Jarmo

Against really. Oh it'll be fine the way it's done no doubt. I'd just feel if you meet a random encounter of 17 brigands and whack them all with your rapied, and then repeat that 48 times... well you really should be learning something right there. Getting better at that piercing business or somethign, much more than if you'd have run away every time.

For me, it sort of depends on the kind of companions you have and the kind of game it is. Fallout 2, no, didn't feel the need to try to romance Sulik, or Vic, or Cassidy. Had I been playing as a woman and actually being a woman, well.. maybe. There was a brothel, hey go for it! There were bishops women, go for it! All is cool. Fallout: NV on the other hand. I'm traveling with this hot Rose Cassidy babe who downs bottles like crazy, and I'm never given a chance to say anything about it? A bit of drunken fumbling would have been just right for the theme, and If I'd have tried to talk further she'd tell me to go #%€$** myself. But I'd guess that's bethesda giving the guidance (much better than bio by just focusing on combat?) Bio and Black Isle soon realized if you want to tell the story with as complete characters as possible, you just can't ignore relationships. Out of place if you just want a tactical combat game with puzzles, necessary otherwise. One could argue BG1 was the last good rpg game made, and if that's the position, I have no counter. One could argue a whole lot of things with "and that's a fact" opinions, but they're just opinions and wrong ones at that.

I for one hope there's no extra goals, if there's "leftovers" those are best spent to polish up the product.

The best way I've seen this handled, was in NWN, Adam Miller's Shadowlords, After having fought some bunch of bandits or something and having formed a solid ... camaraderie, relationship or something with the companion and sheltering & recuperating somewhere, she'd offer to make me a magic tattoo that'd enhance my strength (or maybe some other stat). It would take a good while of time and effort, so she wouldn't do it for every which who. That was one well written campaign, amongst my best NWN experiences and shows what a difference a talented writer can do.

The former, not that it'd be such a huge help, but hey, every little bit. Chug down the potions and then concentrate on tactics. The latter, having to gulp 5 second potions all the way through the fight is dismal. The same with 3 round effect spells. I much prefered bulls strenghth with 5 hrs duration, stoneskin that'd last all day and such long duration buffs.

I think It's because them silly people will want the effort spent elsewhere, the same amount of writing could net a few quests instead. Anyway, I'd hazard a guess we'll hear a bit more of this once the kickstarter is over. If they come out now and flat out state there'll be no romancing in Eternity, a thousand pledgers will back out (and 10 will increase their pledges). And if they admit about 20% of game dialogue will be slurpingly good cyber-romancing, there'll be even more backers making u-turns (and a bunch of pledge uppers). Just dont touch the subject with the 10-ft pole before the money is in the bank.

Level 10 of the mega dungeon will suck. Because it'll be an underwater one. On a slightly related note, guess I could still at least budget in the $10 card pack.

Thankfully no. All the more for me.

Too feminine waistlines for my fantasy tastes. The helms are neat though.

Yesterday I took another foray to ToEE and hired Elmo for the first time. Damn that's an expensive guy, he required payment up front to get his gear back from the pawn shop, gear I couldn't take from his inventory mind you (even if I actually could loot his spare cash). Not only does he leech off XP, but he also takes a full bloody half of all the gold. But he's a pretty good (drunken) level 4 fighter, when my team of 2 were 2nd level, meaning he really helped us get over the steep, steep edge that is beginning ToEE with a small party. And a couple a hundred gold and XP means absolutely nothing in the long run. That's the kind of hireling I'd like to see in Eternity as well. Beside the actual companions, that is. Or maybe a companion could begin as an expensive mercenary, but become a friend after stuff happens.

Not much, but there's currently a policy of padlocking romance threads. The developers know plenty of players want romance and then there's another plenty that absolutely does not. Guess they're considering the possibilites or something. Opinion ****storm coming up, unless the thread lockers get here first...

Does "Pure Venitian" mean the Vancian system?

I'd like to see an occasional rabbit in the woods, 'cause they're all fluffy and neat. Other than that, I'd be completely happy if all the opponents were humans. Wouldn't even need elves or dwarves.

Not total and not for the sake of it (meaning no grimdark at all). I don't like the trope of human opponents who're all "buahahaa, I'm doing this because I'm evil and insane and totally like joker only edgy and dark and rad". If it's demons from hell or something like that, then why not, make them as repulsive and insanity inflictingly horrible as possible. But if I'm supposed to feel some motivation, don't make all the people I'm supposed to protect to be pedophiles and cannibals. DA:O was actually pretty good about this, if it wasn't dark enough then too bad. It was toned down, not a horror game by any stretch.

