catmorbid

Why? Historically accurate where? On Earth? You forget this is a fantasy universe having nothing to do with our own. Do I really have to explain what I meant? I didn't think so.

I'd say "original" is something that isn't the trend at the moment.

I'd really like to see the roles of races and especially the balance of power turned around a bit, if possible. Recently there's been a trend with portraying humans as the master race and the others as lesser, enslaved race (e.g. DA, The Witcher), but wouldn't it logically be the other way around? Shouldn't the older more adanced race rule? Why should humans be anything but a sorry slave race that's only good at killing each other. Maybe then the player would actually feel a reason to hate and despise the races, making themes like racism actually work, instead of being just the standard superficial prejudice against the cute elf, so the player would feel sorry for them... So, if I were to make a fantasy world right now, my order of things would be something like this: Humans: "Primitive apes" that by others' standards can barely speak and think. The first thing built were weapons, and that pretty much explains the civilization, which revolves around greed, lust and violence. The good elves saw fit to take the poor things under their watchful eye, just so they wouldn't hurt each other, teaching them manners and civilization. They breed quick and learn pretty fast, so they're good fodder for the elven armies. Elves: ancient race with infinite wisdom and immense magical abilities. Individuals live thousands of years and are consider themselves vastly superior to any other. "Saviours" of the pathetics humans and every other living being in existence. Dwarves: Ancient enemies of elves; their old slave race who rebelled (since replaced by humans) and took shelter underground. Have slowly built their own civilization free of elven tyranny Orcs: Exotic conquerors from faraway lands. At war with elves, the rulers of this continent. They're not bad, they're just different and because Orcs and Elves don't speak the same language, and have vastly different cultures, their communication has been reduced to outright war. I made this fantasy world once where dwarven females were naturally psionic and leaders of their race. I found it a refreshing idea

Umm... I guess. It's been eternity since I last played any of those games. But I reckon that could work pretty fine, presumed you add a the queue system. I can't emphasize the importance of that enough. Since it's reeeaallly important :D

Yes please. I wouldn't mind even a historically very accurate arsenal and armour, with perhaps some tasteful fantasy flavour such as with materials. Also, can we have magical items that DO NOT have a huge halo around them - if we're to have any.

If they made an optional turn-based mode which would work like in Frozen Synapse, then it would be pretty easy to do on top of a realtime system. Basically in Frozen Synapse, you set the orders of a short round during the planning phase, after which the orders are set and cannot be changed. Action takes place in action place and both players guys and enemies move simultaneously. You must always plan ahead and try to predict what the enemy does and the order queue is persistent, meaning you can set orders that take place over several turns. So yeah, it isn't traditional turn-based but isn't traditional RTwP either, but could be relatively easy to glue on top of any RTwP system. Presuming they make a great order queue system, which I think is an absolute minimum requirement anyway.

Yes, definitely. Thinking about warrior characters made me think about how to depict them, and moreover on how to introduce the typical rpg violence and violence as a theme; how to make the world react to violence. It made me think that violence should in fact be described as gruesomely as possible - not by visual or verbose descriptors - but by showing proper reactions to violence; make warriors mental wrecks on the verge of breaking apart due to the inhumanities they've performed, or psychopaths without conscience, who are incapable of any lasting relationships, or any kind of moral judgement. If among those morally deprived murderers and asylum patient candidates you meet even one remotely decent person, there would be instant respect for this person, without any special gimmicks involving any heroics or other crap. It would be incredibly awesome if the player character's first combat encounter would end in someone screaming in horror at the atrocity committed by the character, i.e. taking someone's life. Make sure that murder and bloodshed isn't the everyday routine of every other peasent out there. Make life count more than just the random exp that pours down the sky

Hehe, trust me, this was me being my most polite self That's exactly it. The companions should act intelligently AND the system should support a multitude of intelligent options. For example, let's take an archer example. You'd want an archer to keep their distance, but maybe switch to melee if someone closes up. Okay, let's say you have this archer who is also very accurate with a light melee weapon, then they could try something like called shots to the legs in order to slow down and injure the opponent enough for the archer to run further away again and pin some more arrows on the enemy.

And that's a good thing. While DnD is field-tested and proven, it's still a POS, and there's nothing that'll change that. I'd rather they try something experimental than go for the ye olde faithful just because. Besides, custom ruleset means, no licencing fees, which means more monies for other aspects of development.

