CrazedWeevil

Same here, though mine were working for a while, but then stopped again. However I think the abilities are still working with the bonuses though, or at least some of them are (Mental Binding seems to hit outside of the shown area).

Yesterday it started working correctly on my Cipher's Soul Shock & Eyestrike abilities, showing the extended AoE part. I fiddling about Alt-Tabbing and changing the AoE highlight setting on & off and suddenly it started working. However this morning it's gone back to before and now it's also doing it on the level 2 ability Mental Binding as well and I can't get it to work again.

Has anyone else noticed any problems with the extra AoE highlighting on using abilities? Two of my abilities / spells on my Cipher, Soul Shock & Eyestrike, only show the base highlight, and not the extra bit for high intelligence. Other spells like Wizard & Priest stuff seem OK. I've seen videos where it was working on them, but for some reason it doesn't work on mine machine. P.S. Is there suppose to be a targeting highlight on Antipathetic Field as well? It would be nice if there was one...make it easier to line up and not clip my tank with it!

Forgive me if this has been answered before, but with regard to a Cipher's focus generation via the Soul Whip modal is the amount of focus generated dependant on the amount of damage done or is it fixed? I'm trying to work out which would be better, big heavy hits that do a lot of damage but are slow, or small rapid hits that are fast.

Ah yes, the old 'Look! A Clue!!' thing that everyone seems to do nowadays. I blame people like my dad who would get confused with even the most basic plot... Since you mentioned Knights of the Old Republic though I would like to add that didn't do it too badly, but it was still obvious if you were paying attention. I just wish that if they would do this sort of thing and hint, you can call it out before the 'twist'. Would likely kill replay value though...

There will of course be some sort of scripting language for making AI routines since they will need one to make the enemy AI for us to fight against. These languages are often almost as complex as general programming languages so they can have the control they need to make a good enemy AI though. Converting them into something that a non-programmer can use is not a simple task however. IE had a pretty good AI scripting language and though the unmodded BG's enemy AI wasn't always that good, it is surprising what people have been able to do with it in mods, but I don't think anyone made a simple non-programmers tool to make AI scripts with (did anyone? I don't know for sure). Dragon Age's AI builder worked quite well (if you ignore the fact they limited the number of tactic slots you could use) because they used a cooldown based ruleset which meant you only really needed to worry about basic targeting and a few cross class abilities since each ability / spell had infinite use. With this it was possible to create a simple AI script with 10-12 conditions to fire off abilities as needed to beat any enemy with a little puppet control here and there. You could argue however that you could get away with this because Dragon Age's enemy AI and encounter design was so bad it didn't need a lot of effort to roll it over. A ruleset similar to DnD though, where you have a limited set of resources you can use 'each day', you are going to need a lot of extra conditionals for targeting; for example not burning the high level spell you can only use once a day on the first little thing you see and saving it for when it'll do the most good. When is that? The moment the boss appears or when he going to cast that big 'kill the party' spell? You've only got one shot so make it count. This immediately increases the complexity you'll need to make a competent AI and of course would also increase the complexity of any tool you use to make them. You are also going to end up with much larger AI scripts than you would in Dragon Age, especially if the encounter design and enemy AI is more like Icewind Date / Baldur's Gate. Don't get me wrong, it can be done, but just bear in mind you could end up spending a long time making the companion AI scripts that can deal with a world similar to Baldur's Gate not the little ones in Dragon Age. If they can't make you one though (time / money constraints, or they include good scripts you can use already so why make the tool) it would be a good challenge for someone to make a third-party tool for...

In BG2 you can always send your rogue to scout the area ahead of the team to prepare yourself accordingly. That's what I do. I used Wizard Eye and Clairvoyance. Both valid points, but they are very dependant on the level design allowing you to scout first. Wasn't always possible unfortunately in BG2 due to map transitions and the like...

Are you trying to create a holy war?!

Well, unless you were a dwarf Noble, then just about every single NPC in Orzammar, including the main plot givers, changed their dialogues to reflect the fact that this is a homecoming. Oh, and unless you were a Human Noble, in which case, the entire Storming of the Royal Palace changed to reflect the fact that you were getting revenge. Or unless you were a Circle mage, then all the dialogue with Irving, Uldred, Gregoir, Cullen, Wynne etc. drastically changed to refect that homecoming, as well. Nope, you can't, in the spirit of honest debate, short-change this. DA:O has a billion flaws, but this isn't one of them. I would also add that they gave you a good idea of what sort of role play options you could have available to you with the dialogue. They didn't always do a good job of it, but they did make an effort for most part...

