[Cinders of Faith quest reward bone to pick]

When you tell the head priestess that she has been rejected by Magran because she sent someone else to do her trial for her, you receive the worst reward. From listening to Durance and everything we've learned about Magran, that is the correct answer. The other answers are merely blowing smoke up her ass which Magran would not appreciate. 

 

At first I loaded and went with one of the fluff answers just to get the better reward but then went back and did it the first way and just decided to eat the negative reputation. It just seems bizarre and frankly wrong that the only Magran quest in defiance bay would reward dishonesty/weakness since everything we hear and know about Magran has her prizing brutal honesty and strength of character over all else. 

[Stronghold Prison]

A prison is an interesting idea. Do you have ideas for how you'd capture people to go in it or what kinds of npcs would be capturable? Practically it might have to be scripted, ie some npc betrays you and if you own the stronghold you can lock them up and interrogate them but without it you miss out on some key info.

[Would like some more info about "design(ing) an epic high level (widget)"...]

I just caught up on the updates I missed but didn't see answers. Did you guys get an answer to your questions? I'll look forward to seeing what you've made in beta and the final game.

[Mature themes you'd like to see in the game]

I don't think stories are written starting from a long list of themes. If a large amount of themes gets put into the story just for the sake of it, it starts to resemble a hodgepodge of storyline pieces with no focus. In my opinion it boils down to the consequences of actions taken by the player -- How they're interpreted, stored, and recalled. Once that's in place, just about every interaction holds the qualities of a mature theme.

 

I would imagine this whole thread to be ideas and suggestions, not expectations.

[Mature themes you'd like to see in the game]

Moral relativism: The end product brought about by the actions taken or the intended end product is what determines whether it is a good or bad act, not some pre-defined black and white system of "murder is bad, charity is good". It's fully possible that by murdering someone you make the world a better place and by not being charitable you force someone to become a more capable person.

 

Eugenics: A society where its most accomplished members are mandated to reproduce with other successful members and the unsuccessful are outlawed from breeding.

 

Culling of criminals: A society with no jails where the worst offenders are killed, midrange offenders are castrated to prevent them from breeding and low end criminals are rehabilitated.

 

Different political systems: (this was great in New Vegas) a dictator or two, a parliament, a political religious leader in a region of religion based politics, a caste based society where warriors OR scientists are at the top and it all exists to support them

 

Culture clash: Different cultures coming together and fighting over their differences. There should be a technology gap. Does the winning side commit genocide? Reeducate? Enslave? Stop their advance and leave them some territory?

 

Control or Revolution: Different groups with different ideas. Some in power some not. All are trying to get enough people on their side so that they can take power. A group with less followers but their zealot like devotion makes them difficult opponents. A group with many members but is based on more passive ideals likely meaning they lose more people during fighting but do better during peacetime. A group with many similar ideals as those in power yet completely fixated on those aspects they want to change to the point of revolution.

[Bring Back Large Experience Tables]

I love the idea of an exponential XP curve like this, because it eliminates the need to auto-level companions to match the PC. With an exponential XP curve, any level 1 companion can be leveled to the PC's level minus one by leveling the PC a single level.

 

Honestly that also helps solve the HUGE problem in RPG's of level scaling and powering up your character WAY past the level of the content. I find in games I'm super thorough and do everything, but the difficulty is balanced so that someone who just ploughs straight through can still get the game finished. The end of games are almost ALWAYS too easy with the way that I play.

[Concrete (and reasoned) ideas for HOUSING.]

It's going to be called Fort Condor. It's going to be defended by Fighter, Defender, Attacker, Archer, Engineer, tristoners, fire catapults and at the end you get to summon a phoenix.

 

I'm surprised by the serious thought put into this to be honest. I mean what's being proposed here sounds like a complete game within a game. For once I'm going to agree with the "not enough resources" argument and add my own: not enough interest. Not just from players but from the developers as well. This could be an interesting game, as a game on its own. I don't think it's what they're looking to make for this. The idea of this kind of rpg is to travel and adventure having an effect wherever you travel to. Having people come to you in a castle sounds like it's the opposite of that.

