Elerond

Yes it is possible to create destructable objects that are not pre-rendered, but it is also possible to create destructable objects that are pre-rendered, as you only need make destructable object different image from baground (a sprite). When you have destructable object as different image you can do another version of that image where object is destroyed and swap destroyed version of object to be shown when object's statuts is destroyed or you can do even destory animation where you have multiple images that illustrate destruction of the object and in game you show them as series of images in short period of time and it looks like object explodes or something like that (this way you quite easilly do trees that look that wind moves them or water which looks that it flows). But artists workload is added by every object which you want be destroyable, moveable and etc. able, which is reson why I think that such objects should be quite rare unless artist have too much freetime .

My opinion to on going depate is that when you have character which you can yourself define like in bgs or fallouts. Game should not need to know your characters motivations it should only react to what your character did. And even if npcs in game for some reason want to ask what was pc's motive to do things what s/he did, it should be made possible pc to give any motivation s/he thinks will best suite his or her purpose with said npc, this should not be necessary the real motivation behind pc's actions. For me defining my own character and deciding his or her motivations, goals and ways to acomplish them are those features which makes game to be a rpg. More this things a resticted in game less I feel it to be a roleplaying game

I liked AP's idea and general feeling to be James Bond style spy. Multiple options to solve thigns was nice too. What I didn't liked was boss fights, skill development and mini games. So my final vertic is that game is good, with some flaws, but should definetly give it a try, at least one play through,which take usually 20-30 hours.

So what, by your definition, wouldn't be lazy design? Having everything look exactly the same? Because that's what would happen if the designers went for functional realism. Going back to cars all we'd have would be a sea of Corollas and Lancers with the high end ones only being distinguished by their Nos decals (your diamonds and gold accents). You can do different looking things that are designed to function in their intended purpose. You only need to look how many different looking functional historical full plates or swords there are. If PE includes all of those designs they will have thousand different looking weapons and armours in the game. And you can distinguish better versions of equipment from weaker ones by saying that they use better materials and visualaising them using decorations that don't nerf their purpose. Here pile of rapiers that which all have more or less differing look. Here group of broadswords Here are several cavalry sabres And for example also poleaxes can have several different looks And nice picture which shows how sword design changed during middle ages.

As for the things like weak points, hammer heads being too large, etc. those can all be explained away by simply saying "magic fixes it" since all the fancy top end gear is going to be magical in nature. How does Drizz't's scimitar give you better defense stats? How does the Flail of Ages even work; wouldn't 5 heads be way too cumbersome? What about Dak'kon's zerth blade; that thing is just bananas! All of this is explained by magic makes it work. Which is just lazy design. Magic is nice thing in fantasy worlds but rules what it follows should not change from one subject to another. Because without straight forward rules for this mystical force, it is very easy to end up with magical cannon that saves and changes whole university, but it is ok because it is magic. So if you have mystical force called for example magic which gives people in your fantasy world ability create metal that is lighter and stronger than steel for example then designing weapons that uses this metal should use logical and practical design patterns to show how people would use such metal to make best possible weapons and armours. If people have ability harness this force to intresting looking runes that gives bearer of the weapon ability make light up in fire, or absorb all heat from their body, or call magic veil to protect wearer from blows, it should not have any effect how weapons and armours basic functions are designed, except if these runes need different designs and if it so then these weapons and armours should have weaker basic functionality than their better designed counterparts. But sadly it is usually so that magic some reason makes absurd design work better in every way than practical designs, and there is not even explanation why, except that it is "magic".

I am for BG style, but I would also like if journal and automap were magical items (like in lands of lore), which explain very nicely why you can so easily sort your journal or why your map gets new areas as game goes on and etc..