I don't think Dragon Age's tactics would work with a game based more on the party control system of an IE game, especially if it doesn't use cooldowns for abilities and spells. There were very useful in Dragon Age even though it was, in typical Bioware fashion, gimped due to a poor design choice (limiting the number of slots was just stupid) and being very buggy. But I can't see a good use for the system in an IE based combat engine. I, like many people here have mentioned themselves, controlled all the party at once and pausing to issue orders so I didn't really need to rely on any AI scripts to do anything for me. The only script I ever used was the 'default' script in Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale since the only thing that seemed to do was make a character respond with its basic attack if a hostile was nearby. This is mainly due to the very limited resources you have to play with in combat...I didn't want the AI burning a good spell on the first little thing that gets near it, especially if you can only cast it twice a day for example. It also doesn't help co-ordinate the party as a whole and a lot of encounters need that for you to succeed. I suppose there will be a scripting language that is used by the developers to make the enemy AI that you could also use to control targeting and co-ordination for a party, but it's going to be very complex compared to Dragon Age's do-it-yourself scripts and wouldn't be far off being a full programming language. May be a bit much for Obsidian to make it as easy to use as Dragon Age's.

The letter U to be returned to its rightful place in the english language... Stand up for the letter U!!

I wouldn't mind any of the things listed to be in Project Eternity, however controversial they may or may not be. But neither do I want to see them in the game just because they can. I'd like to see a clear reason for why things are the way they are in the world. If you look at human history you can often see the reasons way certain points of view happened during different times and why they change as well. It would be good if PE has the same attention to detail so that view points made a logical sense for existing. I thought Dragon Age did a good job of this, especially explaining the main religion and the hatred of mages. It made the setting much more believable and to be honest it was main reason I liked the game and its setting despite its other flaws.

Things I don't want to see in PE: Inconsistent or poor save game mechanics, specifically autosaves & quicksaves - I hate it when the game doesn't to have any logic behind its autosaving (Dragon Age is a good example) and seems to only do it when it feels like it. This is very frustrating with games that like to crash a bit. It would be nice if the game would autosave on map transition and or key points and had multiple slots to help with save corruption as well Illogical encounter placement - this doesn't happen quite as much as it used to, but it's still there in a lot of party based RPGs. Basically it's when you go to a dungeon and everyone seems to have been standing there waiting for you to arrive and kill them. It is as if that is their only purpose in life. I would be nice for there to be some hint that the bad guys have a life outside of being murdered by <charname's> party. Or as a friend of mine put it back in the mists of time 'how did those guys get to work in the morning?! The place is loaded with traps, there isn't anything to eat or drink, not even a bucket to answer the call of nature with!' Major combat after a cutscene without autosaving after the dialogue finishes - nearly every bloody RPG does this and it's really bloody annoying . If you insist on having the main villain, or anyone for that matter, delivering a thundering great speech before we go toe-to-toe can you please put an autosave point when the combat starts so that if I have a party wipe I don't have to go and listen to the whole bloody speech again...please! One rule for them, one rule for me - it would be nice if the game enemy AI used the same combat mechanics as me, the same ruleset and didn't have to cheat to compete. Baldur's Gate had some major problems here, especially with mages casting uninterruptible spells where as my mages could be interrupted by someone coughing in their general direction. Thankfully BG / IWD can be modded to fix a lot of that but it really shouldn't have been like that in the first place IMO. Non-survivable Instant death spells / abilities or 'Press X to not die' mechanics - I've mentioned this before in another thread, but I really dislike 'Power Word Kill' type spells that you cannot defend yourself against. It would be nice if there was a counter to every possible attack that you can rely on if you if you have prepared for it. Going into combat blind - it would be nice if there was a way to prepare yourself when facing an enemy without having to rely on save & reloading. The only game I can think of that did something like this is The Witcher (though I'm sure others have as well) with all the books you could get on the many different creatures. It gave you a good idea what things would work and what abilities you would likely have to counter. I thought this was a really good idea if it could be made to work on non-creature encounters in a sensible manner like say having an intelligence gathering skill to find things out about potential enemies and then also providing some sort of passive boost so they remain useful on replays.

I like the idea of the fatigue system, especially it was used across all classes so everyone had a reason to rest and pace themselves in battle. This would also be a great way of showing the raising power of a mage as they level up as they become more efficient at casting so they are able to channel more power and hence use more powerful spells. It would be similar to how a swordman learns not just new 'moves' but how to swing their sword in a more efficient and effortless manner as they gain experience.

This really depends on the type of firearm they plan to have. If we are talking magazine fed or breach loaded bolt action rifles or better then I would say no as they would be hopelessly overpowering if they were at all realistic. But if they were based on muzzle loaded muskets or rifles and had their fire rates and power then I wouldn't mind. Consider that a muzzle loaded firearm is not that dissimilar to a crossbow, in both reload time, armour penetration and the fact you didn't need a lot of training to use one. Even the best muskets from the 19th century though could only really fire 3-4 shots a minute if the user was well trained and wasn't too concerned about aiming or range. The major difference between them though is the accuracy at range (which the average musket being not very good unless in the hands of a very skilled marksman) and of course the noise and smoke (which if you aren't used to hearing would be very scary).