[The Chosen One]

A chosen one, a pawn of prophecy is something I despise however, the tame lapdog of a particular belief who must fulfill his destiny. Who must embrace his fate, because of otherworldly eminences, that's just deeply disturbing and wrong on a personal and philosophical level to me. I may as well not be doing anything if the dictates of fate demand that such and such a scenario must come to pass, and how can you perform good if there's no temptation or choice to challenge you.

 

First solid argument in this whole thread. Everyone knew that prophecy was lame, you're just the first one who hit on the deeper reasoning for why. Well done.

[The Chosen One]

He's just a regular guyyyyy... hes in the right place at the right time.... over and over again..... how is he so luckkkyyy... but hes such a regular guyyyy..... he's kinda dumb and smells kinda bad and gets constipated and has a bad back and gets rejected by women and yet and yet and yet there he is in the right place at the right time again... why does he always show up at the right time... he must be involved in these bad events somehow... lets kick his ass....

 

and this is the character, judging by multiple threads on this forum, and the poll in this topic, that most people want to play.

 

Seriously, people don't know what they want. They think they know, but they don't.

I think the poll just has some granularity unexplored. A person doesn't seem some magical boost of godly selection or lineage to be not a regular joe. He could just be the try-hardiest joe on the planet. As much an everyman as John McClane. The guy with guts.

 

Even if that was the case, he WOULD gain a huge amount of fame simply by his actions alone. That's Commander Shepard for you in a nutshell and yet I GUARANTEE you most of the people would go "oh god not commander shepard, he is SO a chosen one, he's always being bugged by NPC's about how great he is and conveniently being put into situations". There are many people on this planet who experience that exact thing every day. All of our celebrities are in that position. All that you have to do is something to get yourself noticed and make yourself stand out and suddenly people will be the ones approaching you with propositions. I hear what you're saying but my position remains unchanged. Judging by what people have said, they have this image in their head that won't actually work. If you do great things, you'll be treated as a great person, regardless of what your history is or your base stats. There's no such thing as a regular joe hero. The moment he becomes a hero he ceases to be a regular joe and becomes known as something special.

[The Chosen One]

He's just a regular guyyyyy... hes in the right place at the right time.... over and over again..... how is he so luckkkyyy... but hes such a regular guyyyy..... he's kinda dumb and smells kinda bad and gets constipated and has a bad back and gets rejected by women and yet and yet and yet there he is in the right place at the right time again... why does he always show up at the right time... he must be involved in these bad events somehow... lets kick his ass....

 

and this is the character, judging by multiple threads on this forum, and the poll in this topic, that most people want to play.

 

Seriously, people don't know what they want. They think they know, but they don't.

[Encountering New Races - PC committing atrocities]

Have you ever found a situation where you are and fellow villagers are happily farming and chillaxing, having a couple of beers. Suddenly out of the blue, you see some six heavily armed strangers wielding all sorts of weapons and strange magics.

 

You shout and yell to them, "Hey this is our territory - go bugger off!" but they don't listen... they just trudge on and trample over your nice farm. They even have the temerity to pick some of your best apples and eat them right in front of you. Even worst, they start invading your neighbours house by smashing down the doors or lockpicking. They then raid and loot all your valuables, chests and gold. How the heck are you going to stand by there and do nothing?

 

When you ask them to stop, they don't seem to understand. Brandishing your clubs, you try to intimidate them to stop, but nah... they're not impressed and start their wholesale slaughter... Before you know it, your entire village is in burning and in ruins and you're lying down in a pool of your own blood. Before you pass out, the only two phrases you hear from these savages sound vaguely like ....

 

"We're heroes..."

 

Just because we're ogres/trolls/non-humanoids, what rights do these people have to kill us and take our valuables?

 

***

Yep, this idea germinated from the fact that after playing countless CRPGs, I'm never quite happy with the fact that the PC usually invades other non-humanoid lands and start killing without even stopping to question as to what rights do they have to do so.

 

So, could we have a quest line where we meet a race that is very isolated alongst these lines. If the PC acts diplomatically, he can avoid conflict but can't communicate unless he spends some time with them. If he or his companion has some linguistic skills, then he can communicate with them.

