D3xter

Yep, since we're talking huge bitmaps (that could also be streamed dynamically and can be compressed lossless to a certain point) and not textures with some animation and changing parts overhead I'm not sure I quite get the problem as detailed. On their side before pre-rendering they might have huge chunks of data, but it shouldn't be that much of a problem client-side. The only elements that have been confirmed as "3D" and requiring textures to fit the overall look of the world would be the player characters, NPCs and monsters and basically everything that moves around a lot and requires different layers of animation. As for the size, Project: Eternity mainly being a PC game and (presumably) largely Digital. Speaking from personal experience I don't see much of a problem. A lot of people got used to platforms like Steam and games like Max Payne 3 (which had a lot of very different and high quality assets, but was a rather mediocre game) already have a download size of 35GB: http://www.1up.com/d...try?bId=9107322 Another example is RAGE, which is already 25GB by itself, but has extremely blurry low-resolution megatexture data because of compression. Since we aren't talking about consoles here I'd personally be fine with a ~100-150GB download of High Res Textures (Carmack was talking about) as long as it is optional (heck I'd likely even pay extra for it), and apparently I wouldn't be alone: http://forums.steamp...d.php?t=2158540 Steam/Valve certainly has the proper infrastructure for something like that: http://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ Further, realistically this game is still 2 years out, by that time Digital Distribution will likely be even more ingrained, with the "Next Generation Consoles" hopefully already out with it as a basic feature and bandwidth/size will be even less of a problem it is today, so I'm all for it even if they need a larger-than-usual install size, Baldur's Gate was also kind of a pioneer at its time: They certainly don't need to compromise quality for a size-tradeoff as a lot of console games do, and if they do at least offer options for the people that want them

Look guys, I made a full gender-neutral "hen" party in Baldur's Gate.

Prosper, if you stare at these inkblots, what do you see?

Yes they are, even though they constantly say "oh, we have NOTHING against sexualization, but IN THIS case...", when you do it EVERY SINGLE TIME you do exactly that. On this game alone, this was first deemed oversexualized and there was an entire thread full of people going bat**** over it: This was also brought up and criticized for similar reasons: Then people brought up this image and kept complaining till Sawyer said that the concept art "isn't part of this project": Heck, in the last of these threads, near the end someone posted an image of the female dwarf: and then went on arguing how the "boobs" are apparently too big and should be covered up, otherwise she couldn't be an efficient archer or something. Where exactly is that "room for sexualization" if you people start bitching and throw a mini-****storm every single time it may come up in the slightest or a character shows the slightest bit of female sexual characteristics (since it's oddly never a problem with males, and nobody ever seems to notice it there)? So, apparently there's room for it, except in every single case that has been presented so far and beyond.

Steam isn't inherent "DRM" as some people have said, it can also be used as a Download-Client similar to the GoG Website, where you have to Login too. But only few games don't require Steam to run while playing them, for instance I believe Rayman: Origins and Bastion etc. That said, I believe Obsidian has already declared their intent to using SteamWorks-specific features like "Achievements" and "Cloud Saves", there is no way to integrate those into the game and have the Steam-version be "DRM free", so no.

