Stun

Also we know next to nothing about the soul-mechanics in this game. Crafting knowledge could very well be tied to it.

No. On like 3 of your claims here. First, game play was actually really really really good in the IE games. It's their strong point. To this day, I've yet to play a party-based fantasy RPG that does it better than any of the IE games. Second, there wasn't anything special (good or bad) about the scripts in the IE games. (and what exactly do you mean by this, anyway?) Third, The characters? Since we're talking about the NPCs of 5 whole games, your claim is meaningless. They were hit and miss. They covered the entire spectrum from Brilliant, to average, to cheesy, to cliche, to completely empty. I'd like to know this as well. It's honest curiosity. I'm fully aware that there were actually 2 big selling points for PE when its kickstarter was announced. 1) The IE game name drops. 2) The Obsidian logo. So if your answer was "#2 is what made me back this game", then fine, but Obsidian has other, very not-IEish games that they're developing as we speak. You should probably seek out one of those. This game, PE, will very much be judged by how IEish it feels in the end, even if they do decide to tinker/alter/change the specific aspects of gameplay that we're familiar with from the IE games. But again, in the end, they're probably not looking to stray too far from the IE formula. And that means Gameplay feel, so you're bound to be disappointed if you thought the IE games had bad Gameplay.

I also wouldn't go so far as to say item durability (as Tim Cain described it) had any potential to be Great. At best it had the potential to be.... No big deal. The caveats were stated: It was a mechanic for normal weapons, Shields and Chest pieces. And nothing else. So It wouldn't be coming into play with Magical gear of any kind (which is what our characters will be using for the vast majority of the game), Not to mention any boots, or any gauntlets, or any helmets (magical or otherwise). I'd say that this is one of those times where we've got message board overreaction, but right now I'm still trying to figure out the two opposing sides of this particular civil war. I swear I've seen the very same people who, a few months ago, voiced very definite disapproval for any crafting system to be in PE now arguing in favor of an Item durability mechanic. Hello? Repairing weapons IS crafting. You're literally having to go use a forge to do blacksmithing work on your arms and armor.

It's very rare. If there was ever an RPG mechanic that could be universally defined as "a mixed bag", it would be crafting. And there's *always* an ugly flaw. 1) In some games, you got a great, fully detailed, multi-processed system, but it ends up being quite burdensome in the way of component gathering, recipe collecting and inventory management (NWN2). Result: Feels like crafting! But at the cost of weighing down the game experience. Too intrusive to game flow. 2) In other games, the crafting system feels solid and natural, and fun, but could end up breaking the game completely due to the sheer overpowered nature of the stuff you could craft (Skyrim). Result: There's your devil's deal. Mechanics-wise it's a true, realistic crafting system without undue burden. Allows the player to live completely off the stuff he crafts if he wishes to - and BREAK THE WHOLE REST OF THE GAME if he goes too far. 3)Then you've got a simple, effective, one-step process system that doesn't require a lot of thought, and even less component gathering, but is attached to immense cost to the player (both in levels, and money), to the point where crafting is little more than a curse, specifically designed to to insure that if you're gonna craft, your character will pay for it with EXP and Money loss. ie. power loss. (TOEE). 4) Lastly, "crafting". (BG2, DA2). Technically not a crafting system, since the player doesn't craft anything, he merely hunts down the components and then someone else does the rest. This shouldn't even be part of the discussion. It's not crafting any more than ordering an entree at a restaurant = "cooking". If I were to design the perfect crafting system I'd... well, I don't know what I'd do. I guess I'd take a combination of #2 and #3, and find a way to eliminate the extremes. But that's easier said than done, even in Theory. Because a good crafting system should not have arbitrary limitations on what can be crafted, but at the same time, without limitations the system can overpower everything else. It can make treasure hunting and loot drops pointless, combat difficulty non-existant, and pretty much make the entire rest of the game feel mundane.

BG2 had crafting? I don't remember that. I remember it had Broken artifact pieces that you had to search the game world for, then once you found them, you took them to some dwarf who put them back together for a repair fee. That's not crafting. That's Scavanger hunting. It was fun, as was practically everything in BG2. But I'm of the opinion that IF a game is going to boast that it has crafting, then the crafting itself should be done by the player, and the results should be based on the player's power, level, class and wealth. Otherwise it should just take the BG2 route, and not claim it has crafting.

