IEfan

... except that good scenario you described is not really PoE, hence this topic. Okay, so we don't have Charisma but this time around the gamifier is Intelligence. Int is the new legit Charisma... and it could be avoided pr easily by nerfing or changing INT, or following other suggestions in this thread. I mean take a minute and read INT's description and it should be immediately obvious that it should looks suspicious on first glance (at least it did for me but I guess I'm not alone with this). Hell, there are only one or two right builds in PoE for every class and you suffer HEAVY problems in fights if you RP your own non-optimal builds. Sometimes the universal "people are always gonna complain about everything" card isn't the true harmonious solution and just serves to kill the legit C&C dialogue.

A IE-engine min-maxer eh? See for yourself what PoE RTwP battles are really about, it's interesting take on BG action (even more of a resource flow management lé semi-mmorpgs but with emphasis on time) BUT The current battle system is still rough on edges. eg. if you cast a spell outside your range, your caster can run like RIGHT NEXT TO ENEMY and not do anything if **** hits the fan (the vegetable Baldur's gate fan perhaps? ). It's better to manually move caster closer to target, then try again to cast spell. It means a LOTS of manual pausing, be prepared... You very often accidentally misclick your dude out of engagement and instadeaths, there's no doubleclicks or safeguard on this as of yet. Engagement arrows are too vague and unvisible. and so forth. BUT I want to emphasis that I totally support the changes and vision developers have, there's a LOT of potential in every aspect of the game. Makes you wonder what the modded or polished PoE 2 can do? Holy ****... shut up and take my money.

[PERSUADE ->+450 gold, Int 4 required, Apathetic, Self-degrading] ...Can't tell cos I'd never play with the gatdam dialogue-hint system on, lol. Anybody finding that dex doesn't boost Accuracy even somewhat a little strange?? I started the game with Balanced Dex-based Monk with completely average Con... found out the hard way that, you can't really do careful dodging monk (maybe with hi-level talents, and even then... it's quite min-maxing) with how the stats are now. I mean it's just a little unintuitive, you'd assume that it's the only preciness/careful fighter-attribute when there is none really... plus just reading something like fortitude etc just on description quickly reveals how unimportant those stats are. Otherwise digging the battle system, I can see a lot of potential in it.

[spoilers] Control freaks! I don't necessarily agree with Ruffian focus (besides it's an extra talent) and Field Triage initially but I found a LOT of use once I've got used to them... and I can see WHY the characters would pick those abilities, that what kind of builds those characters are MEANT to be. Eder is a weird-ish mix of urban ruffian and heavy Interrupt-centered tank, and it works. Durance is heavy melee-oriented cleric. Elf wizard is low-level critter killer. Kana is A-little-of-all-roles (imo focus in scrolls) and a mixed chanter of buffs/debuffs and summons. [End of spoilers] And so forth: all of these are WORKING builds but SUBOPTIMAL intentionally - they're favored so that the player would further explore the build they're based on. I've done quite well so far with the pre-picked talents anyways so I have no qualms with them. Note, The same system was used in BG series but the auto-leveling happened in 3-4 level intervals. Depending WHEN you got the NPC meant how much underleveled they would be compared to starting NPC's. You wouldn't know or care about this if you weren't min-maxing - most NPC's would work under-leveled as well - but min-maxers would realize that to max experience and levels, you would need to rush 75% of game to get the "best" NPC's ASAP. That's not ridicilous that the game is set this way, what is actually idiotic would actually TO rush for the top NPC's "because I want to choose my level my NPC's" or "because I want to reach level cap on all top NPC's" etc, like youtube longplay-level of ****ty game experience. Like mentioned in the topic, Custom-creating the party completely from scratch solves this problem. Another one is allowing a menu choice at the beginning of game for NPC's to start at level 1 with accumulated experience (for expert players).

Discussion of update patch in reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/31826k/patch_103_notes/ ... It does make you wonder how on earth the Obsidian guys weed out the essential suggestions for balance tweaks from the sea of comments! Great job, Obsidian!

