Jarmo

Didn't PST allow you to leave Morte out anyway, or play solo? I didn't try, but still found it hard to choose between companions. Even without him you'd still find useless teeth and other useless loot. It was kind of annoying to play as a wizard and find all these nice axes and stuff, but not having anyone in the party who could use them. No, I don't think it removes anything from the game if you can make your own team. I wont, at least on the first playthrough, but it might be something to try on the third. That's assuming the game will be anything like good anyway.

It's really too early by far to even make educated guesses. Small budget doesn't guarantee a less resource intensive game, actually the opposite as there likely won't be resources to optimize things too well. Could be we see the same with Unity engine as with the NWN engine used in NWN2. Trying to do more than the engine is capable of, lead to poor overall performance. Obviously hoping for a nice smooth resource light game, but there's no knowing yet.

Body types would be great, also long hair down to waist with beards to match. Face adjustment would be a wasted effort with the high overhead view. The thing is, there'd need to be either some very clever system in place, or there'd need to be a version of all clothes/armor for all body types. If the latter, it could mean choosing between body types and adding 5 more creatures. (think fat version of all 378 costumes) Simple height/width scalers should be doable with little effort, if all clothing just stretches with the character. --- Basically... do like in ToEE and you can't go wrong. Pimp it up a bit and you go right.

The ultimate expression of this focus is the ability to concentrate his body's natural energies into his hand, manifesting as a supernatural glow around his clenched fist, making his fist "like unto a thing of iron". So concentrated, this "iron fist" can smash into its target with superhuman hardness and impact, while his hand becomes impervious to pain and injury. Good old Iron Fist. I could like something like that, but overall I'm pretty much fed up with the nice european medieval scene always filled with martial arts monks and ninjas. But then again, I wasn't always, at some point ninjas were totally cool and awesome when they'd flip out and kill everybody. So I'll just take them as they come, while hoping Obsidian manages some resemblance of sense in explaining, why there's a bunch of people who'd think it's all clever to fight without weapons and armor* and actually prove the point by doing so. * although, will they fight without armor? If wizards wear plate, will not monks likewise?

I'm on the opposite side of this. Hundreds of thousands is pretty high, but blowing 5% of the budget on soundtrack doesn't seem too exessive to me. Mostly I'd like there to be lots and lots of different pieces, for locations, battles and all. And then some for the important moments. If finances allow, do splash out and make some of it with real orchestra, where appropriate. Music sets the mood almost as much as the story, don't skimp out there. The other note I made on the other thread, is I'd love to have a real choir doing their stuff on some key events where going full epic is required. It's probably financially completely out of reach, but there's really nothing that has the same emotional effect as a bunch of real people yelling about. Now I still can't quite forgive the whole movie, but the fight scene in the end was the best of the series, made all the better for this. Or to be more fantasy related, some stuff from Audiomachine, like this.

Yea. Just give some indication beforehand or a way to escape. Ie. I'd like some hints there's a dragon living in the cave over there, if I still go in it's my own fault I get my butt kicked.

How the hell are Obsidan supposed to calculate that though? Some people play better, some people play worse, some people play drunk. By having plenty of difficulty options, easiest of which will let really, really bad gamers win the fights*. Allowing you to change the settings midway through the game and not making fights where you have to know beforehand something is going to happen, so the next time you try you'll be prepared. When I play drunk & tired and screw up, I'll reload. But I don't want to progress through trial and error and reloads all the way. And allow saving at any time. If for no other reason, then because it's really annoying to lose two hours of gameplay because the game crashed. *I know a few non-gamers who gave up on DA:O on easy, because they just couldn't win the tougher fights. Now one can go all elitist basement nerd and say they should just get better, but I'm not about to tell people what they should enjoy.

Oops! I somehow managed to miss that post by Archmage Silver. Sorry about that, but great news anyway!:D Oops! I somehow managed to miss that post by Archmage Silver. Sorry about that, but great news anyway!:D Actually that sounds like they've not made up their mind completely. The option could still be like, a redeem code on gog.com, but the disc would still be drm. I'd really like to see this spelled out. And not by some third party interpreter.

The same as tabletop. No reloading. I want a bit of a challenge occasionally, but the game should be perfectly passable without knowledge of things to come, on first playthrough, without a single reload.

I've said if often enough to sound like an annoying broken record. But still... will the box contain a drm-free installer? The same file you'd download from gog.com would do nicely.

Yeah, but I don't want to purchase a dvd version and then burn the dvd myself.

This is important for me as well. I'd like to know I can just pop in the dvd and install away, even 15 years from now when gog.com and steam are both bankrupt and not answering the ping. I guess the steam features won't be on the gog version anyway, so why not instead put the DRM free version on the disk and include a steam version as well? Anyway, if the DVD is DRM free I'll go for the collectors box, but if it's not I'll stick with the $20 download. Still some 10 days left to make the announcement and grab the extra $100 from me...

Another no for stylized/cartoony graphics. Definitely go ToEE for the overall graphics style. BG/IWD for portraits, if there are portraits.

As a related note, I'd love to see (or even hear) a choir on some specific epic instances. It can really add to the mood, but I guess when we're speaking of prohibitively expensive, this is what we're speaking of.