If it did only that, it'd be understandable, since Skyrim is not party based. You only have 1 character, so it makes total sense for the game to allow you to dabble in a wide range of skill-sets if you wish, while you're trying to get through the game world's various conflicts/resolutions/obstacles/dungeons/minigames. But the problem with Skyrim is that it doesn't just let you be a jack of all trades. It lets you be the master of all trades. And that's where the system falls, crashes, and dies. It is almost a universal opinion, even from total die-hard Skyrim fanatics, that the game ends up being so easy and mindless at high levels that it's practically not even a game anymore once you reach level 50. Which is a shame, because at low to mid levels, when it's still an rpg, and you're not yet the leader of all factions (lol), it's actually pretty fun.

Which is, in a sense, exactly what they are doing when they allow all of your party members to do anything available. Sure, some of them will do it a bit less efficient than another one. But that doesn't matter, because they can all do it anyway. What do you mean by this? Do you see it as good design if every type of character can do anything? I don't. It defeats the purpose of having different classes, and different builds. It also renders pointless the notion of a party. Because if any given class has access to all skills, then you know, who needs a rogue? Your Warrior can just open all locks, disarm all traps, and be his own scout.... That is, when he's not buffing himself, tanking the front lines, and backstabbing the unaware enemies after activating his berserker rage from the shadows. lol

While I'll lay partial blame on myself for this, I think we're creeping our way into a vancian vs. cooldown debate. Fun fun! By the way, Any game with a vancian system will indeed see some players rest spamming. So what. Of course, I've yet to see any "cooldown" defender admit that essentially the exact same thing occurs with the cooldown system. You can wait-spam in those games. And players unapologeticically do. Take Dragon Age Origins, for example. You can clear all three maps of the deep roads by casting Storm of the century... then waiting. Then casting it again, then waiting....etc. Gamers find a way to degener-ate. The specific system doesn't matter. I've never even seen a system unique enough to prevent them from using the same degenerate tactics.

Assuming a day/night cycle, how about.... the passage of time itself, and whatever in game consequences/effects come along with it, including healing. And/or the fatigue system if PE ends up having one. What? "per day" doesn't, and never has, mandated 24 hours. All 'per day' abilities in D&D and the IE games replenished after a proper, uninterupted 8 hours of rest

If by "winning side", and "refining", you mean eliminating the resting mechanic outright, and then designing a system from the ground up that turns your characters into energizer bunnies who's spells and abilities are tied to a cooldown timer, so that you'd never need to rest anyway, then sure. They're winning. Today's biggest selling RPGs, MMOs etc. don't even *have* resting mechanics. But they're not doing anything better. And I question their use of the term "RPG" in the first place. I'll take the old system, thanks. Makes more friggin sense.

For lack of better phrasing, I'd say that a game system should BE "breakable". Perhaps not so obviously breakable on a blind first playthrough, but later on, when we've already experienced the brilliantly designed "tough" scenario that the Devs spent tons of time creating. It's difficult to describe, but my thought process keeps saying: Let me *discover* those loopholes. Give me the opportunity to exploit them. I actually see such things as credits to a game, not flaws. Again, do you honestly think Baldurs gate 2 would have generated such a cult like following so many years after its release if it DIDN'T have such numerous "cheeze" for the player to indulge his inner munchkin on; and for the fans to discuss with each other; and for the "tips & tricks" authors to write about; and for the tinkerers/experimenters to try out?

Yeah, they went in the right direction with it in PS:T, but of course, you still didn't need to actually spend any points in it, since the game floods you with Crainium rat charms, which you can use to temporarily boost your intelligence as high as you wanted, so that you never failed an intelligence check against Anyone or anything.

In BG2, Intelligence played a huge role in survivability. If you disagree, then by all means, create a Tank with 18str, 18con and...3 intelligence, then barge into a Mindflayer base in all your "tanking" glory. :D But seriously, I agree. Intelligence in the IE games was, perhaps, a bit too subtle to be important. It only ever had a minor effect, and only with mages (# of spells you can learn for your spellbook, but NOT how many you can memorize). Even Planescape torment limited its usefulness (the highest INT check in the game was 19, and that only happend once) 3e absolutely made intelligence more useful. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that 3e based computer games did. Because in my Pen and Paper days of 2nd edition, our DM made massive use of our intelligence scores. I couldn't tell you the number of times one of us would come up with a brilliant solution to a problem, only to have our DM make a dice roll then say: "nope, sorry, you're not smart enough to do that!"

Ditto. I'll also freely admit to approaching Nerd Nirvana when I'm playing a game and, after a few playthroughs, discover an obscure flaw in the game's design that I can exploit to make that tough situation super easy. (yes, folks, Cheese makes any meal better.) That very process of discovery *alone* can motivate me to replay the game 10 more times! BG2 was filled to the rim with such design "flaws". It's one of the reasons why I love that game to death, and wouldn't change a thing about it.

