JonVanCaneghem

The idea of thieves' guilds and assassins' guilds are ludicrous enough. You might as well propose a stableboys' guild and a gaoler's guild. That said, the idea of hiring men to carry out the stuff isn't, at its root, bad. Assuming there are enough free men shiftlessly lazing about the game's cities, it would be more believable to simply go and hire people to carry things for you. Better yet, they should be untrustworthy and selfish, liable to conceal the best stuff so they can sell it for their own profit. Well, it could be workers of any description, I'm definitely not married to the idea of a special guild for it. Maybe it's a special arrangement you make with the foreman of a dwarven work-crew? They could be construction workers looking for a little part time work (and don't we all know dwarves are industrious and trustworthy?) The concept of whether or not they will steal things for their own would be handled a bit like the assurance that your housecleaners won't steal from you... The continued success of the arrangement depends on trust (since both parties are benefitting), and you also have a good idea of what all you left in the cave of value. Of course, that doesn't mean someone won't occasionally grab something that they think you might overlook. It's one of those things that always nagged at me. You enter this ancient tomb that everyone has been afraid of for a hundred years, because legends of awful creatures etc. You walk in and mow down all sorts of shambling corpses and then strike down the vampire running the show. You take your pick of the loot, and then you just leave it. Seems to me like a pretty wasteful thing, I mean once word gets out that the ancient tomb is no longer dangerous you'd have treasure seekers swarm the place and pick it clean. Knowing this, it would be quite the valuable bit of information that you'd definitely exploit.

I'd say go with option 1, they just keep it. As a player, you just have to get used to the idea that you want to scour the cave the first time and be sure to "discover" things that need discovering. And of course, the scav team won't know where to go until you send them in, so if you really want to make a couple passes you can. I think for this system to be feasible you'd have to make some exceptions, since some requests might turn out a bit ridiculous ("I found this really great place in the Underdark, loaded with loot!") Caved-in and blocked-off dungeons will still happen, and you have to make the call over whether or not it could be feasibly scavenged.

How about a solution that is reasonably realistic and also extremely simple and awesome? Any large city will have a "scavengers' guild" for lack of a better term. These guys aren't much for fighting, but they are great at hauling stuff out of dungeons and selling it at market. They're basically jawas. Now each dungeon would need a hidden (or not so hidden) condition where the dungeon would be considered "clear." Maybe you need to kill the big baddie or 100% of the monsters. Now say your party has just cleared out a huge dungeon, and has picked up the best magical items etc, but has left behind all the candlesticks, unenchanted stuff, and "trash loot" that has minimal value. By all rights, that extra junk you left behind is yours for the taking, but you just don't have the time to haul it all out ('cause you got to save the world and all). Back in town you head over to the scavengers' guild. Here is an excellent opportunity to utilize a character with a high haggling skill, because you will basically be negotiating a contract for them to pick over that dungeon. So you're hiring them to clear the place out, and then depending on your barter or haggling or charisma, you will be entitled to a greater percentage of the value of each item. So you could put a timer on this or not, maybe an ingame day up to a week depending on distance to the dungeon and the size of dungeon. After the right amount of time you head back to the scavengers' guild and they show you what they've collected. THIS is the bottomless inventory screen, where the scavengers are showing you everything they've collected. So say you've negotiated an 80% cut. At this point, you can just have them sell everything off and you'd get a payout of 80% of the value (which would be a nice lump sum of cash), and additionally you can look through and if you see something you want to keep, you can pay the scavs 20% of what you haggle that particular item to be worth (since your cut is 80% in this example). Obviously a party with an expert merchant character would lose very little using this method of dungeon-clearing. The fine print: "Locked and/or trapped chests and any undiscovered hidden treasures will not be considered as part of the take of the contractee." That is, you can't use the scavs to replace lockpicking/disarming skill. As for "hidden caches", that would include things like loot hidden behind paintings or in other objects or places the player might not "search". In other words, you can't use the scavs to "scout" a dungeon for hidden loot that you would then load your game to go search for on your own. This also maintains the importance of player discovery, and of lockpicking and disarming everything in sight. Things like barrels, bookshelves, and other unlocked or obvious containers would be fair game, as would anything the player unlocked/disarmed/found in his initial exploration. So obviously some people would still be tempted to just do the old back and forth... If spending an extra hour trotting back and forth is worth it for someone to gain an extra 20% or so, then by all means let them. With this system, you have a very solid alternative with a very solid justification in game that is minimally invasive on the player's time. Hell, even less of a time waster than the bottomless inventory, because with my solution the player doesn't actually take things out of barrels and manually sell them. Functionally, the idea here is that everything you leave in the dungeon IS your "junk stash". You would still want to pick up the most valuable and important things on your own run through the dungeon. Optimally, you would still want to fill your (limited) packs with the best stuff, since you get 100% of the value of what you carry out yourself (obviously). Finally, this mechanic opens up awesome possibilities. The player will have a house and/or stronghold in Project:Eternity. How about the scavs can pick up furniture and other adornments that you can then use to decorate your stronghold? Slain and beheaded a dragon in the last dungeon? Have the scavs carry it back so you can mount the head of the dragon above the glorious hearth in your stronghold! Maybe even have special quests triggered by the scav saying things like, "hey, we found this key" or "When we rolled up this fancy rug we found a trapdoor underneath, but we didn't dare go in." These little extras would ensure that people who were completionists would want to use the scavs for every dungeon.

