Odarbi

I liked the Baldurs gate system a lot, and think of that as the go to default for an IE style game. I don't mind free roam open world in some games, like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but I don't think a full free roam would work out all that well in a BG style game.

While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, there was a stat system used in a series of games know as Exile by Spiderweb Software back in 1995-1997 that was rather versatile and allowed for a lot of character customization. This system was also one of the first that I am aware of to break the mold, in that you didn't really start with a defined class - it was defined by you by your stat and skill selections. The system was strikingly similar to, but still quite different from, D&D. You had your base stats and a variety of different skills(which included, but was not limited to: mage spell proficiency, priest spell proficiency, alchemy, archery, lock picking, throwing weapons, spears, swords, etc.) The real kicker was that you had to use a total point buy pool to level up both your stats and your skills at the same time, there was no differentiation between them. Leveling up your mage proficiency left you with less points to level up your intelligence or constitution. You also had the ability to take character flaws at character generation which could give you more skill points to spend, or character perks which, as I recall, would increase the experience you needed to level up. Every level you obtained during game play would give you additional skill points that you could distribute to these things. You could spend them immediately for smaller boosts, or save the points up between levels to get something really big. Different races got additional points to spend and/or initial levels in certain skills, but usually had some sort of flaw associated with them as well. Each stat and skill had a different point value, and each level obtained increased that value required to level it further by a certain amount. Your base stats affected things like weapon damage, HP, carrying capacity, available spellpoints, etc., but your skill level for each skill was ultimately the main determining factor on what you could do with that skill, and how effective it was. In the case of magic, you could only use level 4 spells if you had level 4 mage or priest magic, regardless of how many spellpoints you had (though having a lower intelligence might leave you without the necessary amount of spellpoints with which to cast level 4 spells). Leveling lock picking would give you a greater chance of success, or reduce the chance of you breaking your pick. Leveling your weapon skills would give you a greater chance to hit, and also increase your damage by a certain amount. Higher alchemy allowed for the creation of more powerful potions. This ended up created a really interesting dynamic, in that sacrificing your base stats could mean having a stronger or better character over all. Properly doing a system of this depth would not be easy, however, and would likely eat up a lot of resources. However, it could add a lot to the game. All that being said: I'm perfectly okay with either a point buy or a random roll system. While I do enjoy more complex character creation systems, I don't want the game to get bogged down in development hell just to make one.

I've suddenly remembered a stat system, which came from a series of games know as Exile by Spiderweb Software back in 1995-1997, that was rather versatile and allowed for a lot of character customization. This system was also one of the first that I am aware of to brake the mold, in that you didn't really start with a defined class - it was defined by you by your stat and skill selections. The system was strikingly similar to, but still quite different from, D&D. You had your base stats and a variety of different skills(which included, but was not limited to: mage spell proficiency, priest spell proficiency, alchemy, archery, lock picking, throwing weapons, spears, swords, etc.) The real kicker was that you had to use a total point buy pool to level up both your stats and your skills at the same time, there was no differentiation between them. Leveling up your mage proficiency left you with less points to level up your intelligence or constitution. You also had the ability to take character flaws at character generation which could give you more skill points to spend, or character perks which, as I recall, would slow down your experience gain. Every level you obtained during game play would give you additional skill points that you could distribute to these things. You could spend them immediately for smaller boosts, or save the points up between levels to get something really big. Different races got additional points to spend and/or initial levels in certain skills, but usually had some sort of flaw associated with them as well. Each stat and skill had a different point value, and each level obtained increased that value requires to level it further by a certain amount. Your base stats affected things like weapon damage, HP, carrying capacity, available spellpoints, etc., but your skill level for each skill was ultimately the main determining factor on what you could do with that skill, and how effective it was. In the case of magic, you could only use level 4 spells if you had level 4 mage or priest magic, regardless of how many spellpoints you had (though having a lower intelligence might leave you without the necessary amount of spellpoints with which to cast level 4 spells). Leveling lock picking would give you a greater chance of success, or reduce the chance of you breaking your pick. Leveling your weapon skills would give you a greater chance to hit, and also increase your damage by a certain amount. Higher alchemy allowed for the creation of more powerful potions. This ended up created a really interesting dynamic, in that sacrificing your base stats could mean having a stronger or better character over all. Properly doing a system of this depth would not be easy, however, and would likely eat up a lot of resources. However, it could add a lot to the game. I'm still perfectly fine with going for a primarily stat based D&D style system where class is the main deciding factor. I love D&D and the way it's character gen plays out, and I don't think we'll be seeing a system where class isn't involved in some way, since the stretch goals talk about adding additional classes to the game. Still, it's nice to think about additional ideas, might spark some new ideas to bring character gen to the "next level", as it were.

