jethro

Ok, I tried to work out a possible attribute/skill combination that could work with Strength as damage bonus for melee and spells. I'm not sure I bring anything new to the table, but it might give us a feeling what could work. Or not, if anyone finds a big hole in this. I only worked out attributes and skills important to fighter/mage differentiation: ------------------ Attributes: Strength (damage for all) Accuracy (accuracy for all) Constitution (hit points) Intelligence (spell-amount and spell-speed, also magic resistance) I would rename at least intelligence, but since we are so used to these names I kept them here. Now a fighter needs Strength Accuracy and Const, a mage Strength Accuracy and Intelligence, but both can't just drop the left-over stat or they will be very vulnerable. But why couldn't a mage just max out Strength and Accuracy and leave the others low. He could, that would make him a battle mage. Or a fighter boost int instead of Strength. He could, that would make him a battle-mage too, with some other characteristics. Now what differentiates mage and fighter are the class skills/feats (that are either exclusive to him or just very expensive to other classes): Fighter: Cleave Shield Bash Opportunist Crippling Strike Mage: Concentration Ignore Armor (ignores some armor not all!) Fire Magic Water Magic Air Magic Another important rule: Spells can only be cast with empty hands, so you can't cast spells and peek opponents with a sword at the same time Now we have lots of possibilities: Pure Mage: Very High Int, High Str and Acc Pure Fighter: High Str, Acc and Con Mage with all attributes the same: As a mage decent damage output, missing spell-speed means 75% damage output, as a fighter without any crowd control but with acceptable damage, less than 50% of a dedicated fighter (less accuracy and strength, no fighter feats). Has it easier standing in the thick of combat as a pure mage. Fighter with all attributes the same: As a fighter 80% damage output (lower strength and accuracy, less points in fighter feats) and slightly faster out of combat (lower con), but is able to soften enemy with spells as long as he isn't in melee. But to cast spells he has to put some expensive skill points for example into "water magic" instead of fighter skills A possible Battle Mage build: Passable Str and Acc, High Con and Int, Mage class with very high Concentration skill. Maybe some points in fighter skills, for example Shield Bash (skills able to get you out of melee). To afford high Concentration and fighter skills he probably has to concentrate on one spell school. --------------------- Thoughts?

I am going to put this as politely as I am able at this point, but GTFO, please -- and take your pompous attitude with you. Your analogy with the phones is utter nonsense. As to why Obsidian should create a fulfillment site? Ahh, let me see - oh, yeah, because they said they were, and because they must have a way to organize everyone's pledges. Many people, myself included, bought multiple tiers and extras. All Obsidian has are dollar amounts with no idea of what those amounts represent. Yet, miraculously all you see is entitlement. Freaking unbelievable. One last comment and I GTFO. I don't dispute that a fullfillment site is necessary for such a project. It is necessary about 2 months before the game comes out (Expection: if a lot of backers have influence on in-game stuff like names or items, then appropriatly earlier)

Yes, sorry. I did paint in broad strokes. But that is because I don't get it what importance some of you put into this site. To me it looks as if Apple or Samsung offered a phenomenal new smart phone but produced too few of some silly paper stickers for marketing purposes. Now everyone is talking about them and demanding to get one too. Why should Obsidian create a fullfillment site? Because inXile did it. That is not a reason, that is a sense of entitlement because someone else did it. If a few projects would send their supporters a rose would you expect all the others to follow? Ok, at least that is a valid reason, a legal reason not in the (IMHO silly) soul massage category. But if YOU delete any record of your involvement in the kickstarter, it isn't Obsidians fault and you can't expect them to jump through inconvenient hoops to accomadate you. You could petition or ask them for the site because of your situation, but "just appreciate the courtesy of an acknowledgement of my not so paltry pledge" sounds more like you are entitled to a site and expect them to honour the debt courtesy demands of them. I offer my apollogies for ruling out legal reasons so summarily. You really had one. I still fault you for your approach I also apoligize for entering rant mode, but without that nobody seemed to want to talk or think about their own motivation but simply put forward a reason of 'because others do it'. (PS: My motivation for opposing that reason is that I don't want kickstarter funding to devolve into a ritual where secondary goals or gestures supplant the real project goals. Wouldn't it be bad if every project had to provide specific addons or features, specific websites, gestures, expenses just to follow what is expected of them even if it doesn't make sense and just squanders the money given to them?)