This reminds me of special abilities like that tracking in IWD. I felt a little bummed that essentially it was used at the beginning of an area to just check/have an estimation of enemy types but you'll bump into the soon enough so it doesn't matter so much to use them. Would had been neat if you could had predict an ambush if you find covered steps at some point or lots of footprints/single pair of footprints...But what about when you've got someome with extraordionary sense of smell (like canine)? You could tell what type of folks have recently passed through the area, get extra info on who passed and when in the area... If Obsidian guys want to see some neat system, you should play Discworld Noir. It's a pretty good adventure game, pr forgotten and unfortunately hard to get to work (but it's possible). GoG should pick that up and make it work... Yeah whoops sorry, just throwing ideas again. This IS a good idea and I hope you'll figure out a good system for this (like in Fallout (1 & 2) but more balanced, eg scouting/wildreness ability was night useless to spend your points on). RPG-skills are a bit hard/need "creativity" to implement skills that require imagination in itself in the first place.

They're comparing this to Wasteland 2 graphics, which in that beta-video had that overbloomed, over-coloured 3d graphics as of late (well, exaggarated animation too). Not overly cartoonic as in Borderlands but u no, like flirtin' there? U get me bro? : ^ B Some of them bring up indie games, no doubt, which is hilarious in it's logic like I said.

ahaha i read moonwalking in the title. Please, gimme moonwalking dwarves... i demand them NOW, Obsidian. Do NOT test my temper. Also, this is a isometric rpg so uuuhh dunno where you got that idea from but maybe there'll be crossable water/river/shore/shallow terrain, who knows. Climbing with platemails, huh.

You know, Obsidian only needs to eventually post a picture of what non-cartoony stuff they can achieve with Unity and besides shutting up Unity-naysayers, would probably induce a lot of pledges. The nerd-outrage is kinda hilarious. But it's up to them if they want to post any kind of pictures or videos at all (cough wasteland 2 cough). I mean yeah I too am expecting the more realistic graphics of BG/IWD than the more cartoony ones we've seen in RPG's as of late. But I thought it was kinda obvious that's the style Obsidian will do considering it's oldschool-IE games. Also awesome update & can't wait till Monday. My friend probably pledges now since he has linux.

Hell, you could toggle a quest this way. Consider that every NPC has a check value. You try to rob from a rich-looking but shady person who you can't speak with as the guards don't allow to (could be assasination attempt for all he knows). The only way naturally to pickpocket is to do it in the market with lots of commoners around. He catches your hand/arm when you try to pickpocket him (due to his very high perceptional skills, related to his career), bemusing whether he should cut your hands here and now or send you to the judge/jail. If you have high ability of convincing, eg speech, good weapons/armours, high level, good persuasion/intimidation skill (though i really hated these in NWN as they took away from dialogue/took attention to the glaring fact of obvious functions of dialogue choices (and no grey shades)), etc etc... You can try to spark a conversation with him/make an impression on him and convince him that you and your group could be of use for him. Depending on above mentioned parameters, he might consider yourself as useful (not as a thief really but perhaps as a muscle (due to party); you can also succeed in pick pocket but right away he surrounds you and suspects you & inspects you, once again to his great alertness) and invites you to his villa, where you would could become his right-hand / could be PC's one of the really few entries to the hidden underworld and politics of it (when can be hard to to enter without losing your life). To add on above consequence scenarios: you try to rob a house at night, the man/wife and a child/children wake up on it. Decide if you want to go to jail or hurt the parents in front of the children (or try to leave the house asap somehow). Have it that somebody could see you from eg opposite house (dice/luck based?) or if anybody in the streets saw you walking at night in that area/close to the house/out from the house.