If you do, I think I need help too. I've been spending most of my free time on here as well.

I'm on the fence between point buy and random rolls, so I voted "Random, but you can adjust". While I do like the ability to sit there and endlessly roll stats so I can get the "optimal" stat build, it just gets tedious after a while. Point buy was something I hated the idea of before, but that's probably more because I was almost always ultimately 'weaker' than had I just spent rolling stats for an hour. Both systems have their merits, however. If they do go for random rolling, I would almost like to see them place a hard cap on the number of times you can re-roll for a character and not have a save option, as it might encourage people to actually accept a higher than normal but not max stat roll. However, since this is a single player game, that idea is essentially pointless, as anyone who really wants to re-roll forever until they get max stats would just quit out of character creation and continue going... and anyone who doesn't really care to have the max stats will just go when they're happy anyway. I do like the idea of stats increasing as you do certain things (EG: using melee attacks will eventually increase your strength, casting more spells eventually increasing your relevant magic stat), but it would have to be handled carefully, the stat inflation shouldn't be too quick and should also slow down the higher a character's relevant stat currently is, and eventually the stat should reach a stat cap that it cannot progress past. Ultimately though, I think a proper system done in this style would detract too much development time and/or resources from other aspects from the game. Chances are good that the random roll style that Baldurs Gate went with is the best way to go from a design stand point, as that allows the rerollers to reroll, and the point buyers to point buy.

Flat out NO to FPS viewpoint. Go back to playing Skyrim if that's what you really want. I can assure you that it is not what I want in a game. This is meant to be a tactical and strategic RPG, and the FPS viewpoint is quite simply not conductive to this sort of game. I don't mind a Third Person viewpoint in games where I control only 1 person, such as Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but I want a birds eye view if I'm controlling 6 people like P:E will require me to do. Project Eternity is meant to be a return to the days of Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale, and the like, so an isometric birds eye view is the way to go. I won't be opposed to a NWN2 style camera if they decide to go that way, so long as they pick a single navigation mode and make it work well instead of having 3 different camera modes that all work differently and ultimately feel unfinished and/or un-necessary. I would very much prefer, however, they just stick with a fixed camera with very little to no zoom. Having a fixed camera with no zoom not only simplifies things from a programming standpoint, but it also frees up more development resources for other things because they don't have to mess around with fully rendered 3d objects and fully rendered landscapes. This allows them to spend more time and resources, which are probably already limited enough, to do things like: Make the game fun, add more content for the players to explore, spend more time focusing on the lore of the world... you know, things that will actually bring the world alive much much more than the FPS viewpoint you described ever would.

As I said in one of the other threads, I'm perfectly fine with the inclusion of LGBT characters within the game. Would I choose to play one? Probably not, but that's no reason for them to not be included.

I hope to see traps, even if they are only done in a BG/IWD style mode. May not be the most amazing way to handle it, but it includes another type of challenge to the game that you end up needing to rely on other people/a different skill set for. Is it a must have? Probably not.

