Aldereth

From wuxia fantasy novel "heaven sword and dragon saber". One of the character practice an internal art where the act of learning/aquiring each level of power will harm the practioner's internal system. The harm he suffer is but a fraction of what he can dish out. The arts moto go something like "hurt yourself first, then (really) hurt your foe". Link here (in Chinese though): http://www.360doc.com/content/10/0114/16/736764_13540122.shtml As for real life, practitioner of "iron sand palm" as we'll as"iron shirt". Basically would do repeated palm strike on rough sand and rocks to condition their hand or have someone flog their body to condition themselves.

Exact sentiment. What would be even more amazing are a subtle sentient item that keep the player wondering if it is sentient or not for a good part of the game.

Not so much for fixing than balancing. Sometimes, what was an exploit can become a viable class variant with proper balancing. It's a fine line.

Similar sentiment here. I would rather have something that work with the setting, story and all than having something shoehorn in. I mean if P:E want martial arts, they can give it to the dex. base fighter who specialize in either unarmed or specialize weapon. Just have a bunch of warrior skill that require high dex. that can deflect, critical strike, stun....etc. One can still work the storyof discipline and what not in there that is used to channel soul energy (kind of a P:E chi) and what not. Afterall, this is no an AD&D game. (BTW, the above set up is more akin to Wuxia novel than AD&D. Martial arts are not unique to monk class)

Day/Night cycle with NPC schedule designed to make city feel alive is good. If they are design just to simulate realism, one would likely end up making the experience tedious instead of immersive. Here are two simple. Expending the resource to have NPC pathed from one location to another to maintain schedule may look realistic. But I would rather have NPC spawn and despawn from their home, shop, tavern. Give them different conversation selections in different areas and time. I think it make them feel more alive and may get the players more involved with their daily life. Having everything close up at night may be realistic, but you end up with player getting to town intending to sell goods but have to wait till the morning. Why not just give the player the option to sell the products at the NPC’s home if the player earn a certain reputation or complete certain quest for the PC. Going off a tangent a bit, what would make the world even more alive is to change up the schedules of various NPCs if the player completes certain quest to simulate the trade and activity changes to the surrounding area due to the completion of certain quest. Eg After clearing the bandit camp, NPC merchant X who is originally from Town A will spend 1 day of a week at City B to sell his ware or purchase supply that will open up different selection of goods at Merchant X shop. I feel that the cities in most CRPG (especially the recent ones) had missed the point of city by just designing them to be a quest hub with shops. Cities are dynamic, alive and for most people filled with more intrigue and adventure than the cave or ruin nearby. cRPG cities got that in reverse where the interesting stuff is in a cave. Anyway, that’s really another topic.

Depending on how other spells and mechanic works, the armored monk could turn out to be the best tank. Slap all the damage reduction (physical and all element) gear on him. Use poison item on oneself or have your team put DoT on the monk so that he got almost max wound. Charge in the mobs, Convert wound to high damage, unleash holy hell damage to get agro. If the enemy is not pumping enough damage to "recharge" his wound, your teammate can throw DoT or AOE DoT on you. Repeat. Profit

Obsidian 's take is fine. The channeling pain thing actually have some connection with certain medieval European monk orders who flogged themselves. Most RPGs, media and heck even som wuxia novel got the monk wrong due to certain assumptions about Buddhist teaching. The wuxia buddhist monks objective is not to do good or even worship a deity in the traditional sense. They seek to see through the illusion of what we perceive as the material world and achieve a higher consciousness. The spell like super human feat is a consequence of this higher understanding of the universe. The closest popular media archetype is actually Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and the rest of the gang from The Matrix.

I think the fire breathing giant squidlike dragon are called Reapers and they turn up every 50 millennium to clean house

It is, it is not classical fantasy. The AD&D monk feel like shoehorning a wuxia monk into a Tolkien world and that feel weird IMHO. Beside most Wuxia monk are the well learned mentor type that feels too stuffy for a player character. I suppose that chastity vow kind of make them too boring for main protagonist/player characters :D

From the information you provide me, I take master Raseed over that Diablo 3 abomination in terms of character archetype

The way game balances work with the different class would likely lead to a preferred set up. So for most IE game, that would be duo wield swords with heavy armor, Sword and board for tank in most MMO...etc. I think a nobler goal is to build classes that is viable with drastically different equipment set up. eg. Mage that can be set up with armor and weapons who specialize in buff, enchantment, touch and short range spell, Warriors that can be set up with next to no armor but so specialize with their weapon that they can some how deflect and avoid most attack with it. Heck, maybe a charisma base "priest" that does not use any spell but instead talk people to "death". He just buff his allies and debuff enemies with speech and sermons

Most of those are not classic fantasy setting (unless we count those manga that are derived from cRPG) with dwarves, elves or even medieval European settings.