One thing you could do would be to give characters a different amount of defensive and offensive actions, i.e. evades and attacks, and have them be controlled by a combat stance system. I.e. Defending versus an attack consumes a defensive action, while making an attack consumes an offensive action. Then have stances work something like this: Turtle: 4 evades, 0 attacks, defensive bonus Defensive: 3 evades, 1 attack Balanced: 2 evades, 2 attacks Offensive: 1 evade, 3 attacks Berserk: 0 evades, 4 attacks, extra damage Suddenly there's huge difference in choosing how many opponents to fight at a time. Counter strikes and similar skills would become important for the defensive fighter and offensive fighters could also invest in cleave type abilities that allow dishing out damage to multiple opponents. Add to this chances for called shots or other special attacks, maybe even special defensive maneuvers. Some special actions could take more than one attack/evade meaning they only work together with certain stances, but are still not limited with a stupid cooldown type mechanic.

I wouldn't mind if every bit of (DnD and other classical RPG) tradition was thrown in the garbage bin and made anew. Let's start with a couple ideas. Mana: What is this mystical force that fuels the miracles you perform? Make it somehow critical and essential in every being; make the lack of it be as deadly as lack of blood in your veins, or fresh air to breathe. Maybe casting spells is literally sacrificing some of your own life force. Ok, maybe not that drastic, but something more meaningful than simply exhausting a pool of infinitely regenerating points or sleeping a few hours. Maybe have finite, but immensely large pool of mana that never regenerates (unless through drastic measures?) and physically and mentally affects the character. Hit Points: Why not measure individual wounds instead: This can allow for behaviour where a single wound can be very lethal, but a high number of minor wounds with total worth similar to that of the lethal wound aren't nearly as lethal. This drastically changes the importance and balance of damage ratings to more interesting direction. E.g. character dies of a single wound worth 10 points, but can take 100 wounds worth 1 point and still live - although badly beaten up.

While I generally prefer skill-based systems, classes can have their uses. For instance, when balancing character roles. The bad thing is, that if the classes are too rigid, character creation and character progression becomes a chore with very little choice involved. If a class-based solution would be used, I'd rather go for a hybrid solution where the class only offers a certain special ability or other relatively significant bonuses, but character development is still mostly skill based. The worst thing you can do, in my opinion, is go for a very little number of very rigid classes.

I know, it's funny because that's what everyone easily thinks, and it sounds like that's how it is, but the reality is that a good turn-based game has a completely different feel to it. Turn-based in itself is a way of pacing the gameplay and removing any reaction time factors. A good turn-based game is designed in way to take advantage of the turn-based mechanics. It usually means there isn't that much stuff happening at a time. For example, combat mechanics can be deadlier, because of the extended time each turn takes. In realtime games it's often better to rely on HP sack mechanics, because it gives players more time to see whats going on. Pausable or not, the flexibility is required precisely because of itself: no matter how optimal gameplay, not all people pause every second, because they don't have to. It's tedious. Why arcanum had very bad turn-based mechanics was because it was built on top of a mediocre realtime system (or vice versa, doesn't really matter I think). And I don't think it should be attempted again, because I cannot recall any example where it would've worked, and I'm not sure it woudl be worth the trouble. Better to focus on just one and make it damn fine. Thus, even though my preference is turn-based, I see some advantages in RTwP, and have a desire to bring up the discussion on how the execution should be done, and wish that Obsidian follows that discussion to make sure they put every ounce of creativity and ingenuity in their heads to perfecting it.

You can do miracles with PCs of today. The reason we aren't seeing much more top-notch graphics is precisely because consoles are technically limiting every multi-platform game. Luckily Obsidian ditched console versions, so they can focus on giving pc gamers all the love they can. That said, I hope the game will be top notch graphically. An argument towards 3D though: You say you want to play the game in 20 years. Well, imagine how nice a game intended for 1920x1080 resolution will look on that 100" 16384 x 29127 screen on your living room, running on your supercomputer. I doubt you like the pixels that much. However, with 3D some modders could've still made some pretty nice high resolution models and textures

This is pretty much the most concerning piece of information we got. I would've much more preferred a turn-based system, since it allows for much better pace and control over multiple companions. I think realtime systems are fine as long as they concentrate on either one complex character, or on multiple simple character, so that the player needs to focus only on making high-level tactical decisions, or concentrate on one complex entity, not nitpick on which ability or spell to use next on all of the characters. For example, Dragon Age: Origins probably has one of the worst realtime /w pause systems in existence. And I'd really truly like for Obsidian to avoid the downfalls of such a system. I also remember Baldurs Gate and pals giving me quite a bit of frustration exactly due to its RTwP system (and AD&D, but let's not go there...). The problem lies in too much stuff happening around at a time, lack of a proper queued order system (the new Jagged Alliance remake has pretty awesome order queueing) and dumber-than-a-boot suicidal AI. The latter can fix a lot, but is not a easy thing to do right. But when done wrong, it can ruin everything, forcing the player to pause every second just to make sure the dumb companions do what they're told and micromanage every single little detail. Sure, I don't mind that option, since who am I to deny the pleasure of this from those who desire it, but the game should be designed in a smarter way, not to force player on this kind of style of play - which really isn't everyone's cup of tea. Anyone else share my concerns?