MReed

Do you have a cite for this? As I stated, if all the "Defender" ability does is allow a figher to engage multiple targets, who can then disengage with the standard penalties, then I have zero objection to this ability. On the other hand, I don't think it will create the desired results on the battlefield that some feel it should if that's all it does.

I think we are talking at cross-purposes -- you believe that all the "Defender" ability does is allow the fighter to make attacks of opportunity against multiple targets. If this is correct, then it shouldn't impair the movement of enemies at all -- it just punishes them if they choose to move in certain ways. If your belief is correct, then the ability doesn't achieve the result that you are looking for: if I was writing the AI for a game with the mechanic that I just described I would design the default AI to accept the attacks of opportunity if there was a high likelihood of successfully engaging a ranged / magical attacker in exchange. To be technically accurate, I'd setup a number of simulated engagements where the AI 100% avoided AOO, rolled a die to determine whether or not to accept the AOO, or always ignored AOO when making movement decisions -- but I'd expect the "ignore AOO" strategy to have the highest win percentage against a human opponent, even one that was fully aware of the AI's decision making strategy. The only way to avoid this syndrome would be to make AOO far more than simple attacks: in fact, you would need to make an AOO do, say, 25-50% of the target's hitpoints (calculated as a percentage of max HP, rather than as "6d6 damage") or apply a crippling status effect (most likely "slow" or "confused") with a high reliability. This would result in the "AOO" being the single most effective attack that a player can make at any level / class combination-- far, far more effective than any activated abilities. I don't know of any game that has taken this approach, because it would create truly odd combat encounters -- if I thought that Obsidian was really going to go this route, I'd be intrigued, because it would result in a very odd (and totally unrealistic) tactical situation. On the other hand, if it works the way that I believe it works (like "flypaper") then those who engage the fighter in melee while the ability is active are mechanically prevented from disengaging -- not just punished for disengaging, they cannot disengage. If the rules of the game are "Once effect X is applied to you, there are only two actions permitted: One is to attack the target that applied this effect to you, and the other is to do nothing at all" then yes, I'd call that "disabling the AI". If you want to be pedantic about it, the AI is still fully functional, but given that it only has one action available to it does it really matter? In regards to my proposed alternative solutions: The abilities proposed block the AI from moving in certain directions -- but (given that this is a wide open battlefield, with no bottlenecks -- otherwise, the discussion is moot, right?) it doesn't prevent it from engaging its preferred targets. It merely takes longer to get where it wants to go, which gives the player's ranged attackers more opportunity to dish out damage. On the other hand, the player is sacrificing some or all of the damage potential of his/her fighters to achieve this goal. Is this a good tradeoff? Hopefully the answer would be "It depends -- sometimes the AOO damage that the fighters do as the opponents bypass them will be enough to ensure that the targets are dead before they reaching their goals, while other times the best strategy is to maximize the amount of time that ranged / magical attackers have to attack them".

And don't get me started about cutscene induced stupidity... "No you stupid computer, I don't want my squishy mage to walk right up the 8 elder vampires to carry on a conversation. If I must talk to them before we fight, I'd much rather do it via shouting from the doorway!"

The solution to this problem in the IE games, and what I think should be the default solution in most RPGs, is "the player should retreat (or, more rarely, advance) until they are in a position where there is a suitable bottleneck to prevent enemies from bypassing the front-line fighters." There are a couple of other mechanics that might address this problem (without impairing the AI of opponents): Blocking opponents * Fighters have the ability to prevent enemies from entering melee range of them at all (at the cost, obviously, of giving up all offensive capability). In effect, "covering fire" but with a melee weapon. Enemies would then be required to pathfind around the fighter(s). Note that the fighter wouldn't be invulnerable, either -- he/she would still be vulnerable to ranged attacks of all sorts. * A spellcaster could have the ability to create walls, creating bottlenecks where none existed previously -- again, the AI would have the opportunity to pathfind around the obstacles, if a path still existed, and wouldn't take any damage. * A fighter could be given an ability to choose to push an opponent in a particular direction in exchange for lessened damage (and automatic disengagement) Reengaging opponents that have bypassed the front line * Charge / bull rush type abilities (that allow the fighter to move far more rapidly than normal to a target within a limited range) would work well. * Displacement type abilities might allow mages to teleport opponents to the fighter, or might enable fighters to be teleoported between the mage and enemy. * Invisibility type effects might prevent the target from engaging mages at all (in return for loss of all offensive capability) for a limited period of time. In short, while the issue of "How to reward the player for attempting to use proper tactics" is an area ripe for improvement, solutions that are equivalent to "The player clicks on ability X and the monsters are forced to exclusively engage the worst possible target" are not the right answer.

