Tuckey

1) I think if portals are involved they shouldn't be a given but be there as a reward for smart players who have figured out a particularly tough puzzle ~ by the 5th level or something. Maybe 5 levels worth of clues/parts. 2) Yes to epic loot, but make it a challenge to acquire. There has to be a reason it hasn't been obtained already by some other adventurers. 3) Megaboss, I would be okay with this. I would expect a twist on this in true obsidian style. 4) I like tough puzzles as long as there is a clear and present means to solve it. Nothing quite like not knowing how to proceed puzzle wise. 5) Okay I'll pull the lever for xp, but I didn't realise the cost until later dum dum duhhhh! Some amusing mega-dungeon tactics: ============================= -For creatively clearly dungeon traps I heard one d&d player rounded up a herd of cattle and ran them through the dungeon. No more traps but the farmer wasn't happy. -Some parties who rest spammed in an area found that their equipment was disappearing due to thieving goblins. Needless to say facing goblins attacking with your weapons and armour upped the challenge somewhat. @Gfted1 what game is your avatar from?

"In a way i hope the rewards aren't that massive, as that makes it difficult to balance the end game for those who've done the whole thing versus those who haven't touched it" @motorizer I can appreciate where your coming from, but there is only so much you can do. In bg2 there was late game loot you could buy from the adventurers mart if you didn't pick up good enough gear in the underdark + various side quests. Beyond that through you risk balancing the risk/reward mechanic to something meaningless for the player who is going to say 'meh why bother doing the dungeon?'; why bother if its not interesting and doesn't advance your party in anyway? I'm sure the dungeon will be interesting but I appreciate the scale of the problem that obsidian has set itself - this dungeon is truly huge. I mean there's no sense applying some false sense of balance for people who don't want to do it. At a certain point it becomes unfair to people who expect reward for adventuring. It's chicken little otherwise; everyone wants a slice of the pie regardless of whether or not they've earned it in terms of doing those dungeons. Perhaps obsidian can split up the 15 level dungeon somehow so its not such a massive grind; I think that is the biggest challenge. Maybe 5 levels can be accessed in one location, while another 5 levels require some sort of portal stone, which you can only acquire some point later in the game. etc At least that way there is pacing so the dungeon won't drag.

I like the rope suggestion particularly; not enough rpgs have used ropes to access areas; like fallout 2 elevator shaft

What about the ancient equivalent of a underground city meant to house an ancient king and his retinue? Like the first chinese emperor he was interred with his terracota soldiers and when the time came he would rise again to rule the world. The city would be filled with traps and the engineers that built it were buried with him to ensure that their knowledge would not be passed on to grave-robbers. That city would perhaps house a monument to the king like a giant statue of his likeness; (see 15 level dungeon pic) this statue perhaps would be the intended vessel for his spirit when he returns from the land of the dead. But some of his servants rebelled on him and issued instructions to chain the statue-likeness so that he could not rise. However the chains have weakened and you have been sent to stop him.

I am happy that characters will be commenting on the world around them and having their own opinions on things. Signature items are also a cool thing, like Minsc with his hamster Boo. It removed a useful slot for potions but you didn't care because Minsc is not Minsc without Boo and it was a part of the charm. I also like the idea of chaining abilities if you are with the same class; how extensive is that though? Does it just apply to combat? If I'm a thief character with other thief characters will options open up to me like that screen with the egg and the cliff? Imagine now a different scenario with a prince being escorted out of the city; maybe now I can lay an ambush with my thieves ala robin hood instead of just challenging someone on the road with my party? Like the way the writing is going, you guys know what your doing.

I liked the fallout random encounters. Baldurs gate had some as well but they weren't as diverse, hope they make an appearance in Project Eternity.

I would like project eternity to be a little simulationist with there npcs. Schedules, routines and the like; random conversations can then happen according to a variety of criteria; Is it raining? = comment about the weather Are they running an errand? = perhaps you could help Is the npc closing up there store for the night? = no mood for conversation Are they drinking at the pub? = shares a rumour with you. In that way each npc has something unique to say depending on when/what circumstance you talk to them. Then you can be writing for all flavour npcs rather than one at a time. By flavour I mean the npcs that are populating a city to make it seem big.

@JFSOCC Dungeon crawling in IE games has role-playing elements as well; they're not mutually exclusive.

Personally I would like to see npc schedules in these sort of activities more than I want players to participate directly in them. After all presumably the reason why adventurers adventure is to get away from the mundane.