Aye, I'm getting tired of that mentality too. "I don't agree, so it shouldn't exist". "No, because I don't like it". "No, because that's not fantasy". Grow up people. Those aren't reasons why it shouldn't exist. That's just you being too close-minded to accept differences. No one person can define fantasy. What is fantasy for you may not be fantasy for someone else. I'm perfectly fine with the idea of the game including transgenders and including them as a part of the whole game. Will I play one? likely not, because that's just not my cup of tea. However, having the option there for those who do want to play one should in no way ruin your game, unless you're some sort of bigoted fool who wants/needs this game to be your vision of the perfect world. Guess what? It's not going to happen. It's Obsidian's world, and they'll make it as they see fit.

Actually, thieves had more important roles than just disarming traps and picking locks. Mechanically speaking a Magic-User could open locks and such, yes, but thieves had something a Wizard lacked and that was "street smarts". Every bit important as it sounds. They always knew where to get the best deals, who was untrustworthy and what was the safest place in town. Basically they acted as the party guide whenever they got into the bigger cities. I'd LOVE to see something like this implemented in PE. Social skills are every bit as awesome as combat skills, sometimes even more so. One of the other things Rogues could do in BG2 that some people probably didn't know about was detect illusions. They also had Backstab, which is a more commonly known skill. This made them prime characters to be "mage hunters", as they could potentially catch a mage unaware early on and take them out in one blow, or they could at least know which mage was the real one, in the case of mirror image or some other illusionary effect.

I like out of combat utility for each class. Dragging a rogue around with me everywhere because I want to is okay. Dragging a rogue around with me everywhere because I have to if I want to disable the traps or whatever... not so much a fan. I'm not so big on the idea the spell leveling up from "Open lock lvl1" to "Open lock lvl2". Spells should definitely increase in power as the player levels, but it should be based more on a characters magical proficiency. Whether that is determined by a skill that increases as magic is used, or based off character level, I'm not really worried.

I picked "other" for the first option, as I'm not really tied to Vancian or a Mana Pool system. They have a wonderful oppertunity to do something completely different here. Magic comes from the soul, so they could make a fatigue system, and make it such that using spells too often without resting will cause penalties to certain things, and maybe even eventually cause physical harm to the caster. Lower "level" spells cause less fatigue than the higher level ones so that it's not just managing your "mana", but also trying to manage your debuffs, as well. Fatigue might recover slowly while sleeping outside the city, a little bit faster but still not great if the player carries things like firefood or food, and quickly by sleeping in an inn. Maybe the fatigue pool is very large so that you could do a whole lot of really powerful things early on, but end up having to rest inside a town for a week of game time to finally return to full power afterward. Continuous activation of defensive abilities that they may have might drain their fatigue, so that you're enticed to use them only when you really need them. Fighters, Rogues, and other such classes have special attacks that deal fatigue damage. I'm likely going to be fine with whatever they choose so long as the player has a limit, has to spend time to recharge (and I mean a moderate to significant amount of time, not just the BG style "rest after each fight" recharge), and is thus "rewarded" for smart play.

Yes, yes, and yes. Urgency needs to exist. Time sensitive quests need to exist. The game world is a living breathing thing, and should act as such. It should not wait around for players to get around to things. Just as things happen in real life with or without you around, the game world should progress with or without the player in the same way. Anyone who claims to be an RPer knows this is fundamentally true. Time sensitive quests do not have to be "Do this within 7 days or get game over". Time sensitive quests can be, and do, so much more. They can bring depth and immersion into the game world, and far more so than studying the lore ever could. Not being around to stop an assassination attempt on one of the faction leaders could cause a power vaccum within the city, and the weakest faction may use this time to hire the adventurers to investigate and find out who planned the assassination. This knowledge could then be used to publicly shame the instigating faction and cause them a major loss of prestige... where as being around to stop the assassination attempt might simply preserve the status quo. Not dealing with a camp of bandits early on might simply cause them to become stronger and bolder. Not taking care of an necromancer while he is performing his experiments might lead to a city or town being destroyed or pillaged. All of those examples bring a lot of depth and immersion into the game, and are perfect examples of time sensitive quests that are not "Complete this in 7 days or it's game over". These type of quests will also add to replayability, because things will play out differently. Realistically speaking, you won't even know anything has changed unless you reload the game and do things differently, or are on your second playthrough. By all means, take your time and explore the world, talk to everyone, and learn up on all the lore... but you cannot argue that you are being "punished" for your inaction when you are the one putting off the quests. Choices are supposed to matter in RPG's, and deciding you don't want to do a quest because you "don't feel like it" is as much a choice as "I want to go rescue the Elf King's daughter from those kidnappers". There is absolutely no reason the game should not reflect your inaction.

