Karkarov

No you tend to disagree on the idea that this game is a real combat simulator. Real combat doesn't involve fireballs, elves, dragons, swords that emit lightning, or magic armor. There are plenty of real combat simulators out there such as the Mount and Blade games. Uber realistic combat doesn't work well in a fantasy rpg, because nothing about the setting is uber realistic nor is hyper realism the point of the game or the combat. Over half of this threads suggestions are just needlessly complex and make the simple act of stabbing a dude with a sword considerably more complex than it needs to be for Project Eternity.

Both are fine but for this games purposes and based on what the previous info released of the project suggests... I think the baldur's gate method will work better.

I think you are throwing some people off because you are being needlessly technical. To make a long story short what you are saying is make the actual maps much much larger than they actually "need" to be for current resolutions and simply downscale them to fit. That way in 10 years when people want to play this game on the theoretical monitor of the day they can just play it at the resolution the games maps was created at without having to upscale them which results in a blurry image. That said as any graphics artist can tell you it is always easier to create an image at a very large size them down scale it for the size you actually need. So odds are they are doing this anyway. The question is whether it will be viable to include these images at their original resolutions. Personally I think they should do whatever is easier and will fit on the physical discs. Modders playing the game at a theoretical uber resolution 10 years from now are not the people who will decide if the game is profitable or not. It will be the people playing it in 2014 on the very real resolutions of 1080+.

I hope they stay away from it period. It always baffled me that the Infinity Engine games had it in the first place. It was a single player RPG from the ground up and the multiplayer really didn't add anything to the game and never really worked well anyway. If you want the fun of playing with a buddy there are tons of games that are actually designed for that out there, every game doesn't need multiplayer. I know I am having a blast playing co-op Borderlands 2 with a friend right now, but I would never even consider inviting him to play Baldur's Gate 2 with me in co-op.

This is a luxury feature at it's best. This just isn't needed in the game. Would it be nice to have for some players, sure, but I would rather the devs not even bother. If you really need this you can get any number of recording software solutions such as fraps, record it yourself, and use some basic and cheap video editing software to cut it together yourself.

There is one major problem with your entire idea here, well two actually. 1: Avoiding everything by stealth, cautious play, and or implementation of character skills or "fast talking" is actually a lot more challenging than just killing everything in your way. There is a reason Deus Ex Human Revolution gave you lots of bonus EXP for clearing missions with no kills or not being spotted, it was freaking hard. 2: Where is the fun in being a bad ass fighter with a bad ass two handed axe if you never actually use it? What is fun about being a mage who can unleash nuclear holocaust if you well... never cast anything but charm or invisibility spells? Is it fun to be the deadly assassin who just happens to never kill anyone? Answers: Nowhere, Nothing, and No. Simply brute forcing your way past a group of horrid monsters is in general just a lot more fun than sneaking past them. EDIT: It is nice to have non combat options for the players who want to choose that route and I am all for that. But the reality is that this is a game and it needs to be about having fun and rewarding you for playing well, not how you play. Most players will not use the "stealth" approach because it just is normally not as much fun and much of the time actually is the more time consuming choice.

Uh they did nothing wrong and I would be mildly surprised if large parts of it were not planned well in advance. Could they have done better? Of course, there is always something else you could have done. A new reward tier, additional screenshots, more lore about the game itself, interviews with more staff, blah blah. But in the end they broke the kickstarter record as far as I know, blew their initial goal out of the water, and did a great job every single step of the way. They came out with daily updates, tons of info, and constant video's and livestreams. However, no, it didn't matter what else they could have done. They were not going to get 5 or 6 or 7 million. I am surprised they got to 4. They did the best they could and as a person who has already backed 5+ other kickstarters and read about/watched over 50 I can say they also ran the best KS campaign I have seen to date by a long shot. They did better than any sane person would have expected them to, so I don't I don't really feel like there was room for too much improvement. Lastly when the next game comes out I hope kickstarter is completely ignored because this game made enough money and sold enough copies that an actual publisher is willing to fund the sequel. That would be a far better sign for the genre than them needing to go back to kickstarter. Only if they were going to retail it for more than 20.

If they are 8 well written interesting companions then yes 8 is plenty. Dragon Age: Origins only had 7 not counting the DLC Golem and the Dog. Well technically it had 8 not counting those two since one guy who was your enemy could become your companion depending on how the game played out.

Pretty sure they are going to go with the "the first three levels are for level 5's, then the next three are for level 8's, and...." design here. Which means you would leave and come back at multiple points and never just plow through the whole thing in one run. Even if they don't follow that method I am down with it.

This is a nice sarcasm poll here but maybe it wasn't needed. You seem like a chipper fellow but I did have to vote for "Kill Hassat Hunter with fire". Sorry.

Morrowind is by far the best elder scrolls game. With that last overhaul they released a few weeks ago the graphics are even on near Oblivion level now as well. Well save the character models which still sort of stink.

Oh trust me at my job I don't forget about QA, though they would probably prefer if I did hahahahahahahahahaha.

Again sure, if the player wants to take that route and Obsidian can do it. There is going to be limitations in the game somewhere, they can't do everything. This could once more tie into the stronghold concept. It might be how you acquire it or perhaps once you have it, again, a lot of people would logically want to be all buddy buddy with you at that point. Some might become your enemy too. We just have to remember the game has a set plot and the devs don't want to focus too much on any one thing or too many things as it either limits options or waters down the campaign.