I am a strong supporter of anything (as long as it isn't illegal) being able to be thematized, no matter if and how many people it'll offend and it being a choice of the makers and not self-imposed censorship on behalf of whatever group of people. I'd rather not "explore" anything with you though, thank you. Funny, I thought I actually commented on that before, circular logic indeed: http://forums.obsidi...80#entry1253013 I'm not sure what your first point is other than it somehow being a contest about "how sexualized" certain parts of a game can be, I haven't even played TERA but the point is that everything in that game is "oversexualized", all armors look silly and ornated and one of their bosses is apparently a giant, female... thing opening its head like a predator and shooting lasers out of its head: http://www.rockpaper...as-argon-queen/ And that you apparently think that other cultures, including Japan and Korea should rather obey by specific western sensibilities to appease you and likeminded individuals. As for your second point, what if? There are a many repeating movie cover clichés that appear time and again, I'm not sure how this is exactly fitting the conversation though: http://www.themost10...poster-cliches/ The only thing off is that your funny-poster is concentrating on rather atypical male "attractive" characteristics, but it's not like certain male cast members haven't been chosen for their sex appeal: http://cdn.stronglif...sworth-thor.jpg It's funny, seeing you pick "Black Widow" for that representation though, since the Avengers movie was directed by Joss Whedon, who is known as rather outspoken about certain issues you seem to care so deeply about and she appears in several dozen of those "empowered women" lists throughout in prominent articles: http://www.rowthree....empowered-girl/ http://www.examiner....own-stereotypes Huh, I guess even some feminists don't agree and have the same positions on everything, weren't there even like different camps, which are often forgotten about in favor of the "sex-negative" puritan ones you people seem to adore? Rather ignore some of the other ones? http://blogs.broward...e_exxxotica.php Oh look, the realism-defense, do tell what else women couldn't and wouldn't be able to do in a "realistic" middle-ages setting and how the game would likely play for female characters. Other than that I see this is down to posting oh-so-hilarious opinion pieces and pictures from feminist blogs as proof of something other than these peoples opinions.

This insane belief that you aren't allowed to offend anyone ever (and beyond that, that a product has to appeal to everyone) is frankly beyond me and I don't even know where it comes from. For instance your pink text offends my eyes, yet you are still allowed to do whatever the hell you want, there is no "right to not be offended" written down anywhere. You are invariably going to offend SOMEONE by almost anything you do, for instance there are people offended by the basic principle of comics, games, computers or even worse computer RPGs existing, heck even the Internet: http://www.examiner....counter-protest http://www.huffingto..._n_1531863.html http://en.wikipedia....ial_video_games Portal 2 was "offensive" to some people: http://www.gamesrada...on-controversy/ The thing is, everyone has the right to be offended all day long, they can even put protests together, but that doesn't give you or anyone else the right to dictate what other people are allowed to say, make or do or forbid people from doing those things. There are even rape jokes which may offend some people but aren't banned for that very reason, is especially good at that. Some of the other stuff you say is so full of feminist rhetoric that I'm not even sure what to say... "games seem to be marketed towards males" no ****, it's how markets work, products are generally marketed towards the people that buy them. There's also games mostly targeted at female audiences, although in the west they are mostly of the "casual" variety and specific brands like "The Sims" since those have proven to sell exceptionally well to said demographic, but in glorious Japan, there's entire sub-genres of games being targeted at girls too: http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Otome_game "problem with ... the gaming industry as a whole" o_O Are you seriously debating the design of the underwear of a single character in a single game now? Like ones you would likely not even come to see under most circumstances? Did you just dedicate three whole posts to that?

I agree entirely, they did it in a very high level way that wasn't cheap or only for titillation and base sexual appeal and it came out great especially in Witcher 2. There are some games that are exaggerating it and make it the basic marketing point and "appeal" for a game and those are doing it wrong imo. What some people seem to be asking for is banning it entirely though, because it may "offend" people (I mean there were a lot of "gaming journalists" that had a problem with Witcher 2 because of that for instance) and that is what pisses me off. By the way, TERA isn't a very good example since a lot of the males are looking like this too, that's just the Japanese way of not giving a **** xD

Witcher games are well known for not giving a **** about PC. And that's why I absolutely love CDProjekt, no DRM, no DLC (or rather they hate DLC), giving out free "Extended Editions" of their games and they aren't bound by any of this "political correctness" nonsense, even when journalists keep bringing it up they turn them down: http://www.rockpaper...lace-in-gaming/ They have a healthy Eastern European perspective on the issue, and much like a lot of the Japanese they simply don't give a ****. Can't wait for the Cyberpunk 2077 game, initial impressions say that this won't change any time soon Now, don't understand me wrong, I'd like their games even without any of the "sex appeal", but I'm just happy that they don't have to and want to compromise their design because a few people on the Internets make a ruckus about it, while the first thing Obsidian did in their campaign is change the design of one of their main characters restrospectively because a few people were "offended" by it, which played into my consideration as to what amount to pledge.

