Tamerlane

Oh horror of horrors, eh?

Randomized environments work in Age of Empires, X-Com, and Diablo 2. Not so much PE, I think. Replayability should come less from elements of the game being different, and more from you having different ways of dealing with the same element.

Ignoring X-Com is a great way to get your face eaten off by a crab-man who then lays eggs in your hollowed-out chest.

'Sup.

Of course, "Skip Peragus" became a very popular mod, anyway. "De Candlkeep". You only take the "e" off "de" if a vowel follows it. I bring this up only because I want to make it clear how much "Nalia de'Arnise" annoyed me because of that god damn that was a hell of a minor irritant.

Nice work. Totally nicking that, if you don't mind. And more on-topic, since I mentioned it in the permadeath thread: a "Raise Dead" spell. Aside from Torment, where death was very specifically a minor impediment to the player, Raise Dead is a terrible thing that removes all weight from death. And unless you're remaking Torment (side note: please remake Torment some time), death damn well better have weight.

Totally unrelated, but... DocDoom, I am in love with that signature.

That sounds vaguely similar to... Breath of Fire 3, actually. At least, I think that was the only game in that series that used that kind of system. Minus the "three and you're dead" rule, that is. I don't really remember how well it worked in that game because I haven't played it since I was, like, 13.

I stand by these guys as my favourite bards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiDo1YA0zck EDIT: Damn you, Merin.

Aye, very fair point about the Adventurer's Hall. Forgot about that.

Counterpoint: I hate Raise Dead. I really, really do. Does terrible things to a setting. Cheapens death. C'mon, Jaheira, we raised this guy a billion times in the last game. And with PE's small cast, I dunno how well perma-death without a raise dead option would work. Works in Xcom or Fire Emblem with their randomly generated/huge-ass casts, but PE... eh.

You But I oasdhfhasdf SIGOURNEY KEMP HAS PANICKED. ISAO SATO HAS PANICKED. IVAN PETROV HAS GONE BERSERK. HANS GUNKEL HAS PANICKED. CHRYSALIDS EVERYWHERE. Anyway, it looks like people are talking about two different things here. On the one hand you have things like combat-panic (see: Xcom flashbacks). The others are talking about NPCs opposing your decisions on a greater level. No to the former, yes to the latter.

Erm. He wasn't talking about resale/gifting. He was talking about forums pooling their money to make single, large donations, and how there probably won't be enough downloads to go around for those donors. Anyway, I've got no dog in this fight.

Couldn't a barbarian be a fighter?

Love my friendly fire. Just make it an on/off toggle independent of difficulty. And make the actual radius of a spell plain to see.

I... I see words, and I know these words, but I have no idea what is going on here.

Those nunchaku were banned in the UK as being "too violent". He was always shown with a grappling hook instead.

Indeed, and my problem with 'horde' enemies is that it usually follows from a simplified worldview of mindless good/evil, which doesn't fit with the more complex world I imagine PE to be--will there be a "demonic" or "demon spawn" race of significant number? I hope to heck not. Lord of the Rings: goblins and orcs. Dragon Age: darkspawn. D&D: all manner of 'evil' things. Blah blah blah. But what if the "horde" are the Many-As-One?

Balance in all things.

I love the hell out of paladins, but while I'd love to see them in-game, I'd rather they be something you become, not start off as. Bards, though? Damn, I want bards. Specifically, the Kung Fu Hustle kind of bard: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiDo1YA0zck

On that note, could developers also show up from time to time on the mentioned forums like NeoGAF or Penny Arcade? I think that would generate interest in said communities and help the project. Josh Sawyer posts in Something Awful's PE thread fairly regularly, actually.

In general: companions use same rules. Maybe some of them have a special ability or two. Think Bao-Dur's shield punch thing or Fall-From-Grace's kiss. Okay with: Shale or the dog from DAO are decent examples, even if the dog was terribad in practice. As a rare thing, this can be just fine. Ogre Battle - yeah, it's JRPG example time, what up - had a system where large, monster-type enemies (dragons, gryphons, golems, etc.) were (in theory) substantially stronger than your regular knights, beastmasters, witches, amazons, and wizards, but they took up two slots in a party. So where an all-human group could have two knights, a ninja, a cleric, and a wizard, a mixed group would have two knights, a cleric, and a gryphon. Or you could drop all the way down to, say, two golems protecting a samurai. Which you wouldn't do, because if memory serves golems were actually god damn awful, but you get the idea. Works for balance even if it's generally unjustifiable from a story perspective. But then, when are party limits ever justifiable from a story perspective? Seriously, This Is Important: Standard enemies should follow the same rules as the PC. Of Dragon Age 2's many incomprehensible changes, giving an entirely different spell set to enemy mages and those weird "swing sword in air, make aura that does thing" abilities that many other human enemies had was one of the most ridiculous. And Shale could be pretty broken in DAO. But then, a lot of things could be broken in that game.

3: Hearing the crackling voice in my headphones ask, "What can change the nature of a man?" 2: ICARUS HAS FOUND YOU. RUN WHILE YOU CAN. ICARUS HAS FOUND YOU. RUN WHILE YOU CAN. ICARUS HAS FOUND YOU. RUN WHILE YOU CAN. ICARUS HAS FOUND YOU. RUN WHILE YOU CAN. ICARUS HAS FOUND YOU. RUN WHILE YOU CAN. 1: "Don't trust the skull."

Daggerfall had some baller-tier spell creation, if my memory serves. I dunno if this is the kind of game that that'd really... fit in to, though.

Limited mundane arrows never affected anything in BG1/2. Ever. Mark me down as indifferent.