Gizmo

Don't be absurd. Fallout 3 [of course] has nothing to do with the example; the imagery alone makes the idea laughable... the physics make it impossible even if they are strong enough to lift it. The video just demonstrates how silly it is.

It might be neat if it was unusable to human size (or lower) PCs, but an option for larger non-human PCs ~and possibly humans with temporarily enhanced strength; it that's done, I'd want the weapon to drop or un-equip once the strength faded. I'd hope you can use any weapon you can carry. So it the requirement is 18 it's not impossible to use with strength 17 and effortless at 18. Rather give maybe -1 to rolls per every lacking strength point, so assuming giants club would have req of maybe 22, it'd still be -4 to a strong str 18 guy. This I wouldn't want... and this should explain why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7-NQw3OxvY

It might be neat if it was unusable to human size (or lower) PCs, but an option for larger non-human PCs ~and possibly humans with temporarily enhanced strength; it that's done, I'd want the weapon to drop or un-equip once the strength faded. It's bad when a game only checks if they can equip an item, but lets them keep using it after the buff has subsided. I hope we get the best of ToEE in PE; [what's applicable I mean].

I liked the first Prince of Persia, and I liked "Sands of Time", but I didn't bother with the others.

Thanks for the reply Rob; that's good to hear, and more or less what I was expecting... in my case I wasn't suggesting a zoom or rotation of any kind. I was asking whether the engine would scale the 3d character in relation to it's position on screen [relative to other characters]; very much in the way the older 2D graphic adventures would. It's a moot point as you've already said "no"; so PE will basically play like a hi-res BG2 ~and that's wonderful.

Hmmm.. Well consider it bought, as soon as the release it on GoG. (*But I wonder if GoG would want to release it? It directly competes with them selling the standard versions.)

And it's not a problem. I was just curious about it when he mentioned rendered realism, and because you can see the deliberate perspective in their concept art. *And that since the characters are [presumably] fully 3D, and not pre-rendered, it is possible to scale them down (in realtime) as they walk away from the viewer. (However... I can see the potential problem when panning the view.)

Nice looking concept art. I've a question about the use of the engine: Since you are rendering to a high degree of realism, will the [2d] level art be rendered with a vanishing point that is respected by the scale of the 3d characters? (IE. since the character art is going to be dynamic 3D, will they be rendered smaller as they approach the horizon line?) In the Infinity engine games, the characters [when simultaneously onscreen] were identically sized in the foreground and the background ~which could make them appear bigger than they should be in some screenshots. The interesting reverse of this is Populous 3, where the characters were 2D sprites on a 3d landscape, and two shamans on different hilltops could render out as the same size when one was very distant and the other close up.

Not at all, that was good. I was wondering if the EE game still used the core assets; and whether Bam-workshop or any of the Team-BG tools would work on it. If it can be done, I expect that it might be; BG1 can run in BG tutu and effectively be BG1 campaign in BG2's engine.

I was about to call total bull**** on this, but it's true - they did up the pacing. The walk speed is now the same as in BG2, ie. faster than in BG1. Apart from that, it's still bull****, though. That is [of course] not the kind of pacing I was describing and is unrelated to my post. The rest... I disagree. As for changing the Walk-speed; I did that myself, I would always adjust the frame-rate to 36. Interesting. I wonder if it's possible to buy the game, and just strip out and incorporate the new assets into the vanilla [patched] game; either from CD or from GoG?

What's different about it? What's the essential hook being used to sell it? If it was their plan to re-implement certain aspects that have seen technological improvement in the recent years... Like using a modern codecs and a recent animation package to replicate the cutscenes for improved visual quality.... That would be commendable. If they had planned to re-render the original backdrops from the source files, adding in options for radiosity and volumetric effects; and improved clarity for a planned higher minimum resolution; and add more enviromental animations ~Or better still, render each backdrop in each native resolution, for native assets for each screen res option ~THAT would have been awesome. If they had an ace up their sleeve and implemented full 3D avatars using faithful copies of the original assets and new content... That would have been legendary IMO. ~~ But if the plan was, "How do we take this IP we have access to and make it salable to the 'ADD' generation; streamline it, trim down the verbosity, and up the pacing of it... I would think that was a rather insidiously disrespectful cash grab on par with the what happened to Fallout 3 ; and unconscionable IMO. It's sad to hear what's happened; I see no reason to even be curious about it . *Not when Gog sells both games bundled in one installer; fine as they are, but still mod-able with TuTu and the infinity resolution patches..