I think that, and the fact that both the Dragon Age 2 Add-On called "Exalted March" and a planned Ultimate Edition of the game planned before being cancelled because of "lack of retailer interest" speaks volumes http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/107364-dragon-age-ii-ultimate-edition-wont-exist-due-to-retailer-disinterest.html I spent a large amount of time putting my thoughts together as to why it's **** over here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.271648-Dragon-Age-2-A-Review trying to stay as neutral as possible.

While we're at it xD

I'd like to quote a rapper's comments on the issue with comedian Daniel Tosh, because it applies here: "This is not a free speech issue. As a comic (or poet, or rapper, or singer or whatever), you have the right to say whatever the hell you want to say on stage. But your audience has that same right. If you say something hurtful or offensive, they can heckle you, call you out, start internet campaigns to ban you from clubs, whatever. And you have to deal with that. No one is trying to make it illegal for a comic to say offensive ****; we’re just trying to hold you accountable. That’s a huge difference, and people hiding behind the “free speech” argument are really missing the point. I want you to take chances on stage, to challenge people, even to deal with hecklers harshly—but there are a million ways to do that without joking about something that is extremely hurtful to so many people. Less offensive ways, sure, but funnier ways too." In that same vein, there are many ways to make a character, and succumbing to sexist, racist, or offensive stereotypes that represent a discriminated group in society (that's in OUR world, not in the diegetic game world) are neither clever nor fulfilling. For example, out of all the sorts of characters the makers of the recent Transformers movies could chose to make for a transformer, they chose, among others, to make two absurdly racist stereotypes. It's lazy and caters to the lowest common denominator. And I'd like to point you to this, because he dealt with "that" perfectly: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-16-2012/louis-c-k This is from the man that cast a black actress as his "ex-wife" in his show by the way, even though both his girls are white: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/louis-ck-why-cast-black-mother-white-children-video_n_1629950.html For that matter I'm always somewhat confused when people throw all the other different liberal attitudes in regards to all people being treated equal, equal wages and opportunity, being against racism and hate and extremists of any kind etc. together with "feminism", since it is perfectly possible to want all of the above and still think that the largest amount of feminists nowadays are bat**** crazy extremists themselves. I actually grew up with the belief that men and women are equal, my mother worked and had a position of power in the same company my father worked at throughout my youth and there have been many female role models throughout school and university I could look up to, and it never even occured to me to treat certain people differently because they were male or female, the first time I actually came in contact with this new outgrowth of "feminism" (guess I was lucky growing up in Eastern and Western Europe, where things like "gender studies" weren't really a thing until recently) was mainly through gaming journalism of all things in the last few years, and so far it has done the exact opposite of what it tried to do, since it largely doesn't seem to be movement about equality as it was in the past anymore, but about special rights and trying to push a certain kind of political view and "political correctness" as they see it across the broad spectrum of society and into entertainment mediums that were largely unpolitical before.

The game isn't meant for consoles, or tablets, or mobile phones or any of that stuff and they have been abundantly clear about that, I'd rather they work on the game and other features that would benefit the PC side more instead of trying to drag in an unsupported platform. The entire UI and interactive paradigm would be changed by something like that, for instance there is no "mouse-over" e.g. tooltips, texts, hints on tablets because you can only "touch" a certain spot but there's no cursor dragging.

