Sensuki

Yeah we mean the Dragon Age isometric view, locked on a character.

I don't think I've seen a woman of volume in any RPG I've played except for Baldur's Gate, the mayor's wife type npc model. BBW is ok with me though Agreed about the males. Will this be the first game where there's no female elf npc ???

I think that they had the general jist of the Kickstarter campaign planned out ahead of time (which I think was Adam's job), researching other kickstarters, finding out what worked and what didn't etc. I would say that their level of communication with the fanbase was very good. More updates and information were shown than what Wasteland 2 had to offer (I suppose they were a little bit further in development maybe). They seem like they already had decided they were gonna use Unity before the project started as well. But yes in comparison to some of the other kickstarters it was a lot more corporate. They also likely had more add-ons than any other Kickstarter hahah. Not a bad way to raise more money but I think add-ons rather than tier levels will become an increasing theme on Kickstarter. You will likely get less and less in a pledge tier and have to add on more items as more companies start to identify the trends ... could be a bad thing.

That's kind of taking power gaming into consideration. I've never actually done any of those double XP exploits myself though, didn't even occur to me to try them until I read GameFAQs guides about them haha. By the way I wasn't arguing that they should, I was commenting on the fact that there is the prospect of non-violence becoming the best option. I'm not sure if you read the part where I translated that Icewind Dale level into objective-based experience but that's exactly what I did (and what they need to do). My concern there is though, with a more open area, such as a lot of the Baldur's Gate wilderness areas, the level design has to significantly change to accomodate objective-based XP. The lesser encounters become basically pointless. That's okay in a linear game like Icewind Dale, but in a more sandbox style game it's a bit of a problem. They have said that the world exploration will be more like Baldur's Gate, but the level designs might be more linear like Baldur's Gate 2 to accomodate for the change in XP system. I vastly prefer the Baldur's Gate 1 freedom. Where there is a non-violent option given to you to beat the encounter (Star Wars Jedi Mind tricks, The WItcher gaze, certain dialogue options) you are usually rewarded more experience for beating the encounter. I'm talking about games post-Baldur's Gate 2 as well. It was even present in Icewind Dale as well. In Lower Dorn's Deep if you talk to Marketh's sister before going up to face him, and promise to spare him and then let him go, you get 150,000XP. If you fight him you get 8,000 XP and some crappy items (black dragon scale with **** AC, longsword +1 etc) - I can do the math there. There's an ogre in a mill with a headache. You can cure his headache for 1000XP or kill him (270XP). Once again ... Actually yes I am, I am not talking about encounters that trigger dialogue. Those aren't the problem. I stated that The Witcher handles XP for these dialogues the same no matter the outcome. It is the hostile/random encounters and side encounters that become a problem. I read that very reddit comment, they said that abilities and skills will unlock dialogue options that extract extra information to help the player make a more informed decision, and then there was something about giving off how they would react to that dialogue choice or something like that. But once you've played the game a few times, you'll know how to achieve the best outcome - by having X in an ability or skill to open up a new avenue of dialogue/etc Oh absolutely. In my experience, in modern RPGs, if there's more than one side in a quest you usually go back and forth between both parties and then decide where you stand. I am talking about the encounters that where your skills and abilities save you from a hostile encounter where it would otherwise be inevitable. If you sneak past something, and get XP for it, you don't have to use any items or spells or anything.

Just made this thread on the focus of powergaming shifting to non-combat in this game and the potential issues with that.

