Solivagant

This is a very interesting setup, and I love the breadth of detail we are getting about this. That's the kind of writing I want to see on future Kickstarter updates, really outshines any other game's press releases or blogs. This is great, Obsidian, keep it coming! Also happy about subraces, one of my favorite aspects of D&D.

Related to AI: In NWN2 there were some problems, I don't remember a decent "solo mode", so a lot of times you ended up putting everyone in the right place and then accidentally everyone followed your controller character and there went your careful party positioning.

It was much better but I still flayed it with a lot! I aimed to play the game at an isometric viewpoint but I couldn't see anything in front of me like that, also the panning wasn't great, not as permissive as Baldur's Gate. I liked The Witcher's implementation, I'll give you that.

Can we get a stretch goal for no pauldrons?

You "suffered" playing those games? hu... ok? I think it can be done, even Wasteland 2 that will have isometric view will let you a little, I'm not sure what's the big deal. Yeah I suffered, you won't believe I often I would change the camera position in NWN2. Example: It's a tunnel? Ok, lemme put in a third person over the shoulder view, cause otherwise the walls don't let me the scenery. Oh now its an open area? I'm going to zoom out and go all isometric style. Now it's a tunnel again? Ok third person, zoom in, fiddle a bit, there. Ok zooming out again, but now I can't see much forward properly. I would do this for hours, and then panning and rotating the camera so it would follow the character. It's a pain. Just give me a fixed camera. EDIT: I'm fine with Zoom, just don't allow rotation.

NWN 2's zoomable camera was very much hated and reviled. DA:O did a bit of a better job but the thing is, if the camera is unlocked, then the designers don't have a POV to draw to, and eventually playing is a nightmare of constantly readjusting the camera. I know how much I suffered playing DA:O and NWN2. I don't want that again.

Check out Temple of Elemental Evil for some great combat options for fighters. There's a lot of depth.

Climbing has long been ignored by these games, and there has to be some way to implement it. One of my favorite memories of D&D was looking at the Player's Handbook and reading up on all the climbing gear you could get.

Whoever made the trailer music gets my vote. It gave me chills.

The argument of not crippling yourself technically wise because of nostalgia is what gave us Fallout 3. Which I hated. Of course, that lead to New Vegas, which was actually great, but still, not the turn based top down Fallout we all wanted.

You can look at Mask of the Betrayer for the type of NPCs Obsidian can make. There aren't a lot of them, but they are deep without absorbing all the story to themselves. I've yet to meet a party companion like Gann-of-Dreams in any other game.

Thank you Obsidian, and Mr Josh Sawyer: don't worry, this time around no one's going to cancel your game. Thanks for the memories and the memories to come!

The backgrounds will be 2D art.

You will see a lot of people suggesting 3D RPGs, perhaps in the vein of Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect, but I'm sure you will also see very strong support for an OLD SCHOOL TOP DOWN ISOMETRIC (SIC) RPG. That's exactly what I would like Obsidian to do. It can be in any setting you wish, because I know Chris Avellone's writing skills shine through no matter what. A Planescape sequel / another game in the setting would be most welcome, but any other setting or space time combination would be great. Just make sure to include Sawyer, I love that guy as well!

Given the structure of the game, I have the impression that XP is given only at the end of the current mission, and that you level up only in the safe houses. It that is the case, there should be no problem : the XP from the mission should include all "casualties" plus a nice bonus for every gard untouched. From one of the latest videos, either the Customization Walkthrough or the interview with Alvin, I noticed a notification on the left side of the screen saying something like "level up: level 5", and that was while Mike was shooting some guys down I believe. Of course, that could be changed. In the Customization video, I was frame-stepping through it and I noticed a very funny ability description in the skills screen:

A great trailer for what's shaping up to be a great game. E-mails with multiple possible replies! I wasn't expecting any of that in the game. The attention to detail in the interface design reminds me a lot of Deus Ex. Instead of going for immersion breaking bland screens, they're really trying to make it all look like feasible interfaces in the real world. I'd also hope for a way to disable the reputation notifications, though I like how they are handled (small font, fading quickly, without any huge icon showing up). The various armours and armour mods look great. Graphically there's either been a great improvement or just an improvement in the resolution of the videos, eheh. As always, the achilles heel is the animation. The roar animation made me cringe, and the way Mike was walking in the house sometimes looked too stilted, but the rest looked fine. Presentation-wise, I think this video might change people's opinions, of those who thought it looked terrible. Models are looking very sharp and the textures look good. Faces in particularly are looking better and better. Interaction with the mementos of the trade is such a great little detail. They really want this game to succeed. I hope it does.