And every one of those ornamental weapons that Dronios linked also fulfill all the basic functions. Lambos have almost no redeeming qualities outside of looks (their mileage is awful, sitting in them is like being in a torture rack, and they get beaten by cars that cost 1/4 to 1/2 as much). Hell, the newest one (Aventador) doesn't even put it's power down well since the transmission is **** and the breaks are awful. Despite all that people still buy and use them 'cause they look awesome, and this is in the real world. In a fantasy world where magic enchantments could offset a lot of the detriments of "ornamental" weapons and armor (who cares if a weapon is balanced like **** if it weighs nothing) it is even more likely that super expensive things would look amazing. No they don't. They have rain guard's that don't work as they should, they have ornamental structures in their blades that weaken them and make them broke more easilly. Hammer has too large head to be very useful or even useable. First of the blades has too long blade considering its grip. So they would be nearly as useful in fight as toys. Speaking about Lambos, they have many redeeming qualities, like good reputation, imago bonus, and they are fast for example LP 570-4 Superleggera has max speed of 325 km/h (202 mph). As in my example I don't think that dimonds on rain guard, or gold ornaments on armour give any bonus in combat, but nobles put them in their weapons because they looked cool, to show their status or monetary wealth and I am not against such coolness, but I am against coolness that in reality hinders weapon or armour main purpose and gamemechanics don't show that hindering. It would be like long-haul race game where lambos have same mileage as Honda CR-Z, because they are so cool looking.

I am all for fight animations that don't look like that character hack each other with sticks. And I have told my preference for relistic/functional looking equipment in http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61306-armour-weapon-designs-a-plea-part-ii/

For me it makes world feel more believable. And it is not really realism what I am after, but functionality, so if get vote how weapons and armouts should be designed in game, my vote always goes for designs that look like they could work in our world, in other word armour should look like it purpose is to protect it's wearer and weapon should look like it's intended for battlefield and killing not to look pretty in showcase. This of course don't mean that I can't enjoy games that don't follow my design ideology. For example I love Warhammer even though it has over sized weapons, some times very ridicilous looking armours, and mages that poses like they want arrow in their chest. But my love for fantasy orgins from Tolkien's, Eddings', Robin McKinley's and Ursula K. Le Guin (and other whose names I don't now recall) books, where warfare was descripted to be functional or there was reason why it was not. If everything was made to be functional all the armor and weapons would look pretty much the same. There's nothing wrong with having a lot of Corollas and Lancers and Focuses (Foci?), but there should also be some Ferraris and Lambos. But every one of those fullfill basic functionalities what one ask from car (get from place a to place b, with higher speed than walking), even Ferraris and Lambos. But base functionalities are not only functions what person seeks, some want cheapest thing that fullfill basic functionalities (cheapness is in this case a function which car much fullfill), others want car with large cargo capacity, or with low fuel consumption, or with powerfull engine and high max speed, or they want car to look nice, or have confortable insides, but at the end of the day nearly all people want car that fullfil basic functionalities of car plus those functionalities which in their opinion will make car more suitable for their need. One thing what I don't believe is that there is many who wants a car which look über cool but you need to push it from place a to place b if you want to move with it. This same logic goes for armours and weapons, they should be able to fullfill their basic functions first and then comes other functions like movability, looks, etc.. So here swords that you could say to be ferraris of the swords, without need to reduce their combat effectiness And here same for full plate armour

Those aren't very functional weapon designs, they look more like ornaments than real weapons. But they look awesome. Metal armor isn't very functional when facing fire but I don't see you complaining about that. They don't look awesome, they look more like toys in my eye. Metal armor works fine against bursts of fire, but against constant fire there is very we suits what one can wear that it will protect its wearer against continuously rising temperature. So against fireball steel armour is pretty good, but middle of inferno there is not really anything what one can wear so tha s/he can survive long period of time. What is the meaning of chasing the full realism in an unreal world ? For me it makes world feel more believable. And it is not really realism what I am after, but functionality, so if get vote how weapons and armouts should be designed in game, my vote always goes for designs that look like they could work in our world, in other word armour should look like it purpose is to protect it's wearer and weapon should look like it's intended for battlefield and killing not to look pretty in showcase. This of course don't mean that I can't enjoy games that don't follow my design ideology. For example I love Warhammer even though it has over sized weapons, some times very ridicilous looking armours, and mages that poses like they want arrow in their chest. But my love for fantasy orgins from Tolkien's, Eddings', Robin McKinley's and Ursula K. Le Guin (and other whose names I don't now recall) books, where warfare was descripted to be functional or there was reason why it was not.

Those aren't very functional weapon designs, they look more like ornaments than real weapons. But they look awesome. Metal armor isn't very functional when facing fire but I don't see you complaining about that. They don't look awesome, they look more like toys in my eye. Metal armor works fine against bursts of fire, but against constant fire there is very we suits what one can wear that it will protect its wearer against continuously rising temperature. So against fireball steel armour is pretty good, but middle of inferno there is not really anything what one can wear so tha s/he can survive long period of time.