I was referring to the size of the viewport/screen space of course and not the size of the entire area. If you take that Icewind Dale map for instance at 3840x2880 for the entirety of an area and try to split it in single "screens", assuming the standard intended size was 640x480, you get: 6x width and 6x height = 36 screens Translating that to an intended standard size of 2560x1440 per screen for Project: Eternity while keeping the aspect ratio and size of a screen segment the same for gameplay reasons, the entire map would be 15360x8640 in size. Rendered at a 4K resolution or 3840x2160 per screen, the entire map would be 23040x12960 It's obviously a bit harder to work at those resolutions and I wouldn't know what tools or techniques they are using, but I assume they either segment the "map" into many different parts and put it together after those are finished or they are directly working on its entire size. To realize the sizes of images we are talking about, here for instance is an 8000x8000 image of earth: http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/ And here's a image at 14331×8061: http://www.velopelot...2--high-res.jpg Also a Mars Panorama at 23123×7034: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10230.jpg

Because the quality of said writing takes a divejump off the nearest rooftop as soon as they start specifically pandering to sexually frustrated people and the LGBT and pony-romancing crowd producing at best cringeworthy results... Exhibit A: BioWare. Then we want the same game and understand each other. I like Planescape, Icewind Dale etc. too, except for that one part that doesn't make any sense and would do the exact opposite of what you said.

Perhaps you should? As far as I know they haven't announced anything of the likes and don't seem to want to or they wouldn't be avoiding the issue and all these topics or outright "banning" them from the forums for the last few weeks, yet here we have people like you crawling out of their holes from the depths of BSN every few days asking for them to implement this dating simulator experience to make you feel better and stroke your ego instead of making a better game, caring about a higher quality of writing or tackling serious societal issues instead.

No, please go away :/ I want a great game with a many deep and thoughtful quests and not a dating simulator, the two simply don't fit together. There's those Japanese games for that, or BioWare.

Besides being somewhat obvious, since they supplied a screenshot at that resolution, I think Feargus and some other people have mentioned it a few times that they are going to "support 2560x1440". I saw it after writing some of this, but I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about in there. xD First you are using the term "dpi" or dots-per-inch, which doesn't really apply to monitors, but is only used for print throughout instead of ppi or pixels-per-inch for displays. Then you are saying it's apparently more important than "resolutions", when what I think you are asking for is simply a higher initial resolution for their assets. And I'm not sure how the ppi-quotient has any importance whatsoever, since it largely differs as you change the display size with the resolution staying the same, for instance 1080p on a 15" screen has a PPI of ~147, on a 21" of ~105, on a 27" of ~82, on a 30" of 73 and if you watch the content on a 60" TV it is only a PPI of ~37. Also you are repeating Apple marketing terms throughout and confusing web design with game rendering What is actually important is that the resolution of the assets, most importantly the background when being rendered is at a high enough quality for future standards e.g. at least 3840x2160 for a single screen space/viewport at the size it is being designed for. We wouldn't actually even need them to support high resolutions out of the box as long as the assets existed somewhere at a high enough resolution for later consideration, so the game doesn't run into the same problems as for instance Baldur's Gate down the lines, with that "Enhanced Edition" either rendering at a low resolution (and suffering from upscaling issues) or employing what is essentially blur filters to be able to keep the same screen space at higher resolutions. A good late example for this would be Dark Souls, which was designed solely for consoles with a resolution of 1024x720 (which was rendered with a wrong aspect ratio, first scaled to 720p and then upscaled to whatever resolution one was using) in mind and before the PC release people would say "Oh, it doesn't matter, the assets probably don't have a higher level of detail anyway and you won't see the difference." And their texture assets were indeed of much higher quality, after someone called Durante unlocked the resolution limitation http://imgc.rauch.co.uk/957 http://imgc.rauch.co.uk/955 http://imgc.rauch.co.uk/956 This one for instance being produced by rendering at a much higher res (I believe somewhere around 4K) and downsampling the image to 2560x1440 (which is obviously easier, since it is real-time 3D, but wouldn't look anywhere like it does without the asset quality being top notch either): It shouldn't even be that much more/additional work if they are considering this and are keeping it in mind from the get-go, it would just mainly mean higher resolution renders of the area backgrounds from their 3D assets to work on or at least for a final pass after everything in the scene has been worked out. Their character models, which should be the biggest problem with their large amount of animations are apparently already real-time 3D, so they would scale naturally and only any additional steps (if any) being done with Photoshop or other tools to the background images would have to be on high quality art assets.