I don't see any reason to assume that an attack of opportunity is any more than a regular "default" attack that is made immediately and has a much increase chance of hitting. I wouldn't expect a single default attack (even if it were an automatic critical) to be so serious as to either immediately kill your foe nor weaken the foe to the point where they are no longer a threat. If it prevents the opponent from moving through your zone of control at all (even with an attack of opportunity) then we are getting back into "flypaper" territory. I understand the problem that such abilities are trying to solve -- but the ability of monster's to bypass tanks to threaten weaker / more vulnerable targets is one of the few advantages that opponents in CRPGs have. Any ability that is designed specifically to eliminate this capability is deeply worrying to me.

When you want to move? (Okay, not sure about this one -- I think I heard it mentioned somewhere that this is a "defend" mode that parks your fighter somewhere. Could be that it has some other trade-off, but I'm pretty sure there is one. Paging Dr. Sawyer to the OR, stat!) If it locks your fighter into place and doesn't lock your opponents into place then the ability is just outright bad. I mean, really, sacrificing all mobility for the chance (if multiple opponents happen to walk by at the same time) to get an extra attack?

Aggro mechanics: To the degree that this doesn't exist in PoE this is a very good thing. However, I believe that the "defender" ability is a move in that direction -- your opinion, obviously, differs. Cooldowns: How much difference this will make in practice depends how quickly "1/day" abilities convert into "1/encounter" (and eventually to "at will") abilities and how long "average" combats are. If the majority of encounters last 2 (real-time without pausing) minutes then the difference between "1/encounter" and "90 second cooldown" doesn't amount to much. Potions for health and mana: Technically speaking, this is true (health can't be recovered except by resting, and there is no mana at all) -- however stamina can be recovered via spells and abilities, and I haven't seen anything to indicate that stamina potions won't exist. Given that the majority of damage comes out of stamina, I'm not sure how often the inability to recover health will come into play (within the scope of a single combat encounter -- obviously, over multiple encounters it will be a factor, but then resting comes into play). Maiming: Correct -- but if maiming is as serious as it was in DA:O, who cares... DA:O maiming was an absolute joke -- there were a number of times that I looked at my character sheet and discovered that I had 3 or more "maim" effects and I hadn't even noticed.... Permadeath: Yeap, agreed -- that's a big difference. How often fear of permadeath will influence gameplay decisions, however, is another matter altogether.

If this is the way the "Defender" ability is implemented, I withdraw my objection. However, I wouldn't use the adjective "flypaper" to describe such an ability, and I'd argue that such an ability shouldn't be a modal ability, but rather a class feature ("always on") -- under what circumstances would you want to turn it off, after all? I'd use the adjective "flypaper" to describe an ability that works as I described earlier: The enemy can't disengage. This is something that is worthy of modal ability as well: if you are low on hit points, you might well want to turn it off to try to escape yourself (since it works both ways -- enemies can't disengage, but neither can you!), or you might turn it off to try to grab attacks of opportunity on opponents that are moving past you.

I understand that the motivation is to prevent save and reload game play and agree that this feature will achieve this goal. I disagree that this goal is desirable enough to be worth the cost. YMMV In any case, we are moving into a fruitless discussion, I think: The reason that I brought these topics up was not to argue that whether they are bad or good, but to point out ways in which the mechanics of this game are far more similar to DA:O mechanics than IE mechanics. Regardless of the merits of the individual design changes, can you argue that combat is far more likely to resemble DA:O than IE? If not, what ways do you expect PoE combat to distinguish itself from DA:O combat (& resemble IE games)?

Yes, we know there's a "flypaper" ability for fighters. What you pulled out of your behind is that it involves messing with or switching off enemy AI. It merely means that a fighter can stickily engage multiple enemies at once. I would expect that enemy fighters have a similar ability. If the AI, without interference from the player, would accept a disengagement penalty in engage target B, but is blocked from doing so by a player activity ability, this is "disabling the AI". "Taunt" and "Heat" mechanics work on the same principal: granting the player an advantage by forcing the AI to make decisions than it would otherwise avoid. If, after all, the AI would have remained engaged with the fighter without the ability, then what was the point of the ability again? Just to avoid the obvious response: I feel that the confusion / charm / domination mechanics in IE games are bad for the same reason, but at least there most enemies are highly resistant (by the time you gain the abilities), most of them are single target, and it certainly doesn't qualify as something that you would mention in an interview (not a core gameplay element).

