eimatshya

Neat idea. I like the adaptation of an existing fantasy creature to P:E's soul concept. Yeah, an undead race of some sort could be cool. Maybe there could be a kingdom that was cursed so that peoples souls never left their bodies upon death and now they are trapped in these dead husks unable to continue on to their next life. You could probably write some pretty interesting stories about how different people responded to the curse, such as some becoming more detached and philosophical while others became more bitter and resentful of the living.

Yeah, I'd like to see aquatic or amphibious races, but I agree they'd work better for NPCs since P:E will probably take place almost entirely on land.

Yeah, I'd like to have some sort of traditionally-thought-of-as-brutish race be playable. Playing a kind, patient half-orc in Arcanum was lots of fun. It would be neat to see different orcish cultures, some of which are brutal and cruel, some of which are not.

I usually reload when someone dies anyway, so it doesn't matter much to me. That said, I've never really understood the "instant game over if the PC dies" thing when there is resurrection in the game. It feels very arbitrary to have everyone except the main character being constantly ressurected.

Yeah, Fallout 2 had those features (I don't think Fallout 1 did, though, IIRC it just had "unarmed attack"). Anyway, I agree that it would be cool to see more tactical attacks in P:E, rather than just straight-up whaling on everything (although that approach makes sense for barbarians while berserking).

Yeah, I think someone (Feargus, IIRC), said that they were thinking of having you unlock the ability to recruit more and more mercenaries as you progressed. Basically, you would be able to pick up additional mercenaries at the same rate as you encounter companions so that you wouldn't be overpowered for going with player-made mercs over story-based companions.

Yeah, there's a character named Fergus in NCR in Fallout 2. He's President Tandi's aide and has a part in one of the Vault 15 quests. I think Chris Avellone appeared as an NPC in the Boneyard in Fallout 1. Anyway, congrats on the interview, Sensuki; I look forward to reading the article. *EDIT* OK, looked it up. Here's the link: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Chris_Avellone_%28Fallout%29

You may already have this covered under class homogeneity, but I'd be interested to learn more about class customization options. They've stated that while each class will have a default combat role, it will be possible to develop them differently (e.g. nimble fighters and melee-centric priests). I'm curious as to how this will work. Will there be subclasses or different skill trees to choose from? Or are there something along the lines of feats/merits that you can select to customize your progression. If there are skill trees, are they going to be the kind of linear trees you see in most MMOs or will they be more open ended (more like the tiers in SWG prior to the NGE)? They may not have decided on what approach to take yet, of course, but if they have, I'd be interested to learn more about the approach they're planning on.

I've never been a fan of the bard class, but I have to admit, chanters sound like they could be pretty cool, and I love the unshackling of Paladins from the Lawful Good role. Having never had the opportunity to try 4th Edition D&D, I know nothing about its warlord class, so your description of the paladin class in P:E reminds me more of the cavalier class from Pathfinder. Anyway, great update, Obsidian! This one, combined with the preceding ones, got me to increase my pledge from $73 to $148. I really shouldn't be spending my savings like that, being unemployed and all, but your game just keeps sounding more and more awesome. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

In these two threads Justin Bell (the lead audio designer at Obsidian) discusses the pros and cons of using a full orchestra for P:E's soundtrack, as well as alternatives to that approach. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61018-would-you-like-to-see-orchestral-score-as-a-stretch-goal/ http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61164-live-recorded-music-poll-20/ From the discussion, it sounds as though nothing's been decided for sure in the music department.

Since we know essentially nothing about P:E's story, it's a bit hard to speculate on the details of the expansion or to give suggestions/express preferences. The nature of the expansion will, of course, depend on the nature of the game it expands upon. Right now, I'm too stoked about Project Eternity to worry much about what comes next, although I do think it's cool that they are thinking of where they want to go with the franchise after the first game. Hopefully, that kind of forethought will make the series feel more cohesive.

I don't care one way or the other. I've never said, "man, what this fantasy world needs is some drug addicts." That said, they could probably design some interesting things with drugs. Barbarians could use psychedelic drugs to increase the intensity of their berserk frenzies. Priests could use them in certain rituals to help them enter a higher mental plane so as to commune with their gods. I wouldn't see any of this as a key area to devote resources to, however. If Obsidian wants to put drugs in, that's fine with me. If not, that's fine too. As an aside, the only game where I've really liked drugs was Everquest. Getting drunk in that game was so much fun. For those of you who haven't played it, once you reached a certain level of intoxication, you were forced into first person view mode, and your field of view became all stretched out and bendy. Also, you started swaying from side to side alarmingly. You could only stagger along really slowly in this state, but due to your warped vision, you felt like you were running really fast. I had a character who was an alcoholic gnome warrior who used to get completely blitzed and then go fight stuff. It made combat wayyy more fun. Obviously, such a feature wouldn't work in P:E, since it is a 2D game, but it is what always comes to mind when I think of drug use in video games.

I loved the Suikoden games, but how well such a system would work in P:E would probably depend on its story. If it involves lots of wandering, and often lacks a clear sense of urgency, then recruiting gardeners and stuff wouldn't seem too out of place. If you are involved in some highly focused quest, however, it might be a bit of a tangent for your character to be fiddling around with such things. If it wouldn't feel out of place, however, I would love to see something along these lines. The crossroads keep portion of NWN2 was by far my favorite and is one of the main reasons I replay the game.

Yeah, I'd be fine with either. Having the descriptions of what the speaker is doing (Torment style) is nice, given that the visuals aren't going to convey this information, but the more streamlined BG system gets the job done adequately. Which system would work better for P:E will probably depend on the narrative and pacing of the game. If the game is more combat focused, the sparse feel of BG style dialogue would probably fit the feel of the game better. If the game is more contemplative, then the slower, more detailed approach used in Torment would probably be the way to go. Since I'm assuming this game will be somewhere in the middle, maybe a compromise between the two would be the way to go. That is, a system that doesn't pile on the text like in PS:T but that still includes some description to paint the scene for the player. In the end, I'm sure the writers will know which style will work best for P:E. They know the game the best and have a lot of experience with writing dialogue for different kinds of RPGs.

I'm not really interested in seeing wide-scale misogyny in P:E. If there are certain cultures in which one sex is subservient, that's fine, but I think it would quickly become tedious for female characters to have to constantly prove their worth everywhere they go. Disease also seems like it might be a bit odd, given the relative prevalence of magic, although I suppose there could be magical plagues like the wailing death. Most of the other stuff seems fine to me, although I would be more interested in seeing how the game could explore the issues arising from the nature of souls. I think using medieval Europe as a base to extrapolate what a medieval society with widespread magic and reincarnation would look like would be really interesting. Figuring out how issues like colonialism and class would pan out in such a society seems far more interesting than cloning the prejudices and social problems of our middle ages and then dropping magic in.

Yeah, I'd actually be more interested in seeing a small group of musicians perform the score. Having to work with such a restriction can lead to some very creative music. And honestly, many of the most memorable game scores for me have been minimalistic. That said, I'm sure Obsidian knows what will work best for their game, so I look forward to enjoying whatever they decide to go with.

I liked DA 2. I actually liked it better than DA:O. Come at me bro Why would that not be the case? Dragon Age seems to be a kind of pivot point around here. If you liked it then you tend to like more modern game mechanics (Yes, I know there are going to be exceptions) and that's basically what the war is about. Traditional vs. Modern game and combat mechanics. I enjoyed the DA games, and I enjoyed the IE games. I also favor the inclusion of romances, so you can put me in the Biowarian camp if you want. However, my enjoyment of both sets of games had nothing to do with mechanics. I thought combat sucked equally hard in BG2 as in DA:O. In fact, I've found the combat to be uniformly dull in every RTwP RPG I've played (unless you count ME2 to be RTwP, 'cause its combat was actually pretty fun). The reason I enjoyed these games was the story and/or setting. I enjoyed being able to create a character and adventure in a fantasy world. Even though the combat mechanics bore me to tears in RTwP games, I can still enjoy the act of fighting in them if the setting or story gives me a reason to care. If the story makes me feel like fighting through a bunch of enemies is important, it can, sometimes, be enjoyable, however tedious the act of doing so may be. As such, I'm not overly concerned with what direction Obsidian takes for P:E's combat. I'm fairly certain I won't like it, just as with its predecessors, so I'm pinning my hopes on the story and level of reactivity. As this is an Obsidian game, and Obsidian is the god-emperor of story-based CRPGs, I'm fairly sure I will enjoy P:E, whatever combat mechanics they decide on.

I voted for Plot in the poll because I was thinking of MotB, which for me had a great story set in a mediocre world (I'm not a Forgotten Realms fan). However, now that I think about it more, I think it can go either way. Some games are memorable for their stories (Torment, KotOR II, MotB) and others are memorable for their settings (the Mass Effect and Fallout series). ME 2's vibrant and engrossing setting completely made up for the deficiencies in its story. As such, I think excellence in either area can lead to an enjoyable and memorable game (although you would ideally want both).

As far as party based combat goes, I thought ToEE nailed it. I like it when my characters do what I want, when I want them to. I also like the ability to position characters precisely and have them stay put without constant micromanaging. In RTwP games, party positioning is an enormous headache. It takes forever to get the characters into position, and by the the time you do, it's usually too late. Also, you have to constantly fiddle with them to get them to stay in position. DA:O was the worst because enemies could just push through your defenders even when they were positioned properly. However, since they've already said that they're going the RTwP route, I guess the point is moot. I don't have any strong preferences in the area of magic except that it not be Vancian. I thought Arcanum's magic system was the most interesting mechanically that I've seen in a CRPG, so I guess that would have me leaning towards a fatigue system, but I've never really had a problem with a mana or cool-down system in other games, so I'm indifferent overall. The last question was the hardest since I don't really have any strong feelings about the direction combat has been going in CRPGs. I would say I'm indifferent. There have been some recent games where I enjoyed combat and some older games where I enjoyed the combat and a lot of games from both eras in which I found combat to be quite dull. I thought the combat in the Dragon Age games was overall pretty bad, but it wasn't any worse than the combat in the IE games. I just find RTwP combat to be extremely dull in general. It lacks the strategic depth of turn-based games like ToEE, Jagged Alliance 2, or Final Fantasy Tactics while also lacking the excitement of a twitch-based game like Jade Empire or ME 2. RTwP games just sit in an awkward middle area that, for me, isn't very fun. Ideally, I'd want games with party based, tactical combat to be turn-based and games without such a focus to be twitch-based. However, since RTwP is sort of the standard for story-based CRPGs, I've gotten used to having to slog through tedious combat sections to get to the interesting parts. As such, I don't really care anymore about the combat in P:E. They've already decided to take a direction I am unlikely to enjoy (which wasn't a surprise for me, given that they set out from the beginning to recreate the feel of the IE games). My hope is that combat sections won't be interminably long like in DA:O or that I'll be able to find ways to circumvent much of it altogether (the devs' comments on non-combat skills make this sound plausible). So, worst case scenario, combat will be boring, and there'll be a lot of it. Which isn't really a bad of a scenario since it's the norm, and I'm used to it. Best case scenario, combat will be largely avoidable or over quickly (or even, by some miracle, combat will be fun, although I'll believe an RTwP system can be fun when I see it). Whichever way it turns out, as long as Obsidian lives up to its standard of excellence in the story department (and I have no reason to believe that it won't), I'm sure I'll enjoy P:E, however hum-drum combat may be.

When implementing any feature, I think it is important to ask: "is this fun? will it make the game more enjoyable?" It would certainly capture the feel of the middle ages to have lots of gender prejudice and have women segregated to certain, usually subservient, roles. However, for many people, this would not make the game more fun. If I were female, I would not enjoy having all the gender issues I have to deal with every day thrown in my face when I sit down to relax with a computer game. Being able to create a character free from the all the BS of the real world is precisely what makes video games so enjoyable. They allow you to be someone you aren't, someone who supersedes the limitations you have in the real world. In most fantasy worlds, females are free to be whatever they want and don't have to constantly prove themselves based on their gender. As such, they escape from the struggles they face in the real world. Making a fantasy world where women have to constantly prove their worth relative to males and have to live with the threat of sexual assault just brings all the baggage that they would probably rather leave behind them at the loading screen into what is supposed to be their escape from these issues. It's the same reason I wouldn't want to play a game about paying bills and having no job--because it would be way too much like my real life. Computer games are my time when I can stop worrying about that stuff.

Yeah, since they are designing the system specifically for a computer game, it probably won't be very PnP friendly. Like Thulean said, I imagine it would be easier for us to just use an existing rule system in the P:E setting. Yeah, a card game or board game could be kind of cool.

Yeah, it has a very... I don't know... earthy? feel to it. I like the style. Nice work, OP!

I'm not really sure. It sometimes annoys me when your abilities in the story are different from your abilities in actual gameplay, although this is usually when you can't use gameplay abilities during story moments, rather than the other way around. For example, in Neverwinter Nights 2 (spoiler): As such, I tend to say that I would prefer for story and gameplay to operate according to the same rules. However, in Mask of the Betrayer, the spirit eating mechanic definitely reduced the scope of the game (at least for me). Since I was constantly worrying about feeding, I rushed ahead with the main plot with complete abandon. I didn't do any sidequests and hardly spoke with my companions. I had one very specific goal, and I dedicated myself to accomplishing it. As such, the inclusion of a story mechanic in the gameplay made me truly connected to the story. This was great for increasing my immersion but made the game very linear since it was essentially one long charge towards the end. In the case of MotB, this fit the story, so I would call it a success. However, if P:E is supposed to be more like the IE games with lots of exploration and questing, then such a mechanic might impede the gameplay. But then again, it might not. There is a Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines mod called the Camarilla Edition (and another one called the Final Nights that uses the same mechanic) that introduces the need to feed (i.e. drink blood) regularly. The way it works is that you lose one point of blood every x number of seconds (x is determined by your stamina). As such, you need to periodically find a pedestrian to eat (in the vanilla version of the game you only lose blood when you use your vampiric abilities, so you don't need to feed much outside of combat). This mechanic brings the story element of you needing to drink blood into the gameplay. You are always aware of your need for blood. It is always on your mind to some extent (the way the story claims it should be). Unlike MotB, however, it is usually fairly easy to find sources of blood. You can find people in alleyways, pay prostitutes, seduce people in clubs (if your seduction skill is high enough), buy blood from the blood bank, or go down into the sewers and eat some rats. As such, the mechanic strikes a good balance: it guarantees that your need for blood is constantly on your mind (in keeping with the story), but the ease with which you can sate this need insures that the mechanic isn't so intrusive that you can't wander around doing random stuff. I'm not sure if any sort of spirit eating or blood drinking type thing would actually be in P:E's story, but if Obsidian were to try to implement a mechanic that was tied to a story ability, I would not be immediately opposed to the idea. I would have to see how it would actually work and what effect it would have on player behavior before I could say whether it would be a good idea or not.

As long as it isn't limited to a simple peasants = good, nobles = bad, I'd be interested in seeing such a thing in game. For it to be a mature exploration of these issues, however, it needs to examine the effects of rebellion, as well. What happens after the peasants overthrow their oppressive lord? Do they set up an enlightened governing body that rules fairly or do they replace their lord with an equally oppressive regime? How does the deposed lord's suzerain respond to the uprising? Does he send in his troops to topple the new government and instate a new lord? If not, or if the peasants manage to repel the invasion, how does their incipient government get along with the neighboring lords? Are the other lords comfortable dealing with peasants who killed one of the noble class? Do they even respect the commoners of the new government enough to have dealings with them? How would trade with the neighboring regions be affected? How would the uprising affect the relationship between the peasants and their lords in the neighboring fiefdoms? Would the lords treat the lower classes better so as to reduce the chance of rebellion, or would they crack down on the peasants to make sure that they had no opportunity to attempt an uprising? What role(s), if any, could the player have in this situation? Mediator? Instigator? Leader of the rebellion? Leader of the crackdown against it? Anyway, I think that an exploration of the complex nature of class interactions could be very interesting in a game, but I don't know enough about the story of P:E to say whether it should be the game to tackle the issue or not. If it would work well with the themes and plot that Obsidian has planned, then I would love to see something like this. Otherwise, I would prefer to wait for a game where such a conflict would fit in, rather than have it shoe-horned into P:E to the detriment of its narrative.

Yeah, those little touches really make a game more memorable. They also let you do odd things like this one time in Fallout 2 where I tried to do a playthrough in which I would become as ugly and disfigured as possible. I managed to grow an extra toe, have an ear bitten off, and get metal skeletal implants that made me all scarred and bulgy. That was pretty fun. Being able to do that sort of thing wouldn't be a priority for me, but I think little touches like that do add a lot to a game's charm. Hopefully P:E will have at least a few things along the lines of what OP mentions.