Stun

Did Planescape Torment have Perma-death? Or did it have a Protagonist who could, at level 1, cast ressurection 3 times per day? Did Icewind Dale have a 'no resting except at campsites' system? Or could you rest pretty much anywhere you wanted, and any time you wanted, as soon as there were no enemies visible? Was healing in Baldurs Gate rare? Or did those games flood you with more healing potions and Clerics than you could ever use? I don't get this "Old school = Hard" belief that seems to be running rampant on this forum. Your memories are defective. Those games held you with their warm, loving hands. And if you *really* knew and loved those "old school" games, you wouldn't want it any other way.

Wow, the dog-piling on this thread is nausiating. I'm gonna defend the op, now. Where to begin? Oh! Right here: How about.... the part where we're supposed to think that those games were anything resembling hard? They were not. None of them had draconic resting limitations. None of them had wonky save-game overwrites that forced artificial "challenge". None of them had a "healing magic is rare" philosophy. None of them had a weird stamina-equals-health-and-health-equals-real-health system. Hard for the sake of hard isn't "old school". It's modern day attempts to be "cool" by developers who don't get it. The games you mention didn't try to be l33t with their difficulty and tedium. Whatever challenge existed within them felt natural. Organic. Nothing like the examples the OP gave, which are, IMO, contrived and unnatural mechanics that aren't the least bit neccessary for Fun or challenge.

lol

Can you point me to the poster on this thread who ever argued that we shouldn't be allowed to marathon through it? Even if you don't count the Underdark as a dungeon, I'm pretty sure you couldn't exit the Beholder's Lair (Unseeing Eye quest), Astral Plane, Planar Sphere and Werewolf Island. There's probably more. There's a HUGE difference between a small series of map areas and massive 15 level complexes. If the Endless paths is going to be a 2 hour quest line (like the ones you mentioned above), then sure, lock us in. But if it's going to be Dragon's Eye x3 then Hell No.

God I hope not. I don't want to live in a haunted ancient ruin.

It's surprizingly hard to find an accurate answer to this question. I've been trying to google it for a while now and I'm coming up with nada. My gut's telling me that those games couldn't have cost much more than $4 million to make though. And Unlike Project Eternity, those games had whole groups of middlemen that had to be paid their due. (Atari, WoTC, Hasbro etc.)

Indeed. Is there even an officially recognized definition of "triple A title"? I always just assumed that the term meant high budget, which would make the topic question redundant. I don't think anyone here questions the fact that PE is, by definition, a low budget game. But that's rarely ever a deciding factor of quality or length in the first place. So we, as players, shouldn't really care how much the game costs to develop. I'm willing to bet PE will turn out more polished and more content-rich than the vast majority of today's "triple A titles".

You mean, Planescape: Torment Dungeons; Icewind dale dungeons: Baldurs Gate Dungeons: Temple of Elemental Evil Dungeons. ie. The dungeons in the very games that PE claims to recapture the magic of. You can freely exit all the dungeons in those games at will. But to answer your question, I think the practical difference is the storyline/plot. In games that feature 14 singular level dungeons, you're getting 14 plots/ main objectives, while in one massive 14 level dungeon there's just one, and by tackling it one or two levels at a time, that 1 plot is still there, waiting to be completed. In a giant, semi-open ended game like Baldurs Gate, the freedom of not having to do the entire mega dungeon in one giant go is a welcome thing... for pacing purposes and such. For example, I like doing all the surface levels of Durlag's tower ASAP with a low level party. But I usually save the subterranian levels for later... say, chapter 6, when there's not much left in the game to do. Ditto with BG2's Watcher's keep. I usually like doing the first 3 levels (up to the machine of Lum the Mad) before heading off to Spell Hold. Then, once I return from the underdark, I tackle the rest of the dungeon. This is nonsense. Your party is a team of adventurers exploring a massive ancient ruin. In the real world, it takes years to fully complete such a task. You don't just go and do it all at once. You make planned forays and expeditions into it. It can take a lifetime. or several.

Or better yet: Brain-toggle option: Use/Don't use the F**king exits if you want/don't want to. By this logic we can just place Nuka-Cola in every inn. Those who don't like it can just pretend it doesn't exist and not use it. Better? Really? Call me when using a few exits in a dungeon causes all enemies in that dungeon to explode and drop dead. Or, cause your entire party to instantly be healed and have all spells and abilities replenished. Until then, don't spit out a moronic argument and call it "logic"

What are you talking about? Ust Natha (the Drow city in BG2's underdark) is no more hostile than Athkatla. And the environs surrounding it are no more hostile than the lands on the surface. Please, for the sake of everyone's sanity, give up on this stupid comparison already. The underdark is not a mega dungeon.

So essentially, they're undead then. They could be. Or they could be something else. We don't know enough about the nature of souls in this particular game. We also can't just assume that we'll be the only party of adventurers tackling the endless paths.

Other than Josh's Update about Souls, where he points out that souls never die, they just reincarnate from one life to the next? The second paragraph is prefaced with the caveat that it's Fiction and conjecture. Literally. The very first sentence says this: Most else that is said and written of the place is fiction or conjecture, more likely to have sprouted from the svef-enhanced imaginations of bored and boasting mercenaries than from any seed of truth.

The Dungeon description actually says THIS: http://www.kickstart...ty/posts/319868 We have no idea yet what 'Strong Souls' are in PE. They could be undead. or they could be something else entirely.

