Elerond

I like RuneQuest's magic system much more than D&D's (it doesn't matter which edition). Wizard spell with their forming sytem were fun to play. Like firebolt which powerful make could change to several fireballs, and suddenly low level spell is much better than highest level spells, although it also eat more mana and was more difficult to cast, but still

Semi-random loot mean in all reason sytem where developers can put for group of monsters specific item, like their equipment which they all drop and items from random list like 1-10 coins, gem, silver ring and etc., so developers don't need go through, say hundred, goblins one at a time and add how many coins, gems and etc. each individual goblin carries.

Just like high-level D&D mages.... * ZING * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maia_(Middle-earth) Gandalf was one of the maiar, creatures which one could call godlike creatures or demigods.

Which is one reason why saw it bit odd that mages need 8 hours to rememorize their spells (as they don't get even one spell back if their rest is interrupted only after 4 or 6 six hours of sleep). So basically mages didn't sleep in IE games ever as they were too busy to do their rituals and etc. things needed to get spells ready to sleep.

You can design cooldowns to fit for sorcerer type of mage easilly, so that sytem is much fun to play and fits in with lore. As you know sorcerer has number of spells per level which s/he can cast per day. But you can as easily change this to system where sorcerer gets spell point back every 5/10 minutes. And so you have system where you still can run out of magic, but don't force you sleep so often. And this approach don't even broke (D&D's) lore as sorcerers power comes from inside of them instead of through preparation, so slowly returning magical power would be as good as need to rest for 8 hours or so. And you can encourage players to push forward in dungeon instead waiting for all the magic points to return pawning lurking monsters on your party every 10/20 minutes what you have been idle. And there is ways to make cooldown system to work for traditional d&d wizards too so that is sounds logical and believable. Like you have still spell slot where you can pick spell what you want your wizard to use and every spell has it own cooldown time which tells how long wizard needs time to prepare that spell. And wizard can prioritize spells in cooldown queue. And there could be limitation that cooldowns don't work in combat or when wizard casts spells. And this can make game as strategic than normal rest for all spells system or it can even add game's strategic depth as you can't abuse rest system but you are tied on cooldown queue and so you must really think how you prioritize your cooldowns so that you can have right spell ready to cast. This system also gives you flexibility to change spell on your slots as changed spell just go on your preparation queue..

I think that it is similar with BG's dropping loot. So enemies have locked loot what they drop (their equipment for example) and then they can have random loot like money, jewels, rings, amulets and etc.. This random loot gives desingers easy way to use same enemies in different areas but change that random part of their loot to be different.

ASCII is very good choice for those games that I can play over terminal and keep them running on screen session for months and months .

In DragonLance dark elf references to elf who is exiled from his or her tribe.

IE games weren't detemined by their magic system and I don't think that PE will be either, even if it uses some kind of event-based magic sytem. But still I hope that PE will use some unique system or mixed system from typical magic system (memorization, point-based, event-based, as powers, skill-based or cost/reagent based). And one should remember that there is good and bad implementation of every common approach for magic system, so overall mechanic ideas should not be blamed for bad magic systems.

You have an opinion, that's cool, but given that many would disagree -- let's just say that the game won't be tailor made to a single gamer's style, yeah? Mages... boring in BG2... indeed... all the breach and pierce and support/debuff spells alone had people hitting pause and clicking through menus. And a Monk isn't boring? You just melee **** with the occasional quivering or stunning fist. Mage in BG when you solo. You throw your couple spells on your enemy and then you run and run and sometime try hit enemy with you sling or darts and then you run some more as you did't hit. Some where on 5th level enemies don't kill you with first two hits, but still fights are mostly you running. In BG2 your awesome magic can usually kill slower level enemies before you must start running. But thanks god there is Melf's Minute Meteors they make fighting some what tolerable, but still it is mostly running. Monk don't die so easily in combat and he can kill enemies quite effectively so combats are not so bothersome with it than it is with mage. With assassin you use traps, poison and sneaking and also quite lot of running, but still I liked it more than my mage play through.

But game gives player an option to go solo. Then if your main character is caster, then you get bored. Solo play in a party-based game is a gimmick for players looking for an extra challenge. Anybody who's going to play solo will accept the price of a little boredom. Besides, I can assure you that surviving an entire game with only a fragile mage is anything but boring. In BG it was very boring and in BG2 it was some what acceptable boring. Monk and assasin were much more entertaining to solo.

But game gives player an option to go solo. Then if your main character is caster, then you get bored.

I voted no, as I understand it. The bottleneck is write story, characters and etc. for the bigger world not to generate bigger world. For example Fable 3 and Skyrim both had infinite number of quest but they were random generated and so I lost very soon any drive to do them. So bigger is not mean better and therefore I take nearly always quality over quantity.

Purpose for mana points and cooldowns are same. They are only different approach to problem. And so are skill check sytem, especially if game also implements stamina system. And Cost (reagent) system is maybe mostly about managing limited resources. So vancian sytem is not really any different from other magic system to this end.

Only if mounts are dragons .

Cooldowns are good system in games which need absolute class/character balance, for example MMOs and Diablo like games. They make balancing special abilities much easier. But in single player game I would like see more original magic system, even if it causes class disbalance and it is also reason why I would not like to see magic system cloned from D&D, but some sytem which take it's own route. And in my opinion best way to do that is mix different sytems like memorization, point-based and skill based sytems to one sytem. Rune Quest is for example has magic sytem where all three sytems are mixed together.

