be didactic. It's unbecoming in a young girl and men *loathe* it. Anyhow, I would like to see some themes treated in the game, but I don't want the design team to morally instruct us in regards to those themes in any way. No good/bad meter. No dark/ligth meter. Here's the situation, what will you do? No morality meter any more. Just in case some of you haven't read th interview below with Cain and Sawyer, there are quite many morality/culture related info there.From Lots more Project Eternity information and a tentative spring 2014 release date Further about Cain talking on moralitiy Cultural varieties And how these cultural/ethical differences can be unfolded as personalized experience through PC-NPC interactiaons Jefferson with the twist of Planescape: Torment - It appears to be going to right direction to me.