Urgency needs to exist. Time sensitive quests need to exist. The game world is a living breathing thing, and should act as such. It should not wait around for players to get around to things. Just as things happen in real life with or without you around, the game world should progress with or without the player in the same way. Anyone who claims to be an RPer knows this is fundamentally true. Time sensitive quests do not have to be "Do this within 7 days or get game over". Time sensitive quests can be, and do, so much more. They can bring depth and immersion into the game world, and far more so than studying the lore ever could. Not being around to stop an assassination attempt on one of the faction leaders could cause a power vaccum within the city, and the weakest faction may use this time to hire the adventurers to investigate and find out who planned the assassination. This knowledge could then be used to publicly shame the instigating faction and cause them a major loss of prestige... where as being around to stop the assassination attempt might simply preserve the status quo. Not dealing with a camp of bandits early on might simply cause them to become stronger and bolder. Not taking care of an necromancer while he is performing his experiments might lead to a city or town being destroyed or pillaged. All of those examples bring a lot of depth and immersion into the game, and are perfect examples of time sensitive quests that are not "Complete this in 7 days or it's game over". These type of quests will also add to replayability, because things will play out differently. Realistically speaking, you won't even know anything has changed unless you reload the game and do things differently, or are on your second playthrough. By all means, take your time and explore the world, talk to everyone, and learn up on all the lore... but you cannot argue that you are being "punished" for your inaction when you are the one putting off the quests. Choices are supposed to matter in RPG's, and deciding you don't want to do a quest because you "don't feel like it" is as much a choice as "I want to go rescue the Elf King's daughter from those kidnappers". There is absolutely no reason the game should not reflect your inaction.

Voted for "So long as it doesn't feel like I'm walking over a painting" in that I'd like to, at the very very least, see things like.. the shadows of clouds floating by, have a lighting/color to indicate morning/midday/evening/night, or see it rain some times. I'd ultimately love to see animated rivers and streams, moving windmills, and all that... but not if it's at the expense of other things like story, content, or gameplay.

Moral choices in are wonderful in a game, but I hope it: a) doesn't give perks and is there purely for a measure of how good or evil your character is b) does give perks, but there's no "morality meter" with which to measure your progress towards good or evil. c) just isn't measured and is there solely for RP decisions. I don't want to see this become KOTOR, where you're either all good, all evil, or lacking because there's no inbetween perks. I want to see serious moral conundrums, and would even like to see the in game racial or societal norms play in to what is ultimately right in a given situation, and not necessarially have it be based on any form of real world value system. KoA: Reckoning kind of had a good idea goind with their "morality" system, in that it wasn't really measured and it just gave you different "twist of fate" cards that would change you in a certain way depending on your choice in a major plot arc. If the morality system is to grant character perks, a solution like that might be a better way of handling it rather than just handing out rewards for being "Lawful Good" or "Chaotic Evil".

I personally love things like immunities and needing to be prepared for them. I also want to have to carry elemental resistance potions for off chance we encounter a whole lot of enemies that do elemental damage. I like these things because it makes me have to think ahead, and play smart. I don't want the whole entirety of the game to be that way... but it'd be nice to see situations like that pop up from time to time.