You don't need to know anything about making games. To be an authority on matters, you just need to know enough about playing them. Especially when dealing with developers who love worrying about "degenerate gameplay". Convoluted ranting to come here, but hopefully I'll make a point sometime in the next 1000 words. Where to begin. OK. Even if we LOVE what the developers are doing to eliminate "Degenerate Gameplay", they're still doing it wrong. A Game developer should be 100% focussed on creating a fun game, not check-mating bad player behavior at all costs. The latter is just a stupid, soulless approach to game creation. It's like a music artist who, instead of composing a masterpiece from his heart and soul, decides to just study up on his fanbase, and their tastes and habits, and then methodically creating a song that his "research" suggests will be successful. But forget about that pseudo-philosophical crap. Lets focus on the more practical. The given definition (given by Josh Sawyer, in fact) of "Degenerate Gameplay" is stuff like: 1) being able to Rest too often; 2) Being able to Save too often; 3) being able to Reload too often; 4) Min-maxing; 5) Meta-gaming. Now, I don't know about you, but I see these things as the gamer's choice. And its not up to the developer to decide how *I* play *MY* game. If I do 1-5 and end up ruining the experience for myself then that's my problem. However, if the developer wastes his development time creating a game with a billion fail-safes, a million gameplay limitations, and unshakeable, rigid "balance", all designed to ensure that we degenerates will never get the last laugh, then chances are they have just created an unnatural, mechanical thing that will not feel like a masterpiece at all, but a perfectly designed piece of.... unbreakable metal. And when that happens, it's THEIR fault.

Your friend is super lucky. There are people who had to pay $5000 to get an Inn named after them in this game. But your friend gets an entire Bay area named after him free!

I would say that they definitely need to involve a lot of difficulty, and I really can't think of any way in which it'd be fine if that difficulty in no way involved combat... but, I WILL say that the item doesn't necessarily need to fall from something's just-run-through-by-your-sword hands. Also, you just made me think of something mildly unrelated: Nothing that's currently being wielded by someone should EVER be pickpocketable. Could you disarm someone stealthily, then take that weapon? Sure, but that's not abstracted by a pickpocket system. They're never, ever going to not-know that the thing their hand was just gripping is now missing, or that bow that was slung across their torso is no longer there, or that their helmet is gone, etc. Agreed. I will amend my statement to acknoledge the fact that good loot can be a suitible reward from a trap trial, or from completion of a difficult non-combat based quest. Sure. But mostly my critique was to take a jab at something that I found catostrophically wrong with IWD2. The best items were found in shops in that game. And by chapter 3 or so, the player knew this for a fact. And this made combat feel like an unrewarding chore for most of the game. They really *really* need to be mindful of this. Faulty loot placement will kill a game's fun faster than anything.

[infinity mentality on] Circumvent encounters and lose loot? Valuable loot? It's like skipping undersea section in BG2 en route to Underdark...AND LOSING CLOAK OF MIRRORING? CLOAK OF MIRRORING! [infinity mentality off] Which is as it should be! There's only ever 3 reasons to kill something in a good RPG 1) Loot 2) Experience 3) Story I'd be completely happy with a complex system that gives you #2 and Perhaps #3 by successfully avoiding the enemy. But #1 Should be sacred ground. The best, most powerful magic items should only be earned through blood. There should be NO way to acquire something like a Hammer of Thunderbolts or a Staff of the Magi without killing someone powerful who's using it against you. Items like that lose all their value if they just fall from the sky and into your hands, or if all it takes to acquire them is to walk into a shop and buy them, or sneak past an enemy to steal it from his cabinet or whatever. Or even worse: Pick his pocket to take those items.

<sigh> Ok, quick, illustrated user guide to how the planes are actually set up in D&D. This is the Multiverse: As you can see, from the lower pic, the astral plane is its own entity. It seperates the inner planes from the outer planes. You can go anywhere "directly" from the Astral plane as it touches the first level of all the outer and inner planes. Now look at the upper image. That's the Inner ring. This is where the prime material plane is. But it's also where 7 other planes are, including all the elemental planes (all 4 of them), the positive and negative material planes, and more importantly, the ethereal plane. The Ethereal plane, by the way, forms the outer border of the inner ring. While this *alone* is enough to disprove the notion that the Astral plane is "overlapping" anything, there's also the basic definition of the phrase "prime material", which also disproves the notion that the astral plane "mirrors" anything contained in the Prime material plane (if it did then it would no longer be astral. it would be Prime material physical by definition. And of course, there's the very nature of the Astral plane's qualities itself. Only extremely powerful beings can create ANYTHING physical on the astral plane. If you see a physical structure on the astral plane, then it has been formed by the collective minds of specific astral dwellers through very powerful, high level mental focus, and killing them would make that structure disappear. Therefore, the notion of "overlaps" is nonsense. The astral plane is completely its own entity, it is not related to the prime material plane in any way.