I interpret the lack of hard counters to mean that counters are never any more than "nice to haves" abilities. Combat may be somewhat more difficult if you lack a particular class / ability, but you'll be able to succeed in combat in their absence. Of course, I'd say that was true in the IE games as well, but obviously Sawyer feels otherwise. Forgot a cite on the "no bad builds": http://www.pcworld.com/article/2071423/deep-dive-with-pillars-of-eternity-project-lead-josh-sawyer-the-full-interview.html (directly after " Adam Brennecke (AB): And it’s really easy to make a bad character.") I don't see the lack of combat XP as being a problem -- it only matters if you are grinding, and you can't really grind in either the IE games or this game. The only real difference is that with combat XP you get 50% of your XP at the end of each combat, and the remainder comes when you turn in the quest. By eliminating combat XP from the game it becomes easier to balance non-combat and combat resolution mechanics, which I see as a good thing.

<sigh> I really thought that this was all known and accepted stuff, but cites: * No pre-combat buffs: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66073-new-pc-gamer-interview-with-josh/?hl=%2Bpre-combat+%2Bbuffs&do=findComment&comment=1441143 -- eliminating pre-combat buffs pretty clearly prohibits multi-combat buffs also -- otherwise, the player would drop into combat mode with no opponents and pre-buff that way. * No hard counters: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62090-instant-death/page-5. Nerfed debuffs: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65944-no-more-gm-sucker-punches-and-the-gameplay-challenges-thereof/page-6?hl=paralysis&do=findComment&comment=1437825 * Equality of classes in combat: Looks like I was somewhat off base here -- the cite is http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/18/pillars-of-eternity-interview-josh-sawyer-on-world-building-magic-psychic-warriors-and-more/ (" PC Gamer: As for the more standard RPG classes – rogue, wizard, fighter, etc. – will you be changing them in any way, or are you sticking to D&D tradition?"), but the response only indicates that fighters will have more options than they had in the IE games (not a hard task to achieve) but will still have fewer options than spellcasters. Whether or not this is true or not depends on how strongly modeled the mechanics are on 4E mechanics, where this is true (at this point I tend to assume that if it is in 4E, it is probably going to be in this game). * "Flypaper" ability for fighters: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/18/pillars-of-eternity-interview-josh-sawyer-on-world-building-magic-psychic-warriors-and-more/ (" PC Gamer: Will you be able to combine spells and abilities in any interesting ways?") Obviously, I put a strong negative spin on these statements, but that's a matter of perception.

What? I don't agree with this. DA:O's massive budget was the result of bloated voice acting costs, cinematics, 3d graphics, development of an in-house engine, 4 1/2 years of on-again, off-again development time, and of course, the costs required to make an Xbox 360 and PS3 version. None of which is needed to produce a masterpiece RPG. Dragon Age 2 probably cost more to make than All of the IE games... COMBINED. Is it a better game? That's a reasonable point -- there was certainly loads of wasted effort in DA:O's budget, so only some fraction of the budget was actually spent on the game that we received. I'm fairly confident, though, that the "effective budget" for DA:O was at least 10x the PoE budget, and at least 5x once you throw out the money spent on voice acting (remember, DA:O only had partial voice acting). I hate DA2 with a passion, but I'm not sure that's relevant to this discussion. A small budget spent well can produce a superior game -- if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be participating in kickstarter to begin with. However, budget limitations do have consequences, and if you set out with the goal of imitating a product with a much larger budget then you are setting yourself up for failure. That's what I believe Obsidian is doing with PoE. For the record: I don't dislike DA:O -- it was, despite its inferior mechanics, a pretty good game. If PoE can achieve the same results then I'll likely enjoy the game. I just had higher expectations than that.