Uh Blizzard does not "self publish". They are owned by Activision, the largest video game publisher in the world. Blizzard makes the game, the people who own them publish it. Also again, talking sales at this point is an exercise in futility. There is no way to tell how well the game will sell at this point. You also have to account for Kickstarter. After all, at least 70k+ of the games sales were all from this KS funding. Even if it does 500k copies in the end it will actually only equate to around 400-420k. Either way the game and Obsidian don't need to concern themselves with redefining the genre. They just need to focus on making the best game they can so that when it does launch it has the highest possible chance to be a profitable venture capable of helping them fund their next game.

Once a week - month is fine. More than that is ridiculous and just wastes time they could have spent on the game and less is sort of well... lazy.

Guilds are cool and fine but they should not be "central" to the story. If you should choose to join one maybe it can factor into the main story somehow but it should not be a game changer. If you are a powerful lord owning a stronghold the guilds should be more than happy to get in your good graces whether you are a member or not as well. Options are the best way to making the game fun for the player so they should have the option to be independent too. That doesn't mean guilds can't factor into the story, it just means membership shouldn't be forced on the player.

Yeah a Baldur's Gate level of VA is what they should do and it is what they are doing. Good on Obsidian.

1: All of the above? Include enough options so that there should be something for everyone but if Obsidian is going to go through with this make it so the endings of these relationships are open ended. Meaning two people romancing the same npc don't have to end the same way. 2: Questlines would be nice though this could be true for non romance companions or whatever too. In fact, why are we even restricted to companions? Why don't you ever see the option to romance other people not in your party? God knows on my evil rise to power and glory I need to shack up with the Duke's Daughter not Elmira the mage from the Swamp, no it doesn't matter how good her enlarge spell is. Cutscenes are fine but there is nothing wrong with a "boot scene" either. As long as it is clear about what happened. Bigger is also better, make romance optional but if followed find a way to tie it into the main plot. 3: I thought Jaheira from Bladur's Gate was pretty well done. If you kept her around from game 1 it lead to a very impressive story progression for that character whether you romanced her or not. There are some other romances I could also indicate as favorites such as Elly and Fei from Xenogears, or my buddies long bromance with Caxton in Dragon's Dogma but I think Jaheira is the best model for this particular game and concept. 4: What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more! Hey Hey....

No problem with early black powder weapons at all. An early model pistol was woefully inaccurate past 20 yards or so (probably less), they took forever to reload, and they did not have enough stopping power to punch through the best armors of the day unless fired from VERY close range. There is a reason Crossbows were called the "Knight Killer" and not black powder rifles. Cannons actually showed up before highly effective small arms did.

OP, you are assuming work didn't start on this game months (possibly a year) or more before the Kickstarter even showed up. I will be very surprised if the games final budget isn't noticeably higher than what was raised on Kickstarter.

Haven't they already confirmed firearms are in game? That makes this poll sort of meaningless.

Way too early to tell, also the things you are touting as new and innovative have been done in games before. Admittedly maybe not in a classic isometric view computer RPG, but still the point stands. Speculating over the games sales at this point is also pretty pointless.

So basically you prevent people being munchkins. Getting double XP, extra loot, using bugs and glitches to win combat - it's all part of the fun for these people. you can still exploit glitches, you get all the loot you can carry but you dont get extra xp. besides if you wanna be a munchkin you dont play an old school rpg... there are many modern rpg that cater to your needs Actually as much as I hate to say it Old School RPG's are actually what created the "munchkin" ideal in the first place. So no, you should definitely go to Old School RPG's to get your munchkin on. That out of the way, this is a game design decision. Many posters here don't seem to .... get it. If your game is "objective" based EXP rewards then odds are... there are no mobs to grind. A well made game (particularly an "old school" RPG) should only have enough exp available in it to prepare you for what you are going to face in the next encounter and or maybe make you a little stronger than you "need" to be to win. In other words if you wander through a forest and find 10 bandits OOOOHHH, they are there for a reason. If you kill them and come back those 10 bandits are gone, done, finito. There may be a random encounter here and there, maybe, but for the most part their rewards should be minimal. The real challenge of an objective based exp system has little or nothing to with actual exp. Experienced dudes like Obsidian should be more than capable of making that work. The issue is how you handle things like say loot. It is simple fact but the guy who kills every enemy he meets, for the most part, is likely going to get more loot. Loot can have just as much to do with your parties power as level does, sometimes it is even more important.

This is like a non poll. Of course the game should have puzzles, mini challenges, traps, etc. The only question is how punishing you want them to be, should the player be able to bypass some or all of them, and what type of rewards should be there for optional ones. Those answers are also sort of obvious though. 1: If the game has scalable challenge let that determine how detrimental messing up is, if not keep it at a medium level since that is what "most" will likely prefer. 2: Sure they should be able to bypass most of them with creative play and proper use of Character skills. Having a couple you "have" to solve puzzles is fine though. 3: Depends totally on how hard the trap/puzzle was to bypass or solve and the level at which you encounter it. If another games method has to be followed I would actually suggest looking at the MMO "The Secret World". That game has everything from ball busting ones that make you research old paintings, to deciphering hieroglyphics, to reading morse code. Not to mention the more direct stuff like switch puzzles and or just reading various books/notes for passwords or codes.

That will actually have more to do with Obsidian. If they decide to be forthcoming with info and actually throw out stuff for players to weigh in on there could be tons of things to talk about. Truthfully speaking though most devs are just going to stick to their team and go with what they want and only touch base with the backers here and there on flavor issues. That may even be the better way to do it. I personally wonder what the games actual final budget will be and who will handle distribution. As for time spenders, not counting the job ;\, I have plenty of games to chew through and have been thinking about revisiting some old games such as Morrowind, or Planscape Torment for some time.