Turn-based combat has clear limits on actions that can be taken in each time interval. And you don't emulate turn-based combat by pausing whenever you want, because there is no pausing and reissuing commands between intervals in turn based combat. First you call this "the most logical compromise", then you talk about "cheater illogic" not mattering because Obsidian promised to make the compromise that is supposed to be the "most logical", lol. Having any command pause at all is a compromise from a real time system. The reasons for having limits on command pausing aren't based on some compromise pact with the developers or some "illogic" having to do with turns. The issue is how the players will need to approach and think about combat, especially with respect to their own competence and skill. It shouldn't be nearly as pronounced as in action games, but it should definitely show up more, especially in the absence of the sort of strict calculations you can put in turn based systems. First off, I view this suggestion sort of like I view speed chess. I respect that people play it, but I probably never would. It would also be silly to suggest that all chess must be played with limited time to think. The game of chess, much like party based combat in roleplaying games, involves some rather detailed decisions that can take time to ponder. One might eventually be able to make these decisions quickly, but not as a beginner. And without ever allowing "think time", the novice would be stunted in their growth as a player. They would make unnecessary mistakes caused not by poor strategic choice, but by lack of game rule knowledge. Here's the problem with importing this to PE... it's not chess. Not only will it be staggeringly more complex than chess rule-wise, but we will all be starting out as novices. I do think, however, that this would be a nice "challenge mode" option that you could select. I have always disliked people who suggest "just impose the challenge on yourself." It would be easy enough to add a little pause meter for those who want to turn it on as an option. It could drain when you pause the game, and refill while the game is not paused. I personally might enjoy a version where you have a fixed number of pauses per combat, almost like time-outs in most sports. You'd really think before pausing and make the most of each pause.

