MattH

I think you are confusing "better flow" with "feeling rushed". However Pillars 1 was definitely more rushed in that regard. In any case, that just seems like a buzzword that one could easily disillusion you about, if one really cared.

I've found out that the reputation bug when siding with Sweynur only occurs if you don't talk to Pasca after you choose the option buy them a round. If you give them beer from your inventory, the Gilded Vale reputation won't change. Apparently the option to bypass talking to the innkeeper was added later, but the reputation script still requires it.

I might be missing something, but there seem to be a bug with the reputation rewards in the quest "Against the Grain" in Gilded Vale. At first glance the game doesn't seem to favour taking sides with either Sweynur or Trumbel. After convincing anyone and telling the other side, I can get a Moderate Positive reputation increase. If I convince Trumbel I even get an intermediate Minor Positive increase before reporting to Sweynur that is not shown when convincing Sweynur instead. That would seem to slightly favour convincing Trumbel. However only if I convince Sweynur my character sheet shows Moderate Positive reputation and a "Hero" status in the Gilded Vale. If I convince Trumbel my Gilded Vale reputation is unchanged as "faintly good" and "Ally", the same as before the quest. So it seems that the reputation reward doesn't work if I side with Sweynur and the farmers in convincing Trumbel.

I basically meant that there are many different concepts or gameplay even behind the troll designs offered in this thread, and that some of them are simply trashmob, and that just because some of them seem very trollish to someone it doesn't mean they are the cream of the crop. You can discuss design without taking interpretations of the concept behind it as fact or dogma. I think critical interpretations of these designs tend to be of an overly-simplistic kind, implying that there was little thought put into them or that the thought is entirely invalid. However, they may not be finalised and still be adjusted, and the fact that they're slightly different at least seems to speak of that there was some thought put into them, as opposed to being just filler (albeit visually poignant filler).

Around the time of the trailer I wanted to leave this topic to the more interested, but here is a clarification of terms: I disagree. If this was about estetics and assumed nature of some playable 'established' high fantasy trope, i think this thread would get much more passionate followers. As for expectations, backing the game, evryone saw concept arts and listened to devs so they get to 'feel' and visualise first impression. Whn game got funded, it did not stop fans to make threads with thousands posts about armor, weapons, portraits, outdoors areas, races and generally estetic choices for just some of things I mentioned. How those choices affect nature of the world, interaction, etc. I dont see how this is much different? "Expectation" is a very open word, but you objected to the more approximate "familiar", and so I took this objection, and interpreted as a productive open-mindedness about the "best" troll-implementation for the project. It is also not directed "against" expectations, but it's simply not taking it as the determining factor. This is only reasonable in the light that the game will necessarily (i.e. if it is any good) deviate in some ways from some expectations, though it may still use the evocation of those expectations as a factor in order to make the result effective. On any topic, the discussion will also have to take into account the different requirements and style of this project or any particular aspect, even while promoting some prefered or familiar approach. Because of this there is no inherent "betterness" rather a striking, unfavourable contrast to any stark or simplistic stereotypes, nor is it wished for that the creations will be too simple in the lore of the world. This conforms to what you were saying towards the end of your last post.

I find it a hard piece to judge. The atmosphere is fine, but it doesn't seem well-structured. The repetitive movement seems to be some sort of theme, but it's a little too simple for that, and it also doesn't develop into anything better, because the "epic" part is kind of formless and generic. As part of a personal preference, so far I'm missing a sense of individual instruments or instrument sections, which I liked about the BG soundtracks, although it was probably entirely synthetic, and which also gave it some additional feeling of structure. But I suppose the structure was deliberate for the trailer.

I think we would agree that troll-implementation is usually not much to speak of and that criticizing PE-trolls for their difference to expectations (as I understood it) is not a criterion for the quality of them as an encounter or for their lasting impression on the player.

There seems to be a particular kind of troll that doesn't really fit with a certain kind of storytelling. I'd rather the trolls are consistent with the style of storytelling, than be "familiar". Why should I give a damn about "familiar" trolls, honestly.

They're good Project Eternity trolls. They're more humanoid because of the "souls" principle of the game and they probably have some special affinity instead of just being random critters from some picture book. Maybe not, but that look fits to the world. Those horns have a good sense of woodlands about them. Nothing "scary for the sake of it". Real troll, a bit different. I admit they're a bit dry and aristocratic for trolls, but I find that interesting. Maybe we will see them acting trollishly and we will have to use troll-tactics.

I don't care. There are trolls and there are trolls. Think of the cave troll, the skinny BG troll, or the monkey with spider eyes in the Elder Scrolls.

I don't need to be surprised. I prefer looking forward to the game instead of just having "hopes". Like with a book, I like to get a good sense of exactly how it will feel before I buy it. I like discovery and surprises, but I don't want a trickle of basic ideas in-game ("oh, so they thought of that!"). I want it to be like I expect it, but different. I don't want to know more than basics in anything, but I'm not particularly afraid of some specific element.

It depends a lot on the native language on how difficult or easy it is to learn English. I bet you also can't easily learn every other language (well, why don't you?). For example, many even have great difficulty with French (including me).

I keep thinking that that big waterfall in the first background art would either need to have a larger pool or be very young,

I doubt it could turn out very bad anyway, just maybe not so great sometimes. It seems not far-fetched at all and a believable explanation of magical phenomena. It's the dualism of matter and spirit that fantasy assumes. It also opens up a whole world of thematic exploration and might serve as a foundation for traditional metaphysics. However, having the soul referred to as something almost separate from yourself and something to calculate and strategize with, might let some things appear abstract, like accounting matters or soul-economics, and not imbibed with the necessary seriousness (apart from being somewhat inconsistent). In Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, for example, souls and spirits are also naturally assumed, but it's not exactly the soul-ness that is often referred to, but rather some soul-property or ability or a concrete action, just like in ordinary speech. Yes, It should be fine as long as it is often tied back to some natural occurrence or first-hand experience and doesn't overrun ordinary speech.

