Starwars

Lead Dev Jake Solomon tries to sell X-Com to people at gaming store:

AFAIK, it's an action that you use, and if an enemy then walks into the soldier's sight on the Alien turn, the soldier gets a shot off at the enemy. Sorta like an attack of opportunity.

Finished up NWN2. Act 3 is in my opinion easily the best part of the game and where it begins to be... well, actually fun. However, screw the final dungeon and the final boss... right up the butt. What a freaking mess it is to control all your companions in that final battle, with all the fireworks going off. Jesus. Now just started MotB and quickly falling in love with it again.

-It's a bit of a vague blur right now, but playing Darklands at a rather young age with some friends of mine, just as we were getting into Pen and Paper roleplaying. We were not that skilled in English, and didn't *really* grasp all the concepts of the game, but man did we love it. -Following the excellent intro of Fallout 1, and stepping out of the cave (seeing the sunlight for the first time in your life...) and having the world map opening up. The entire game after that moment was completely magical. -Oddly enough, the little encounter with Ingress in PS:T really got to me. Was really pleased that I could help her out. -Creating a character for the first time in Arcanum. And later, making it to Tarant for the first time. -Speaking with Myrkul in Mask of the Betrayer.

No it doesn't. Nothing about it implies that. We are talking about the Infinity Engine games and the experience that they created. Do you believe my representation of how players actually played the game is inaccurate? Am I wrong? Did people look at Dragon's Eye in IWD and guess, "You know, I bet there's... five levels to this place... lizard men with shamans, armored skeletons, blast skeletons, some cold wights, ghouls, a cleric of Talona, disguised yuani-ti casters, a mix of yuan-ti fighters and casters and... I've got a feeling there's a marilith at the bottom." and then do a point-to-point march through the dungeon, not only selecting, but conserving their spells perfectly so they never had to backtrack out? I feel like I'm describing what is a very common circumstance in the Infinity Engine games. People pay attention, make educated guesses, but ultimately are unable to know the full extent of the challenges they are dealing with. The only way they would be able to do so is through extraordinary prescience. This is something I completely agree with, and I think the reason why many people are responding the way they do is that they either don't remember, or choose to ignore, the first time they made it through some of these games and instead respond based on their experience *now*. It's easier to plan ahead when you either know, or have an idea, on what is coming ahead in a game. When you play a game, you have a very limited idea of that. And especially how long a dungeon/area will be, and how many encounters are in there. I would certainly want some form of punishment of burning through powerful spells quickly. But having that punishment simply be a time-sink and wasting my real life time doing nothing interesting in order to go back and find a rest spot is... idiotic game design to be frank. It is just a waste of time. I *know* that I need to prepare for difficult fights. But playing a game for the first time, there is absolutely no guarantee on what fights are difficult, for how long a dungeon will go on etc. Having my time wasted (again, it really is a time-waste because there is nothing in-game that serves as punishment, it is simply taxing the player) as "punishment" is not going to make me a better player in any way whatsoever.

I'm not crazy about the first track which sounds a bit too... "epic fantasy" for my taste, though it's most certainly not bad. The second track is probably the one that is the most evocative to me, and really seems to feel "unique" to this project. It certainly vibes with both "ancient" and "mystical" and seems to speak of distant lands. I also really, really love the soundscape with the bells and blowing winds. I would love if that track became the guideline of what to aim for with the music for PE. It's subtle, yet beautiful and evocative.

Everyone here just needs to cooldown a bit, goddamn.

It's the internet! But I mean, kickstarter is interesting in some ways. It puts pressure on Obsidian to try and bring in input from the backers as much as possible. But it also demands a certain something from the backers themselves, namely that you need to understand that a game developer is not designing a game 100% for you even if you happen to pledge a million dollars. You need to accept certain things that will *not* mesh with your personal expectations. One will hope that this information will be available before a kickstarter ends so that one can withdraw the pledge if there is a dealbreaker. But... there is no 100% guarantee on this. Again, nature of a kickstarter game that is starting development with help of backers. There are now 50k+ backers of this project. No matter what Obsidian does, they're gonna piss people off who feel they are "entitled" or whatever. Everytime that Obsidian looks to advance or change something that is considered part of the "old-school design", people are gonna throw hissy fits without first even considering that this *may* be a good change. Or even if it's not entirely to your taste (like realtime w pause for me personally), it may still be worth giving a chance. A) because it may surprise you if Obsidian can make it work well, and B) because there are plenty of other features in this game that may still make this a really kick-ass experience.