I severely dislike level scaling, as I disagree with its basic premise. The idea, the theory, is that no matter which route you take, you can't make a "wrong" choice. You can wander anywhere, and the game builds itself around you. You also don't have to worry about over-leveling and making lower level areas "too easy". Sounds great, because that opens up an infinite number of ways to play the game. Then you actually play the game, and the world feels.. fake. There is effectively only ONE path possible and ONE level of challenge. It doesn't matter what you do, your experience won't be much different from anyone else's, except in a narrative order sense (though the story in any part is always the same regardless). Having some fixed level quests available, as will be the case in Project Eternity, gives the world some texture. For example, BG2 had the Firkraag quest available before the party even went into the underdark. One time I decided Firkraag was going down before I even started the underdark chapters, and so I was able to create my own sort of challenge. And of course, that particular untertaking carries with it its own rewards! I was able to redistribute some of the game's difficulty into one big score, which then made the underdark that much easier. It didn't break the whole game, it just gave it a different texture. As to P:E scaling its main quest lines.. I'd prefer them at a fixed difficulty level but depending on how they do it, it could be ok. Main quests should always be a significant challenge, and they should be very difficult for those who want to skip right through every other detail of the world. I hate when games point to certain quests and say, "This quest is optional, and therefore an insignificant distraction!" Doing "side content" should be semi-optional... and what I mean by that is you will probably need to do some of the side quests in order to become strong enough to overcome the challenges of the main game. Which side quests, and how many you do (and when), is how your playthrough becomes different from someone else's. Probably my favorite main-plotline quest of all time was from Baldur's Gate 2, chapter 2. It was simply, "Raise 20,000 gold." At the time of the quest, it is an ungodly sum. You set out on numerous adventures and seek out treasure and fortune. It gave you a relatively simple goal and didn't tell you exactly how to achieve it. A more modern game would omit this quest because of the possibility that you could squander your money on high priced magic items and thus never be able to make enough to complete the quest (possibility of failure). Also the lack of a glowing arrow pointing to the next location might be viewed as problematic. Scaling the main-quest portions of the game will tend to 1) shorten the gameplay time for people who find the path of least resistance and 2) greatly reduce the feeling of reward from side quests. I've also found that games which fully embrace the strictly categorized "Plot Quests/Side Quests" dichotomy, will tend to have really mediocre, MMO inspired side quests. This is because the developers know a certain percentage of people will simply not bother, so why lavish detail on content that won't be viewed by a certain percentage of people? So yes, "semi-optional" side quests is the way to go in my opinion (read: instead of level-scaled main quests). I guess my definition for this would be, "Most players will need to do some of the side quests, while some players will be able to get by on exceptional tactical prowess alone." This also has the pleasant side-effect of validating the existence of a level-up system within the game. It will also make those people attempting speed runs really work for their prize!

The question is: are you the REAL JVC? If you are, just wanted to salute you sir. Your M&M series was what started my love for dungeon crawling RPGs. Cheers. Not the real one, but for some reason I found the name kind of funny/cool when I was a kid and it stuck as an internet handle. MM3 was my first PC game and definitely a brilliant work of gaming. I like the idea of allowing multiple damage types for weapons. Something like a greatsword has an edge, but even with a dulled edge it can shatter bone due to its sheer weight. Axes are similar. Spears would be piercing but probably have some impact to them. Instead of making the player choose different types of attacks, you could just have the normal attack with each weapon do a varying portion of 1-2 types of damage. Being able to thrust or slash with some weapons might be cool too. Makes a single weapon doubly useful. A lot will depend on how many weapon sets are allowed and whether there will be a penalty for swapping sets or if it will be instant.

Isn't part of the point of this update to show that if you want to make your fighter or whatever play like it did before with little to no active abilities you can and it'll be a viable option? I say design as many active/passive abilities as they see fit and let the player choose how to mix and match and in what ratios don't give a class less abilities of a certain type just because he is that class. That's kind of an odd solution. The problem perfectionist people like myself have with the multitudinous active abilities, is that we AREN'T lazy. If I were, I would be content to allow my party to perform sub-optimally, so that I wouldn't have to tell all 6 of them what to do throughout the fight. The gist of the concept, "just build a character with more passive abilities," implies that I would be lazy enough to BUILD a sub-optimal character (i.e. forgo powerful active abilities). I'd be far more likely to pick what I considered "the best" of the active and passives, and I think this is exactly what an overwhelming majority of all players will tend to do. If by some game-design miracle the passives and the actives were perfectly balanced in utility, then the majority of people would choose the passives. After all, you have 5 other party members to worry about! There's this idea that the game becomes more approachable or intuitive when each class has a perfectly equal number of abilities... but it is far easier to explain old D&D to someone. "This is a fighter. Send him after the thing you want dead first. Sure his attack is always the same, but who you send him after can have a huge impact on the battle. Also know when to let them come to you." "Mages have interesting and more situational abilities. As your mages gain power, choose a few of those spells you have available to memorize and use the next day. Spells can have huge effects, but you only have so many, so use them like a scarce resource." The whole spectrum of complexity is found between those two, and it adds up to not a whole lot to wrap your head around. In my opinion of course.