One of the things that is most important to me as a player of RPGs is that initial hook into the game's world and is often the reason I continue to play it or give up after a while. I find that the best way to achieve this is to have a character that has a reason for being in that world other than simply existing to be the player's avatar in the game. This is a problem I see happen a lot in RPGs (and a lot of other genres as well to be honest) and I am hoping you can avoid it. However this leads onto another problem that I think a lot of RPGs have and that is Personality Support. I would describe this as the game having reasonably consistent dialogue so that a player can decide what sort of personality their character has and play through it using that personality as a basis for their decisions. Am I goody-two-shoes person, an anti-social type, saracastic, or maybe I simply hate one race so am very rude to members of it... An important point though is that the game informs the player what sort of personalities its dialogue supports at the beginning so the player can make a choice early on and know that their efforts to Role Play their character aren't going to be wasted or frustrated (the old 'my player would never say / do something like that' problem). The only game I can think of in recent times that has tried this with any degree of success was Dragon Age Origins and this is mainly because of the Origins bit. Depending on the class and starting place you are given a set of basic personality architypes you can use from the start and there did seem to be an effort to continue these lines into the main game. The best example of this that I had was the Dalish Elves start where you are given a number of options from the start on how to deal with three humans you encounter; let them go, kill one of them and let the others go or simply kill them all. Given the context of the race and their history in the game world I choose to kill them all and to my surprise I could continue to play the angry little elf girl who hated humans that I imagined when I started the character. Nearly all the character origins had this approach from the start and it gave a lot of role play options early on so you knew what you could likely play and what the game would respond to. This wasn't always perfect but it made a good effort and I would love to see that sort of approach used in Project Eternity if possible. Given the context we have been given so far for the start of Project Eternity (The player witnesses an extraordinary and horrific supernatural event that thrusts them into a unique and difficult circumstance. Burdened with the consequences of this event, the player has to investigate what has happened in order to free themselves from the restless forces that follow and haunt them wherever they go) is it possible to have a kind of 'origin' sequence where we look at not only how the player happened to end up seeing this event but also what sort of personalities we can play through the game depending on our race / class choice? Does any of this make sense or am I just talking non-sense?

Formations! Sweet, sweet formations! Thank God for that...party based games really suffer without some control over who stands where and make protecting the squishy members a lot easier...I really missed formations in Dragon Age, especially if you were one of the squishy classes

Without knowing the context of the story and world its difficult to say what I would prefer to be honest. With a purely blind choice though I would like it if you 'find' an old fort / castle like some of the old ruins around my country where you can see the old skeleton of walls and fortifications. Seemingly long abandoned and after clearing out the local wildlife you decide to use it as a base. Lore wise you are able to claim it because it is either out of the way of anything considered important or is just in such a bad state of repair that nobody wants it. After that you could have lots of options to rebuild it into whatever style floats your boat...an inn / way station for travellers, a fortress for building a meaningful power base, a secret lair from which to raid passing caravans or start a revolution...the list is almost endless...

To be honest I don't mind the 'dead' party members getting back up after the battle mechanic, though it does tend to promote reckless play since there isn't really a down side and can make combat seem more of a chore than a challenge. However it does sort of fix something of a pet hate of mine; having to reload because one of my characters rolled a 1 at exactly the wrong moment (instant death on failed saving throws FTW ) which always seemed to happen to me far too often no matter how much I tried to stack the deck with potions / spells and the like. Don't get me wrong, I liked the combat system of all the classic IE games and the sense of achievement when you take something big down, but I would like a system that doesn't have unavoidable death spells and abilities in it (and this goes for the players as well...got to earn that XP not just cast Power Word Kill with Extreme Prejudice at everything) so I can avoid having to reload because of bad luck. I should only lose people because I used bad tactics or didn't study my enemy enough. I'll probably still end up reloading though because I don't lose people damn it...unless the plot demands it in which case damn you plot guy! Personally I would use a system like the old D&D rules whereby a character that has lost all its hit points goes into a 'downed' state. If you don't get to them quickly enough they will die. Only a few of the D&D games did this but it gives you a chance to save people in close fought battles without having to rely on high level / costly magic. Of course options are always good so everyone can play the way they prefer so having the death system linked to the difficultly setting would be great, especially if you can have a custom difficultly setting so you can choice which bits you want to be more difficult.

I honestly don't mind what length the game is, quality over quantity should be the aim, though I should add that I feel a good RPG should take at least 30+ hours to complete on the first go as long as you don't end up adding lots of filler combat (Dragon Age I'm looking at you). I would say to the developers though that I'm not scared of long games. Don't feel you have to keep it short and sweet just because the 'industry' thinks you should. If you have the ideas to make a game last 100+ hours like you did with Fallout New Vegas then bring it on!