Bonecrusher

This is really a great news. I am very happy for this development and can even say this is the best thing in gaming since Kickstarting of a new Torment game. Yay! For me, best three cRPGs are: Torment, Kotor 2 and Bloodlines. And of course, my favorite P&P settings is WOD (especially Werewolf The Apocalypse). That's why I am crazy right now. Please create new VTM Bloodlines game. It may not be called as Bloodlines 2, but it should have similar city atmosphere, gameplay, theatrical NPCs, intelligent dialog options and deep varied stories like the Bloodlines. The game should be made by Jason D. Anderson, Leonard Boyarsky, Tim Cain, Kevin D. Saunders, George Ziets, Chris Avellone all together. Bloodlines was a buggy game, but I am sure each player who played that game loved it. It really deserves a unified development between Paradox, Obsidian and inXile. Source Engine 2.0 would be sweet, like the original Bloodlines did, however I don't expect Valve will give us any new Source Engine, but Unreal Engine 4 probably may work too. And I think Obsidian has a big role for making such a dream game come true. Please please please please, pretty please?

First picture reminds me Justin Sweet's artworks from IWD game.

I love achievements, they can be funny in humorous games like Portal 2, and a "targeting point for players" in some multiplayer FPS games. But a story driven game like Project Eternity, must not have an achivement system. I hate achivements in games like Journey or Bastion, so we should stay away in this game too. I don't want to see achievement in Steam version too. I don't want people playing this game just to complete achievement. It is really silly to see "kill 15 orcs, collect 25 golds" and similar things in a game like Project eternity. And neither players should play this game for achieve "sell 100 items" pop-ups. So my answer is, "kill it with fire".

All dollars in the stretch goal will not go directly to Chris. He will be there just as a "designer". Everything he designed will need to have backed with programmers, artists and similar workers, and this means extra work and cost. Its not that murky. Chris is in a leading position in Project Eternity, and in a designer position in the new Torment game. Same person can work in different job categories in different games. It is better this way. If inXile and Obsidian were unified under a same name (e.g. Black Isle), they had to focus one game each time. Some people only heard Chris's name and don't know other people, however there are great leaders and designers in both team. Seperation of teams means more games by the companies.

I think I prefer courage wolf take Elminster as an example:

I remember LOTRO had an interesting system. There were three types of creatures (I am not sure if the official names were exactly like this) 1- Passive, the creatures which not attack you if you don't attack them, 2- Aggressive, these creatures will attack you on sight, 3- Territorial, these will not attack you on sight, but if you stay near them too much and provoke them, they will attack. Most of the RPGs/MMORPGs seperate the enemies into two groups, Passive (like birds, deers, sheep) and Agressive (every creature, character, animal in the world) But I liked LOTRO's approach better. Think about this, If you walk around in a group with your high tier gear (full metal armor or high class mage robe) at the level 15, the level 2 street mugger will prefer to stay away from you (passive enemy) If you encounter a satiated wolf, or an alone wolf while you are in a crowded group, that wolf will prefer to stay away from you, unless you come closer to become a threat (territorial enemy) If you encounter a hungry predator, an evil demon, an orc raider or a character from enemy faction, it will attack you on sight (aggressive enemy)

He is talking about the gameplay of the spell, and you are only thinking the mechanics of the spell. Yes, it is a very unbalanced spell. Even without ripping hearts or heads, ripping someone's hand can make him die or suffer terribly. In reality, if you rip someone's hand, it will cause huge pain that can faint the person. Even then, his wrist will start to bleed, and it can kill the person quickly. The spell tries to combine these two issues with "6d6" but of course it is not enough. Even worse, the hand becomes as powerful as a Wight and start attacking the person. And this is a level 4 spell. Inbalanced, indeed. But forget the power, forget the mechanics, he is trying to explain that he wants more than "fireball, lightning bolt, icebolt, firewall" type of spells, more alternative style magics. Of course, I am happy with spamming fire spells