If that's the direction they are going, I am guessing they are trying to make a class that gain strength through pain and in game terms get "resource" by taking hits. Nothing really wrong with it, the WoW fighter (tank) kind of operate like it a bit. Personally, I always thought the D&D monk archetype that eventually evolved into the monk in cRPG to be a bit of an odd ball. Their fighting style is model after the Shaolin monks from Wuxia novels while their "story" is one contrived by TSR (and later SSI, Bioware, Black Isle, Blizzard...etc) to make them fit into a fantasy setting. I always find them kind of clash with the classic fantasy setting. Spiritual warrior who fight unarmed and no hair... Heck, I cannot think of a fictional archetype from any fantasy novel/film/tv and yet it's in so many cRPG. The closest I can think of is Frair Tuck from Robin Hood (who uses a staff) and maybe the Avatar from the Last Airbender. I was hoping that P:E would break that mold and come up with something unique, I suppose we shall see.

The Longest Journey (an old adventure game) offer a rather mystical take on dragon. They are almost god like being and have become stuff of myth and legend. The giant lizard appearance was almost never seen in the world but is believe to be their "native form" but the main character of the game who is clearly human is a daughter of a dragon which make her a draic kin as well. Check out this link: http://tlj.wikia.com/wiki/Draic_Kin

Agree with Sawyer on this. I think he is addressing the density or disproportional density that is happening in one area. I don't think he is against doing many quest together. Having huge number of quest is distracting especially from a plot stand point. BG 2 was pretty much the limit. I would argue Skyrim and Fallout 3 went beyond the limit where quest were added even walking past certain land mark. it got to a point that the player is completely overwhelmed. Heck, there were many time I literally forgot what my main quest or the plot was. And the worse part is, near the end when most of those "avalanche" of quest are done, the world feel empty in late game. Non-linearity for non linearity sake may be good for a sandbox game with a lose plot which I do not think P:E is aiming for So I think there need to be a balance there. And a staggered approach seems sensible.

I prefer the kind of "parallel arcs" that branches depend on player's action offered by Alpha Protocol. Players action would set certain arc in motion and close off others. The interesting thing is that my view on certain characters in the game is completely different if I play the game in a different way. The plot reactivity of Alpha Protocol was something innovative and was not followed upon by future Obsidian games which is really too bad.

For a bonus and non-plot stopping quest, yeah. It's good to mix things up. As a side note: If it were a multiplayer game or MMO, pretty bad idea. I still have flash back of a whole bunch of people standing there waiting their turns on a puzzle(not sound base but still) thing in SWTOR

Obsidian Offline with following marketing bullet point in the back Single Player only Minimum Voice over Way under 200 Million budget :D

Sure, why not with the standard caveat that if resource allow. More importantly. It would be much better if the combat system support said realistic combat move other wise is just a different "skin" for the standard cRPG Dances of Death Melee. BTW, TC. Great article to read. Thank you.

In my younger days. I am for this. Lately, doesn't really care. And when I think about it, in some way, it is a kind of failing ofr cRPG combat system. Melee has been kind of stuck in this dances of 2 health bar for so long that, we are adding frivolous thing to make some variety and appearance of depth.

The guys behind Project Eternity created some of the most beloved cRPGs that many people enjoy and cherish. If a few dollars could help them pursue their dream and alleviate the financial risk that is game development today, I think it is an incredible bargain to repay the joy they have already provided. So even if P:E were to disappoint, or fail, I am sure there would be lessons they can learn and would help them build better products in the future. For what they have done thus far, I think they have earned enough goodwill for a few fail. Karma and all.

Depending on the story the cRPG want to tell. Getting too much realism and details in may detract from certain kind of plot. cRPG and fantasy are a lot of time about escapism, for some gamers it would be rather hard to find escapism if the game world is a grim grey, edgy caricature of the real world

Physics probably fit better with a 3D real time game but I love to see a turn base or RT with pause with some interactive and destructible environment to add some depth to combat. It would be challenging in terms of expending resource to develope and balance such a system as well as getting the AI to take advantage of them.

On principle, minigame is a bad idea unless one is building a game like Ninetendo Sports or the Olympic game where it is suppose to be a small collection of game. Putting minigame in cRPG only work somewhat to the pacing as some one pointed out and if and only if they are done within context and does not detract too much from immersion like the lock picking or hacking in Deus Ex or ME 2. But do they really add to the immersion, most of the cases not at all and like I pointed out, it is more or less about not breaking it. Further, if one really think about it, a lot of times, we only enjoy the minigames because combat (which is a very big part of any cRPG) has grown monotonous and a change of pacing would benefit the play experience. Sometimes, I feel that the dev. add those in to gloss over the combination of imbalance, power creep that has turn combat monotonous (The much hated Quick Time Event is a minigame that action game dev. use to hide the monotonous core game mechanic.). And I feel that some dev. use minigame to cover the weak plot that the player has got it "figured" out in mid game and is just going through the motion to see the ending (Think the first Assassin Creed). Point is, if a game's core mechanic is strong enough, there is not any need for minigame and player would find their mere existence distracting. Think Civilization or X-Comm, player just want one more turn. If the plot is strong enough like Torment, player would just want to follow the story to the very end like reading a good novel. Having said all of the above, that's just the ideal scenario. In reality, any game would have some kind of weakness that minigame can help cover up. It is just that, as someone who is invested in P:E (both financially and emotionally), I hope the dev. does not need this clutch.

I am all for adding something that add tactical depth to combat. As long as they are balance, animation is secondary. However, I do get the feeling the dev. are used to a certain unspoken "industry standard" for polish of a game and likely, they would not implement it if they are not doing animation. Whether that is the right thing to do is entirely a different discussion.