An acknowledgemnt is something you want if you don't trust the other party to honor an obligation or debt. If you go into kickstarter, you can see your pledge. It is still there. And together with emails and bank statement you have conclusive proof of the obligation to you. So your worries can't be legal, right? Then all you want is some soul massage, you want Obsidian to bow before you and thank you again for the money. You want a personal notice, a relationship with them, you are their benefactor and they should show that to you. Understandable, for most of us it was a lot of money we gave. But so did ~70k others and whatever grand gesture they try to make will still have to be siphoned to a sea of supporters. They can't shake the hands of everyone. But a fullfillment site is nothing of that. It is a place where you klick on a few buttons, klick "Send" and that's it. Maybe embellished with a "thank you" in big red letters. Big deal. Do you really need that? Should they really squander money or time for that instead of putting it into the game (I already gave some reasons why an early f. site could cost more money)? For me a game where they did everything possible to make it excellent is the best way they can thank me.

A minus only if you count a fullfillment site as some goal that is in any way essential, a guaranteed feature like a stretch goal. But a fullfillment site is nothing but a makeshift tool around a limitation of kickstarter.com. If they found out that that one email allowed through kickstarter were enough to ask all the questions, they could scrap the site without anyone noticing any difference. If Obsidian did fail and could produce only one thing out of the repertoire of things they promised (addons like stickers, cloth map, short stories, a forum...) any of these things has a value in itself, even the forum. The fullfillment site, nope, none at all, it is just a means to end. And it signifies nothing. Likewise the time between kickstarter end and start of a fullfillment site is as good a quality measure as the text length of kickstarter updates. It even makes a lot of bussiness sense to open the site as late as possible.

@Lephys: The argument with the sword +2 doesn't really fit because it would be an intrinsic magic effect of the sword, not dependent on your strength (it would be +2 even when lying around on a bench and some monster thought it a good idea to fall on it). So even if magic would be produced by ripping the fabric of the universe with your physical strength, that weapon could still have 20+2 damage instead of 20+30 because your strength doesn't affect the magic ability built into this weapon. You (or the fighter using that sword) are not ripping at the fabric of space, the sword is, constantly. The fireball is a better example. But here strength could influence the size or heat of the fireball through stronger fabric (of the universe or unknowable void) munging. The strength is needed to work with the nether ether, the fabric of time and space, the unknowable void. Not for the hurling. You are absolutely correct though, that such a system would make physically weak but magically strong wizards impossible. But it wouldn't necessarily mean that everyone who is strong is a good wizard. For mending the fabric in the right way intelligence might be needed as well. Or some other stat like willpower, concentration or meditation. I don't say this is a good system. I'm just pointing out that it can work consistently and intuitivly

Either I misunderstood your point or you misunderstood mine and Leos. Leo said that if they outsource the fullfillment to a partner equipped to do that efficiently then the payment to the outsourcing partner would be paid from the kickstarter money. You seemed to refute this and called this bad management. I don't see why? Could you elaborate?

No, it shouldn't. Why would you even remotly want that? That would be bad money management. People invested in them making a game, not a backer site. They also invested 5% of their total backing amount into amazon, 5% into kickstarter and I don't know how much for postage and random loot that collects dust on their wall or in a cupboard. Sadly a kickstarter campaign has a lot of non-game-related costs and the understanding is that projects don't need to loan money from the bank to finance kickstarter costs itself. So the only question is if fullfillment is done completely inhouse or partly outsourced. Protest would only make sense if outsourcing cost more than inhouse fullfillment.

WL2 had to double their budget? Are you refering to the deal with Deep Silver? If yes, where is that "doubling" coming from? And where did you get the information that they had to? As far as I can judge from the information we got told it was a highly beneficial deal for inXile, they outsourced exactly that part of game production for which publishers/distributors were really made for. If you carefully read the press release, they say it is a "distribution deal". Whenever they talk about money it is always about money they save because they don't need to build their own distribution/fullfillment department. There is no indication at all that they get any money from Deep Silver. And if you count the maybe 500k they probably had reserved for fullfillment/distribution and usable for development again as a hidden subsidy, that is debatable as that is still all money the backers gave them and that should be poured into development as best as possible. If it is not the Deep Silver deal, could you give us a hint where you got the info? The longer a fullfillment site is up the higher the chance that information on it is outdated and users asking support where that site was again and where the place is to change email/adress/addons and "my browser collapsed, did you get the information?", "I tried to change my address but it didn't work" "Someone hacked my email account. Please change the information", "Someone seems to have changed my information by asserting that my email account was hacked. Not true, I'm the real one" The longer the site is up the higher the chance that someone breaks into the site and causes lots of work like reinstall and reset of all passwords, call for reentry of your address and addons. It saves money/time/people to open the site only when it is needed. I don't know if someone at Obsidian thought about this or they just felt that the site was lowest priority, but it just makes sense.

I tend to read most of the books, but especially with lore books I have a short fuse. Either they have to tell a good story or they should have some connection to the plot. Most memorable fails: Books with lists or genealogies of deities whose only connection to the story is a temple in their name, if at all. What I would like: * Books that are hand-placed. So that I would stumble on a book about the history of Drywood in the middle of or directly after exploring Drywood * Books about the society. For example there could be a book detailing and analyzing a coal miner revolt or a tract detailing why the number of midwives collapsed in the last 20 years. A book about the tea trade and its influence on racism. A political pamphlet demolishing the decisions of King Theodorus II. If the devs have created a consistent world there should be logical consequences. For example if one race is the best at archery but low in status, a lot of them would probably work as archer mercenaries. It might even be that a rich kingdom would create a special company of those archers to entice them to enlist there (like the british Gurkas). Create a book that shows why and how this company was created and why it had to fail (or not). If a long range teleportation spell exists, expensive teleport stations (probably managed by the mage guild) would exist in every major city. The economics and politics around these stations would be interesting. Wouldn't the world be much more real if you found a book with background information about this? Number of people transported each year. Effect on diplomacy and other trade...

Well, the difference could simply be that technology enables everyone to wield that power while magic can be used only by some and after much study. This doesn't make a single tech-user better than a magic-user. But a tech-kingdom can produce tech-fighters to replenish the ranks in months and can reuse gear to save money, a magic kingdom would need years to get new mages trained and say only 1 in 30 has the talent to train as a mage. History has lots of examples of this. Where individual soldiers weren't any better or worse between two waring factions. But a tactical advantage (examples roman empire, english longbowmen at agincourt) or better production capacity (example World-War II) decides the fate of empires. To be fair, RPGs often use this trick to seal off parts the player shouldn't go to yet. I know it was the same in NWN and NWN2, I think also in some of the IE games.