Sacred_Path has an interesting obsession in this topic. He approached this game like a sandbox rpg, directly converted from D&D core rulebooks into computer software. So, in his eyes, everything must be done by the book. If other characters can wear armor, so we should too. If we can wear tattoo, so other people should too. Think about a standart D&D PnP session. You open the players handbook, and follow the formulas strictly to create your character. You push the system just to make your character as strong as possible. During game session, you questionize DM's choices with the written rules on the corebooks. DM must follow the books without error, because your optimal playtrough is depend on those rules. You can not expect same thing in Planescape Torment. The answer is simple, you are The Nameless One. You are out of bounds from rules, you are a fixed point in the universe. This is the main concept of Planescape Torment. As a player, you may think this as unorthodox or a bad design choice. But these tiny things are the reason why we love Planescape Torment that much. The game is not made to simulate an "ordinary D&D game session", but to narrate an extraordinary story. If you want to play a traditional D&D session, you can always play NWN. You don't wear armor, because you have your tattoos to replace that. Not everybody can wear tattoos, because they don't have the power you have. Yes, you want to wear both tattoos and armors to maximize your character, but this is not a heavily combat focused game, you have other tools to use in battles. Game designers wanted to be this way, and because of these design choices, Planescape Torment is less based on hack&slash and more based on storytelling. By the way, PrimeJunta became my one of the most favorite internet users Especially when he mentioned Blade Runner (my most favorite movie)

I didn't put it as a "counter-argument", but if you want, so be it. I just criticized games' approach on animal behaviors.

Actually you can mix magic with science - Arcanum, Shadowrun, World Of Darkness... However spellcasters are not scientists, so they will not care chemistry and hydrogen fusion reactions. They are much like philosophers - they will ask the questions instead of searching for the reasons.

This is the feeling I get each time I play BG right after Planescape Torment, dull moments. And this is the feeling I get each time I play Planescape Torment, amazement. BG2 is an improvement compared to the first game. At least it has got more interesting atmosphere, and Irenicus cinematics are awesome. I love especially the intro scene ("Aaah, the child of Bhaal has awoken") and the scene when you got outside of the dungeon (when that beautiful music come during the dialogs, it gives a combined feeling of both 1- being free, escaped to the surface at last, smelling the air of the city and 2- seeing that you still have much to do and encountering the dangerous side of the city). (spoiler if you didn't play: ) IWD game has very fascinating visuals. Yes, both PT and BG2 had well designed backgrounds, but cold, dark and foggy style of IWD, combined with the songs, gives the player a very different feeling and atmosphere. It has the artworks of Justin Sweet (I love his arts) and music of Jeremy Soule (example: and ).

earth represents - solid, water - liquid, air - gas, fire - plasma (from wiki: The flame is the visible portion of the fire. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma. ) air represents - spring, fire - summer, earth - autumn, water - winter Some people also assign different things to the elements (directions like north/south/east/west) these elements are not just "magical attributes", more than that. They are view of composition of world's itself, the elements also have spiritual meanings. and they are not just a simple classicifation for "fireball - icebolt - lightning bolt" spells... (as in Fireball = Fire element, lightning bolt = Air element, etc...) by the way you tell Greeks, but Greeks use Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether system (Japanese use similar system too: earth, water, wind, fire, void) but the classic elements we generally use are based on Aristotle's system, and it's a bit different than Greek elements. (there is no spirit, void, or aether)

Actually they have logical thought up to a point, of course not the same as humans. In games, we see every animal as mindless beast which attacks player as soon as sees him. In reality, every animal has different level of intelligence and habit. Some animals tend to stay away from groups, some animals hunt grouped animals with their packs, some animals stay away from bigger animals, some animals don't care the size...

I don't want wizards to turn into fighter/mages, they should stay as pure wizards. Fighter/mages should be a seperate class, like a psychic warrior (fighter/psion - Psylocke? love her) for example. Yes, psychic warrior, great.

It has in game bestiary, but you need to encounter that monster first to get an entry. That's the good part.