Latin, because it would give authentic medieval researcher feeling when you try understand what the heck those people say But in reality I think that Russian, Polish and Italian traslations would be most profitable. After these, you could look about Korean and maybe Japanese translations there could be audiance for Project Eternity in those countries also. And don't forgot Finnish, because there could be one or two finnish rpg fans who don't prefer play games in English .

I would love see some track inspired by traditional/world/folk music. Loreena McKennitt's Incatation from An Ancient Muse album is good example what kind music I would like to hear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxhUp-IO9bo

Maybe it would be best if we forgot both vancian and manabar systems and go full on skill-based system. Like where mage can learn conjuration, evokation, illusion, summoning skills as base skills, which s/he uses to cast different kinds of spells. Each spell has difficult level, like what higher difficult level is more mage gets penalty to his or her skill check. And addition to that mage can decide how fast s/he tries to cast spell, shorter casting time means more penalty to skill check and longer casting times comparably make skill check easier. And then we can throw addition of mix skill checks for more powerful spells to stop mages to think before they min max one skill detriment others.

I think mixed system could be way to go. For example, mages have limited capacity how many spells they can memorize, but they also have mana, which they can use to change memorized spell to other and mana cost could be determined how change spell needs. Like if spell is from the same school then mana cost for change could be small and cost would rise father we go from orginal school and to change spell to oppositing school would be most tasking. This costing system assume that there is typical circle of the magic schools, where there is opposing schools. And this system could reward those players who have prepared better or were just lucky by so that mage can spend his or her mana to restore spells back to his or her memory without resting. In this system mana regeneration time should be some what high or at least there should be no mana reg in combat, to prevent too much resorting on it. This system is somewhat similar with that system which Josh metioned.

Dota 2 by Valve has a hero called "Drow Ranger". The setting is not FR. I'm curious what was the "cost". Although she is not really drow, but someone who was rised by drows (or so Dota 2 wiki says anyway). So I don't think that one can argue that she brokes any IP-rights. But drow as "Black-skinned white-haired evil elves that live underground and have a matriarchial society that worship a spider goddess/moon goddes/god of thiefs/etc. gods what drows in FR worship", what is the thing, I think, asked in this thread is IP of the deceased Gary Gygax and WotC. But truth is that I don't know if WotC would go after their rights, but it would still be plagiarizing which I don't think would be very good thing when OE tries to build their own IP.

drows are proberty of the wizards of the coast and inventor of the forgotten realms. So using them in project eternitys world would cost for OE

My opion is that using traditional races and species in fantasy world is right thing to do. As most of people who like/love fantasy rpgs has their own favorite on those traditional races and would like to see them in the game and play one in the game (this fact is straight from my pocket with out any other merit). And to give player something new/newish, create one ore to races addition of those traditional ones. And to make world your own, you need only give traditional races some personal touch/twist which makes them little pit different from other settings. This ways traditional high fantasy lovers feel like home in your world and still they can find out something new. And those who want change you have new races to offer.

questionares can be fun. I for example liked one in Jagged Alliance 2, but that was because questions were funny and character creation didn't played so high role as it usually plays in crpgs. So I can't say how well such questionare can work in project eternity.Questionares in elders scroll games didn't sit well for me. But bethesdas games are not best examples about character creation in first place. If there is interactive character creation it should be fun also on reruns of the game. Interactive character creation can be fun on first play through but I haven't seen any implementation where second, thrid and so on times were something else than tiresome waste of time, so I can't recomend it. Best character creation system what I have seen are those which gave player clear options where s/he can choose and creation tool tells for the player what impacts this options have in the game.

All graphichs on your monitor are 2d, as your monitor screen has only two dimensions. But there is ways to make graphics on your screen look like they have depth and so make illusion of three dimensional graphics. Isometric projection for example is one of this ways. 3d graphics is really a marketing term for dynamic graphics which have illusion of depth. In rpgs depate of 2d vs 3d is actually depate about prerendered an dynamic graphics mixed with locked vs free camera angle. Both methods have their good and bad qualities. Game with prerendered graphics can use more polycons and much more detailed textures than game with dynamic graphics on same computer. Game with prerendered graphics look same on every machine, but game with dynamic graphics changes it's look depending on graphich prosessor which render it. You can change rendering resolution of dynamic rendered graphics as you also can change camera angle where it will be rendered, but in prerendered graphics you are locked that resolution and that camera angle which they rendered in first place. Dynamic rendering makes possible changing enviroment like running water where prerendered graphichs is freezed on that time when it is rendered. And there is also other advantages and disadvantages for both, but for me this are enough. So for project eternity which aims to use locked view angle, prerendered graphics are possible choice as it won't therefore need free camera from dynamic graphics. Development of monitor resolution and size is somewhat on hold as we have reached such sizes on those that most people don't need or even want higher. This gives OE a opportunity to use high enogh resolution on prerendered graphics for every player. Using prerendered graphics will drop recomenned specs without need make compromises on graphic details. But prerendered graphics make it harder an more expensive to make moving objects like characters. Where comes to play idea to use prerendered graphics only in backgrounds and dynamic graphics on moving objects. In project eternity this can bring best things from both worlds. As OE can make absolute beatiful back grounds without need for expensive graphics in both monetary and specs wises. But their moving objects are not locked on those prerendered poses which make animating them faster and more free. And when you add for that posibility to make running water and other dynamic baground items to make world look life like even as most of it is static. So I see why OE would like to use prerendered background and dynamic moving objects in project eternity and I will go so far that I say that it is brilliant choice if they can make their engine to support it without clitches.