I can certainly understand why you would want to hold this belief, but the evidence seems to indicate otherwise: * We know that there will be no buffs that last for multiple combats, which (like it or not) was certainly a major part of the gameplay in the IE games. * We know that there will be no abilities in combat that are serious enough to require the use of "antidotes" (hard counters), as such abilities reduce player freedom. * We know that all classes will have (roughly) equal roles to play in combat -- so, if a spellcaster has 10 abilities available to him/her at level 5, fighters and rogues will also have a similar number of active abilities, and the impact of invoking these abilities on the flow of combat will be (again, roughly) the same. * We know that (regardless of how good the monster's AI is) that the player will have the ability to disable / interfere with it -- there was a recent interview that proudly reported that there would be a "flypaper" ability for fighters that prevent enemies from disengaging. All of these mechanics would be right at home in DA:O. Given the limitation of funding associated with this game, it seems very unlikely that we will end up with more abilities (for this purpose, spells are simply a special type of ability) total than DA:O had -- but these abilities will have be divided among twice as many classes. That means that either most abilities will be shared shared between classes, or there simply won't be very many abilities available to each class. If the former, then the classes will tend to blur together (differing only in look and feel, rather than functionally) -- if the latter, leveling up will be a very simple process indeed. This fits in with another promised feature: All builds are viable, there is no such thing as a "bad build". Remember, non-combat abilities are open to all classes: the only reason one class would be better at certain abilities than another is due to complimentary stat requirements (a rogue would be expected to have a high dexterity, so would be good at non-combat skills that are dexterity based). However, since there won't be any bad builds in this game, there is nothing stopping the player from making (say) a dex-based spellcaster, who would then be just as good as the rogue at dexterity based non-combat skills. This is, shocking enough, very similar to the way in which DA:O handled non-combat skills. So.... Other than a desire not to have wasted your money, what reasons do you have to believe that mechanically PoE will not be far closer to DAO than any of the Infinity Engine games?

From your point of view, the good news is that Obsidian agrees with you 100%. From the point of view of the backers, who backed this game because it was going to be an "old-style" game... Well, we are feeling a bit disappointed. After all, if that's what we wanted, we could have simply waited for DA:I and paid a fraction of the $$$.

I agree with your post in its entirety, but I see very little hope that Obsidian agrees with you. Based on the various posts & interviews that I've seen from the project team, it seems obvious to me that the team feels that DA:O was mechanically far superior to any of the Infinity Engine games, and the reason that it was superior are the same issues that you cited as deficiencies in DA:O in your third paragraph. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again -- my expectation of this game at this point is an inferior copy of DA:O (inferior only because the budget of this game is a fraction of the DA:O budget).

Technically speaking, the answer is yes, but beyond the cost issues the fact that the world isn't really 3D creates some major immersion problems. The only reason to have rag doll physics is because enemies are being tossed about by powerful effects, and the lack of full 3D geometry for the world would produce inappropriate effects. For example, any place that the player is blocked from walking on would be treated as an invisible wall that enemies could bounce off of -- but visually, the obstacle might be a pile of crates, a cart, or any number of obstacles that (while they would block walking) wouldn't block a flying body. Obviously, patches / fixes could be implemented to work around these issues (that's what the devs are doing with shadows, for example), but that's an awful lot of effort for an effect that isn't core to the gaming experience.

Because the people who backed this game were specifically offered and wanted a game with 2d, pre-rendered backgrounds rather than a fully 3d game.

It seems likely that this game would follow the model of the Infinity Engine games, which would mean that a left click either moves, attacks, starts dialog with or interacts (pick up an item, open a door, open a chest) depending on what you click on. Unusual actions (such as talking to a hostile enemy, attacking a door / chest, pick a lock, making a non-default attack [e.g. spell or ability]) would be handled via a left click on an action button (resulting in a cursor change), followed by a left click on the target. Note, however, that nothing has been announced on this topic, as far as I know. Altogether separate from the UI question is the "Are objects are movable / destructible / stack-able". Again, no announcement on this topic, but I suspect that this won't be the case as many of the "objects" in the game won't exist as separate entities -- they will merely be painted props on the per-rendered 2D-background image. While there will be some 3D objects in the game world (anything that can be picked up, for example), the fact that many items are not would seem to generally prohibit these types of interactions. It would, for example, be very confusing to discover that crate A and crate B can be stacked on top of one another, but crate B and crate C cannot (because crate C is part of the per-rendered background). This would also be consistent with the Infinity Engine games, although this were technical issues that existed in the IE games that don't apply any more (specifically, the IE games were pure 2D games, with no 3D elements).

If my understanding is correct, and it may not be... Stamina and health are separate and independent from one another. Most (but not all) combat damage comes out of stamina, which can be replenished via spells and other, similar, effects. Health damage occurs due to unusual combat effects (or damage in excess of your stamina?) and can't be healed via spells or similar effects.