@Ulquiorra and @mcmanusaur What I believe Frenetic Pony is saying is that there is an opportunity cost to these job features. IE like games were primarily based around their dungeon crawling mechanics; adding job features and the like in a believable and interesting way means less focus on other primary features. We are talking about a game with 4 millionish budget not including kickstarter fees, backer rewards etc. It is not possible for this game to do all things that we want, better to have it focused on the things that we all really do want. In terms of examples; take the ui which makes things much easier for combat and dungeon exploring ie weapon/spell selection buttons; pick lock and trap finding etc. Nowhere in that interface is a button allowing jobs to be haggled over or bribes to be offered etc

@Elerond; I'd actually forgotten about the non-combat skill points, thanks for reminding me.

Not having crafting as a skill means we avoid this situation called: 'leave that one character behind all the time situation - because he/she does the crafting and is useless at combat' ie Sand in nwn2 ie or that mechanic character in kotor 2 I'm glad obsidian is finally learning lol.

On second thought players making rations does make some role-playing sense. This could be fun...

@OP You kind of shoe-horned people who like becoming rewarded for there questing a bit with your phrasing I want to be filthy rich at games end. It doesn't matter to me that I'll have no use for it in the later game" Fact is there will be things to spend money on in the late game, namely the stronghold thing, and most certainly other items, scripted events. Also consider that not all players play the game the same way. The way they did it in bg2 was to have alternative items available for players to spend money on. Mostly because not all players wanted to do all the side-quests and were main quest focused. Otherwise they would not have good items available to them at the end of the game. In most cases the items weren't quite as good as the side-quest loot but still quite good. Of course just doing the main quest could net you some good items, but the point was not to penalise the player who didn't happen upon the special loots during their first playthrough or so. Otherwise you could get into a situation where the player could find themselves unable to progress. It's a newb friendly feature but to be honest I was glad it was in there because it added a lot of replay value.

Personally I liked how betrayal at krondor handled degrading. You could buy whetstones and hammers and maintain weapons and armour yourself or go to town to have it repaired. At least that way you weren't forced to go back to town for maintenance every couple of battles or so.

Well they had cooking in fallout new vegas and all that meant for me was clicking lots of foods to restore health with no care for what was being clicked on. But that was more clearly a survival game mechanic so I was fine with it. So in PE, which supposedly takes after IE games, we can be master blacksmiths, chefs, and enchanters. Not sure how I feel about that role-playing wise. I mean adventurers are first and foremost adventurers, on the other hand such mechanics worked well in the gothic games because there was more verisimilitude. I mean you could see your character engaging in crafting food by turning the boar over the spit, the blacksmithing involved pounding hammer on anvil. Problem is eternity is not a first person perspective rpg and that means less engagement visually with the mechanic. The other obvious problem is that in the gothic games you were adventuring as a party of one so you needed to be a jack of all trades. In eternity crafting is busy work because you are managing a large party and this busy work tends to be the reason to visit vendors like blacksmiths and merchants. So not only are you introducing busy work you are also taking away the appeal of visiting these stores. *Busy work just takes away from adventuring time and is pretty much just a time-sink. This doesn't mean I'm against having cooking in the game; I just think it shouldn't be the party that is engaged in it. Better to find recipes which you can then bring to the trades people to get your stuff + this is another reason to visit the city which builds anticipation. Of course different people want different things. * By busy work I mean collecting numerous ingredients, finding crafting stations etc Having said that if obsidian can make it fun that'll be cool but we'll need to play it before we know.

Exotic things to spend money on ======================== -Political favours ~ bribe a king or queen! -Specialised training for your characters available from grand-masters for the right price. -Buy a boat and launch an expedition to an unknown land -Potions should be rare, powerful and expensive so crafting them becomes fun (ie game-changers for a battle etc) -Exotic items to impress an npc; ie animal skins, jewelry etc Common things to spend money on =========================== -Board at an inn for the month, week, day -Hire mercenaries -Daily wage for your companions/share of the loot -Entertainers that visit the inn's of the world ie musicians, theatre troups

I'd like to remind Josh about the silent majority who don't post/weren't bothered enough to complain about buying items in shops. I think players don't mind buying good items from stores as long as they are buying it from a special store like the adventurers mart or a center of trade like trademeet rather than a corner shop in the wop wops.

