Infinitron

By Avellone's own admission, Torment was not necessary great for its "RPG" bits. Also, I would say best dialogue of all time would be Grim Fandango - not an RPG at all. I am not arguing for or against good dialogue. I am talking about character development mechanics. Maybe, but I'm sure he wasn't referring to its dialogue mechanics.

The greatest "dialogue game" of all time, Planescape Torment, did not use skill checks.

You don't need to use carriage returns on an Internet forum.

I think Josh has said that he doesn't like doing it that way, because then people don't even realize that they have different options.

Fair enough, and maybe seeing the approach in-game will convert me. I'm not sure if I understand the reputation approach though. It seems to me like a more convoluted application of The Witcher 2's dialogue abilities system *, and makes even less sense: why does a reputation as a diplomat help me solve situation diplomatically? If anything, I'd expect people to scrutinize me more. * In The Witcher 2, dialogue abilities are learn-by-use. The first time you could use a dialogue ability, it was a randomized, relatively easy check. Most likely you'd succeed (but sometimes you wouldn't, which was kind of frustrating and needlessly arbitrary), after which just hitting the dialogue option when it became available would be enough to raise your abilities to the point where you'd never ever fail anymore. It's basically like just having the options always available, but with an arbitrary number attached and some failing you can't actually present. Terrible design, IMO. Hmm, you're trying to think about it as some kind of general-purpose mechanic. It won't be - it will be 100% scripted, as in Alpha Protocol.

lol, if there's little to gain, why have resting at all? You can't have your cake and eat it too. Are saying that game should not have any features that players can't abuse? Do you mean no features that players can abuse? In that case, no, but I think that's what Josh aspires to. I personally am undecided as to whether that is a good thing.

lol, if there's little to gain, why have resting at all? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Which is good example how you can reduce of ammount of resting by modifying gameplay system so that benefits from resting are reduced. As you see they didn't go way of restricting resting there, but make it not so worthwhile thing to do. And it is the desgning philosophy that I would like their use in future too. I think you misunderstand. The point isn't to reduce the amount of resting. The point is to make the game flexible enough that you can restrict resting without making the game too punishing, because if you don't restrict it, people will abuse it no matter what.

Uh, that's why many of the game's spells will in fact not be rest-restricted. Lower level spells will be on a cooldown.

Yes, but having your stamina bar as the main buffer for damage means the chances of that ever happening may be quite small. It all depends on how the numbers work out in the end. We'll just have to wait and see.

But it's not like resting was hard work. Josh is generally against "degenerate" player behavior, such as frequent reloading, frequent backtracking and frequent resting. I'm fairly certain he will prevent resting at will if he thinks he can get away with it. And that's what this system is for - to make that restriction viable. It'd be great if Josh could comment on this, though.

Im in favor of resting, just not having to hump back to some "safe spot" to rest. Thats unfun for the sake of replacing a mechanic that works fine. In prior IE games you could rest (almost) anywhere you wanted. I am fan of free resting also and I have impression that resting freedom in PE would be similar as in IE games and safe resting spots are only areas where there is no possibilty for random encounters. That would make no sense. Why make a convoluted dual health/stamina system if you can just rest anywhere? The game obviously won't let you rest anywhere.

Man this sounds terrible. Dying from couple blows when character's health is very low? No, having no way to replenish your health without schlepping back to some defined "rest spot". No magic, no potions, just some annoying mechanic designed to reinvent the wheel and cater to Internet Tough Guys ™. Doesnt it sound weird that magic can do everything but heal? Thats a mechanic being forced. Well, you've got regenerating stamina. That gives you a small tactical buffer to try to survive with until you get to the next rest spot. And there are plenty of "Internet Tough Guys" who are mad about that too.

Vault Dweller does the best interviews. Don't forget to vote for Age of Decadence. http://www.irontower...pic,3114.0.html

In Nomine Prosper

Good update. Let me just say how refreshing it is to see a game developer who really takes mechanics in an RPG seriously, and not as something that is subordinate to story or immersion or "player freedom" or whatever. It makes me sad that we couldn't have had this game 5 or more years ago. It's been a bad decade for RPG design.

This is something that hasn't been clarified. The purpose of the hybrid stamina/health system is to spice up long-term resource management. But your enemies in RPGs don't typically have any long-term concerns. They exist in the game to attack you and die.

No actions whatsoever? It could be interesting to attach a stamina cost to very powerful abilities.

It was me.

My advice: Get a trackball.

but...but...lighting pathing painting rendering!

It's not THAT hard to render these maps, Ocelot. Let me remind you, the Icewind Dale games had the best maps and they were low budget as heck, with short development cycles.

Well, that's too bad, because it won't be an Infinity Engine spiritual successor otherwise, so they'll just have to try anyway. The game won't be tile-based. Although it might have repeated assets (trees, etc)

We wanted a PC-exclusive game, didn't we? That means finally getting a game that stretches our machines to their limits. I say bring it on.

We already had a poll about this: http://forums.obsidi...s-limited-ammo/