Completely agree -- but then you still have to implement a clever AI for the 1 out 5 combats where it is used. In any case, the advanced AI that I'm talking about wouldn't be suitable for all opponents: animals, for example, would likely target the nearest enemy. It's hard because the goals you set are too high-level and too long-term to calculate and execute in one fell swoop. You need to break the down the goals into more frequently executed smaller ones that, when chained together, have a much better chance of yielding the expected results. Breaking the the problem into smaller parts is a powerful and oft-used tool in mathematics. -- Getting from my position to an enemy position shouldn't be a singular action. Every few steps, there should be a re-evaluation, and if things changed (the player moved a blocking unit into my path, I got Hobbled, reducing my movement speed, etc.), my actions should respond to that. Don't write AI based on getting to a certain enemy as a singular action, write AI for taking a few steps for a desired goal, whether closing in on an enemy, or flanking one, or trying to avoid the melee control zone of enemy lineholders, and so on. That's manageable, the response to player tactic will come sooner, and it'll make the player's job a lot harder. Agreed, and I even outright stated in my first post on this topic that the path needs to be re-evaluated frequently. Note that frequent recalculation has its own set of problems -- see my example of forcing the enemy into continuous retreat. But... You still have to work out a potential path to ensure that you will reach the desired target via an indirect way for each iteration. Now, there might still be ways to break the problem down further: for example, setting a goal of "flank the enemy squishies at a range of 50 yards" where you could use a "shortest path to target" algorithm and achieve the same end-state. In effect, this algorithm would would be establishing waypoints, which is how players work around pathfinding limitations. But this doesn't really making the problem any simpler / more tractable (both a worthy and a necessary goal, as you pointed out -- emergent AI is almost always superior to monolithic AI), as the hard part is figuring out where the waypoints should go, and you still have to do that. FYI: I actually own, but haven't really played much, AI Wars -- RTS games just aren't my cup of tea any more.

This comes back to the pathfinding issue, though -- the reason that players can implement strategies like this is because we will pause the game and micromanage characters to avoid engagement before they reach their intended targets. In large part the reason that we can do this is because the AI "strategy" is basically "Find the closest enemy and attack it -- if you can't attack it, move closer to it." When the player attempts flanking maneuvers, the result (barring obstacles that prevent the player's characters from moving as they wish) is that regardless of where the enemy started combat, they end up trailing their target, which allows the PC to reach their intended targets. Obviously, once they stop to engage their targets the trailing enemies will catch up, but at this point it is too late: the PC will make short work of the high value targets turning the remainder of the combat into an exercise in mopping up. So we need an AI that can achieve three goals: 1) Intercept hostile meleers well in advance of reaching their high-value targets, even when they follow indirect paths. This means that the AI must reliably position defenders to intercept flanking attempts, and maintain this coverage when / if the units being defended reposition or split-up (which might be necessary to gain line-of-site on their ranged targets, or simply to get within range). 2) Evade any low-value defenders that the player might have in order to engage the player's high-value targets. This means that the AI needs to identify indirect paths to their targets, as straight line paths will all but guarantee successful interceptions. 3) Intelligently allocate resources between these two roles based on the actions of the player. For example, if the player sends all of their low value units to attack, then most of the potential defenders should remain "at home", but at least one (& likely several) should attack. After all, the AI should understand that once the players high value targets are engaged in melee, some of the attackers will have to disengage to rescue them. To be clear: This is absolutely something that Obsidian should spend a good deal of time working on, regardless of how difficult it is. Given the mechanical changes that Obsidian has already announced, failure to have a very good AI (one that can achieve the above goals) is an absolute necessity if the player is ever to feel threatened by their opponents. With no long-lived buffs, no "save or die" effects, nor even any long-lived disabling effects, if the AI cannot consistently threaten low HP / low armor targets with melee attacks then every combat will either be trivial (assuming more or less equal capabilities on both sides) or exercises in grinding (assuming that the opponents have much greater capabilities, but use them poorly enough that the player can still achieve victory).