If at all possible, please think about rendering the initial background images at a larger size than the planned 2560x1440 shown so far: to account for certain hardware available today and future-proofing the game for the decades to come, so it doesn't suffer from the same ailments that the Infinity Engine games do today while playing them at a larger resolution: Not sure how you are rendering the backgrounds e.g. I assume they are either much larger high resolution full screen maps or bits and pieces thereof that you put together afterwards, what I am referring to is the visible screen space. For instance, this Icewind Dale background already has a resolution of 3840x2880, but the designed standard screen space was somewhere around 640x480 (and 800x600 for IWDII): There are immediate results from downsampling from higher resolutions to be had, by getting sharper pictures to look at, especially if it is from a multiple of the current screen resolution like 2x or 1.5x, but the real reason to do it would be to future-proof the game somewhat more from the get-go instead of possibly having to go through the painful process of having to do it for a "Remastered" or "UHD" version of it a decade from now after the possible loss of art assets, concepts or modelling data. You could offer the higher resolution backgrounds as an additional download on services like Steam or GoG like other games do it with "High Resolution Textures Packs", but if you do not, at least consider doing and keeping them on archive. Here's a pretty well argued point as to the advantages of High Resolution screens: http://www.pcgamer.c...makes-me-angry/ Basically, IBM had UHD screens ready over 10 years ago with a resolution of 3840×2400: http://www.pcworld.c...87/article.html and while they didn't take off at that time for several obvious reasons related to cost, the power of graphics processors, them exiting the hardware business among others, we are recently getting more and more high resolution screens in the short-term future, from Apples "Retina" displays at 2880×1800 with other vendors likely following. In the longer-term decade-spanning future we have "Ultra High Definition Television" already standardized, finalized and being tested at 4K/8K to likely become a "thing" within the next ~10 years Mainly it'll be two Standards: UHDTV1 (3840x2160 or 4K) and UHDTV2 (7680x4320 or 8K). (similar to 720p/1080p) http://en.wikipedia....tion_television The first prototype models of both 4K and 8K displays are already past us in 2008 and 2011 respectively with SHARP, Samsung and Panasonic showing off their early work: http://www.engadget....lcd-with-16x-m/ http://www.tomshardw...uhdtv,4916.html http://www.diginfo.t...2-0072-r-en.php Beamers/Projectors are also already being produced: http://www.sim2.com/home/en/node/20737 The last Summer Olympics have already been broadcasted in UHD to test the capabilities: http://www.guardian....london-olympics and demo streams are already running on several sattelites: http://i.imgbox.com/adtKNFeI.jpg http://i.imgbox.com/abgCpyEZ.png http://i.imgbox.com/abfHJtQ7.jpg It is very much coming and a trend in the near to far-off future and it would be great if you could take on that concern going into development, you can always downscale an image, but can never add missing detail to it if you may need to in the future. xD