The fact that the Astral plane is a transitive plane, does not presuppose an "overlapping" quality. it just means that you can go anywhere from it. ie. a Prime can go to the astral plane, and then from the astral plane, travel to Baator, or Limbo, or whatever. Again, sorta like how an earthling can use outer space to travel to the moon, or mars.... or the other side of the earth. And what exactly is the relevance of this anyway? Is it your claim that NWN2 did planar travel incorrectly? They did NOT. I wouldn't say that. An astral projection spell allows anyone to go to the astral plane and then to any other plane from there. Which means yes, the KOS goes to the astral plane, then comes here, from the astral plane. This, of course assumes he's using the standard spell. He may not be. But your other questions are Valid. I don't have an answer to them. I'd have to play the game again and pay attention to what Nonaloth and the various Spirits in the Gem Mine say. Haha. This is the only one that I *don't* think is fine. Shar controls the shadow weave, and she's infamous in her jealous protection of it. It is not logical that she has allowed an illfarn guardian to tap into it for melinnia without her stepping in and somehow getting involved. Specifically: by destroying him and then sending swarms of her followers to hunt down all illfarn mages everywhere.

Eh.... That's not quite how I'd enterpret things. First off, a minor point, We are talking about the metaphysics as they exist in D&D, rather than the "out of body experience" stuff that mystics here in the real world claim to be practicing. In D&D there's no inherant "mirror-like" similarities between the Prime material plane and the astral plane. The difference between the two is sorta like Earth vs. Outer space. Second, there is quite a big difference between a being who astrally projects from the astral plane to the Prime, vs someone who does things the other way around. But in either case, the cord will follow the Projection. And in the KOS's case, this is what we got. He's not traveling to the astral plane, he's traveling here from the astral plane. Cliched, perhaps, Illogical, certainly (for reasons you haven't even mentioned yet on this thread). But a bad villian? No way. My problem with him is that I didn't even see him as a villian at all until later playthroughs. In my first playthrough, I saw Garius as the villian. And I was (emotionally) done with the game after I killed him. I didn't want to kill the KOS, I wanted to cure him. But of course, the game doesn't let you do that.

Of course it can, and does, exist in both realities. It connects the physical with the projection. In other words, it must exist in both planes. The only rule that NWN2 broke here is that they made this cord visible. It's supposed to be completely INVISIBLE to everyone but an astral native. True. Thankfully, you're not Banishing the KOS. You're destroying him. Astral travelers who get their cords cut Die. In any case, I find it odd that with all of NWN2's blatant faults and shortcomings, that we'd focus on the nature of the KOS (and earlier, someone was focussing on Ammon Jerro). LOL 2 things they actually did Right!

Ooh. I can answer this one. First off, the portal we're talking about is NOT a portal to the weave, or the shadow weave. It's a portal to the Astral plane. Which is a huge point. It means it can be damaged and even destroyed by Githyanki Silver Swords, who's very purpose (in D&D Lore, See: Fiend Folio for more info) is to Sever an astral traveler's connection to the astral realms. The game doesn't do a perfect job explaining this, although Aldenon DOES mention that Githyanki silver swords can cut an astral traveler's silver cord. And if you look at the ground carefully in the final battle with the Guardian, you can *see* a silver cord connecting him with the portal.

I've been considering doing a similar thread for Baldur's Gate. The thing is though I'd have to actually finish it to be able to critique it with honesty. Oh, I can give you a list a mile long of stuff that's wrong with Baldurs Gate 1. The game simply did not age gracefully. Still, for its time it was genre-blowingly awesome. But I don't see the "fun" in doing such a thing. We'd need specific context for such a discussion to be even remotely interesting. Such as: What can PE take or leave From BG1. Or.... if we were to recreate BG1 with improvements, what would we do....

Yeah, house rules are assumed. In fact, the core of the rule set is just that: a core. Everything else is meant to be up to the campaigners discretion. Says so in the DM's guide. The official creation of D&D 3ed came about as a direct result of popular house rules gamers were using in 1st. and 2ed. D&D (Humans that can multi-class; universal exp tables; attribute point buy systems; etc.) For years and years and years, people were employing these things in national conventions even though they weren't the core mechanics of 2nd edition. TSR/Hasburo simply decided to make them official and encorporated them into the next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons.