eimatshya

Perhaps it will be a system in which you get XP from completing objectives, and when you gain enough, you level up. On the level up screen you have various points to distribute, special abilities to buy, that sort of thing. You get a certain number of points that you can spend on combat skills and and a certain number of points that you can spend on non-combat skills, but the points come from separate pools, so they don't affect each other. How many points you get for each pool could potentially be determined by class, level, intelligence, race etc. Having segregated point pools would explain why you don't have to choose between Magic Missile and herbalism. Such a system would be roughly analogous to the separation of ability score points and skill points in third edition D&D. You don't have to choose between raising your strength and raising your perform skill because you don't use the same points to purchase them. This is the opposite of, say, the system in Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines where you have a single pool of experience points to draw from for all character advancement, thus forcing you to choose between combat and non-combat skills.

@OP: An interesting premise, but it sort of limits the ability to continue with the setting. I mean, if the central conflict is the struggle to free the creator god, once he/she/it is freed, wouldn't things be returned to the their natural order where the souls of the dead are not reincarnated but instead move on to the afterlife (or whatever). Since it sounds like they're building the world around the core idea of souls, the nature of the world would change fundamentally, and it would no longer be the same setting that they spent so much energy creating. As such, the IP would really only be good for that one story arc. This is not necessarily bad, but it seems like they are trying to create a world that would last for an untold number of stories (what with the oceanic exploration, multiple continents, and diverse cultures). Anyway, I don't really have anything of my own to contribute (at least nothing near as interesting and complex as what OP suggests). If I come up with anything, I'll post it here later.

I'd rather not have the first one. Other than that, I have no preference; I see pros and cons to each and am undecided as to which I would actually enjoy more.

If this would mesh well with the rest of whatever Obsidian is planning for the story, and if it wouldn't take too many resources, I'd support the its inclusion. I'm not sure about the childhood friend thing, though. While it could be interesting from a narrative standpoint, it would also probably require the writers to presuppose a set background for your character, and I would prefer to have a system like Arcanum where you have a ton of backgrounds to choose from. Maybe your rival could be an early companion or associate of yours that parts ways with you at the end of the first act and who ends up developing an increasingly antagonistic relationship with you over the rest of the game. Anyway, neat idea, OP. Weren't they planning on doing something similar in Van Buren before it got cancelled? Anyway, at the very least we know that we will be encountering some sort of rival adventure parties in Project Eternity. We'll just have to wait and see whether we will have a dynamic rival that serves as a long term nemesis of some sort.

Why do you think they will use a Fallout/Arcanum style system over a D&D inspired one? We already know that they're using classes, so that implies a pretty substantial difference from the Fallout/Arcanum system right there (and one much more similar to D&D). I too would be happy if the system was more like Fallout/Arcanum/Lionheart, but I don't remember seeing anything to make me think Project Eternity won't be taking the approach of D&D type games.

I agree that enemies should drop realistic loot (so humanish enemies drop whatever they're equipped with). To balance that, just make gear really heavy so that you can't cart around boatloads of looted weapons and armor. You could grab a few choice items, but you shouldn't be dragging around several suits of plate armor.

@TrashMan: Since they are basing Project Eternity off of the old Infinity Engine games, I'm pretty sure combat won't be twitch based. Also, they've already said they're going for a real-time with pause system, so ToEE style combat is probably out. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Tim Cain will be giving an update on the gameplay mechanics in the near future, so we'll hopefully find out more then. On the subject of D&D's shortcomings, have you ever tried Green Ronin's True 20 system (a variant on third edition D&D rules)? I've never actually played a game with it, but from looking over the rules, it appears to offer an alternative to some of the problems with D&D 3.5. It has a wound system like in the classic World of Darkness system, so that takes care of the problem of colossal hitpoint accumulation. It also changes ability scores to be roughly equivalent to the bonus you would get in 3.5 (so instead of having 12 strength, your strength is +1), and to compensate, you only get to increase your abilities every six levels (rather than every four levels in 3.5). This means you don't have that awkward situation where you increase an ability score to an odd number and nothing improves. Anyway, Blue Rose (the game that technically introduced the system, although a lot of it came from the system used in Mutants & Masterminds) won the silver ENnie for best D20 game at Gen Con (Arcana Evolved took the gold), so I'm assuming it's mechanics must work pretty well. The system was later republished as as True20, so you might want to check it out if you're interested in game mechanics.

That's just what I was going to suggest. If you want your skill advancement to be tied to the skills you use, when you level up, just put your skill points into the skills you've used. I usually do this in games like Fallout, where it works great, as well as in many pen and paper games. It can be a little trickier in third edition D&D style games, though, since your base attack bonus increases irrespective of what weapon you use. Still, it strikes me as the best solution since, as Chunkyman points out, XP systems don't encourage a disconnect between role playing and advancing your abilities. Actually, you could turn the whole pointless idea of achievements into something useful if you perhaps granted some bonuses for doing certain things. (Like if you kill X number of Y monster, you get a Z bonus to do something to them.) That would be a neat little thingy. I'm sure you could come up with cleverer ideas than that, but it's got potential. (Though probably not enough to warrent coding in practise on a relatively limited budget.) I think New Vegas had this to some extent. Certain achievements would convey a combat bonus (I can't remember the specifics). Anyway, I'd be on board with such a system as long as skill advancement was primarily tied to an XP system. It would add some flavor to your character: "Because I've killed 200 orcs, my increased familiarity with what makes them bleed has afforded me a heightened crit chance against them" (or something like that).

Depends on the game, I think. In KotOR II I thought it made sense, but in, say, Neverwinter Nights 2 + MotB, I could see how it could strain credibility to go in such a short time from humble villager to challenger of the gods.

I'd prefer a system like what OP proposes since his suggestion about having a quest to find a place sounds pretty cool. Still, since this is an IE style game, I'm guessing they are going to stick with IWD/BGII style travel system. Which is OK, I suppose, especially since it's probably the cheapest to implement. Still, my order of preference would be: 1. Fallout 1 & 2/Arcanum style 2. Baldur's Gate I style (the most immersive option but probably the most expensive to implement) 3. Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate II style

Yeah, the Elder Scrolls system of leveling is a great example of how more realistic does not necessarily mean more enjoyable. Anyway, since this is supposed to be a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine games, I'm pretty sure that experience and leveling will work like in Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc.

I went for more replayability and more text. Spending more money on designing and implementing additional choices and consequences seems like a great way to make players feel like they are shaping their own journey. More text allows not only for more conversations, thereby deepening the characters and the world, but also gives the devs more room to mess around with designing side characters who are not important to the central story. This would, hopefully, allow for quirky minor characters like the gnomish scholars in NWN2 that you can consult about the wendersnaven or minor characters with moving stories like Chief Hanlon in Fallout: New Vegas. Most of the other options are good too, but choices & consequences and more dialogue are the two areas that are most important to me.

I'm sure Obsidian will make sure the backer designed content is of decent quality. The problem I have with the idea of fan designed content is that, in this case, the criteria for inclusion in the game is based on the amount of money the fans contribute, not the quality of their designs. If Obsidian ran a community-wide design contest and selected the designs they liked the best, then I would be optimistic about the results (although I guess such a contest could potentially generate hurt feelings amongst those who weren't chosen). There are some really creative and talented people out there, and I'm sure that some of them could contribute something truly impressive (not me, but I've read some really great ideas on this and other forums). Of course, the backers from the high level tiers may be some of those incredibly talented individuals, but there is no way to know that until we see what they come up with. I totally understand Obsidian wanting to give a really cool reward to the heavy backers, and I think this is a completely fair reward, but from a design standpoint, if you're trying to make the best game possible, I think "amount of money contributed" is a suboptimal metric to use to determine what fan content gets implemented since there is no intrinsic correlation between amount of money donated and the quality of the donor's ideas. Admittedly, the design of an inn, random npc, or rival party isn't likely to have a huge effect on the quality of the game overall, so this is really just a minor concern. In the end, despite this small concern, I do think it's wonderful that people donated so much money to the game. Hopefully the people who donated to the upper tiers will turn out to be talented individuals who will come up with something great.

My preference is generally going to be for a system like the one in Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines where experience is rewarded for accomplishing goals, regardless of the method used, rather than for killing enemies. This kind of system makes martial, stealthy, and diplomatic approaches all equally rewarding (you don't feel like you missed something by not taking one of the other routes). That said, since this game is supposed to be a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine games, I assume they will be using a similar experience point system, which may be for the best, even if I think it's an inferior system, because it's what people will expect from that style of game. People who backed the project out of a desire to see another IE game will probably be expecting P:E to be mechanically consistent with its predecessors. For the same reason, I'm OK with their decision to use RTwP combat, even though I think it's an overall inferior approach to combat than designing a turn-based system; the IE games all had RTwP, so it makes sense stylistically to go with such a system in a game that aims to mimic the IE feel.

Sounds are also important for more than ambiance. They play an important role in making combat feel immersive, which is especially important in games with limited animation/graphics. For example, Final Fantasy Tactics wasn't exactly a visual powerhouse, but the sound design for the battles was so amazing that it really brought combat to life. The impact sounds for some of the attacks would practically make me cringe. I could totally feel my knight's sword slashing through some dude's ribs.

If they make sense within the setting, sure. We don't really know enough about the specifics of P:E's world to say whether or not that would be the case.

Well if we define a dungeon as a bounded area with an entrance and end goal and a number of sub areas filled with dangerous obstacles between the two that the player must navigate to complete some task (finding treasure, rescuing someone, defeating a great evil), then a meta dungeon would be the overarching setting that houses a collection of dungeons. So, a meta-dungeon is the RPG's campaign itself. For example, the individual dungeons of D'arnise Keep, Irenicus' Lair, Spellhold, that place where Firkraag is holed up, the Underdark, the Illithid lair, and Suldanesselar are all subsumed under the meta-dungeon Baldur's Gate II (and since the Illithid Lair is in the Underdark, the underdark is also a meta-dungeon for the Illithid lair making BG II a Meta-Meta-Dungeon). Each of the dungeons serves as one of the sub areas filled with obstacles that the player must traverse to get from the beginning of the campaign (a bounded area) to the final goal (defeating Irenicus/your divine nature) making BG II the dungeon one step above, or Meta, the individual dungeons that it is composed of.

Ideally I would like to see more complex combat animations, but it isn't really a high priority for me, and I suspect designing a system where characters visually block and dodge attacks in real-time would be fairly labor intensive. Given the scope of the project, I'm not sure this would be the best use of resources (but I could be wrong about the difficulties of implementing such a system).

I have no preference on the first two, but I definitely would prefer not to have intrinsically evil hominids. Having orcs, trolls, goblins, etc. is fine with me, but I don't want them to be inherently evil. If they are violently at odds with the other races it should be due to cultural mores, or because of past disagreements/being driven out of their lands/something of that sort, not because "evil" is a congenital condition. If you take a goblin baby and raise it in human society, it should have a chance of growing up as a peaceful member of that society.

If it's really just contrmpt, why is he in your party? I think they said that all the companions will have a personal stake in your quest, or something to that effect. If so, then perhaps said person is grudgingly working with you because you have a shared goal.

I'm with OP on the damage threshold and no stat requirements thing (although I would be OK with stat requirements if they didn't prevent you from equipping the item; you should be able to wear any armor, but with penalties if you aren't strong enough like in VTM:B). I actually kind of like the single suit armor system from the Infinity Engine games, though. It means that you don't end up with hideously mismatched armor, and you still have a fair amount of customization through the cloak, hand, ring, head, and feet slots.

*EDIT* post deleted.

Disagree. I hope that we aren't starting out as a villager. I'd rather have us start on the road to somewhere for some reason. That way the game doesn't presuppose a background for us. And honestly, I really like having a character creation screen to make my character with. An in-game system, like a prologue, often gets tedious quickly after your first time through it. I don't mind letting players make up how they got their skills. So you start out as a level one warrior (or whatever); you can easily come up with some justification for how you learned your martial skills without having to play them out, and not playing them out gives you greater freedom of origin. You could be from a big city far to the east, a farm down the road, you could be an orphan, you could be a convict who escaped from a chain gain, whatever. The point is, if the game shows you where you grew up/trained, you lose that freedom of characterization. I say give us a bunch of written backgrounds to choose from, like in Arcanum, and let us fill in the details ourselves.

Yeah, that part was called the the Deep Roads in English, and it bored me to tears. That section of the game has significantly reduced the replay value of DA:O for me, because I don't have any desire to trudge through that segment ever again. It wasn't too difficult (at least not on hard), it was just tedious. The exact same tactics could be used to beat just about every fight, and it just became a monotonous process of mechanically going through the same combination of moves/spells over and over again while we whittled down the stupidly long health bars of the stupidly uniform enemies. If Obsidian does a mega dungeon, or in any large dungeon for that matter, they should focus on variety. It shouldn't be ten levels of trash mobs interspersed with a couple of boss fights. Each level should feel distinct, yet part of the same dungeon, and there should be a wide range of adversaries that will demand different tactics on the part of the player, rather than just copy pasting the same few groups of enemies. If you have to make a huge dungeon, may as well make it as unique and challenging as possible. Break out the puzzles, and give us multiple ways to circumvent traps and other obstacles. In fact, don't make the dungeon linear; there should be multiple routes through it. So, if you are going to make a mega dungeon, go all out. It should: 1. Have multiple ways through it (i.e. not be a long corridor filled with monsters). This could be due to choosing which passage way to go down; through finding secret passages; through using ropes, climb checks, line of sight teleport spells, fly spells etc. to find shortcuts; through failing a detect traps roll and falling into chasm or underground river then having to find your way out and ending up in a different part of the dungeon; solving a puzzle that makes your way easier (teleports you, opens a hidden door, etc.); and so on. 2. Have a variety of enemies, and different enemies should require different tactics to beat. 3. Quality over quantity when it comes to enemies (although occasional swarms of cannon fodder would be alright). 4. Have meaningful puzzles. Otherwise, it will just be a tedious time-sink like the Deep Roads.

I prefer a smaller number of well designed, challenging, and unique battles to long dungeon crawls. As such, I'm not stoked about the possibility of a Mega-Dungeon. Still, since I suppose it is traditional for the genre, I guess it could be offered as a stretch goal so as to, hopefully, not take resources away from the other aspects of the game.