metiman

Haha! In before thread lock. I guess the mods are still eating breakfast or they are all left coasters who haven't woken up yet. Krikkert is probably reading a romance novel right now. Women like romance. Men like porn. I guess we could combine the two by including lots of tasteful rape, bestiality, necrophilia, and romances between 300 year old wizards and cute little tween girl magelings. Although computer game romances tend to make me want to lose my lunch I'll admit that they are not nearly as bad as kooldowns. As long as they are optional they are merely a waste (from a male perspective) of developer time and not a game destroying feature. Some of us may not be able to resist killing any party members who start getting lovey dovey wth us however, forcing us to seek less amorous companions at the adventurers hall (thank god that's going to be in the game). Hopefully if Obsidian does decides to do some romances the female intern who writes them can include some non-lethal options for both verbally and physically abusing any companions who makes an inappropriate comment.

It's a good point I think. With 2D you're basically dealing with bitmaps. Which, by definition, are of a fixed size. That means that the game would ideally be played on a display with the same resolution. In fact, I bought my current monitor with this sort of thing in mind. It's a 20" display with a 1600x1200 native resolution. Most of the games that I currently play are IE games with a resolution of 800x600. So the scaling works out. It's less than ideal for watching 1080p movies though.

JFSOCC, have you considered the fact that some people (myself for instance) would simply not buy the game at all if it does not allow unlimited saves? If you consider console game saving to be superior to PC game saving then of course you will be happy, but traditional PC gamers will not be. We expect unlimited saves in the same way that console kiddies expect checkpoint saves. There is no game that I would buy without unlimited save. Period. Perhaps console players feel the same way and will not buy this game because they are not actually forced to play the game in the way that they claim to want. I'm an adult. I don't have unlmiited time or patience to replay the same segment of a game over and over again until I just want to smash my fist through something or ideally into whoever made the stupid decision to consolize the save game system. And, no, lowering the difficulty so that everything is easy and I never die is not a solution either. If I never fail and only succeed then the combat is too easy by definition. Frankly I think any console gamers who are hoping to see checkpoint saving, even optional checkpoint saving, are going to be very dissapointed. There is simply no way it is going to happen. This isn't a console game and it is not intended to play like one either. I realize that console gamers are in the majority now, and publishers are powerless to resist their demands, but the whole point of a kickstarter is that the developers don't have to worry about such things. They finally have a chance to make a game that they really want to make. You are simply not going to be able to prove that console style saves are inherently superior to PC style saves. It's pointless to even try. Checkpoint saves are fine if you are a teenager with unlimited amounts of patience and free time. For everyone else they have little value. Checkpoints are also too expensive to implement as an option. A simpler system, like a timer that you can set to prevent yourself from saving more often than you would like, OTOH would be pretty cheap to implement. As long as it's optional I wouldn't have a major problem with them devoting maybe 4-8 hours of programming time to the idea, although I do think it is pointless to try to prevent people from doing what they obviously want to do. To me, the whole idea is just bizarre. Ironman is going to be implemented. That should be more than enough. Any further pandering to those with poor self-control is ridiculous.

That would be very cool indeed... especially if our characters had to take the time to learn a certain language in order to interact with a group of NPCs. It's something i've always wanted to see in a fantasy RPG, but as far as I know, it's only ever been touched on very lightly. There is a character whose "language" you have to figure out in order to be able to converse with them in SW:KotOR. And also in Ultima Underworld. I don't usually like puzzles, but decoding Lizardman was fun. And the language sounded great. Very reptilian with lots of Sthsss kind of sounds. A faux language wouldn't have to be global in scope. It could just be used in one particular quest for attempting to speak with some apparently friendly monster.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. An optional prevent_save() function is trivial to implement. All it takes is a variable check on the part of the save function, a BetweenSaveTimer, and some way to actually set the variable, like maybe a line in a .ini text file or an obscure option in a setup menu. I'm just not sure whether enough people have this problem of compulsive saving to justify the extra programming time. Of course I'm not sure that would satisfy every compulsive saver here. Some may not be satisfied unless no one else is allowed to "save scum" either. To them, what other people are allowed to do may be more important than what they are allowed to do. I think certain people are just used to getting console friendly features in most games nowadays. In console games the anti-save-scummer faction is a large majority. A scary thought, but I guess that's just the way it is with console games.

Hmm. Might snag myself a copy then.

Does it have DRM?

Regardless of how much contempt I may feel for people with such poor self control that they cannot prevent themselves from saving when they don't want to, one possible pseudo-solution is simply to check an .ini file every time a save is done to look for something like: IdiotMode = yes; //turns on IdiotMode IdiotMinSaveTime = 25; //time in minutes to be checked by all Save() function calls while in IdiotMode. Save() exits with message if SaveTimer < IdiotMinSaveTime. The compulsive saver can just turn on IdiotMode and specify how many minutes they want to force themselves to wait between saves. This would take very little time to code and debug and offer the compulsive saver the opportunity to force themselves not to save.