Never played Ultima so I can't really compare. But let me make a wild guess, Ultima was more main-stream with its fantasy universe. I never read world descriptions in manuals, so at least for me it was the game world itself. I surely read about crafting in the manual, but sorry, if you can have all the fun just reading about crafting mechanics without doing it in the game, you would be a pretty strange gamer. And music is designed to be a part of a game, it often doesn't work standalone. Most film music is pretty boring on its own as well. Remember that I only cited what I found good besides all the stuff upvoted in this threads poll. Do you also find all that in the manual? And since you say that "can all be gained by reading the manual" [sarcasm]did you really play the game or was reading the manual enough for you?[/sarcasm] Because really, I can't remember that just through reading the manual I lost interest in crafting in the game. I thought you meant companions when you said character interaction simply because I didn't find any fault in the interaction with NPCs in the world. The language, the dialogs were a strong point of the game to me. Naturally if you expected 100% of NPCs had to have something to say to you, your impressions was different. Ultima and fishing. First test of what would become a main stay in all MMOs. Let me make a second guess why Ultima became a greater success, maybe it was the precursor to the first MMOs, especially Ultima online. Whether that is a sign of quality or just compatibility with a typical teenagers taste? You tell me.

You sound like all RPGs have to have specific features or they have no chance. Which is simply not true. Look at Grimrock or Skyrim/FO3. No companion interaction, no preset history for your PC necessary and still a lot of people had fun with these games many years after the "revolution". Wasteland2 will also have blank party members for you to (role) play. And Arcanum (if we ignore the combat) was loved by many people exactly as it was, even after BG. There is more than one way to do an RPG. well first off i didn't say arcanum was bad, only that it is compared to BG which means that people end up thinking less of it. and as for rpgs that would have been considered good being in the gutter, if you thought that arcanum was just good when in a world without BG then you don't think too highly of it either, i was talking about pretty much all the rpgs that you can't think of because they flopped and died (okay maybe not, but they didn't see the kind of following previous RPGs of similar caliber, pre BG), arcanum would have been considered much better if it had come out 5 years prior, and probably would have had an equal or better reaction if it came out 5 years after. i am not saying those games aren't good (skyrim, etc.) but pretty much all of those lack a party (aside from grimrock, which is indie, like P:E), and the NPCs in the world pretty much all have something to say, like in BG how when you interacted with NPCs and they said things, instead of being eye candy. in fact you have done nothing but reinforce what i have said. you'd have to name a AAA title that lacked character interaction fluff like gossip and rumors from non essential NPCs or a strong narrative. yes arcanum had this, but what did the game offer other than this that was really good? pretty much just noncombat options in the game, which amounts to a few dialog choices, but nothing earth shattering. look at age of decadence,... arcanum isn't nearly as polarized as AoD, but for now they have the same failings: innovative mechanics without the content to support them. I might not remember Arcanum correctly after all this time, is it really the case that you could not talk to any non-essential people on the street? Even if not, many RPGs just have a few standard phrases that even different NPCs say repeatedly. That is not interaction that is a bunch of parrots walking around. Examples: Fallout3, The dark Eye: Drakensang. That might be slightly better than mute NPCs, but far from an essential feature. I don't get what you want to say with "find a game that ... lacked a strong narrative. yes, arcanum had this". Why should I offer you a comparable game if it isn't comparable to arcanum? It seems you try to put arcanum in a box together with failed RPGs, then point out that they all failed because they lack different "essential" features and thereby you showed something lacking in arcanum. Haven't tried Age of Decadence, can't comment on it, but what does that failure say about arcanum? I'm not sure. AoD doesn't sound like Arcanum at all Arcanum had the best world building together with torment, it had the best crafting system I ever saw, it had the best intro and the most fitting music of any RPG, see above poll for even more features I concur with. Its combat was lacking somewhat mostly due to balancing issues. It may have had non-essential features missing like chatty companions, but I don't remember missing them and I played Arcanum after BG. I'm simply not buying your sentence that these features you miss are *essential* (your words). They may be essential to you, granted. Obviously not to many other people or Arcanum wouldn't have such an enduring fan base.

Right. Now I get what both of you have been saying. Needless to say I don't agree.