 

If however, the PC ignores the non-humanoids and starts rifling through the posessions of the non-humanoid species, this will invite reprisals as they try to defend their land and possessions. Fighting and killing these non-humanoids could have very adverse consequences such as starting potential deadly conflict between this species and the known civilization... The PC may then have to atone for his atrocities and try to act as a ambassador to quell the conflict.

 

I find well reasoned and agree with pretty much everything you said except for the part about the language barrier. I don't think that makes for interesting gameplay. The rest of it is totally true though, regardless of if a place is "remote" or not. PC's are usually such douchebags. Why do we get to take everyone's valuables? Why is our murder justified simply because they attack us first? (Game rules typically are that even if you're trespassing, if you get attacked you're in the right regardless of how much you were provoking to begin with).

 

Also, stealth skills. Let's say you manage to "hide" or whatever while picking the locks of this town. It doesn't change the fact that even if they didn't see you actually go inside their homes, they still saw 6 douchebags walking through their town, and all of their valuables going missing coincided with their "visit". They'll be able to put 2 and 2 together. They should form a militia and chase the player down, nullifying any "side quests" that the players recieved while they were there. I'd like to see players have to get rich and powerful through some other means than taking everyone else's stuff all the time.

 

Typically PCs get money in RPG's by:

 

-Killing enemies and looting their bodies

-looting occupied buildings and stealing NPC's valuables

-selling this loot to some vendor who couldn't care less about its origin

 

NPC's also have a habit of conveniently forgetting a players crimes or being too stupid to figure out that it was you that took their stuff. I really think that a player should run into two main options as far as making money goes:

 

-The "legitimate" way of getting quests, completing them and being rewarded.

-The "criminal" way of looting houses and killing townsfolk when they come after you to get it back or seek revenge. This should nullify any chance of completing any quests in that town or region and you should be hunted.

 

I don't believe in the "benevolent douchebag" who takes everyone's stuff yet is loved by the townsfolk because they rescued Vanessa from the Ogre encampment where she was conveniently not being eaten or raped but saved for later in some kind of tent or shackles. It seems just as plausible to me that Vanessa isn't a captive but instead finding employment, the Ogres are instead a band of mercenaries, and the PC and his party are just jerks who like to slaughter everyone. They happen to come across a daughter of someone in a town they just looted when they slaughter yet another band of armed men, and take her back to that town to ransom her back to her parents after informing them that their daughter's husband or friends or co-workers were just killed by the party. There's not much about this that makes the player heroic.

 

I know some people will read what I just wrote and think "well that's not what the quest was, and it WAS a heroic deed" but honestly, a lot of times people aren't out to help the townspeople. When people are playing they simply slaughter armed men over and over and over again and happen to run into items while doing so that give them XP. They kill the armed men because they have a red circle around their feet. People who see things (like red circles) that aren't actually there are Schitzophrenics.

 

Still think it's far fetched? It's unrealistic that anywhere outside of a town it's an uncivilized morass of people who are evil and must be wiped from the face of the earth. Meanwhile inside of towns everyone goes about their business while being protected by a few token guards in super shiny armor who look like they've never fought a day in their life. Also, nobody is depressed about the state of the world they live in and how dangerous it actually is. Having the entire world be a big deathtrap would be horrifying.

[Healing]

I'd be fine with less but more gruelling combat, the busywork of repetitive slaughtering is one of the curses of modern gaming in my opinion. If draconian healing options and lingering wounds necessitate that, i'm all in favour of it.

 

Hell yes dude. Whatever game mechanics allow us to avoid the traps of "action rpg"s I am in favor of. I do not see a purpose to playing a game like Diablo 3 or Kingdoms of Amalur.

[The Chosen One]

I think its much more fun to explane rationally why you are better than the other people.

 

Look at TNO in PS:T. he isnt a hero, but he is tousand of years old and because of this everything like magic and so on, he learn easier than the other people. Sure it isnt realitic to play a tousand years old kick-in-the-ass-overlord, but it is more logical than this prophetic "you are the choosen one the prophets talked of!" crap. I cant stand this anymore!

 

There have to be more stories out ther, than only to be the overpowered one-man-army how could save us all!