I'll just post what I did in the longer thread, but with a few additional remarks. 　 Let's just say that I haven't seen a single example in which cooldowns ended up working well, imo it is also one of the largest banes of the MMO genre that they can't seem to finally drop that crap system. (in that combat degrades into pushing 1-2-3 etc. repeatedly and it is very saddening that it's flowing over into SP RPGs) I was actually more fine with Ultima Onlines reagent-based system than any cooldown-based one I've seen or experienced so far... I don't think most people want the Infinity Engine-based system back as it was translated 1:1, entirely with rest-scumming and having to walk back to town, traversing 2-3 maps to do so and come back again, but have it IMPROVED upon. It could likely be more easily fixed to be made into something fun and tactical than ANY cooldown-based system. A recent game with a Vancian magic AND hp system checkpoint-based "campsites", a lot of people loved because of it, got critical acclaim and worked rather well was Dark Souls (despite the respawning enemies). 　 The idea behind the system is the planning through choice, challenge and limited usability of abilities and spells that comes with it, and not hanging on every little detail in regards to the mechanic like having to get back to town because "it was such in the Infinity Engine games". In the ideal case, the player would only have to resort to that if he hit an impossibly challenging wall (a boss he can't beat or enemies one/two-hitting the entire party) and wants to get back to a Hub and do a certain other quest series or stock up again before he comes back (kind of like in Dark Souls when going back to Firelink and taking another way). If I remember right Dungeons & Dragons Online had an interesting system with campsites/rest places with limited usability sparingly distributed inside dungeons. There was no HP or spell regeneration before you hit those places, and you had to get through quite a lot of enemies and fights before you got to one (or they were placed right before/behind a boss encounter). You could only use each of them once so there was a certain tactic involved in when you wanted to rest up, the challenges and fighting could be balanced around using as many resources as possible to get the the next such place. If you dropped too low in HP and couldn't get through to the next resting spot, you pretty much wiped and had to try again (e.g. having to go back to town and reprepare). Souls obviously solved it by respawning every non-special enemy and having the player perform to the best of his abilities till the next checkpoint, but I guess that would be too tedious, and let's not forget that there should always be different ways of resolving a certain battle e.g. there should always be a large variety of compaions, weapon combinations and strategies to get past something. The details on how it would solved (e.g. "according to D&D rules", "like videogame X" or in a totally new way) doesn't seem awfully important as a discussion point, just that it doesn't rely on cooldowns: * If the cooldown on spells/abilities is low, and all it takes is spamming the same 3-4 optimal skills for an encounter over and over again every few seconds in a "skill-rotation", where is the fun and tactical challenge in that? The most boring systems around this are those where you just press a number-key like "1" and your character starts performing an ability. (e.g. most MMORPGs or games like Dragon Age: Origins/2), there were a few new systems like having to press additional keys in Age of Conan or the skill combo only being accomplished with a certain Mouse-Button/Keyboard-Combo like in fighting games in DCUO, but those didn't particularly work all that well and this ain't an action game. * If the cooldown is long and it takes minutes for a spell to regenerate and you are standing before an encounter where you know you will likely need it, how exactly is it better than going back to a campsite e.g. "I'm getting my Ultimate in 10 minutes, then we can do the boss, AFK brb in 10" in MMORPGs * Does anyone else have a single example of a CRPG in which a cooldown system has worked better tactically and regarding challenging gameplay, than one where players have to prepare for encounters beforehand like in the old Infinity Engine games or ToEE? I'm really curious, since I haven't seen any, and looking at some of Obsidians other experimental game mechanics in Neverwinter Nights 2 and some of the campaigns, in Alpha Protocol or in Dungeon Siege III let's just say I am not filled with the utmost confidence that they are the right company to solve this particular problem satisfactory. * Any system that doesn't restrict spell or ability usage in a way will ALWAYS be exploited in the best way for players to perform at optimum or do the "maximum amount of DPS" and similar. They will only use a few of the abilities that they deem the best. Just look at ANY cooldown-based system and it's always just a "skill rotation" based on a pre-defined build, Blizzard for instance designed the Diablo 3 spell/skill-system in a way that doesn't favor skilltrees and specialization and everyone can use every single skill/spell, and there were still just the few viable builds with most of the rest being outright ignored. Same thing mainly happened in games like Dragon Age: Origins. If you are limited to only a certain number of spells you can use, you WILL make sure to memorize ones that are actually helpful and you WILL use them in some way tactically after you ran out of the "good"/useful ones. If you don't have that Meteor Shower or Fireball anymore, you'll use even the lower level attack spells, buffs or other spells you might otherwise not in a way to maximize their efficiency, possibly even the likes of cantrips, which gives the spell system as a whole more tactical depth than could ever be achieved through cooldowns.

