ddillon

That portrait, at least to me, looks slightly inspired by the Icewind Dale style. I like it. Sure, and that supports the idea that we could have multiple artists creating portraits that share a basic style or feel to provide more variety and choice without things seeming too mix-n-matched.

I'm not opposed to Justin Sweet and Vance Kovacs creating some of the portraits, but I'd prefer to be able to choose among a range of portraits from different artists (perhaps with some basic stylistic guidelines to unify the general look and feel of the portraits). I want to see more art from the creator of the dwarven ranger portrait released with Update 3. (Who is the artist?)

You should play Skyrim for a bit. You'll notice the terrible writing and voice acting. Then install Interesting NPCs. It currently adds 100 NPCs to the game, 73 of which are fully voiced (and you can choose to use only the voiced NPCs, the number of which increases with each release of the mod). The writing and voice acting is a hundred times better than that of the game. Not all mods are equal in quality, of course, but it is certainly possible that we could get some excellent mod-added voicing if Obsidian builds the game to allow for it...

(Doublepost of doom, sorry.) That is certainly doable and would indeed save resources. BUT, in my eyes that's a bit unprofessional. There are students of linguistics who'd probably create a usable language for a reasonable fee. (good grief, am I advocating the abuse and exploitation of students and undercutting freelancing linguists?! How utterly wrong of me.) The lore of any RPG eventually becomes the subject of player disputes and fan creations. They'll start caring a lot about this world where they experienced many adventures. If they find out the writing system and magical language are not original and straight out ripped from our world (and not even very interesting/unusual choices of earthly languages at that), they'll be disappointed. I'd be. My initial thought: A few people having nerdgasms because they can learn the language of the boreal dwarves (or whatever) isn't worth the cost of creating and implementing fictional languages and symbol sets. (Why not devote the time and effort required to learn a fictional language to learning a current foreign language or an interesting dead language?) Using the Elder Futhark (with Old Norse) and Latin gives us two distinct sounding cultures with little effort. Both are dead languages (or precursor languages to modern families of languages) and thus not likely to be spoken by most players. Both have strong associations with magic, mythology, religion, etc and invoke those things in our imaginations. As a bonus, fans who learn either will have learned something at least somewhat useful... And: Other than magic and general inspiration for naming people and places, what role would language play? Does PE actually need fully developed fictional languages? Often, a good sounding name in the language of the player can be preferable. For example, "the Deep Roads" is better than "the Tunnels of Random-mishmash-of-syllables". For longer spells, a well-written spell in the player's language can sound better than an "exotic" foreign language. And as several have mentioned, simple naming conventions can go a long way: I like how in Morrowind all Telvanni towers are prefixed by "Tel". Simple but effective. --- I will admit that I don't care for the sound of some of the names (Readceras, svef, Vailians) announced in the recent update about lore, and some of the conventions are questionable* at best, but I'm not sure that a full-blown fictional language is the solution. * "Hylspeak"? The lore indicates that the name derives from it being the language of rural folk... or "people of the hills". Just call it "Hillspeak". It looks idiotic with the "y". Or come up with something better.

Yes, I'd like this.

I loved the rotating camera with mouse-wheel zoom in DA:O. I realize that we won't get a rotating camera in PE because of the 2D isometric graphics, but I very much want mouse-wheel zoom. If the character models are going to be 3D as previously indicated, I'd like a rotatable close-up view in the inventory/character screen. And I'd prefer PE do without the classic black "fog of war" (or at least have a console command to clear it as in BG2). Walking around every single bit of the map just to get a good look at the beautiful background art is annoying.

Getting ready to log off for the day, so I must keep it short, but: For magic runes, I say use the Elder Futhark. For magic spells and chants, I say use Latin. These can be used without tying PE to the associated cultures and will likely invoke a stonger feeling of the mystical than a fictional language.

GOG will be announcing support for one or more operating systems on October 18. Could be Linux and/or Mac. http://www.gog.com/n...m_special_event If Linux support isn't announced on October 18, check again before the release of Project Eternity: Linux support is currently the second most voted site feature on the GOG Community Wishlist. http://www.gog.com/e...rsions_of_games

Copy-and-paste of my reply to a similar thread: I'm not sure that "grey morality" or "moral ambiguity" should be a general goal. What I want is numerous well-written options that account for realistic or interesting motivations, especially evil options other than "Me want, me take!" and "Me evil, me destroy!" A critical example from from DA:O, a game that I like but with which I have several gripes (spoilers ahead): The choice to destroy Zathrian and the Dalish elves is presented as "I want an army of werewolves, so kill the elves!" (iirc the phrase "my own personal army of werewolves" is actually used in the dialogue). I wanted to choose that option but say "The Lady of the Forest has turned this curse into a gift! Master this power and become so much more than you were as mere humans! Follow me and kill the only one who can take this power from you, kill Zathrian!" Furthering the problem, Bioware seems to have felt the need to punish the player for actions they couldn't conceive as anything but base evil by depriving the player of an important store: the infinite supply of deathroot, elfroot, and toxin extract from Varathorn. Why exactly can't the Lady of the *Forest* provide me with these things just as well as the elves? This isn't a consequence of an action but instead a nonsensical punishment for being "bad". There are also numerous instances where I conceived a simple, intuitive response to a given situation only to be limited to choosing among a few contrived options. Well-written dialogue and lots of options, plz!

Tights? Male pantyhose? Poofy pants? Answer: No.

Right, I was just referring to the "get it free when released" pledge add-on option.

Increase your pledge by the cost of the desired add-on(s) without changing your selected reward. After the end of the Kickstarter, you will be sent a survey in which you can specify which add-ons you wanted. I'd guess that the expansion add-on being a limited time offer means that it will only be offered for the duration of the Kickstarter (not for post-Kickstarter PayPal/Obsidian store pledges).