 

Even in fallout2, mabye you ARE the choosen one, but this is only a primitive nonsense from this clan people(dont know the word in english). In the "civilisation" of vault city noone gives a **** about the choosen one crap...

 

kind regards,

 

Jira

 

Oh I see, you're not talking about the main character being exceptional, you're talking about the idea of "prophecy" in games. Yes, prophecy is a lame and boring way to explain how the PC came about to be much stronger than other people in the world. That said, I believe what we're discussing is the idea of whether or not the main character is special at all or if he's just some schmuck. I maintain that in that case, nobody who seems to think they want the schmuck would actually find it fun if implemented in the game.

[The Chosen One]

I hate this choosen one bull****. It is so overused!

 

Every ****ing game used this schem, i hope so much they dont use it in project eternity...

 

Better a nameless one than a choosen one :D

 

 

kind regards,

 

Jira

 

That's hilarious, because The Nameless One is one of the most powerful if not *the* most powerful player character in the history of any RPG.

 

Like I was saying before. You think that you want a story about some completely mundane dude or girl, but you actually don't.

[[Merged] Durability]

Now, here's the weird thing--I actually kind of liked gear repairing in Fallout 3 because it had a gameplay benefit--you could reduce the number of identical copies of X you were carrying by using one to repair another. The fixed one would be worth more, so you didn't lose as much cash as you would if you just dumped the item on the ground when you got overloaded. (Granted, if you were the type who would willingly shuttle back and forth to the store or storage container 15 times, you could make more money that way, but if you weren't, it was a neat mechanic.) However, the system could also be kind of annoying if you found a unique or unusual item that was difficult to repair.

 

 

Actually I agree on this point. That was a sweet system. It however may have fit better thematically into a world where factories are no longer running and salvage is a way of life. The ability to tinker would become very important if you had any hope of being able to use old technology for a prolonged period.

[On the case of grittness]

When I launch the game, I want my monitor to become covered in thick layer of grime, my PSU to ooze fat, black smoke, and be punched in the face with rust-clad gauntlet.

 

How's that for grit?

 

 

hahaha totally awesome. Especially the part about the rusty gauntlet.

 

As for examples with regards to the rest of the thread: I think the movie Kingdom of Heaven was a good example of maturity and grit without going over the top or falling into the clean peasantland fantasies. In that movie people were generally dirty, violence and death were more common, yet people still had civility. Death came faster, information was less freely gathered and the characters and their values and concerns were fairly realistic for what we can tell about that time period. I never understand why movies like that (much like Paul Verhoeven's Flesh + Blood in the 80's) get trashed by critics.

[On the case of grittness]

I notice, that many people want P:E to be realstic, mature, adult , etc and I am okay with it but please let it be truly realistic and not Dark for the sake of being dark, in many settings grittness works but lattly I saw plenty of games and gamers going all out on the darkness because of it supposed maturity, so dear obsidian I trust that you and hope that you will not artificiay insert grittness, and make everyone pedophile child murder fetishist and a FATAList just to pander to the "Mature" fans

 

I'm not a fan of thug fantasy games like grand theft auto and its assorted clones. I think they're for losers. That said, I am a fan of games that feel like I could possibly die without a whole lot of warning. Games that force me to focus. As it happens, Bioshock and Dark Souls had that kind of gameplay. A game wouldn't need to be thematically dark in order to give that sense, it just needs to have NPCs that are relatively powerful. I would much prefer feeling like I have to walk my way through a dungeon checking for traps than thinking "hell ill just run through when I spring them I'll heal up, hit the rest button and move on". I'd like enemies and environmental challenges that force me to pay attention to them rather than becoming a mindless grind.

[The Chosen One]

I don't get why everyone is debating the definition of a "chosen one". It's a fake concept to begin with. I'm going to go ahead and respond to the actual topic..

 

The protagonist has to be special. Otherwise there's no explaining how that person is able to have such a profound effect on the game world. I far prefer a story told about heroes to "oops look I slipped tripped and saved the world!" wanting a regular joe is wanting Jar Jar Binks as your player character. Nobody wants that. They might think they do, but they'll hate it when they experience it firsthand.