It's a good thing that it gets brought up for discussion I think. But the impact of it on the actual game-world completely depends on its implementation. New Vegas had level scaling. That did not prevent players from getting mangled, eaten and brutalized by Cazadores, Deathclaws, Giant Radscorpions and what have you if they decided to head north from Goodsprings. That said, I like as little level scaling as possible myself. Storm of Zehir didn't need it for example (to have an example from Obsidian). EDIT: It's also important because I pretend to be Macho Man with no level scaling, unlike you APOLOGISTS, who only like the NEW and BIOWARIAN and BETHESDIAN way of making games! RAAAAH!

NWN (1 I mean) was very, very different in regards to how companions worked.

Excellent point about the NWN2 track, that always bothered me as well. But my personal pet peeves is with combat-music in top-down games, in that they often... I dunno, they try to get the adrenaline pumping the same way an action-movie does. It's always big percussion, and dramatic melodies (even moreso with orchestras involved). I personally think that composing music for a top-down game should be a bit different because the truth is... I don't feel adrenaline in the same way as I do when I play Bulletstorm or whatever. Sure a battle can certainly be tense but it's in a different way. And it'd be nice to have the music reflect that for once. Hell, one of the things I loved in the original Fallouts was that... music didn't change just because you entered battle. And it worked because that music was much more about having a background "soundscape" rather than heavy melodies. I mean, I think "epic" music can be appropiate for big boss battles or whatnot. But please... restraint is the key sometimes. Subtlety. One of my favorite boss-battle (the end boss even) pieces of music is the one for Mask of the Betrayer which was *just* percussion. New Vegas also had some interesting ideas in how the music layered itself upon itself so to speak. But even then there was a very clear distinction when battle started. I personally don't think it's really necessary, and many times it feels incredibly artificial. As the OP says, having combat music start up when fighting a rat, only to have it end 5 seconds later when you kill it feels incredibly... silly and downright annoying in that it often disrupts the atmosphere.

1) I think this is really hard to make suggestions for without really... *knowing* the game so to speak and also with no idea how much things really cost and so forth. I had a topic a few days ago talking about having a big city that was really alive and dense, like Athkatla or Sigil... Maybe something like that, or an additional one if there are already plans for one. But yeah, it's really hard to know what would be suitable for the project and the budget. Thing is, the design for the game is already targeting games like BG and Torment. And those are ambitious games in their own right. I guess I personally would just like to see more core content (companions, factions, areas etc) put into the game as the budget goes up. But I guess that some people want something else. 2) I think this is a good idea to bring in more backers. And having a big dungeon that increases in size with more backers is a great approach I think. It also seems perfectly "doable" while still ambitious. I think it'd be great to highlight again in upcoming updates just to bring home that it's about the number of backers here and that just pledging a small amount is a clear win situation for us. And maybe have some small tidbits in upcoming updates about what the design for such an area (I mean in terms of combat, traps, non-combat etc etc) could possibly look like. Just to keep reminding folks of it. 3) Putting up some more incremental stretch goals (the ones for each 100 or 200k reached) would be nice. Also, please keep doing what you're doing with the constant updates. The more you update, the more in touch with people you are, the more the project stays in people's minds. Also, I don't know what the theme could be, but it'd be great to have a video up with some of the head guys (like Josh, Adam, Tim, Chris etc etc) just talking about... something together. Maybe giving a brief overview of some of their favorite RPGs and discussing what could possibly be brought back from those into Project Eternity, if anything. I dunno... I think people would appreciate just sitting on some from of discussion with the guys. EDIT: Just please don't put the cart in front of the horse or whatever the saying is. It seems you guys have been pretty careful and conservative in how you've laid out the project, and not promising too many crazy things. I for one really appreciate that and it gives me more hope for the final product. Some people are suggesting an orchestra for example, but let us first hear about the different directions the music might actually take (a more electronic or ambient soundtrack doesn't need to be out-of-place just because it's a fantasy game for example).

I'm very keen on a big dungeon, with many (hopefully) optional areas in it, some very challenging. And hopefully many opportunities for non-combat skill usage, as well as an interesting story/lore surrounding the whole place. Please, please, please make it feel like a real challenge to go through. Not too attracted by crafting personally (though I do enjoy it) but a welcome addition still I'd say.

I like Honest Hearts the most out of the DLC, though I wasn't crazy about it when it first came out. I like that it feels "down-to-earth" which is how I like my Fallout best. I really like the other DLCs also but they are a bit too... crazy overall in terms of concepts for my taste in Fallout, even if they also are extremely well-made. I also think Honest Hearts is really nice to replay and is very well-written... Again, in a bit more down-to-earth way than the other DLCs. Avellone is probably my favorite writer in gaming but something about his style and my perception of what Fallout should be (hell yeah, my opinion is *important*) doesn't quite mesh.