What if someone releases a mod or hack to enable save anywhere? How will the people who cannot stop themselves from constantly saving possibly resist installing the hack and enabling save-anywhere? I guess it will be important to try to make modding as difficult as possible.

Actually the real problem is the people who rest spam. The people themselves. Couldn't we just eliminate the people and leave the game untouched? Trying to prevent people from ruining their own game for themselves seems like a losing proposition to me.

16 hour sleep lockout. You don't need to resort to cooldowns or 4E rules to prevent people from sleeping every 2 hours. Not that I understand the big deal. An easier solution seems to be just not to sleep every 2 hours.

Most 80s IBM PC games sucked. Although I didn't actually have an IBM PC. I had an Atari PC. Most of those games also sucked, at least by today's standards. I have no idea what kind of save systems IBM PC games had. Some of my favorite games from the 80s were Castle Wolfenstein, Archon, Choplifter, and Crush, Crumble, and Chomp. I think they all had save-anywhere systems. I'm pretty sure that Atari 2600 games OTOH had no saves. I guess that was the start of the personal computer vs video game console saves vs no-saves split.

She was incredibly whiny. The satisfaction in being able to hit her over the head with a brick every time she spoke would have been very great indeed. I also wish there had been an option to just tell Irenicus to keep her. Then later he might start offering you money or to teach you powerful spells if you were willing to take her back. Then you could refuse because she was just too annoying.

Saving during combat and dialogue is fine by me. That's what playing PC games is all about. The freedom to save the game state whenever you wish. Or not save it. The choice is yours. If you don't like that kind of choice you can always buy an Xbox or PS3 or Nintendo.

That's what ironman + easy difficulty setting is for. That's already in the game. Knock yourself out. I just don't want checkpoint saves enforced on everyone. I'll go into terrorist mode and start strapping explosives to my chest if that happens.

All of this is moot. You guys don't seriously believe that Obsidian is going to implement some console-like checkpoint save system do you? Not gonna happen. You already have ironman mode with no saves at all. Surely you should be happy with that. 1. Punishing the player more by making them replay more of the game will make them become a better player of another game because they will stop playing this one. 2. I agree that repetition = punishment, but how is that a good thing? Repetition is boring almost by definition. A repetitive game is a boring game. 3. Lowering the difficultly will make the combat boring. Too easy. The bottom line is if the penalty for death is too great the game just isn't fun to play. I have the same issue with ironman mode that I have with limited saves.

Your vicious cycle is trivial. Someone died. They didn't just go to sleep. They are a corpse. And depending on how they were killed they might even be half eaten or in little pieces or burnt to a crisp. I'll concede the whole thing about undeath and...oh wait. After your party member has been raised they should become undead and never be the same again. And they should suffer a significant XP penalty. If you raise your party member on the battlefield, it should also bring to life the most powerful foe you were combating or perhaps all of the enemies up to the XP of the revived character. And maybe you should only be able to raise a party member and make them undead one time. Once they are undead that's it. That sort of thing might be a sensible system. Although I still think it would be better simply not to have a raise dead mechanic in the game. If you don't want to reload then you should have to go and find some new adventurers to replace your fallen comrades. This discussion is leading me to the conclusion that having some kind of mechanism to hire an infinite number of 'red shirt' adventurers is a good system. And they shouldn't automagically be exactly the same level as your fallen party member either.

I don't really care about the experience sharing issue, but reviving dead party members without penalty strikes me as awful game design. Death should have a very real drawback. This is what I have always hated about "raise dead". It utterly trivializes death. You don't have to reload. You don't have to try the (presumably difficult) battle again. All you have to do is cast a quick spell and poof! the dead party member wakes up from their violence induced slumber. Ugh. To me this is the biggest weakness that D&D and fantasy RPGs in general have had. It's just silly. A major goal of the game is to avoid getting killed and yet there is no penalty for getting killed. At least remove like 1/3 of their experience points or something. Wasn't that a standard 2nd Edition D&D thing? To take off some number of XP per resurrection? Now that was a good idea. If you want to raise a party member you should only be able to do it so many times before you are left with a 1st level character who isn't particularly useful to your 16th level party anymore.