You sound like all RPGs have to have specific features or they have no chance. Which is simply not true. Look at Grimrock or Skyrim/FO3. No companion interaction, no preset history for your PC necessary and still a lot of people had fun with these games many years after the "revolution". Wasteland2 will also have blank party members for you to (role) play. And Arcanum (if we ignore the combat) was loved by many people exactly as it was, even after BG. There is more than one way to do an RPG. @Gromnir: Rulebooks were the rule before context-sensitive help was invented/possible. Whether that information is in the game as tooltips and in-game manual screens or externally as a book there are games that simply need it. Even with the best user interface you can't avoid having to read auxiliary information in games like Civilization or a war game for example. So when codex praises arcanum for needing a book they are probably not refering to the UI descriptions but to the underlying mechanics that are described in the manual. PS: I can't remember to have had any problems with Arcanums UI when I played it. It might be different if a camera is behind my head and I was forced to do it inbetween designing new games.

(Speaking only about single player) I believe that is the only interesting example there is. Apart from that construed situation I don't think it likely that charm-, persuasion- or intimidation-experts would be reluctant to use their skills to help their party of adventurers. But then it simply becomes a routine non-decision to always use charming Boo in charming situations and you would ask yourself why the silly program can't simply and automatically use the person with the best skill?

But it had a fantastic memorable world to explore. Ah well, tastes differ.

Wood or no Wood, the border around the text window is to wide IMO. I would prefer smaller borders. I vividly remember how often I had to scroll ... and scroll ... and scroll to get to some information in BG and all its descendants. So the more text is able to fit into the window, the less scrolling is necessary Part of it was the flood of information that came up in fights, which might be diminshed in PE, but even in conversations it was bad to have long descriptions broken up because it didn't fit into the tiny rectangle below.

I think it's the latter, because it is always the PC speaking for the group (you don't control what the companions say). So the portrait would usually be the one you are talking to. Or a companion in case one of your companions intervenes into the conversation, i.e. makes a digruntled comment on your performance as leader ;-).

This reasoning is why the Allip is rated at CR 3. Personally though I find it very troubling that the game is balanced around the assumption that the party will have spellcasters (see also diseases that can only be magically healed, locks that can only be magically picked...). As long as the allip doesn't block the main quest this still would be okay. Even a magical disease could be made managable by making sure the contagion can happen only in a small area with a priest NPC nearby who offers healing. Also scrolls and wands could substitute for abilities missing in the group (in a RPG system where most classes could use them). Generally I find it acceptable that a game doesn't guarantee that you can see every corner and solve every quest if you try out unusual combinations. As long as those quests and corners can be counted on one hand.

Sorry Lephys, you are one of the best minds here in the forum, wonderful ideas and insights, but on a few occasions you have gone overboard and overanalyzed things (IMHO). Now we all have our faults and I would gladly trade yours for mine ;-)

Would you really still feel like you are managing your battles if 5 of the 6 characters were just executing a script (even if you made that script) ? If yes, why not write a script for all 6 characters ?

Naah, we are just relieved you are not in charge of the project ;-) Why do you think so many of the successful kickstarter games are turn-based or RtwP? You underestimate the dislike many players have for action games. Transistor is not a good example. It is not party-based. It also is basically a diablo style action game with a turn-based gimmick every now and then. Basically it has twitchy game play and STILL fails your distration-test by stopping the combat at intervals like a pause. You might like to look at PE for a better example. Isn't there a slow-motion combat mode they want to include?

Yes, and since Call of Duty has companions talking to you, even familiars like dogs, and you can switch weapons, it has a story and you play a role, I would argue that CoD is partially an RPG and obviously has the best companions. The sales figures don't lie. ;-) Seriously, I believe Sarex posted his "objective" measures as an ironic reply to Lephys lecturing on objectivity. The rest was idle arguing.

Ok, to finish that topic, according to vgchartz ME1 had 3.3 Mio sales on all platforms until today, ME2 had 4.5 and ME3 had 4.8 Mio. sales. Fallout New Vegas had 7 Mio. sales.