Amazing sound track; DL from the GoG extras. Not like Nolf; but it's cool.

i hate mummies. I like Turtles. Been playing (and now modding) Legend of Grimrock; I've got more than 4x the hours I put into NV in Grimgrock.

We're arguing?(I was just point it out that it wasn't intended to compare with RT/wP; These kinds of games don't compete in the same field; I wasn't trying to convince you to change your mind; just that it was sort of like getting mad at a pear tree for not giving you oranges.) Indeed.

...And it's not the point of it. Yet this seems somewhat like wanting to place one's knight on any square of the chessboard, rather than adhere to the rules of the game. The opponents are equally bound by the rules, so there is no need to bend them... When one plays chess (or Go for example), one plays to win by the rules; it's the same for any other TB combat game I've ever played; whatever the system, however abstract ~or not. Not everyone likes Chess or every other game of TB combat; that's why there are other styles. TB doesn't really equate with D&D to me... D&D is turn based, but Turn based is not inherently D&D ~even when it's fantasy themed. PE looks like it could be an alternate take on IWD2 with ten years advancement of the technology; and with some of the same minds behind it. Good things are afoot; (but everyone here knows that ). I would ask and hope that Project Eternity manages to avoid the one brutally annoying aspect of AI (seen in IWD2), and that is that when the AI went hostile and the target went invisible, the AI would Bee-line straight to the next party member (even if they were hidden on the other side of the map, with a maze between them).

I like stat requirements. In fallout your PC had to actually be strong enough to control a minigun to use it without penalty. In Planescape, you didn't get dialog options unless your PC's stat was sufficient for it to make sense. I would fully support a wizard class requiring an extreme intelligence value... where as a Witch class [male or female] wouldn't need any intelligence requirement at all; or could perhaps require a lower intelligence. I would find it really cool if PE rolled your stats for you and listed only those classes available with those stats; [optionally ~but not preferred] they could also just allow the player to choose a class and ensure minimum stats in the requirements. And/or use the point method, where players assign their PC stats. Realms of Arkania really did that well... The game rolled a number and you assigned it ~but you did not know what the next number it rolled would be; brilliant.

I'm the same way ~except for Josh.(But don't take that the wrong way, Josh is a great designer; he designs elegant systems that work well, but that I quite often just don't like. )

That's your preference (of course), but you are faulting [all] TB combat for not doing something that it's usually not trying to do. TB combat is not about minutia on the battlefield; it's about essential actions. The whole fight can usually be taken for abstract gist in most TB games. In 'Disciples 2', your party members are lined up on a grid in rigid formation [and stay rooted to the spot] during combat; and they often melee attack opponents that appear physically out of reach ~because it doesn't really matter. All that matters in that game is that they chose to attack an available target (as per the rules) and whether or not they succeeded in damaging or killing their opponent). A fanciful realtime display of the fight is unnecessary in the game. A major strength of almost every TB [combat] system, is that the player has a choice of all the possible actions that the PC is capable of, and can base their choice of action in light of all previous events in the round; (and what they anticipate might come in the next one). This allows them to pick and choose the best course of action for the situation, and to watch the results play out; and then once again choose a new course of action based on the the previous rounds and the changes that have since occurred in the current round. It's not trying to be RTS or RT/wP... They didn't make TB games because of hardware limitations; it's its own style with its own purpose and goals for the gameplay. ** But as they've said, Project Eternity will be RT/wP combat ~which I'm really looking forward to.

Hell yeah; but... they want to do a RT/w Pause combat engine, and if done well, that can be fun too. I would worry about it if they tried to support both ~unless they actually required the player to choose at the start of the game and presented entirely rebalanced encounters for the whole game based on the choice of TB or RT... ~Like that's going to happen. But if they did an about face and committed fully to a Turn based system [it's too late for that], I would be looking forward to it; and consider my backers fee to be money well spent ~(but many others would not be so thrilled as I).

Getting Experience for killing an attacker makes all the sense in the world. XP is the effect of experiences (including life threatening ones). A person who has been attacked with lethal force will be different afterward (even if they survive without a scratch on them); for one thing their confidence goes waaay up. IMO (as a rule of thumb) a game could halve the XP for killing anything not initially hostile to the PC. In some situations, the game could relax that rule. Also: Consider a hunter, whose business is hunting; should they not get better at killing game for constant practice killing game? Fighters won't get better for constant practice at fighting?