I would also recommend the soundtrack for newly released Torchlight 2. Matt Uelman is an excellent composer with a pretty unique style, and the Torchlight 2 soundtrack is fantastic. I haven't played the game but they graciously released the soundtrack for free.

I think what I *don't* want to see are the most simplistic form of fed-ex quests. I have no problem with the idea that there are simple quests to "off-set" the more complex ones, it makes the world feel alive in a way. Sometimes you get smaller jobs. But ideally, even if you get a quest that is seemingly very simple, it'd be nice if there always was something there that made it interesting. If it be writing, or the fact that it turns out to be something much more complex than what I believed. Basically, none of the Skyrim Radiant AI quest rubbish, none of the Dragon Age "job-board" stuff. It's just completely uninteresting in every way. But yeah, other than that it'd be great to have some of those really big and complex quests, with different entry-points, several layers to them and them spanning over a large part of the game. And ideally, having many options on how to solve quests of course.

While I'm sure there will be new stretch goals coming up tomorrow or later in the week, I'm kinda glad that the goals so far have been fairly... well, modest (if that's the right word). There will be a time when the kickstarter companies will have to live up to everything they've promised (not just in terms of putting in the content but also having that content be... good). I would much prefer it if Obsidian stay conservative starting out, and then add on more things along the development *if* they feel comfortable in that they can pull it off decently. Just pouring the additional money into the core game (albeit with more companions and such of course) is in my opinion the best way to handle things, and not having too lofty goals of providing a game "bigger than BG2" or whatever. Promising something like that doesn't actually mean anything at all in regards to quality. So yes, try to entice more people to pledge is all well and good. But make sure that the core game is what's of importance here, and not a million different additions just to rake in more pledge money.

I would just like a big ol' character sheet slapped in my face when starting up the game. Obviously with good tooltips and such if you want them on, that is one good "modern" feature to have. But yeah... I like to just have all the character options gathered in that one place, and then I can tweak them to my heart's content. EDIT: Character creation should be the first, big choice you make in the game I think. It should, in some ways, decide a lot of how you experience the game through your character.

I'm ecstatic to hear that a there's a lot of reactivity based on character races and such. I can't wait to explore these options! Also, Tim is good at answering questions and is pleasant to listen to. I would certainly welcome more Q&As, I quite enjoyed this one.

I don't have any ideas for how it should look but I do hope they will have a monetary system going for it. It may not even make a difference in the actual gameplay (though would be lovely if it did, especially if they have a mechanic/option for weighted money), but it just makes sense and is good for for the world-building. I believe Josh has expressed an interest in this (and you have different currencies in NV) so hopefully they'll include it.

I actually think the regular Laser Rifle holds up really well even at higher levels because of what Gorgon said. Add a scope to the thing, and if you decent critical shot chance, then you got a hell of a sniper weapon. Fires really fast, no recoil to speak, scoped, and fires a lot of shots before you need to re-load. If you get some crits in then you can murder a lot of things from very far away.

Nothing can save you from the horrendous combat in Old World Blues (the respawning mobs really brought down my enjoyment of that DLC a lot for me). Even if you haven't levelled melee skill, the melee weapons you can find in OWB tend to work well against most things in there (what's it called... Proton Axe or whatever?). The sonic gun thingie also works well against the scorpions with the Tarantula mode installed.

Not really. You don't get to have companions with you (you'll find one soon enough within the DLC). And there is an abundance of loot to find in it if you look around a bit. Maybe some Purified Waters but I'm sure you can buy those two within the DLC. Just be sure to bring your biggest and meaneast guns.

I did not care much for the cities in Oblivion which managed to feel... not real and not dense in every way possible. The Imperial City in particular felt really empty and plastic. Denerim had promise I think but didn't love up to its potential. A *lot* could've been done with Kirkwall in DA2 (especially since the game centered around it) but they really failed to rise to the challenge with that. It felt dead. Vizima is probably the best "fully 3d" city that I've seen in a RPG so far. Also a good example of how the city almost became a "heart" of the game, and really was a huge part in me actually finishing the Witcher 1 (did not enjoy the game that much outside exploring Vizima). There is also a NWN1 module called Almraiven which features a wonderfully realized city (though it does so in a different way, splitting it up in many different areas that are small, often confined to very specific locations in the city).

To explore the venue properly, I think one would have to devote a game more or less to that idea. At least that's my feeling when just thinking about it casually. But even so... With our main character being party leader. I would love it if the "followers" just plain put a bit more pressure on you than we typically see. Lots of RPGs have companions that may speak up to you, but not much ever comes of it even if you disagree or talk down to them or whatever the case. It'd be nice if the companions really could stand up to themselves in a sense. Of course, this is also something that sounds interesting on paper. But it would be a very, very thin line between 'interesting and challenging' to 'whiny'.