"What a terrible night to have a curse" I definitely have to agree that a running day/night cycle should exist, and that both day and night should affect things differently. Some monsters might be nocturnal and only come out at night. Wandering around at night in the cities might increase the risk of being attacked by bandits. Maybe there are certain buildings that can only be accessed at night. Maybe night is harder for the PC to deal with because of whatever the "supernatural event" they ended up finding themselves in. All kinds of things could happen that make night time different from daytime. The passage of time is something that should have an effect on just about everything in the game. I really hope to see Obsidian make good use it.

Hitting was always determined by a proficiency type system in the IE games. More proficiency with the weapon resulted in more attacks per round, better chances of hitting the target, and such things as that. The strength requirements were there more from a "strength to carry/swing the weapon effectively" style system more than an arbitrary intention to just restrict it's useage. A greatsword is harder to use effectively than a short sword, or whatever. I suppose the system could be changed so that not meeting a strength/dexterity require for a certain weapon could then apply a penalty on hit chance and/or damage, rather than being a flat "you can't use this", but it almost seems like needless fluff outside of a situation where you have a regular short sword and somehow find an amazingly powerful greatsword instead. If you are referring to having a system where weapon damage scales based on user's skill, I could see that working out to a certain extent, but then you also have to remember that another skilled fighter would be able to parry or dodge your blows and what not.

For me, there's something timeless about older videogames with harsher rules. The idea of "taking cover behind this rock to recover hp after you've been shot", for example, has never interested me and likely never will, because I simply don't see how it can be fun. Give me some medkits, make me have to use them wisely. Make me have to play smart to get by with what I have, or risk dying and/or losing my progress. I'm fine with them revamping certain elements so long as it truely is for the better. The resting mechanic can definitely use some work, as the old IE games fell into a "Fight, rest" cycle, and the only real downfall for that was potentially being attacked when you rested... and pretty much leads to encounters having to be designed with the idea that you're at full strength. Death should definitely have a cost or side effect, but a permanent death effect? Nah, no thanks. So yes, I do want to see the game be "hardcore". I want the game to make me play smart, to make me use my special abilities, items, and spells wisely. I want the game to be difficult, and get more difficult or change as I take longer to do things, because that way the game can be a truely rewarding experience to complete.

I would guess not, as there's also a 25$ pledge option on kickstarter that is, according to the description, the very same (You still get the achieve and in game item for the 25$ pledge option). If that's correct, it basically just allowed the very first backers to save 5$.

I'm totally in favor of different starting areas, so long as it makes sense within the story

This is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about, and I find it strange that anyone who is big on RPG's at all would be against something like this. Having the world wait around for your hero to get around to something is not immersive in any way. It breaks immersion.

To clarify: when I say timed quests, I definitely don't want to see time sensitive "Oh, you failed to do this, game over" type quests, because yeah... it really isn't a great motivator, and it's just not really that fun. What I do want to see is the world change and react to the things I do or, in the case of timed quests, the things I DON'T do. Waiting until later to clear out a bandit camp should make the encounter more difficult and increase the amount of loot found at the scene, because the bandits are presumably recruiting more people, and stealing more loot. Maybe they're becomming more bold and attacking larger caravans, maybe even nearby towns. Time sensitive quests do not have to be, and definitely should not be, "Game Over because you didn't do this in time". They just end up playing out differently the longer you wait because, you know, they're time sensitive.

This is basically it. People are much more likely to roll with the punches if your unpredicability is only something minor, like "what type of elemental damage does it do?", much like a player isn't likely to reload if an enemy makes a save against a spell. However, not very many people are going to accept a character outright dying, and especially not when they have a chance of permanently increasing all their stats by a certain amount, no matter how small the option is. The only real way to avoid reload fodder on an item like that would be to force a save after the item has been used and the effect finalized, which would create all kinds of logistical problems on it's own anyway (What happens if you used it on the Main PC, and he died? Does the player have to start over from the beginning of the game?); and even if you were to force a save, a lot of people will find a way to backup their save files and re-do things anyway.