No no, not that much at all. A budget for a hollywood caliber orchestra can cost as much as 80-100k+ for a full orchestra (80+ musicians), conductor, engineer, orchestrator, copyists etc for about 60-ish minutes of music. Which is lots of money, especially for a game like Project Eternity. .... But there are ways to bring that price down significantly. The size of the ensemble, their international location, and other factors play into that. It's really, really difficult to have an informed opinion on this. Not knowing the actual music or how much better it'd be with a few real musicians added in, or with the full orchestra. It's possible to do pretty neat things with a violin + cello, and adding 30 trumpets on top wouldn't necessarily improve. All depends on stuff and then more stuff and I don't really know either of the stuffs. What I can say though, is if there was a situation where I'd have to choose between good music and amazingly good music, but having the amazing stuff required cutting a location from the game, a village or a dungeon. I'd cut the location and it wouldn't even be a tough choice. It's that important. Yep, that's the thing really. But it goes the other way too, a bunch of rock bands have made recordings with a full orchestra, and it's never been as good as it was with just the band. Just adding stuff doesn't help. Then again, if it's the kind of music that benefits from a bunch of live musicians, and there's a way to add them without it being prohibitively expensive, hell yeah go for it.

No level cap that'd come up during the normal game, ie, I don't want to hit the cap 2/3 way through the plot, but there's no reason to code in level features for 30 levels if the story ends when you're around level 10. (just in case someone finds a leveling exploit or a good grinding spot with invisible lizards or something)

You assume every TB system is turn-per-character. It's not. Sometimes it's player-side vs. PC-side based. Sorry, I'm not following you now. Fallout Tactics had Individual Turn Based and Squad Turn based models, in the latter you moved all the men and then the enemy, in the first it was all mixed. But if that's what you mean, I can't see how that changes my point. It's all supposed to happen simultaneously, yet the second one to act always knows how the first ones action unfolded/is unfolding. Combat Mission had my favorite style of all time, you gave orders to everybody and so did the enemy, then there was (in that case a minute of) action unfolding during which all troops were trying to carry out their orders. Awesome system but I don't see it working well in rpg setting.

IMO, they're targets. It's not perfectly cool to miss them, but if it starts to look like the game will be better without, it's acceptable to cut them. I just want the best game they can make and I'd rather see them cutting and changing whatever it takes to reach that, than to release something unfinished, shoddy or containing features that just don't fit there. There'll be sheet'storm anyway on release. Nothing can fill the hopes of all the backers.

Voted no, but I have not even a ballpark figure of an idea of the actual cost involved. If it'd be like 10K to do full orchestral main theme, I'd say go for it. Money well spent. If it's 100K, then it's not worth it. Would be worth it if the whole budget was 10x whatever Eternity gathers.

I like both. NWN and ToEE are the two D&D games who's combat I enjoy the most. And they're not completely similar. Turn based system gives more control, but has two main disadvantages: everything takes an awful long time it can be unrealistic and cheesy The second bit takes a little explaining, so let's assume your 4 archers decide to kill the enemy wizard before she casts. In realtime, you order everybody to fire and the wizard dies. In turn based, the first archer fires and misses, the second archer fires and kills the wizard. Now the other two archers can do something else instead. How does that make any sense? I'm not sure which one I'd pick, but since Eternity will be rtwp it's a moot point anyway.

I don't really care much either way. But if there's fow, it should work by the line of sight. - Not reveal someone who's 10ft away, but behind a corner/wall. - Not lead to a situation where I'm in a grand hall or a throne room but have no idea if there's someone sitting on the throne. Or not know there's a throne to begin with. Because it's 100ft away and my optically challenged hero can only detect things at 60ft or closer.

Attacks of Opportunity were great (cause of frustration as well) in Temple of Elemental Evil. A good skilled fighter with a big weapon and combat reflexes would whack everybody who'd try to waltz past.

This would essentially increase the damage output of skill/dexterity based combatants. Making all those rapier duelists much more viable. The actual calculations don't matter much since the game mechanics are not known. Just the principle that you could increase damage by increasing attack skill, not only through increasing strength or weapon sharpness.

So here's a thought. In normal rpg system the two connect in that hitting more often obviously causes more damage, but hitting skill and damage caused by individual hits are still separate. Say, you're a regular Davy Crockett with your wheellock, you put that bullet between the eyes every time. And then you roll damage to see if hitting between the eyes hurts this time. But I'd like to see more accurate hits cause more damage on each hit. What I'm suggesting: If you need to d20 roll 12 to hit and you roll 16, you get a +4 damage bonus (maybe only up to the max normal damage). Thus, being more accurate would also mean doing more damage with each hit. Less scrapes and more direct hits. So if the gun does 1d12, the damage would now be 1d12+4 (but only up to 12). If you need 8 to hit and roll 20, it's 1d12 +12 (meaning it's 12). The example is obviously for a d20 style system, but can adjust to whatever system is used. ---- If someone understood my rambling, could you try compressing this to a coherent sentence?

Like someone already said, I'd like everybody to get bonuses on hitting when flanking. And I have a hard time accepting that a guy who only manages to actually hit on one out of three attempts, can somehow hit the sweet spot when the strikes do connect. Which brings up a completely different dynamic. I'd like to see something to the tune of: If you need to roll 12 to hit and you roll 16, you get a +4 damage bonus (maybe only up to the max normal damage). Thus, being more accurate would also mean doing more damage with each hit. Less scrapes and more direct hits.