That video is really nice, hardly any animation fibs at all. Matthew doesn't use hand to hand very much, just a couple of takedowns / kills, but the quality of the video itself is much better than the other videos, so you can notice details in the animation that you couldn't previously.

You also mean you're heard when you're invisible, right? Does the ability cool down time ever become so low that it allows you to spam it a bunch of times?

Same here. For me the difference is in how proficient he is at taking down enemies with martial arts, that build has much more points in that skill, you see him running frantically taking down ttwo guys very easily, while on the gametrailers footage he takes much longer. Also the jeuxvideo footage shows him readying a lock on ability, which is interesting to see.

Particularly in this gameplay demo Gametrailers Alpha Protocol Dev Walkthrough and part 2? Because if it was at 0, someone should have said it to the person playing the game, he kept using it all the time (and taking too long to take the enemies down)!

I appreciate that. I know nothing of proper weapon usage, but dual wielding pistols seems a bit too much, especially when you consider big caliber guns. Sure, Dual wielding SMGs is probably even less realistic, but we got used to it with the Matrix movies and other action movies & games. If you start giving dual pistols to the player, then to the baddies, the whole thing starts to look like The Matrix Revolutions shootout sequence, in which EVERYONE was dual wielding EVERYTHING. Multiple models of silencers is great.

Did you guys know about the Armor modding? I wasn't even sure there was going to be Weapon modding, to be honest!

If stealth is not being seen, technical aptitude is hacking and using pc's, sabotage is using mines and traps, then infiltration might have been lockpicking, I think. Of course, sabotage could also include that.

Sorry for the second post, but the forum appears to have an image limit for each post. The new character sheet is a great improvement compared with this older version: It appears they've dropped the Infiltration statistic in the new version. Armor Selection, Thorton's wearing Night Operations armor here, with a Reactive Polymer Weave mod. Gadget selection, he's got a first aid kit, the sound generator and an emp charge. The hacking minigame. "Perk Acquired: Blackbelt". The guy talking in the video mentions this, it's nothing new, but I really liked how they show these updates, item and perk gets, it's very subtle and disappears very fast. Overall I think they've greatly improved the interface and ingame menus (compared to the little bits we had seen of it previously), and I'm eager to check out this stuff myself. Weapon modding and armor modding look nice, fast and functional. It reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 4's great interface for modding your weapons.

Ok so I decided to do a bit of frame skipping in the latest gameplay videos, the two-part demo walkthrough from gametrailers (the so called stealth playthrough), the two-part demo guns blazing walkthrough from jeuxvideo, and the latest Chris Avellone interview from gametrailers. EDIT: You can click on the pictures and it'll take you to slightly higher resolution versions. Here's what I found. The ingame menu for Intel, Service Record (basically the character sheet) and Inventory. The dossiers for the several characters of the game. You can select by Faction or by Individual, apparently. Yancy Westridge, Alpha Protocol's Chief of Operations. Sie's dossier. So she's actually German. I thought she was Russian all this time. Alan Parker, Alpha Protocol's Senior Intelligence Analyst. The Inventory, specifically the weapon modding area. You can change the barrel, magazine, sight or acessory on the gun. I've read somewhere that this gun looks like it was modelled based on the FN Five-Seven, and it sure looks like it: The FN Five Seven, for comparison. Ingame the weapon is called Samael Sidewinder. Another weapon, the UC Jackal. No idea what real weapon it looks like, anyone knows? The Service Record's first screen. It reads "Michael Thorton - Freelancer" on the top. Freelancer, is it a class, a name related to his level 8, or his company affiliation? I don't think the game has classes, but who knows.