Although I like the logic and versatility of the soul-system, I wonder if it might get too artifical to talk of "souls" all the time. "Mwahaha. Your soul is no match for mine."

Well, I guess connectivity plays an important role in progress. If you only have sporadic contact to other regions and only live a short span of time, with a certain routine, what do some considerations of "efficiency" matter. It can go a few hundred years like that, before someone comes up with another interesting way to do it.

On another note, now that you mention it, it strikes me that the printing press in principle seems a simple enough invention. Surely they had some kind of "printing" in another context already, seals perhaps, and all it needed then was a monk who thought writing was too much of a pain in the ass in the long run (and there seemed to have been those kinds of monks). I know inventions are not that easy (as they appear in hindishgt), but maybe that counts as a remark that at a certain technological level, it would be very likely to appear.

Easily about half of those options, I think they are inclusive. I think I like its closeness to nature and/or there being a feel to the world. It tends to be taking a large view, and be loaded with drama along every step, and challenges which partly appeal to one's personal sense of accomplishment. It also can use concepts more literally and still let them feel more real than when bound to the mundane. And it can present alternate realities and societies to what seems so important in everyday life. And of course it can simply do away with anything unpleasant, which makes most of it trite and lazy or downright stupid. Finally, I think think there is an inherent game aspect to it in getting immersed in its rules and learning its content, so that this kind of thing tends to be fantasy or a related genre.

It's not so much a matter of direct scope-comparison as what other developers (or a developer with certain qualities and competence) would likely have done differently or better, not necessarily in mechanics and basics, but tone, substance and many different things of focus and balancing, and I think the differences between the Fallouts is a valid example to go by. But it doesn't have to be a different developer but could be Bethesda themselves considering they would have handled things a little differently, paid more attention to some things instead to others. We can compare this to Oblivion which supposedly was much worse than Skyrim. But Skyrim isn't the only possible result of a "better Oblivion". For one, they might have distributed the writing jobs in a way that a number of central quests, characters and personal reactivity would have been simply better, more involving or more interesting, whereas it's now all very same-y and seamless with the automatically created stuff. The main quest feels very hacked into different parts and there is no deep sense of anything important for the world it plays in about it. It's held together by dragons roaming the land and being relatively easily slain. They might have been a bigger deal. The Dragonborn could have been acknowledged more, in potential, and taken different roles. Or maybe the story could have made "sense" more and be more believable. The different factions might have real characters at their tops, and the history might actually matter a bit and give better incentives for different playtypes or dispositions, and not be so totally indifferent to the player, with the faint excuse of "grey morality", as in "nothing going on here". I have never thought very systematically about it, and maybe what I'm thinking of is simply a more talented job at fleshing out the world, and making it more emotionally involving on the most important levels... In any RPG, and open worlds are not exempt, insofar as it has to have some semblence of reality or "immersion", anything I do has to feel as though as it "means" something in that context. Or else it's basically just something for making pointless Youtube videos. Maybe, but I don't think it's because of setting, as I liked the sense of Scandinavia, the Silmarillion and even Moby-**** (or The Whale) I got of it beforehand, but it can be a thing of "resonating" nonetheless. But since you mentioned theme, maybe themes (in another than graphical sense) would have been good and might be a central word here.

My problem with the Bethesda style of Open World is that every situation, conversation and character feels the same. It's almost like they could give you a couple of things to click and an independently moving background and expect you to feel on a varied adventure. The world doesn't feel real to me in fact. Nothing in it seems to matter, and whether you kill someone or not or feel yourself on this or that side of the story is completely random, a different texture or a name tag that props up for a moment. At the beginning of Skyrim I got the sense I was involved in some epic world full of conflict, strange places, story and opportunity like in the Silmarillion, but no matter what I did, where I went, to whom I talked or what happened to me, it felt more and more empty. I didn't care for any of it. I think Bethesda is on a wrong path with their design. It might be valid, but I don't think it achieves anything special. It only provides a shadow of its promise so that it might as well not try at all. Maybe the fault lies in deliberately, out of a mistaken understanding of openness, not making anything interesting by itself, or thinking that one-note-interestingness (Fus-Ros-Da) is enough for a large open world with hundreds of NPCs and hundred of hours of gameplay. A world full of uninterestingness cannot be especially immersive.

"See you guys in a couple of weeks." Crap, didn't catch that last week.

I don't think there are any substantial arguments, it's just a matter of interpretation. The style of gameplay can be more balanced as well as more complex and bringing a few new things or changes to the table. A game can (and in my opinion should) feel and play a little differently and still retain the essential style of gameplay. You can't even compare the systems of Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment on the basis of such out of context lists with special emphasis.

Some enemies literally required you to change your weapons or elemental type in BG2. And others required you to lower their immunity (I think some elite mindflayers in the underdark, for example). And all this stuff...

Balancing aside, I mainly find it curious from a cultural perspective. Such an ability would probably have big implications, social, military and philosophical, and not be ignored and left alone to a few monks, those weirdos in a mountain hut.

Wasn't that the "original" concept of a Barbarian? That he gets into "Berzerker" mode if he gets badly wounded? Not really. The Berserker mode is just a bonus, he is quickly at his limit, and his vulnerability is as far as I know even increased. I can come to terms with the concept but I also find it a bit strange. Imagine a very high-level monk. He's basically some god's avatar who can maybe only be killed by killing yourself. The most basic risk and trade-off in battle, of harm, is inverted to making him more powerful. Sure, it's kind of intriguing, but still.