I agree, but the problem is very non-trivial to solve. The obvious solution is not acceptable (to me, at least): That the AI, once engaged, remains engaged with that enemy until it is dead / incapacitated. Such a strategy will be exploited by the player to ensure that enemies never attack anyone other than high HP / high armored companions, eliminating any risk associated with having "Glass Cannon" (I'll refer to this group as "high value targets" in the remainder of this e-mail, because that's what they are) character types. Clearly, the AI should be able to attack any member of the player's party, and should focus their attacks on party members that can be taken out quickly. But if the enemy relentless attempts to pursue high value targets, the player will exploit that by taking advantage of disengagement penalties -- in effect, creating a "maze" (in tower defense terminology) where very few, if any, of the enemy will successfully reach their intended targets. This is worse than the first case -- rather than doing some damage (even if it is futile) you end up with enemies that do no damage at all. I don't have a clue as to how to solve this in the general case -- in specific cases, scripting can be used to guide enemies along "protected" paths that the player cannot block, or simply to ensure enemies attack the player from multiple sides. A general solution, though, would require pathfinding that takes into account the possible movement of the player's characters, other enemies, and the like and would quickly become very complex. Theoretically, though, the AI should send one or two enemies directly at the high value targets, while sending others on indirect paths (ideally, at least two). This forces the player to divide his warriors to engage multiple groups of enemies across a wide front, creating a situation where a "maze" cannot be created. But that's really hard to do, given that simple "Get from point A to point B" pathfinding isn't consistently reliable. One potential solution could be found by creating an invisible "cost / value field" around all characters -- positive numbers discourage the pathfinding from moving into these locations, while negative numbers encourage the pathfinding to move to those locations. Low value targets (high HP, high AC, wielding melee weapons, good chance to hit, lots of attacks of opportunity) will be surrounded by high positive values, while high value targets will be surrounded by negative values. As the pathfinding algorithm tries to find a path, it expands these fields to reflect the passage of time while reducing the weights towards zero (think of an explosion -- the force of the explosion diminishes as its effects are felt over a larger area). Once a path is generated, it is checked periodically (once a second, say) and recalculated based on the actual positions of the combatants. Of course, consider the scenario where the low value targets charge forward at the enemy -- the algorithm calculates that the best path is to retreat (avoiding engagement), then turn around and try to flank and reach the high value targets. But if the player keeps advancing, the AI will keep retreating, and you'll end up with the player having to chase enemies all across the map to engage them, which wouldn't be fun. So then you have to add a check to ensure that the AI keeps track of how long it has been since it engaged the enemy, and do something else if too much time has passed, but then you are back in the situation you started with... Like I said, this is a hard problem to solve.

Locking and blocking (in all but the most extreme cases) doesn't hurt performance, but it is the reason that two cores doesn't double the execution speed. Only in the very worst cases will the overhead associated with grabbing, releasing, and checking locks (all very fast operations) cause a multi-threaded solution to perform worse than a single-threaded solution. Even with a single core/thread solution, the types of glitches that you refer to can and will occur, but it may be easier for the developers to predict (at code time) and detect (at run time) when problems will occur and implement alternate code paths to minimize the impact.

1) 100% agreed. 2) Technological improvements (e.g. Unity, general changes to the UI, and so forth) are definitely part of my expectations. Mechanically (how combat works, how skill works, how spells work, how inventory works, how dialog works and the like), however, I expected this game to strongly resemble the old Infinity Engine games. I don't think this is (or was) an unreasonable expectation, given how the Kickstarter was marketed. 3) I reiterate Hassat Hunter's call for a list of the "obvious (non-technical) flaws" of the old Infinity Engine games. More to the point, I sure wish that Obsidian had posted this list (because they obviously agree with you, and have a pretty extensive list) during the Kickstarter, as it would have helped me when deciding how much (or if) I should donate to this title. 4) Yes, it is possible to have a game that is mechanically very similar to the Infinity Engine games and have a new rule system and background. If this is the way that Obisidan was thinking when they created the Kickstarter, they (in my opinion, of course) were deliberately misleading their backers. My hope was that this game would prove to the publishers that yes, there does exist a small, niche market of gamers that are willing to support games with old-school mechanics -- and, if it turned out that this market didn't exist, then I'd get at least one last game of this type. Instead, it looks like I'm going to get "DA:O-lite", which isn't necessarily a bad thing (I liked DA:O), but it isn't what I funded. One of the purposes of Kickstarter is to allow products to be created that probably won't be a commercial success, by largely eliminating the risk from the product producers (they don't have to repay their contributors, after all). That's what I thought the purpose of this Kickstarter was -- but it looks like I was mistaken, and the goal was simply create another mass market game (just one that the publishers wouldn't fund). <shrug> -- that's the risk that you take with a Kickstarter, lesson learned.