Can't say I'm a fan of how potions work in rpg's, but I still mostly disagree with OP. I didn't go heavily into potions in Skyrim, because I didn't feel like investing into alchemy much (and played on easy enough so I didn't need to). The system there doesn't revolve around a single item or potion giving you a huge bonus in anything, but the stacked effect. Say, you go fight a dragon that can kill you with a one frosty breath. You take boots that give 20% and armor that gives 20% protection, now you only lose 60% of your health to a single puff. Add in a well crafted potion that gives 30% and the damage you take halves, meaning you can now survive three breathfuls of ice, making the fight from impossible to winnable. Add in a ring that gives 20% and now you only lose 10% of your health to the breath, making the encounter a cakewalk. Carry around a couple of trinkets and potions and you can always half the damage you take from a certain kind of attack. But it's a different kind of system and I wouldn't like to see Eternity go that way.

I would have liked 4 base classes with varied levelup choices and multiclassing. But there's so many classes already I can't believe multiclassing could be implemented without a ton of serious issues popping up. So I'd rather just see them try to make the base classes workable and leave it at that.

Dabbled in IWD2 a bit but I'll give it up soon. Then started a new ToEE try with a party of two (paladin/cleric + Fighter/Rogue/Wizard), I probably wont finish it but might. Also another go with BG2, thinking of going with a singe companion or two at most. Oh, and I started Arcanum (again) last week but just cant get into it. The second try, the first I abandoned in about 15 minutes.

Everything works except the great helm. You'd end up with crushed cervical vertabrae and/or a 26" neck size if you wore that thing for any length of time unless the horns and frill weighed next to nothing. They'd be fine for ceremonial or parade gear, but not for an active adventurer. Teutonic Knights FTW. Not a practical helm, but they wore them anyway and I guess rule of cool applied. -1 to dexterity, +1 to charisma and +2 to intimidate

This. I've always disliked the Fallout system, where you pretty much have to be intelligent to be a good shot. But I could like and appreciate where an intelligent fighter can fight with intelligence, using feints and distractions.

Tell that to the Mongols. They conquered their way accross Asia and Europe with the bow, against the best medieval armor available at the time. A properly fired arrow will penetrate deep into the body through a suit of chainmail, a sword thrust might break some rings and leave a flesh wound. Firstly, I meant per strike damage, as you said, the bow has the advantage of being able to fire multiple times, thus can be more powerful all in all. And that's why the brits slowly turned to be mostly bow armed troops. Secondly, per strike, no I don't believe you'd do more than slight wounds with a bow against an armored opponent (unless the chain would be of poor quality or something). Even mongols had to basically wear down the western knights by constantly withdrawing, doing slight damage with bows and then finished the job in hand to hand combat. Thirdly, for anyone interested, Dan Carlins Hardcore History has an ongoing pretty darn good series, Wrath of the Khans about the mongol conquests, heartily recommended for anyone with interest in history.

They should hire him though, or some other painter dude, for the box cover and maybe a few more shots. Portraits should be done internally, I'd like about 100 of them and they should all be done in the same style. Mellow down people, having/not having some particular artist for the portraits is absolutely no reason to not back up the game, it's going to be awesome no matter how they roll.

Sounds like a self set stretch goal for the fourth playthrough. Follow the plot, do the quests, then wipe out everybody and move to the next village. The people in the next village shouldn't know I'm a monster either, what with nobody left to tell the tale. Yeah, should be allowed. No, not something I'd do anyway. The closest I've got was the Fallout 2 New Reno Massacre where I'd often take out everybody in the criminal families. (except for the 2 bishop ladies who'd be upstairs, sleeping off their experiences and intoxicants)

Agree with the OP. The end of BG was just an awful never ending grind. Mass Effect 1 nearly had a good ending where you could just talk the end boss into giving up... but then Bio didn't have the guts to do it and you had to fight after all. ME3 was better in that, even if that too had the eternal grind before getting to very end.

Isn't intelligence/wisdom just what you're asking for? Anyway, the less stats the better. Just focus on a few and make them all important. Except, I'd like size to be a stat. The kind of stat that'd affect melee damage and the chance of being hit, maybe movement speed. A dwarf with str 18 would do less damage than a big human with the same strength because he'd have less leverage, the same as how an axe with a long handle does more damage than a one with a short one. But the same dwarf makes for a poorer archery target, due to having less surface area. And I'd allow you to freely adjust the stat with the size slider when making a character.

Trying to drum up interest in a couple of sites with a mac gaming section, might get a couple more backers if lucky, but every little bit... If the current pledge rate holds, 3.0 will crack tomorrow, 3.5 would need the rate to hold and get that big final day surge.