Those aren't very functional weapon designs, they look more like ornaments than real weapons.

If there is betrayer in party I would like it be because s/he thinks so highly about pc (for example infuence score is in max or that pc is chose by gods, somehting like that) that leading pc to ambush is easy way to take money from stupid people and s/he is not actually a betraying pc as in his or her opinion pc can easilly handle everything that is thrown to her or him. So little bit like Judas Iscariot type betraying, but maybe not necessary as dramatic fail in end .

I know, machine translations always do that, but since "Project Eternity" is basically just two words on their own, I was hoping it would be able to correctly translate each word separately. You can translate project to hanke, suunnitelma, heijastaa, projisoida, projisioida, langeta, työkohde in Finnish, but contextually projekti is best translation in case of Project Eternity. So it is understable that machine translation don't get best possible translation (as you said) from only two words which preffer to not commonly know subject as it can't determine context where they are used.

I was just going by what Google Translate spat at me for "project" and "eternity". XD Google translate don't know Finnish very well it usally does very funny translations even for simplest phrases. As it nearly always uses wrong translation for context and in wrong grammatical case.

Finnish: Hanke Ikuisuus Hungarian: Terv Örökkévalóság For Finnish Projekti Ikuisuus is better translation and you can always go with Projekti iäisyys if you want to use difficult word's to non-finns to say I can't say anything about Hungarian version.

How about option where you can put idle companions to do Progress Quest style missions and later you can look their quest logs to see how they got their xp doing quests like fetch me sock or fetch me another sock . But seriously I am torn to pieces, when I try to think what is my opinion on this subject regarding to PE. Because no xp for idle charactes have merit, so have xp for idle charactes and also limited xp for idle characters also has its own merits. I can live with all of this systems, but in my opinion any of them is not perfect and so if Obsidian invents some other aproach (like Progress Quest ), that would be nice.

Funny thing about codpieces it that they were flat piece cloth until king Henry VIII got insecurity burst and started whole new trend in Europe, which was as ridicilous as boob plate, but who will say no for the king?. http://www.thehendricks.net/codpiece_history.htm

Most of the areas should have objectives/quest/choices hidded in them, because that way there is more to find in next play through. Baldur's Gate's biggest problem in my mind is that there was so much areas that didn't offer anything new on following playthroughs.

In Finnish defence forces sexual relationships in mixed units between comrades are common place things and some times this relationships continue even after service. And even in full male units soldiers it's commonplace thing to go strip bars and see girlfriends on free time and even constantly calling for them in service hours. And of course it should be also remebered that in Finnish defece forces most of the soldiers are in service only for compulsory 6-12 months. And war brides are some what common thing in long wars. So romantic relationships can flourish in middle of misery and dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bride

Behind the scenes are always intresting for some reason. And I must say that I love idea of pre-rendered backgrounds with animated stuff in it.

The Last of the Obsidian Order of Eternity

If there is romancable companion it should be race- and gendershifting creature who is sent to seduce your main character (some sort of mix of succubus and incubus maybe). And how it will appear to you should entirely depend on your answers in psychological profile questionare which you must do in character creation. This way romanceable companions will only take one companion slot, but same time it gives player options to all character which s/he want to play. And it also opens possibilities to write not so happy ending romance as this creature's main purpose in game is to spy and maybe betray player character. Maybe with approach like this we could get something new to typical romance stories, and this story arc can be nearly any character who wants to have more intimite relationship with his or her party member, but same time it's not too intrusive approach that eats all companion slots for romance. This is just random idea born from this persistent depate, so don't take it too seriously

I would like to see mix of new and typical fantasy monsters, just like they did with races and classes.

My opinion is that Justin Bell should compose music by himself and Obsidian should only hire live musician to play his compositions. And this means that Obsidian don't necessary need to hire creative artists, but ones that have enough talent to play music made by others (like those musicians who do song covers in youtube) . Singer/s is/are of course more difficult choice/s (if there is need for one or more) as s/he/they need great voice/s which fits with in PE's theme. Celebirities and semi-celebrities are of course most easiest thing to people to suggest as other people in discussion know them and those who don't usually can easilly find some samples.