Occupied? You're kidding, right? We're talking about an ancient structure that's been abandoned for centuries here. So.... It's empty? Void of living things? It's only tedium if.... ...The game forces the player to back track level after level.

How many times do I need to say, I'm not suggesting preventing the player from turning back and leaving through the inital entrance. Perhaps I didn't make that point clear in my original post, but i've stated it numerous times now throughout this thread. You even quoted me saying it on the previous page! Oh, now there's a good idea: lets promote tedium and repetition! No mid-dungeon exits, but go ahead and allow the party to just walk back through ALL the dungeon levels they've already seen/explored so that they can leave. LOL

Great! But there are no plausable explanations for a man-made, (and occupied) structure 15 levels in size to not have exits all over the place - unless this structure has some sort of self sustaining economy and/or Eco-system, and if it does, then there goes your "intense" and "ominous" mood. And this is a straw man. Just about every single poster on this thread who has advocated exits at every level or almost every level has put forth the suggestion that these exits be either 1) guarded; 2) puzzled; 3) trapped; or 4) hidden. This rules out "hopping" and "leisure", doesn't it. So stop arguing against stances that no one here is taking.

In other words, we're now splitting hairs. There's no real difference between placing an exit at every level, vs. placing an exit every few levels. The thread starter (after a few pages of debate) has now said that the latter is a-ok! but the former is not. Points of no return are plot-based mechanics that can be brilliantly done near the bottom of the dungeon to great success. But I shudder at the notion of a friggin 15 level mega dungeon having a point of no return as soon as you enter (which is what the OP suggested)

Huh? I'm not suggesting having only 1 entrance / exit. I'm just suggesting no exits at every level purely for the player's convenience. So basically you're in favor of a complete suspension of Logic, engineering basics, and consistancy of lore, in order for all players to be plot shackled and held prisoner in this dungeon once they enter it. Because all of the above (logic, engineering basics, lore consistancy) necessitates that the bigger the man-made structure, the more exits it will have. Also, I really don't see the "hand holding" difference between putting an exit at every level, vs an exit at every few levels. There's also Zero logic behind your latest suggestion of not having any exits at the top and middle but then suddenly having a bunch of exits near the bottom.

Enough of this ridiculous drivel. Level exits in massive 15 level dungeons are not "hand holding". They don't "kill atmosphere", they don't conflict with the spirit of the old school RPGs, and they're not mutually exclusive to the notion that the dungeon is supposed to be an 'adventurer's graveyard'. More to the point: Unless we learn that the Endless paths is a Prison-type dungeon and your party is kidnapped and tossed in at the very bottom and must make their way up to level 1 to leave, you don't have any sort of logical argument against level exits, as they are otherwise completely consistant with any type of man made structure and have existed in the most time honored and beloved CRPGs and Pen & paper D&D dungeon modules since the mid 1970s.

Watcher's Keep did it. You saw the portal to the next level as soon as you arrived to the current level. And if you hovered your cursor over the portal you *literally* saw the words: "to next level". Edit: Hell, Even Planescape Torment and Temple of Elemental Evil had giant colorful Map markers that showed you where the exits were. Perhaps the problem here is that we're a forum full of people who have completely different philosophies on what makes a good dungeon. Some people hold atmosphere, exploration, and discovery as paramount, while others just love Roleplaying captured Rats in a maze. I'm in the former camp. You're in the latter. But that's fine. I'm pretty sure obsidian has already said that this mega dungeon will have multiple exits for those who wish to savor the experience one piece at a time, instead of doing the whole thing in one go.

Or better yet: Brain-toggle option: Use/Don't use the F**king exits if you want/don't want to.

Except that even BG2's Underdark gave you the option to leave before you finished it. You were never "trapped" at all. Ever killed the Silver Dragon before doing chapter 5's main quest? She drops a wardstone that lets you open the door to the surface. So yeah, even if BG2's Underdark was just one big dungeon, instead of what it actually is: viable alternative to the entire surface world, it STILL wouldn't support your argument. PS: LOL The Hyperbole on this thread is unmatched. A 15 level dungeon with multiple exits = All game constraints lifted. Derp. Actually, no. I don't make it a habit to play excrutiatingly linear games. I like my player agency. What about you?

It was... Painful. And shameful. If I was the "green shirt girl", I'd have been traumatized for life.

The Endless Paths should be feared. The Endless Paths are named "Endless" for a reason. Easy exit on every level just breaks the whole thing. Not following. "Endless paths" simply suggests that it's a path that goes on forever. Putting exits in it every few levels does not suddenly make it not-endless. If it was meant to trap the player for 14 levels without respite they'd have called it "the unescapable endless prison"

Exits, are, by definition, tools of convenience. The fact that two different factions (the player, and his foes) may take advantage of this convenience simply makes it good story writing/level design. You have no argument. Say what? The Mines of Moria (are you talking about Lord of the Rings?) Is not a dungeon. It's a city. Excuse me. it's two cities. Two full cities, with plenty of fairly obvious doors, exits and gates all over the place. If one were to accurately implement such a thing into a video game, then your arguments of "hand holding" and "too easy", would not disappear, since we're talking about two big cities filled with friendly merchants, inns to rest at, places to take a breather, and loads of stuff to do that have nothing to do with dungeon crawling. etc.