On the topic of classes and active abilities: Please keep some stark distinction between mages and fighters. The active ability plague has descended upon the CRPG (and D&D) from the realms of MMORPG. Granted, in an MMO, you typically control only one character, so managing and rotating cooldowns keeps the player engaged. If you like that sort of thing (I was a short order cook, and for me it was far too similar for me to enjoy MMOs now). But it becomes a meaningful challenge because you CAN'T pause the game at all. With D&D, my dislike of samey character class abilities comes from the ultra-gamey feel of it. I can't explain why, but it just feels like fighters are "mostly melee-ranged mages." The game mechanics, in attempting to be more "unified?" end up destroying a lot of the immersion. Worst is when the active ability express comes to realtime/pause RPGs. Dragon Age Origins being a prime example, I find that I spend most of the battle paused, which in turn causes severe pacing problems. ESPECIALLY if I can't queue up abilities. The solution to this problem was a primitive if/then list with which you can "program" conditional behaviors onto your minions. DAO even thought it would be fun to make these programmed behaviors tie into a skill progression allowing you to program even more conditions. Ick. Dragon Age: Origins also only went up to a party of 4, I can't even imagine the snail's pace of a combat where I had 6 characters laden with micromanagement-demanding abilities. Solution: Less is more Not all classes need the same number of active abilities. Mages should have most, fighters least. This really helps the flow of combat, and reduces the time spent paused assigning actions to each of 6 party members. Fighters having different "stances" is ok, just stay away from magical-type effects that defy logic (logic-defying because they're NOT supposed to be magic). Mages should have plenty of choices, but sometimes the best choice is not "which ability" but "should I use a limited use ability at all, or save it for a tougher fight?" A mage in a party facing a pack of wimpy kobolds, for example, would simply bust out his sling and disdainfully hurl rocks at them (they don't rate a magical assault). In more modern games, the reason not to use abilities against weak enemies is usually "I'm too lazy, I know I'm going to win, and my health will regen before the next fight". This is a bad thing to have in your head, because it takes you further away from the idea that these are actual characters, worried about their own survival in this wonderful made-up fantasy world. And sure, admittedly, a lot of this comes from my perfectionist nature. I always want to feel like my characters are performing the "optimal" actions, because that's what they'd do if they were each controlling themselves. I've seen a lot of people who don't care about this at all, who just leave the game unpaused as they jump around to a few different characters with the most interesting abilities. The other half of their party completes its assigned task and then proceeds to perform downright stupid default behavior. All this is to say, please be mindful of bloat on active abilities! Remember, that new games typically have really small parties, and that you are going to go with the traditional 6... Don't come crying back to us upon playtesting your battles saying, "well, this system really only works with parties of 4 or less", and then cut the party size. Hell, I'd love to play a game where I could command a group of 12, with only about 6 active abilities between them. But, I am strange.

My thinking is... all fantasy games ever made have been pretty wrong about armor (and probably most fantasy novels too) D&D wholesale imported only the armor types found historically (although it might have embelleshed a little on reality). Armor is usually designed to defeat the weapons of the day, but most fantasy games exist in a world where trolls, dragons, and many other non-human opponents exist and have existed throughout the world's history. Plate armor is great for stopping slashing swords and arrows, but what about the snapping jaws of a dragon or a troll's massive club? I'd love to see some creativity in new armor types whose design reflects the existence of these types of threats. Maybe the armor you use for hunting dragons is extremely specialized very light armor with flame resistant properties? What we need to do is expand upon the idea of dodging. Instead of dodging being just another bonus to AC, it should be its own type of defense. In the midst of a pitched battlefield, you want the plate armor to stop the stray arrows and sword slashes, but when up against big gribblies you should definitely be ready to dive out of the way (at least partially). So armor adds some encumberance, and makes it harder to dodge, but additional skills/training could make it easier to dodge while wearing armor. A mage could wear full plate but would be less nimble on his feet than a fighter wearing the same. Which armor you choose could very well depend on what quest you were undertaking. Think you'll be fighting bandits? Maybe bump up the armor a bit. Fighting trolls? Better be lighter on your feet. To balance things out, dodging wouldn't work very well (if at all) against arrows and other fast moving human weapons. So there would be times when you'd want your mage to armor up for a big battle, just to make sure he stays alive. This also makes room for "middle ground" armors, that you might want to wear when you're just not sure what you'll face. All of this detail points towards one thing... a two-phase hit detection process. Step 1 - figure out if the target is hit. This is where dodging comes into play. Step 2 - figure out if some/all of the damage is absorbed. This is where the armor "takes the edge off" of the hit. I'd love to see combat messaging saying, "A kobold fires its short bow. Minsc fails to avoid the arrow, but it glances harmlessly off of his plate armor." This indicates a failed dodge/armor blocked all damage message. This would make combat a lot of fun. Different attacks could have different attributes. Some attacks could greatly penetrate armor but be easier to dodge. Arrows would be tough to dodge but have lower armor penetration, so they'd always tend to target lightly armored individuals. Ranged attack specialists might carry a bow and a high powered crossbow, for targets with a lot of armor to get through. Fighters would choose different melee weapons depending on their opponents. Big enemies would not be very apt at dodging, but very powerful weapons would be needed to get through for enough damage for them to care.