For anyone that doesn't know, powergaming is about achieving the best possible outcome in the game through whatever means necessary. The developers want to try and eliminate most of the 'degenerate' power-gaming from the game, such as double-experience gain and things like that. That's fine with me. In most cases in the Infinity Engine games, there exists an optimal outcome which either yields you better items or more experience (or both). This usually involves killing everything, unless you are rewarded more quest experience points for a peaceful outcome. With the proposed experience model and the introduction of prominent non-combat skills, and with Tim and Josh stating that they want you to be able to avoid combat with these skills, it will potentially shift the powergaming paradigm into a non-combat model. Their aim seems to be to try and create an even reward in every situation for players of all archetypes. A perfect balance between archetypes is of course, impossible (or improbable). In encounters where it is possible to avoid combat, avoiding combat will likely always be the beneficial option from a power-gaming perspective in the situation of quest-experience only, because if you avoid combat you essentially waste considerably less to no resources compared to potentially expending per-rest spells, potions, item charges and other consummables through entering into combat, not to mention your own time. The only reason you would enter combat from a power-gaming perspective is if by entering combat you are rewarded some good items that your enemies had on them, that you wouldn't have been able to get otherwise (and that are actually beneficial to your party). However there are still problems with this, which I will explain later. The first play through for all people will of course be trial and error. But on another play through, non-roleplayers will start to identify the most optimal solution to solving quests and encounters. Power gaming doesn't necessarily mean gaining the most experience or the best items, but to achieve your optimal goal - for instance, getting the perfect reputation with a faction or unlocking particular dialogue options that you want from an NPC to witness a particular story element. I also think that to even further support the use of non-combat abilities, the devs may even make it possible to get the premium items that enemies or characters have on them through other means (such as bribery/reward for non-violence, persuasion or stealing). If this is the case that also makes violence a pointless endeavour. The skill checks will probably be based on a static number rather than being random, so for powergaming purposes in the future you will know, to achieve a certain outcome, you will need X amount in the Mechanics skill to break a lock or you need X in your Charisma-type skill to unlock Y dialogue option. What splits the playing field are the things that allow you to unlock these non-violent options (Tim Cain: "you're going to want to use these skills") The skills you have levelled. Different skills will yield ways of beating encounters through non-violence Your race / traits will probably have an effect in some instances as well, maybe even your class The companions you have with you and their skills The consequence of the actions that you take, reflected in your reputation with factions and the outcome of the quest, depending on which particular outcome you want to experience. This is the direction that the developers seem to be aiming at in regards to Project Eternity. That's 100% fine with me. Non-violence was present in The Witcher and you got the same experience for solving a quest non-violently as you did violently, however violence did reward you bonus gear if you took the violent route. If you killed Vincent the werewolf instead of curing him, you got a special alchemical ingredient which allowed you to brew a special potion which gave you a talent; if you killed Berengar then you got his Witcher amulet, which made the final boss fight really easy. Even though on various playthroughs I did both options in those quests. My 'standard' option for both was the non-violent ones because the reward unto itself was the extra dialogue/scenes that you got through that and it was more fun beating the megaboss without the OP amulet. You can't get double rewards in The Witcher though because you can only attack a hostile creature, or a neutral creature such as a dog (only when there's danger). There exists a state of which characters cannot be attacked. In The Witcher, you were rewarded for doing quests. Violent and Non-violent outcomes to such were both good. However the game still had experience for kills but you wouldn't go out and grind monsters for experience because the experience you got from them was minimal. You'd certainly clear the monsters in your path for experience most of the time, but that was about it. Most monsters randomly spawned (and respawned) at night, and fighting them was usually annoying, particularly if they were tough because they forced you to spend resources - potions, health and stamina. You never walked around looking for fights with piddling monsters in The Witcher, only if it was related to quests, even though they yielded experience. Monsters that yielded good experience were only found in certain locations. Echinopsae in the cave and Odo's garden. Ghouls in the crypt (and if you're very lucky, one wandering around the village at night), the boss monsters of their various archetypes. There was basically no reason to grind. You only went to areas to find items (random chests/corpses lying around) or do quests. I don't play The Witcher for the combat because it's not hard and you're not really rewarded for it. It is a means to experience the next part of the story - basically the same for all recent games. If you took out the XP per kill in The Witcher, it would make you skip as much of the combat as possible. Because then you're not rewarded at all for it. Rewards for non-violence have been in games for quite a long time. In pretty much all the games since Baldur's Gate 2 (and even including some quests in BG2) the non-violent solution has pretty much always been the most beneficial outcome compared to the violent alternative in games. I'm 100% fine for that trend to continue if that is the developer's wish, but quest and objective based experience really takes the wind out of combat. It then becomes a chore that you have to put up with in order to get to the next piece of the quest or storyline. The satisfaction of defeating a foe doesn't really mean much unless there's a tangible reward for it. Already in most games today, even with experience per kills, combat is just a chore, filler content in between pieces of storyline. Most game models seem to be objective-based these days. Quests level you up, combat is just filler. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is the experience gained from it. If non-combat options exist, especially in encounters against unimportant foes, such as a bunch of lowly guards outside the bandit camp, fighting your way in is pointless because you have to expend resources to do it. Whereas if you sneak in it costs you nothing, and you gain the same from both outcomes. If you are rewarded the same experience for completing an objective through combat or non-combat means, the non-combat makes the most sense from a powergaming perspective because you have saved yourself from expending finite resources and saved yourself RL time that you can spend on getting further in the game. I generally don't think that people undertake combat because the combat is fun, the satisfaction is in gaining something from the encounter. Loot and experience. This type of XP reward system works mostly ok in semi-linear objective based areas that have meaninful side-encounters. It does make level design more of a chore, and probably will change the way they are designed and the style of encounters. For instance, using level 2 of Dragon's Eye cave in Icewind Dale as an example and assume it's a map in PE, we now have to make every single encounter on the map involved in an objective. Nothing can be pointless or that is bad game design. Image of the Area map with encounters marked Feel free to ignore this bit - changes to the level to accomodate new XP system In all instances, non-combat is beneficial because you are just wasting resources and time fighting when you could beat these encounters without fighting. I don't think it's possible to prevent powergamers from being degenerate if you give no experience for kills either without taking a lot of fun out of the combat of the game. If you make sure that there are really good trade-offs for using violence, such as better items that you can only get through fighting, people can sneak by to get the experience, then double back and kill the enemy to get the item from the enemy, despite the lack of experience. To prevent this you'd have to make it so that you didn't get the items from the enemy (by either making them disappear, putting them in containers or making it a quest reward - which are all bad design decisions imo). If you want to prevent this type of degenerate gaming then use sensible programming, your choice and consequences writing, and your reputation system. It's not the experience for kills that is the problem. Personally I think the system that the Infinity Engine games already employs is good. XP for kills and quests, and bonus experience for non-combat/skill use that is more beneficial than violent outcomes in most cases. To prevent people from killing everything and playing degenerately - make it impossible to get double XP rewards, add consequences for violence or degenerance such as lower reputation, decreased influence with party members or world events that punish such actions. Just my 2(000) cents anwyay Hope you all enjoyed the read