From the Kickstarter comments page (courtesy of Ink Blot's summary thread): Question: How aware is everyone at Obsidian about the reputation for producing buggy games and how concerned/happy are they about the chance to show that you can produce games that are not only really good but also fully functional? Feargus: We are as aware as anyone - independent developers can live and die based upon their Metacritic. What we have done internally over the last two years is to work on our bug reporting process and our tools. Our tools now allow bugs to be reported from in-game and immediately filed into a bug database. The status of the database is then sent out to the whole team and the owners/founders of the company multiple times a week. We take it very seriously and have worked to take on as much of the responsibility as we can. I would point to Dungeon Siege 3, which had some criticisms (although I am very proud of the game), but there were no criticisms about it being buggy.

Edit: deleted, double post

Increase your pledge by the cost of the desired add-on(s) without changing your selected reward. After the end of the Kickstarter, you will be sent a survey in which you can specify which add-ons you wanted.

Yeah! I advocated full party creation from the start of the game, but the Adventurer's Hall is a compromise I gladly accept (and for which I increased my pledge). I'm happy now.

Well said, +1 to that. Tbh, I've felt that way after reading these forums, too. Focusing on what the developers are saying (especially the Kickstarter updates and Feargus' posts there) helped to bolster my faith in the project. Also, Obsidian seems to be listening to backers and providing features we want without surrendering the integrity of the setting.

A note: I am reluctant to add options differentiating "meaningful" or "significant" content from "cosmetic" content to the poll because the value of content is subjective to each player. Feel free to ask/argue for those options if you want them, in which case I will further consider adding them (but I am sleepy and going to leave the forums in a few moments, so it might be a while before I read your posts).

I like the concept a lot, but I'd prefer it to be a rogue (or perhaps mage) kit or specialization rather than a separate class, and I don't like the idea of the Trickster being unskilled at backstabbing or crippling foes (the Trickster should excel at such things). Despite the liberties taken with the source mythology, I enjoyed Thor (the Marvel flilm) and particularly liked the manner in which Loki fought in the movie (speed, illusion, trickery, etc). That's what your post brought to mind.

I don't have a particular desire to see misogyny pervading the gameworld, but I do *not* want to see petite teen girls wielding gigantic two-handed weapons. Okay? I get that you have equal worth as a human being. Cool. That doesn't grant you the ability to defy physics. No, I don't care if you can channel soul power into strength. It's still stupid. Now, a woman with a very athletic, amazonian build wielding a wicked two-handed axe... That could be cool. Also: I don't want weapons for anyone, men or women, that are as big as the character wielding them. I *hate* that. --- I'm not in the mood for writing much, so forgive my comical tone. Tried to get my point across without being too wordy, etc.

Will never understand the thought process behind this. Don't finish the mq if you don't want the game to end. Otherwise, if you have completed everything and there is nothing left to do...what is the point? For some games, perhaps. If there isn't a sense of urgency until later in the game, then your advice might be viable enough. Otherwise, it's going to be: "Hey, um, I know VillainName's evil plan is close to completion and all that, but let's hold off pursuing him/her for a bit while we go complete sidequests X, Y, and Z and explore every nook and cranny of that vast area over there, okay?"

I'm not sure that "grey morality" or "moral ambiguity" should be a general goal. What I want is numerous well-written options that account for realistic or interesting motivations, especially evil options other than "Me want, me take!" and "Me evil, me destroy!" A critical example from from DA:O, a game that I like but with which I have several gripes (spoilers ahead): The choice to destroy Zathrian and the Dalish elves is presented as "I want an army of werewolves, so kill the elves!" (iirc the phrase "my own personal army of werewolves" is actually used in the dialogue). I wanted to choose that option but say "The Lady of the Forest has turned this curse into a gift! Master this power and become so much more than you were as mere humans! Follow me and kill the only one who can take this power from you, kill Zathrian!" Furthering the problem, Bioware seems to have felt the need to punish the player for actions they couldn't conceive as anything but base evil by depriving the player of an important store: the infinite supply of deathroot, elfroot, and toxin extract from Varathorn. Why exactly can't the Lady of the *Forest* provide me with these things just as well as the elves? This isn't a consequence of an action but instead a nonsensical punishment for being "bad". There are also numerous instances where I conceived a simple, intuitive response to a given situation only to be limited to choosing among a few contrived options. Well-written dialogue and lots of options, plz!

@Gorth: That concept is called "diminishing returns" iirc. It usually applies to increasing only a single production factor and can sometimes be avoided by increasing factors in appropriate proportion to one another... or something like that... It's been some time since microeconomics. Or you might have been referring to the general decrease in efficiency in larger organizations and bureaucracy... which to my knowledge has no cure and is the cause of much human woe.

DA:O is a spiritual successor to BG (the degree of its success in this regard is debated, obviously) and could serve as a good introduction to party-based CRPGs and real time with pause (RTWP) combat despite its differences from the Infinity Engine (IE) games. Also, consider that Rezin plays MMORPGs. DA:O is a far more suitable introduction to party-based CRPGs and RTWP combat for MMORPG players than the IE games. Be aware that playing BG2 first will spoil the major plot revelation of BG. The story may be somewhat confusing if you aren't familiar with the events preceding it, and you won't recognize returning characters and references to the previous game, etc. Also: GOG is fantastic! Glad you purchased the game there.

Dragon Age: Origins uses cooldowns and is an enjoyable CRPG despite some flaws. @Rezin: I recommend that you try Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) if you haven't. It features a hybrid of MMORPG and classic party-based CRPG mechanics and concepts. I have some gripes with the game, but it's fun and overall worth playing. However, Dragon Age 2 (DA2) is awful.