I don't think most people want the Infinity Engine-based system back as it was 1:1, entirely with rest-scumming and having to walk back to town, traversing 2-3 maps to do so and come back again. I just believe that it could be more easily fixed to be made into something fun and tactical than ANY cooldown-based system. A recent game with a Vancian magic AND hp system checkpoint-based "campsites", a lot of people loved because of it, got critical acclaim and I believe you said you played and liked as well was Dark Souls. And it worked rather well there (despite the respawning enemies). The idea behind the system is the planning through choice, challenge and limited usability of abilities and spells that comes with it, and not because of a single detail in regards to the mechanic like having to get back to town. In the ideal case, the player would only have to resort to that if he hit an impossibly challenging wall (a boss he can't beat or enemies one/two-hitting the entire party) and wants to get back to a Hub and do a certain other quest series before he comes back (kind of like in Dark Souls when going back to Firelink and taking another way). As I was talking about before, there could be limited usability "safe campsites" throughout the dungeon e.g. one per level or similar, around NPCs or by finding a campfire spot that "looks safe" or similar, like it was resolved in Dungeons & Dragons Online and one could balance the challenges around that limit and choices of spells and abilities till the next resting spot instead, Souls obviously solved it by respawning every non-special enemy and having the player perform to the best of his abilities till the next checkpoint, but I guess that would be too tedious, and let's not forget that there should always be different ways of resolving a certain battle e.g. in DS there are very many combinations of weapons and strategies to get past something. The details on how it is solved (e.g. "according to D&D rules", "like videogame X" or in a totally new way) doesn't seem like the most important discussion point. Maybe a few counter questions: * If the cooldown on spells/abilities is low, and all it takes is spamming the same 3-4 optimal skills for an encounter over and over again every few seconds in a "skill-rotation", where is the fun and tactical challenge in that? * If the cooldown is long and it takes minutes for a spell to regenerate and you are standing before an encounter where you know you will likely need it, how exactly is it better than the campsite approach e.g. "I'm getting my Ultimate in 10 minutes, then we can do the boss, AFK brb in 10" in MMORPGs * Do you (or does anyone else) have a single example of a CRPG in which a cooldown system has worked better tactically and regarding challenging gameplay, than one where players have to prepare for encounters beforehand?

Let's just say that I haven't seen a single example in which cooldowns ended up working well, imo it is also one of the largest banes of the MMO genre (in that combat degrades in pushing 1-2-3 etc. and it is very saddening that it's floating over into SRPGs) that they can't seem to finally drop that crap system. I was actually more fine with Ultima Onlines reagent-based system than any cooldown-based one I've seen or experienced so far... If I remember right Dungeons & Dragons Online had an interesting system with campsites/rest places sparingly distributed inside dungeons. There was no HP or spell regen before you hit those places, and you had to get through quite a lot of enemies and fights before you got to one (or they were placed right before/behind a boss encounter). I think you could only use each of them once so there was a certain tactic involved in when you wanted to rest up. If you dropped too low in HP and couldn't get through to the next resting spot, you pretty much wiped and had to try again (e.g. having to go back to town and reprepare). I dunno how this might work in a non-MMO/SRPG setting with a saving system, it was kinda similar to the Bonfires in Dark Souls, except you could only use each of them once and the enemies didn't respawn. I just know that cooldown-spamming and not having to make tactical choices is NOT what I'm looking for in a good combat/spell system. As has been said before, a simple "tracking skill" that might improve/get more precise the higher level it is might give people ample opportunity to prepare for specific encounters. e.g. imagine Heroes of Might & Magic or King's Bounty like "army size" estimation and what "types" of enemies could be encountered (in lore it could be like tracking foot steps, smells or just noticing peculiar things about locations). Another way is just doing it through the story itself e.g. in dialogue with NPCs "I've heard tales of beholders down that god-forsaken hole!", "We sighted orcs in the area south of town." etc.

I thought racism was already confirmed? http://penny-arcade....-eternity-and-0 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/318515

Could give them gender modifiers, like +1 Str/Con or End for males and +1 Cha/Dex for females

Level Scaling confirmed? What? WHERE?