@Sensuki Regarding your post on durability and the Sawyer quote I don't mind having some good items in stores; makes sense that some adventurers would trade them in. We could use our money on these items. Durability doesn't sound like fun but it could balance out for non-combat approaches.

@Sabotin The arcanum ui certainly didn't help the crafting cause. Watching Chris Avellone try to figure out how to use the map while his inventory was cluttered with pointless stuff was entertaining! Then his main character lost there clothes in the starting area due to durability and I think we know where this goes. Poor Chris was mega frustrated by the wolves and losing his armour certainly didn't help lol.

This update puts me in two-minds because I don't like crafting in general as I regard it as busywork for the player that takes away from the joy of exploring and discovering loot. However I'm not sure how I feel about crafting 'project eternity' style. I mean potentially I can imagine role-playing a character who knows how to take care of their armour as surely that would be a requirement for a medieval warrior. What I struggle to roleplay is being a warrior type who is also a master blacksmith and artisan as well. Skyrim took it to a silly level, just didn't care about the gear I found at all. I did however like crafting my weapons and giving them names etc ~ so that became my found gear if you like. (I would so love it if you could give your weapons nicknames for their feats in battle!) Generally I prefer crafting to be something along the lines of improving equipment but not to the level of ancient sorcerors and master blacksmiths of old. This is because they were specialists who could focus their time on the creation of impressive items. Where-as the would be adventurer is partaking of it part-time and you wouldn't logically expect them to be able to get as good as those who worked at it full-time. Basically it would seem silly. I would much rather find a sword or something at an end of an epic quest, which I could then improve if I found the particular sword pieces to improve it, rather than say find a piece of ore which is kinda boring. You of course should be able to craft basic swords and axes with aplomb. In terms of obsidian games I found nwn2 too involved for me to bother with so the simplifying of crafting seems like a step in the right direction. I appreciate a lot of people like it through, I would probably like it more if it wasn't like an annoying collect-a-thon for ingredients mini-game. That just takes me right out of the rpg goodness character wise. But that's just me personally ~ I guess I will learn to tolerate it.

Okay crafting sounds hassle free so that is a plus. However I would much rather find epic items than make them myself ~ or why bother getting excited when you find a weapon? I hope you can find better weapons and armour than you can craft so there is some reward for finding loot.

I lean towards abstraction when it comes to combat mechanics. Too realistic and you get dry tedium, too abstract and you lose the sense of what its supposed to be about. Abstract elements examples ====================== -Inventory in rpgs; they are pretty much felix's magic bag when it comes to items. Imagine a virtual pack animal if you will. -Ranged weapons are typically nerfed in an rpg because otherwise they would dominate the battlefield. Plus the battlefield would have to be much bigger to take into account the range these weapons would have. -Even clicking and commanding units to do things is an abstraction because typically realistic companions would do there own thing in combat. Bottom line ========= As long as the abstractions are fun I don't mind. Meaning as long as abstractions don't take away from giving me a sense of the world and threats these characters are faced with I am content. Realism is not as important as making sure it works in a gameplay sense first and foremost. Having said that I like having realistic looking armour/weapons with character models that look believable because it helps me engage with the gameplay. I know mileage varies in terms of what different people find fun, I think the goal for this project is Infinity Engine like fun; at least around the same vein; given it will be mostly inspired by IE. I tend to agree with the OP that a shotgun blow to the head is not a very good abstraction. It would of been better to just allow instant kills if characters are rendered unconscious and the player attacks. Takes away a sense of a believable world in that aspect.

@Dream I think that the accumulation of power for it's own sake can be considered 'evil'. Absolute power corrupts absolutely; The fun role-playing aspect could be in what form the corruption takes; who you hurt and how your character is hurt along the way by their own narcissism and desire for power.

In my opinion not much should be taken from nwn2 as project eternity is trying to take after infinity engine games. Nwn2 plays too differently to be of much use, other than being set in a fantasy setting with dnd rules. The 2nd edition rules had restrictions that made the setting more interesting than 3rd edition nwn's; through that is only my own preference. nwn2 flaws in brief: =============== forced/boring companions; 'headless chicken' combat system (even with ai off); blingy status effects; railroaded plot points; bad camera controls; poor voice actors; trash mobs; grindy by design maps; over-complicated building of potions/weapons etc; interface boring and did not try to evoke setting; buggy on release; *disclaimer: nwn2 was not my favourite game. nwn2 strengths: ============= fortress/castle building was different; trial was interesting but wimped out in the end result; modding was available; good post-release support