Yeah that's right, it just seems like a restriction on power gaming (I'm seeing a common theme here ... )

If you watch the stream, you'll hear Josh talking to some of the other staff about magic rings when he's sitting on the couch.

from a level design perspective Durlag's Tower (Baldur's Gate) Dragon's Eye (Icewind Dale) BG2 & IWD2 also had some interesting ideas on the 'quests' related to getting to the next level of a dungeon I'm sure there's a lot of cool P&P dungeons as well, I've only played homemade stuff.

I'm not really a fan of the segmented iteration idea they had going (ie 3 levels at a time before you needed a key to the next lot found in another location of the world), I'd love to marathon the dungeon.

I don't think they can if they want achievements and cloud saves.

Indeed. Please keep an RTS feel to the controls and camera movement!

Even they were making fun of Alvin (Bodie rules!). I'm sure a lot of it was all in good humor

I suggested Laurie Ann Haus to Justin http://soundcloud.com/laurieannhaus Big fan of her in Autumn Tears and she's recently gotten into soundtracks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFBne3JJdx8 What can I say, I'm a fan of warmer/lusher voices.

That sounds like ARPG mechanics. Random loot in ARPGs is great. Project Eternity isn't an ARPG and I'm pretty sure all the magic items will be statically placed.

The view in PE won't be locked I don't think. I do like the feeling of the screen panning in the IE games, the ToEE scrolling was terrible in comparison as there was a lot of input lag. Whatever scrolling system the IE games used was perfect, as was the scroll speed bar in the menu. The ability to action cancel if you make a mistake (like 2hp wizard misclick attack on a monster), in the IE games you did this by issuing a move command, I'd like that to be the case again, although like Warcraft 3 perhaps a stop shortcut would work too. Hopefully if you queue actions you don't have to carry them out, and can cancel/override actions mid animation. The ability to move through your own party members in IWD: HoW, BG2, IWD2 where if a static player controlled unit was in the way and not undertaking an action, the moving unit could pass between them. Obviously with 10 years of technology a better system will be able to be implemented. Hopefully characters don't get stuck like in BG1 Similar character selection scheme. Left click on a character (or within their circle) to select, shift click to select multiple characters, right click to deselect/shift right click to deselect. Left click to move/attack/take action once character is selected (NOT RIGHT CLICK PLZ) I agree with the overview map control as well, to move forward in areas I'd already explored I went to the menu map and selected an area of view. I do hope they include a large map screen like that in the game. I'd be fine if it was like Titan Quest where you can toggle the map and move with it on. I'd also be okay with a Warcraft 3 / DotA 2 style minimap (anything less is too small) but I think it would take up too much of the screen and not be the ideal solution. More to come I guess.

I liked the encounters in Baldur's Gate 1, especially when there was a chance of a bit of variation. The area to the northeast of Nashkell where you get a lot of Ogre / Ogrillon spawns was fun because you had the chance to get Ogres, Ogrillons, Ogre Berserkers or an Ogre Magi from some spawns. I do prefer hand-crafted encounters, but I don't mind a few random encounters here and there.

in the Red Wizard area of the Wood of Sharp Teeth in Baldur's Gate there's a non-hostile Druid that gives you a quest go go and recover a scroll from an Ettercap. The scroll is cursed and he says keep it, it will grant you infinite wisdom or something. If you kill him after you've completed the quest, you only get 14 experience. I am not sure whether his XPvalue is 14 or whether because he's non-hostile the XP value is scaled down.

As long as he doesn't use the Leonardo voice again. I've heard it far too much. Raphael Sbarge is another one who uses the same voice over and over. And it's a voice I don't like too!

Sure, but I think the re-use of Jim Cummings would be almost a given. The re-use of David Warner is highly unlikely.

I think we have enough already polish polish polish and more Jim Cummings.

This IS a step forward in my opinion. I didn't pledge for an RPG that's trying to be innovative. I want that old feeling back.

might just be for EA UK ?

I have a feeling they will scale the main storyline more than Baldur's Gate did.

They should make the dungeon according to the lore/designer's wishes and not think of it from the terms of what would be more convenient for the player. is teleport magic uncommon in the world if not no need for portals, if so would the mage actually create portals to travel between various levels for his own personal use ? which levels would he travel to ? or was he a hardcore bastard who likes to walk everywhere. etc etc That's what I hope they'll do anyway. But yeah I hope it will be a slog that will take quite a while.