Tamerlane

**** mages. Give me ten different kinds of feinting maneuvers, each one useful against different attacks - some broad, some niche - and each with their own specific counters. Let wizards cast acid arrow all day every day.

I agree. Screw balance. Fighter supremacy for life, mother****ers.

cume play w me my lord

What the actual ****ing ****?

If this game runs in 800x600 without mod support I'm demanding my money back, Sawyer.

EDIT: Also, I really love the tall grass in that one mage screenshot. I'm always struck by how... tame most wilderness areas are in games, but that one looks really good. I can hear the mosquito swarms already.

It's Edér now. Smugdér.

The ESRB rates any game that gets submitted to them. Steam and GOG may have requirements in that regard, but I really don't know.

Alright, alright, alright. Moving slightly away from the armour thing (because there's a thread on that) and back to gender and mature themes thing in general: On a basic level, I think I understand the whole "So is this game going to have [taboo thing]?" mentality. After all, the great creative bogeyman - the publisher - is gone. And without that troll under the bridge, people want to see all the things image-conscious publishers might be afraid to include. Now. Obsidian Entertainment is the successor of Black Isle, of Fallout and Planescape Torment fame. Project Eternity is being headed up by JE Sawyer, lead designer of Icewind Dale 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. Those were games with torture, slavery, prostitution, drug addiction, and more. Their handling of these topics varied from game to game, but generally became stronger and more mature as time went on, and even with publisher oversight, they did not shy away from injecting harsh realities into their games when they found them fitting. So when someone appears and says, "So is this game going to have (sexual themes/racism/misogyny/whatever people are always god damn asking about)?", I - and a lot of the people who have played past Obsidian and Black Isle games and who have seen them handle these topics - react with derision. Why? Because we can only assume that the asker's interest comes down to seeing their fetishes represented. And we know that this is a totally unfair assessment, but we can't help it. It's the only thing we can think. Because looking back on the history of Black Isle and Obsidian, who but someone worried about the exclusion of their wank material would even ask?

History has the unfortunate habit of being vague as ****. For example, Byzantine accounts of the armies of the First Crusade include descriptions of women in armour. They do not give any account as to the nature of these women or where or if they ever fought. Ceremonial codpieces and mustaches aside, plate armour of the 15th and 16th centuries trended towards "girly as hell", really. That whole "wasp waist" thing I mentioned earlier? Turns out an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face is actually something most dudes wanted to wear. Rounded edges deflect blows better than flat, and putting weight on your hips is way more comfortable than putting it on your shoulders.

It was all the rage in decorative armour. Getting abs and pecs put on to your plate? C'mon, that went out of fashion with the Greeks.

At the risk of being super pedantic, Bioware didn't make the first Neverwinter Nights game.

I know, right? I'm really sick of this trend towards not being able to tell what sex a character is under their armour. I mean, look at this ****: Where's the giant codpiece? Where's the mustache on the visor? How am I supposed to know there's not a long-haired lady underneath that helmet? I can't even see the hair on his back. And don't get me started on all that "wasp-waist" armour out there with its seductive hips and its hourglass proportions. End the erasure of the male form in armour. EDIT: This is more like it. Take this, puritan PC police:

... and also because the nature of the medium makes it inherently harder to do in any way other than masturbatory trash.

What is the point of different classes in the first place, if You want to play sneaking wizards and spell casting barbarians? And still - the fighter who increased his defection bonus by brewing potions sounds wrong to me. The point of a wizard is to cast spells. The point of casting spells is to light **** on fire. The point of lighting **** on fire is not to get "lighting **** on fire" EXP. A fighter takes hits because she's good at taking hits, not to win an EXP minigame. Anyway, I already elaborated on why I feel "play to type" is a poor way of varying level up timing.

Pillars of Eternity could be the name of the backers portal only, like "Ranger Center" for Wasteland 2. A good guess, but the screenshots indicate otherwise. "If you haven't backed Pillars of Eternity yet..." "Pillars of Eternity (Digital Download)..." Granted, the screenshots also say "Project Eternity" a whole bunch. Go fighting placeholders!

KaineParker's avatar also works as a response to that post/this thread in general.

At the risk of making the smuggest/ass-kissing-est post ever: There's a better tag than "lie". It's called "Obsidian".

Not a single bit of what you said actually necessitates - or is even significantly changed by - the inclusions of a [lie] tag.

I hesitate to ask, but what, uh... what is "man or woman gameplay"?

In early game stages leveling up whole party may be game-changing (see ICWD series). It may or may not be of some concern in P:E. Fussing around to maximize XP will be annoying and stupid, no matter how it will be implemented. It is not H'n'S game, where XP is the only indicator of one's progression. And it is not about punishing mages for trying to sneak, but about rewarding them for doing "mage stuff". What is "mage stuff"? Cast an invisibility spell? Hey, you're sneaking with Mage Stuff. Shoot a fireball? You're fighting with Mage Stuff. You brewed us up something? Awesome, so did the barbarian. Y'all should compare notes. Want to reward a class for doing "class stuff"? That's already mechanically implemented. It's why rogues have a naturally high Sneak and fighters have a naturally high Deflection. So they're good at doing Their Stuff. Like I said, if you badly want to implement some variation in level timing, throw a small XP lottery in to the every quest to vary the rewards slightly. Or steal a page from a JRPG and give the player bonus EXP to distribute as they see fit. Or... anything that doesn't involve some silly "Wait, am I playing to type?" minigame.

Here, let me help you with the party's portraits: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Well, it certainly sounds more interesting than giving equal rewards to everyone, doesn't it? Being anti-X was discussed some posts ago ( http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64585-lets-not-have-everyone-level-at-once/page-3?do=findComment&comment=1387800 ). Is it enough to convince You? No? ... Yeah, no. Not at all, really. Everyone levelling up at the same time is a minor irritant. Fussing around to make sure I'm doing just the right things to get just the right EXP rewards for just the right classes sounds annoying as hell. Honestly, if it's that big an issue, I'd rather just see one random party member take -5% EXP and another take +5% EXP each time you gain experience. No punishing mages for trying to sneak and stuff. EDIT: As things stand right now (and naturally, this is subject to change), non-active party members actually take a small EXP penalty. 5% or 10% or something like that. Oh... Is that confirmed? I always thought they will worship some sort of god and obey his commandments? Clerics (priests, properly) are religious, yes. No idea what if anything that entails, as we haven't had a priest update yet. Paladins are not an inherently religious class. At the very least, "no being evil" is not a general priest requirement. EDIT: The Kickstarter page, on the topic of priests, says this: "Such men and women have found a divine link to their chosen deity, but their abilities stem solely from within."

Every single time they do a new in-depth class update, I say to myself, "Holy ****, I have to make one of those!" Also, strongholds are sweet.

What the actual **** are you going on about, dude?