Wow, just, wow. I am loving Dirge more each time I hear it. I also like some of the environmental sounds you used, they can really convey a sense of place. Sometimes when the current locale in the game is really imposing, the place itself can dominate the narrative.. it's great when these sorts of places have really memorable music. Here are a couple good examples of mystical music with a sense of place, if you'll excuse the sound quality. I've always wanted to hear some of these de-midi-fied. Overall, looks like the soundtrack is in good hands. I look forward to attaching some fond memories to these new tracks!

Wow, well this seems like it would be an opportunity to create an awesomely deep and complex game, complete with a brand new set of mechanics. Setting makes not much difference to me, I play RPGs in many different settings. Isometric is a plus. Something that would be cool... Have a game world where people react realistically to antisocial behaviour, like looting their wardrobes. Don't gear the game around the concept of being able to steal from and murder people, plenty of modern RPGs fulfill these sociopathic urges. Don't have false morality systems (unless you implement deities, who would approve/disapprove of certain actions), but punish crime harshly. Outright murdering someone who asks your party for help should probably cause most of your party to leave, some of them would attack you, and even the coldest killers on your team would be like, "What is the point of that? Trying to get us arrested?" Opt for granularity in skills, and have them interact in surprising ways. So you'd train in a very specific thing like short bows, but that also slightly improves your other bow skills, and marginally improves your "ranged mastery" and up to the trunk of "combat prowess". So you basically are picking which roots of the tree to strengthen, but every time you do, everything that particular root nourishes also gets a bit of a boost (to stretch the analogy). Other main trunks could include streetwise (general sneakiness, getting people to see your way, that sort of thing), survival (outdoors type skills that help you travel/hunt), trade (job-type skills that enable you to function as a member of society, and the sciences, anything learned at a university) and magic (broken up into elements/other types of magic like telekinesis, illusion, etc). Think of it as a system of skill trees, but MUCH more complex. The idea is that the complexity is hidden and you discover it by training your characters. You also wouldn't get to that point where your entire development path is optimized and pre-determined (I loathe the term "build", characters should be individuals darnit). Have surprising interactions like training in fire magic and gaining a degree of proficiency at melee combat grants you some kind of burning strike (maybe makes your blows harder to parry or something). And also have crazy amounts of non-combat skills as well, that also can interact. Let's say you study wind magic and leatherworking, in addition to runesmithing, and that lets you make some windwalking boots. But whatever you do, make all of these paths hidden. Make it surprise a player when he gains new abilities. In this way, you just train organically and sometimes little perks will just pop up and you will have to figure out how to use them. Character stats would be incrementally increased based on skills selected for training. Basically make this really complex system with tons of ramifications, but the only thing the player does is train from a list of skills. Each choice trickles up the complexity chain, and if implemented correctly, there would be no incorrect skill choices. A lot of old D&D tabletop games aspired to this level of complexity in non-combat skills, but it is very rarely implemented correctly. Climbing/swimming could be in, and maybe it would mean you have to split your party as only some of them can gain access to certain areas. On the perks - Don't make them things that the character should be able to do anyway. Like, any bow user could climb a tree and snipe down from cover, but rather make the perks have you better at doing it (less likely to fall out of the tree/increased accuracy for this example).