I'll concede that this is an interesting point. The problem is in the real world it really isn't those characters making the decisions and that fiction does break down at some point. Reloads are an example of that. By that logic there should be no save/load system at all. Not even checkpoint saves. None of that makes any sense from either a role play or a narrative perspective. Unfortunately without a save/load system many players would not be able to play the game at all. It's just a practical issue. You could think of it as a necessary evil, but I've never heard of a way around it. Unlike the characters, you (presumably) have a life outside the game. Like I said, I don't actually care all that much about the roleplaying part of that. Just in general, I think if you can do that it means the game gave you a fair chance to learn and win the fight. If you can't, you probably just had to learn how to win by memorizing the fight. I just don't think binary memorization mechanics are actually difficult. If you have to reload because the fight is legitimately hard, I'm cool with that. I like good difficulty, not cheap difficulty. I'm not really arguing against any particularly games either. I just don't think the poll question is a good one because I think number of reloads is a terrible way to measure difficulty. This sounds like another role play argument. You are arguing that you, the player, end up with more information after a failed encounter than the characters themselves. Fair enough. Since you, the player, cannot make yourself forget what you learned about the encounter any time you replay that fight, even during a new playthrough, it screws up that role playing aspect. Well this is certainly true, but what is the solution? 1. You could make every encounter so easy that it is unlikely you will die and then you could never replay the game again. 2. You could make the characters immortal / unkillable and then never replay the game again. Neither solution sounds very attractive to me. You are also arguing that there are two kinds of encounter difficulties: 1. An encounter about which you have no prior knowledge. This will only ever occur the first time you play the game and if the encounter is too difficult for you that first time you will never have another chance to play it at this "ideal" difficulty level. After that the fight will always be too easy. 2. An encoutner about which you do have prior knowledge. This is a far more typical situation. And is presumably always too easy. Or is only difficult in some way that doesn't count. So you are arguing that only the first sort of encounter is difficult? That under no circumstances can the second type be difficult? Not even against an army of ancient dragons and 60th level demi-liches?

Is that a problem? If you feel you are not going to be able to win against an enemy, then yes, you should leave it alone. Then, if you want, you can come back a couple of level aters, stock fulls of potions and scrolls and wands and anti-dragon gear, and try to kill him. That's exactly why not being able to save all the time is good. Of course, at least in the longer quests, there is merit in having the ability to save when the floor is 'cleared' of enemies, so that you don't have to lose 5hrs of gameplay if you get TPK, just half an hour or so. And what happens if I feel the same way when I return? Not that I probably would have a chance to return because I'd probably already be dead and have to restart the game far enough back that I'd rather just go play a different game or go do something in the real world. The problem is I (personally) would only ever attempt encounters with monsters that are, say, several levels lower than my party where there is no chance of my dying. I would never even enter into very difficult battles and IMHO that is boring. I die quite frequently when I play BG2 with SCSII. I cannot even imagine how frequently I would die with something like Improved Anvil installed. I don't understand how more repetition is better. That's all this is asking for. To replay areas that you handled succesfully again and again in order to do a totally different encounter that you are not able to handle succesfully. Of course there is also the issue that ignoring the dragon may not be optional. At least at some point you may have to face him and you may die again and again and have to replay unrelated areas each and every time until you just want to never have to even look at that game ever again.

I'll concede that this is an interesting point. The problem is in the real world it really isn't those characters making the decisions and that fiction does break down at some point. Reloads are an example of that. By that logic there should be no save/load system at all. Not even checkpoint saves. None of that makes any sense from either a role play or a narrative perspective. Unfortunately without a save/load system many players would not be able to play the game at all. It's just a practical issue. You could think of it as a necessary evil, but I've never heard of a way around it. Unlike the characters, you (presumably) have a life outside the game.

If that's truly the case then I would have no problem with it for pnp, but I read otherwise. I'm not thrilled with the whole at will, per encounter, and daily system though. It seems half baked to me. its like 3 weeks into development. It literally IS half baked. It's not finished yet. I was referring to 4E as a PnP system. Not with respect to its influence on PE.

How old are you? Am I talking to a 10 year old or something. Even your username seems to indicate this. I dont have a problem with that, but I would like to know. It's not the sleep issue per se. It's the idea of mages resetting some important spells between (or even during) encounters. It's not clear to me at the moment how powerful such spells will be, so it's kind of difficult to really discuss the issue, but my concern is that this will remove some of the attrition mechanic between encounters for certain spells. If the spells are sufficiently weak then it's not such a big deal I guess, but if they aren't then I just don't think it will be fun to play like that.

If that's truly the case then I would have no problem with it for pnp, but I read otherwise. I'm not thrilled with the whole at will, per encounter, and daily system though. It seems half baked to me.

I don't see how you can "be careful" on a first playthrough of a new cRPG in any way that is likely to save your life. Let's say there is a dragon. You can choose to fight it or to leave it alone. If you have just saved you might choose to fight it. If you haven't....well all I can say is I would leave it alone. The essential problem with anything but a save-at-will system is that it encourages repetition. I realize that that is probably your point. You want the extra repetition to make the penalty for dying even greater. At least I assume. That does somewhat clash with the fact that you approve of "raise dead". You say that death is not the only issue, but saving to prevent any other issue just seems petty. And the game should be difficult enough that death is always a very likely possibility. Ideally death of your entire party. Even more ideally gibbed so that you can't even use "raise dead".