Unpopular though it may be, I quite prefer rigid classes to making noncommittal "be-whatever-you-want-just-buy-our-game" style characters. Classes reflect the PC's history, and their aspirations. It's what they have studied, and what they want to excel at; I should not choose a Cleric if I want to play an aggressive melee fighter; I should not choose a Barbarian if I want to cast high level spells and hide behind summoned minion. Class names are like window dressing for the underlying mechanical function of the Class... Warriors are tanks, Wizards are Artillery, and Clerics are the medics.

It's a fact that the combat was unbalanced ~it supported RT and TB. I prefer TB, but I'd have preferred one or the other ~not both.

I'd just want them to be rare as hen's teeth; and prized when aquired ~and saved for last resort. I did like the toxin mechanic for potions in the original Witcher.

I came here tonight looking to start this very topic; I'm glad that I found this one before making a new one. I must have asked this question 15 times on the Chat during the live stream when they were answering questions. My hope is for it to closely resemble Fallout 1; I greatly prefer a weighted percentile check to a threshold ~and do not want minigames (like lock picking) if it can be helped... Although, if it was highly influenced by PC stats and skill then it could be fun. The Weighted Percentile system can encompass all of the implied elements of chance leading up to the event; where as skill thresholds do not. Consider Speech checks: With a threshold system, the PC succeeds if they have sufficient points in the skill... despite anything at all that might make the challenge unusually difficult at that particular moment in time. An NPC could be on the fence about them [normally], but that night they could be distracted by something else; or who knows ~have a headache and not want to talk... yet the PC always succeeds under that kind of system. With Weighted Percent, the challenge would come with an element of risk to it ~something I sorely missed in FO3/NV. The PC could even have consummate skill and just make a mistake, (this happens in life). However the weighted aspect would make this outcome very unlikely in normal circumstances. With Weighted Percentile, the PC has an innate/ or learned ability at a task, and can use it to overcome difficulties (like the above)... (In this case it could be that they were so good that they talked someone out of something they wanted to do while that person was in no mood to be agreeable; and even looking to refuse [iE. a percentile penalty]. A Weighted Percentile system sets the bar for success (like to pick a lock) and the PC tries their best within the bounds of their personal ability, and they can fail; or they can succeed ~or they can really fail (jamming the lock); or really succeed (open the lock without scratches, and in a short time). Along the lines of the lock example... Percentile also allows the occasional fluke of luck ~it could be possible to pick open the lock as a complete novice (with a 3% chance of success) ~because it could happen; it's possible; it's very unlikely, but not impossible. *However: A hard lock with a penalty that exceeds the PC's percentile skill at picking locks would be impossible. But on the flip-side... anyone can open a consumer-grade lock if they have a lot of time to keep trying ~but they will certainly scratch it up; showing that it was tampered with; (I wish a RPG would come around that gave guards a slight chance of noticing details like that). About Save-Scumming: People will do that anyway; engineering around that is kind of almost the same sort of thing as DRM ~the intention is to discourage a behavior, yet the ones doing the behavior will do so regardless; while the rest are equally affected by the attempted 'cure'. Who cares if they save-scum? Who cares if they reload every 2 minutes? They are playing the game, and it's keeping them busy ~that's what games do. What would be grand (for starters), is to not telegraph skill checks in the dialogs, and to just show the results of the-behind-the-scene calculations at work. Reveal dialog options only if the PC is capable of ~or lucky enough to get those choices. With other skills, they could have envelope of varied success or failure ~with extremes for both; and occasionally have the opposite result be the most interesting. Lastly... It could be really cool to have the game be 'cognizant' of the player's actions throughout the the program (including the menus ). I'm a real fan of the idea that a game could perhaps pre-calculate a long list 'rolls' and match it to the save-game; that the rolls would survive game reloads and always be the same unless it was truly a new attempt at something; (if someone really wants to hex-edit ram or the game files ~let them ).

They didn't steal it ~they just had more money to spend on getting it. Fallout 3 seems closely [but indirectly] derived from FOBOS, don't you think? I mean seriously... There are more parallels between them than between FO3 and FO1 or FO2.