Zed

I feel like the most important aspect of FoW is that doors etc block vision into connected rooms (especially since it's usually 1 room = 1 encounter). IE games did FoW well.

Simply have an introduction phase that doesn't really reward you with anything other than, well, an introduction. Make it possible to skip it. As for tutorials, I prefer to have as much of it as possible kept in the manual. "Click x to y" messages in-game is for lazy players.

If they are going with a D&D settings-like franchise logo/banner, with a subtitle, this design would be great. As they finalize it, they could go even further towards something like these:

not fond of the stevie wonder-like swaying of the camera, but it was a good update.

They should also either exclude NPC portraits for PC, or somehow indicate that the portrait is being used by someone else in the game. That feel in Baldur's Gate when you come across an NPC with the same portrait as you...

Who's to say a Sword of the Apocalypse +666 can't look like a Short Sword +1?

No tutorial. There's a digital game manual included. Waste of development time. The game should be too advanced to deliver any sort of non-intrusive tutorial anyway.

Something like Martin in Oblivion, or the sylvari in Guild Wars 2? I personally prefer my own character to be the main catalyst in the story, just not necessarily someone who transcends into Godhood or something like that.

I was expressing my opinion on a discussion board, no need to be butthurt.

They should cast voice actors based on character appropriateness, not to service fans. I think Imoen had pretty good v/a though, even if the character wasn't very good.

I also enjoy identifying items. And contrary to Starwars above, I believe even +1 long swords should require identifying (although lesser enchantments should be given a little more flavorful names than "+1"..). The reason is because having "unidentified" should just indicate that you don't know what the hell it does. It shouldn't indicate "this is powerful", but rather "this can be anything -- cursed; powerful; shît). Just copy-pasta how Infinity games did it, but avoid +numbers enchantment names. Have your own characters be able to identify with either natural Lore (simple inspection of item based on a mental stat like Wisdom or Intelligence), scroll/spell or have NPCs be able to identify it for a fee.

Currently playing IWD2 and it's kind of irritating how little exposition there are from NPCs. I hope Sawyer allows for more of it in Eternity. Even if it's just little tidbits from NPCs when asking them about inane stuff, it definitely adds a lot.

Hopefully they will order a few more boxes than necessary to cover KS backers, so they can sell them off at ridiculous prices.

This man speaks the truth. On another subject, I made this mockup due to a discussion at another thread, but it fits perfectly here due to its nature. What do you think if we had a dialog interface like this, where the player is spoiled with delicious artwork? Have you played the IE games? Characters enter scenes, move, maybe even performs actions (attack, drink potion) etc during dialogues. A full-screen dialogue screen would just be in the way. That said, I would love sizable portraits of NPCs during dialogue.

ToEE had horrible UI. Radial menus can suck my ****.

Character strength is only relevant to how strong enemies are. This is my preferred type of game progression: Early game (Weak PCs): Weak "must beat" enemies, but strong/impossible enemies accessible by straying off the general "main story path". Mid game (Moderate PCs): Small amount of weak enemies, mostly moderate "must beat" enemies, but strong/impossible enemies accessible by straying off the general "main story path". Late game (Strong PCs): Almost no weak enemies, few moderate, mostly difficult "must beat" enemies, but very strong enemies accessible by straying off the general "main story path". There should always be a challenge ahead of you, but your should also be able to feel more powerful. This assumes the game doesn't have level scaling (which it shouldn't - **** that). You should be able to enter an area, get completely demolished and then go "oh, I guess I should go somewhere else first".

There are 6 characters in your party, hopefully with as many inventory slots as in the IE games. I want to make choices like... "who gets what". Sometimes magic items are harder to distribute -- especially if they are rarer and hard to come by. That makes it more interesting. Voted Yes for both options on the poll.

Prosper you should share some of your intricate level designs.

24. I share birthday with Sawyer so 25 in a month.

Well what I'm really worried about is that the amount of named NPCs everywhere that won't actually do anything will make the game feel superficial. BG & IWD had "Commoners", so you knew you could skip them.

Well they gotta fill those 3 inns/taverns with something, don't they. Imagine all those "commoners" etc in BG, except now they're called "FiR3HawK3". Personally I hope they put all the backer-designed crap in some corner somewhere so you can just skip it.

I believe this is what they are planning.

but what if I want my character to have been a self-taught badass? what if I don't want training sessions and a mentor?

I know it's a troll and all, but I would actually be glad for no multiplayer. Such a huge resource hog. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines took a heavy blow in development because of the time wasted on figuring out multiplayer code and stuff. I would rather see it developed as an afterthought, a DLC or something.

I disagree. Complete waste of animators' time. Not exactly the most defining trait either.