[[Merged] Durability]

Sorry but durability is boring. Just assume the party members maintain their equipment before they go to sleep when they "rest" if you're concerned about realism.

[Melissa Disney]

Claudia Black and Jennifer Hale.

 

Very much so for both. Their inflections etc are fantastic.

[Mega-dungeons. I want one. With tunnels.]

I don't know why we've got multiple threads on this topic. A merge would be nice.

 

IMO a mega dungeon would be sweet if it's crafted with inspiration and the different parts of it all have a purpose. Extra long hallways that are there just to take time to walk through are silly. Generally in any dungeon I think part of good design is;

 

-easy to find ways to get down, but harder to find ways to get up. If you are able to drop through the floor somewhere, guards on the floor below should be mostly looking the wrong way as you've gotten behind them. That should last until you open a door that's unguarded on the side you opened it because then you've gotten to the spot in the level that's past where you dropped in.

 

-Traps should be present and should work both ways. You should be able to use traps against the inhabitants if you've noticed them before tripping them. Good AI design would have them knowing and avoiding the location of their own traps, but you could use that to force them to eat an AOE spell since they'd be unwilling to cross that section of floor to escape.

 

-The dungeon should have some kind of purpose in the game world. Jail is an overused idea, I'd like to see something more like a manufacturing centre that perhaps is making use of lava vents for an essentially infinite supply of heat. Perhaps a stronghold of one of the major factions in the game including several ranking members of that faction. If it ends up being a monster's lair, I'd like to see the rooms used for something even if its only storing captives for breeding purposes. Endless tunnels of pointless rock would be nice to avoid.

 

-Some kind of fast transit inside the dungeon itself once you've obtained the proper keys or opened the proper doors. It's unrealistic to expect that in order to get to the commander's headquarters of whatever this place is an underling is going to jog for an hour around the most circuitous route possible of every level. There should be a short way guarded by the toughest enemies and toughest traps. Desire to clear out the entire place should come from a desire to ruin its functionality, ie killing craftsmen, burning equipment etc. otherwise, you run into problems later in the game because that centre was restaffed and is still doing whatever its purpose is.

 

-Quest items that get picked up there and are able to be used outside of that setting. IE plans for a weapon prototype that you could take back to your faction and manufacture for your side's use. Eggs of the foul creature that can be tamed and bred by your faction eventually into soldiers or mounts or something. Information on where other resources might be located. The names of people who are working as spies. The kinds of things that people would store in a location assumed to be secure. Some of them you should have to interrupt an NPC before he can dispose of them.

[Player - the only competent force in the Universe]

In my opinion it'd be better if the player would arrive at a stalemate situation - where both sides of the conflict have nearly the same power and someone simply needs to tip the scales one way.

 

There was a town vs ncr base scenario like that in new vegas. I also liked that when you did the final battle between the two that you ran with a group of soldiers into the fight.

[Player - the only competent force in the Universe]

It's the more juvenile games such as Biowares that make this cliche so uncomfortable and blatant, and thus so irksome when you think about it.

 

That said they can be very fun.

 

I did find the scenarios in Mass Effect when they did a ground landing mission to be very silly sometimes. They should've taken a cue from some of the old Star Trek episodes. You have a ship that has way more firepower than anything you can put on the ground. Use it.

 

"we have to destroy [x] before [y] happens!" Okay, Normandy, fire the Thanix Cannon at [z] co-ordinates. Sweet, good job, lets land to try to get some intel and salvage.

[Would like some more info about "design(ing) an epic high level (widget)"...]

Pretty cool, good luck with your designs guys :D

 

I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing what people have come up with inside of the game.

 

I don't know if this makes a difference, but I do think the item lore being able to be found inside of a book in the game is a good idea. Preferably not too far from the item itself, but not always inside the treasure chest or on the npc that was holding it.

 

Also, it'd be nice to see some sort of signing by the person who created it, ie the bottom of the lore entry saying something like

 

Item chronicled by Archmagister ChaosTheory SE 1447

[No autoleveling of skills (bethesda style)]

I also think XP gain is a better quest reward than merely gold. At some point in all games where the character is powerful, funds cease to be an issue.