Infinitron

Squeaky, Monte, WayWocket: Why can't you have fun in combat without earning experience points for each kill? Your reward should be the thrill of combat and the satisfaction of victory, not some meaningless number popping up on your screen. Do you have some kind of experience points addiction? I find your reactions to this extremely disturbing. I mean that. Would it help if you got 1 single xp point for every kill? Would that satisfy your bizarre obsessive condition?

You can still do whatever you want. You're just not getting rewarded for it with experience points. Makes it more of a challenge - as a hardcore combat player, you should be stoked.

From my perspective, it's more like severing a Gordian Knot. In the places where I've seen it employed (e.g. the NWN module Witch's Wake), it worked very well. I attacked/fought with creatures I couldn't avoid or who had things I actually wanted (or if I just hated their guts), but when I came across creatures that had nothing worth taking/weren't worth the hassle, I just avoided them. It think it's weird to see people describe this approach as "elitist" when it's actually a response to extremely popular behavior I've seen player after player after player engage in. Complete quest via stealth, double back and kill everyone. Complete quest via conversation, double back and kill everyone. Complete quest via environment interaction/skill use, double back and kill everyone. Josh, you don't even need to back this up by mentioning something as obscure as Witch's Wake. Deus ****ing Ex. The original, not Human Revolution.

I disagree. Fighting off hordes of pesky humanoids is an important part of the classic "low level romp" experience. The early hours of Baldur's Gate just wouldn't be the same without those xvart, gibberling and kobold infestations.

First look at the character models? More likely is that they'll animate it. The waterfall, etc.

The long-awaited masterpiece of Internet legend Cleve Blakemore is finally coming out, after 17 years! http://www.indiegogo.com/grimoireforever Behold its majesty!

You need to combine line of sight with the traditional method. It's annoying when you get stuck with tiny black spots because you didn't peek into some blind corner.

I'm quite certain they've said no such thing.

lol, the RPG Codex brand is going global.

Bethesda's Fallout 4.

Game of the Year? Whose Game of the Year?

I'm making a generalization. Obviously trash mobs did not disappear entirely from the game after the Cloakwood, but there was a definite overall shift in emphasis on the main quest line.

Yes, the Cloakwood Mines are the turning point, where the difference between "trash mob horde" and "enemy NPC" becomes blurred, with enemies like the Black Talon Elites. After that, once you hit Baldur's Gate itself, it's almost like a completely different game.

One of things I loved about BG1 is how there was a very pronounced shift midgame, from fighting "trash mobs" like kobolds and hobgoblins in the first half, towards fighting parties of enemy NPCs in the second half. Not only did this give the player a great sense of progress from a narrative perspective ("I'm going up in the world! Real people are starting to actually notice what I've been doing!"), but it was also quite challenging mechanically. Fighting small parties of NPCs in Baldur's Gate was qualitatively a very different experience from fighting hordes of low-HP humanoid mooks. You had to completely rethink your approach, devise new tactics - it was almost like learning to play an entirely new game. It added a lot of depth to the game that is strikingly absent from today's RPGs, where the enemies you encounter at the end of the game are so often just HP-bloated versions of the exact same enemies you encounter at the beginning of the game. I hope Obsidian consider having this kind of progression in Project Eternity, both narratively and mechanically.

What's next? Dialogue quest compasses? :rpgcodex:

BG1-style spoken one-liners when you click on random townsfolk: "Wife's been gettin' prickly on me arse." "Away with you beggar!"

Together with Paypal, George Ziets is now in the game. Suck it down, "cbutler".

Too obvious. Troll ruined. Go directly to ignore list, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

I bet they put the second city in the expansion pack if they don't make it now.

You need to read the update again.

The classical Tolkien "Always Chaotic Evil" orc and the Warcraft green-skinned noble savage orc are both worn out cliches at this point. I'd rather not see either of them, but the former is less offensive in its simplicity. Green Qunari, really?

So am I reading the description correctly that the PE paladin's skills may be centered AoE? Possibly both offensive/defensive/heal? Because that sounds all sorts of cool to me... Of course the balancing of classes is subject to change, but this is what Josh and I discussed last night. In a nutshell: Party Buffs/Centered AOE DPS/Self Healing/Good Martial Ability. Party buffs will be the Paladin's commands. The centered AOE DPS will most likely take the form of a soul-based, short-range (or centered) AOE, and the ability to heal himself/herself. This is above and beyond the Paladin's martial skill, which will be good, but not as good as the Fighter or the Barbarian. Of course, the player will be able to tailor their Paladin to suit their playstyle should they wish to enhance/specialize certain aspects of the class. I suggest you avoid using the term 'DPS' in the future. It carries certain negative connotations.

There are a lot of people here who've clearly never watched the final days of a Kickstarter.

The industry is already being shaken by other factors. Kickstarter is a more an effect than a cause of said shaking.

Pledges money to a high fantasy RPG Complains that it contains fantasy tropes