Lysen

I think they said that they wanted to go as much closer to Forgotten Realms as possible. It isn't a very good thing in my opinion, but here you go.

We don't know much about stealth, unfortunately. As Tim Cain explained, It seems that you can make everyone in the party stealthy enough. And another cool quote: It all sounds very promising and I can't wait to see how they will implement this.

It started.

I don't really know, but Hoenig is an old guy, he is probably retired. Here is my favourite piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2-ERx6Acow&feature=share&list=PLE0E08A418FBACD78

Yeah it was the only IE game that allowed that. You could also ran in PST. There is one problem with this though, because it allowed you to cheat and just ran away from enemies. Not that is a bad thing, but it affects game's balance.

"YOU MUST GATHER YOUR PARY BEFORE VENTURING FORTH" was surely the most annoying among them all.

Sounds like sahuagin.

You can play PS:T in high resolution if you install widescreen patch, Ghostdog's UI mod for example.

Let's talk a bit about endgame and how it is done in classic RPGs. Take Baldur's Gate for example. In my opinion, endgame wasn't particularly fun, to say the least. Why? Remember the dungeon under the thieves guild in the city? It was a complete disaster, especially for a low-level party. You have to find your way through a maze stuffed with very tough enemies and dangerous traps. Then you enter an underground city, also a very boring basically linear area, and follow to the temple and final battle. The only good thing about it was the enemy adventuring party. I think fighting them were actually more fun than killing Sarevok himself. The problem is, BioWare used the same approach in every their game since then. The last one that I finished was Mass Effect 2. What we have as an endgame there? The same boring combat sequence, and they made it even more linear. It was terrible. Of course, you could get your party killed or save them all, but it didn't really change anything because saving or killing them was really easy to achieve and it felt more like a fake choice, a failed attempt to make things more interesting. Now, how to do it right. The most perfect example is, of course, Fallout. You could get to the Master in the vault under Cathedral without killing anyone - if you had monks' robes on and didn't bring companions. They will just let you through, assuming that you are one of them! No combat at all. And you could actually convince the Master himself to blow the place up, assuming that you had high speech check or found a certain holotape. It was awesome. Of cource, you could just kill everyone, Master included. The key is to make combat just one of the options to achieve your goal.

That's a cool idea. There is one difference though - there will be no morality meter in PE. And in Planescape lying only affected your alignment, it didn't have other consequences. In PE, I would have suggested a different approach - make it a skill-based check. If you have high streetwise skill, for example, you will be able to realize that NPC is lying to you (and vice versa!).

No, orlans are essentially gnomes/goblins and they are already in.

What are you talking about? There were a lot of trash mobs towards the end of the game (skeletons in Candlekeep dungeons, for example). Also, Baldur's Gate was an open-world game (more or less) and you could find strong enemy parties with a low-level character if you wanted to go and explore.

I wonder why did they choose Icewind Dale 2 for playthrough)))

Those Vailians, I think, can pass for non-Europeans: There are also Orlans:

I will probably start as an Orlan wizard (maybe rogue). As for the companions, it will depend on the circumstances, their usefullness and, of cource, their character. For example, I couldn't kick Virgil from the party, although he was totally useless towards the end of the game. We don't really know much about the gameplay yet.

Shepard: I should go. Sorry, couldn't resist)))

Characters are a bit large in that mock-up; maybe 20%? I just did one with a TOEE party from a screen shot at 1680x1050 and it looks like the PE screen will be similar in scale. Also, the isometric view (30 degrees is isometric, 45 degrees is axonometric, cavalier is non centered iso or axo) will give a better sense of scale for vertical objects as Josh Sawyer posted by allowing greater z axis projection. I think it's fine that the characters are a bit bigger than they should be. They need to stand out from the background.

It reminds me Grim Dawn a bit. Can't say that I am very impressed, but this is certainly a very early build. I am also a little surprised that it looks photorealistic - I thought they would go for more stylised look. And don't worry about camera angle, I am sure it isn't fixed yet.

Tim Cain was listed in Bloodlines' credits, but he later said that he wasn't really involved with the project.

Orcs are cool, especially as a playable race (Arcanum did it really well) but not like enemies (no NWN 2-style orc caves FFS). On the other hand, we have enough traditional fantasy races already. Better make something more original that will fit in PE setting.

Why not four or two? I don't really care about combat, and I want more gameplay options besides killing hordes of mindless enemies like it was in Dragon Age for example. Let me steal things and persuade NPCs instead of fighting them, craft equipment and explore a big, believable world, and I will be happy.

Yeah... Sounds very intriguing, though I don't remember regional feats in IE 'classic' games (didn't play PnP). The last part is a bit confusing - does it mean that your race and culture will affect game mechanics? Will there be class restrictions or something?

Good questions and interesting answers, thanks.

Of course not. They are talking about mechanics, right, but mostly about combat mechanics, and it worries me. Maybe it will be fixed in future updates. I understand that many people here want another Icewind Dale but this is just not my cup of tea. I prefer Arcanum and Fallout.

When Obsidian mentioned Icewind Dale in their first video along with Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment, I was a bit worried. Don't get me wrong - I've played and enjoyed both IWD and IWD2, they were good games, but Icewind Dale was actually something like a big expansion pack to Baldur's Gate, centered on combat. Besides slaughtering monsters and exploring mega-dungeons there wasn't much to do. Obsidian also mentioned games Planescape: Torment, Fallout and Arcanum, so I thought Icewind Dale was put in just for the credits and PE will be more like those games. Guess I was wrong. Developers talk mostly about combat in their updates and on the forums people demand Vancian system and even Justin Sweet portraits. This is the main reason why I am opposed to Justin - I fear that the game will not only look like Icewind Dale, but it will also play like one. And this is definitely something that I do not want. There is also another thing. I remember that Sawyer once talked a bit about Icewind Dale and explained that it was a workhorse for the good old Interplay - it had a short development cycle, didn't cost much but sold really well. Fargo is also a big fun of Icewind Dale (which is not surprising lol). So, I am beginning to fear that PE will be another Icewind Dale focused on combat and dungeon-crawling, not a solid RPG like Arcanum or Planescape: Torment with a lot of options besides combat.