1. How mega is your idea of a mega dungeon? 5 levels? 10 levels? 20? More? Isn't the core idea of Mega dungeon is to be that ridicilous challenge for the toughest (like in roguelikes), plus that they possibly just close you in and never let you go until you clear it? Idk man. I think the idea of each level matters more than the amount I guess, like in Durlag's and Watcher's Keep levels... there has to be some good ideas in level design like in any dungeons. Otherwise, the more the merrier (especially if you can't get out > : ^ B ) Like that's a nice idea and tbh Durlag's Tower was partially tougher than Watcher's Keep in BG2 and that's pretty amazing considering what a killer team I had in BG1, it really brought to my knees. But you know, they can be pretty exhaustive to go through (the elf tower for example - cool lore but daamn, i wouldn't want the whole game become big dungeons one after another like IWD's (at the cost of lore/exploration/npc's/dialogue/idk FRESH CHANGE)). I feel that BG2 big dungeons in general achieved a greatly balanced experience. 2. How important do you think story is in said mega dungeon? I think it definitely matters, depending on what you mean with that sentence ofc. It would be cool if it really connected to the main storyline of the game, like Mutant Base in Fallout 1 (which was hands down a really, really cool/good experience, especially if you went there alone). Perhaps there are conditions to get to mega dungeons or that it is well-hid? Perhaps you could have an alternative ending to the game there? Since it goes for so long/so deep/really tears on your resources and needs preparation. For example, everybody has the normal ending for the game etc etc but perhaps there is a base for the biggest faction in the game (the goverment or "good guys"), eg the heavily armoured naval base of the game - much like in Fallout, it could have respect-inducing known attack towers (eg Fallout 2 defense turrets) AT THE GATES only, just this ridicilous keep you aren't supposed to go in because it's eg the good guys or goverment or whatever. (I was always wondering why there weren't any big govermental buildings for those mage's or the militia in BG2 that you could visit or be awed of or anything). If you start to breach in then there would be no turning back as the whole world will put you on wanted list, major factions either refuse to help or attacks you (they don't want to mess with the Big Brother) and in general you're just down on your luck when you get in there (or leave the keep), thus not leaving you with too many options. Inside, you would perhaps find an hidden plan or plot, perhaps hidden information on events, faction, people in the country - ridicilous sea-monster encounters that might be impossible to put down (thus figure out how to stay alive/how to avoid), etc etc. Whatever you can think of. THEN I could understand why the place A. has huge drops that possibly make the last fight too easy/cause imbalance issues B. WHY the place could be even harder than the last boss or whatever dungeon there is. It was strange in BG1 to have this huge, satisfying, brings-to-your-knees dungeon you BARELY make through and then you're thrown BACK into the world! C. It would make sense why the place is so ridicilously hard/over-powered that it even makes people think that the place isn't even MEANT to be explored/breached, even on the higher levels. (D. and let's face it: how is it possible that a group of 6 people COULD destroy entire worlds, without any limits? perhaps there should be good comparison point for power-differences in game, thus like the Vault City in Fallout 2) Or idk, maybe undersea temple with those huge-ass/overpowering sea monsters as described by Sawyer? An island in the sea that is lethally dangerous to approach even (wow, this really is BG1's storyline). Idk, I just imagine it's something ridicilous and humbling like Ultra-Ending Challenges or similiar in ADOM (a famous roguelike) where you have to go 100 levels down the infinite dungeon or stay and fight the chaos lord in Hell (before you get corrupted to death just by TIME PASSING or surrounding mobs of enemies) or fight Emperor Moloch and it's Molochs or something similiar. Also, why not have a "Fez dungeon" (the indie game)? The game's last secret/puzzle was apparently really complex and cryptic puzzle that took months for fans to beat. Why not have a similiar secret puzzle dungeon, a ridicilous esoteric puzzle? Again, maybe something that looks like that it's cleared but if you're good/pass good conditions, you could detect that it goes on and the entrance/first part is cryptic, leaving you to think whether it's just a small temple for some god or if you have to do something obscure to proceed further. What is the first creature you have killed in your life etc, IDK! Like a "mega dungeon of puzzle dungeons" i guess, with some kind of nice prize at the end. Reminds me of Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 rumours about hidden Luigi character that COULD had been true... 3. Would you still support a mega dungeon if it diverted resources from the main plot/game? My guess is no, but I had to ask. No, Not really. I'd like the core game to be hard as diamond, the quality control is pretty out-of-map in games these days and getting a great entirity would be a goal i guess? I mean it could be nice but I'll ask a question in turn: wouldn't it be possible to put it as an add-on, like in Tales of the Sword Coast (or ToB)? Naturally, that would bring some tough logististical question - maybe script writers or Avellone isn't too happy about adding a remote locations that are hard to include as a part of the game's core story. Plus balancing issues etc. If you think of the above idea I talked about, you could add that dungeon since it is it's own entirity/subworld and has an ending as well. 4. Is this something you would like to see as a high end stretch goal or set of stretch goals? Maybe yeah. I think I'm still looking forward to more updates, the language support question and see if more core questions get answered... I think that basically, the more the actual game vs mega dungeon improves then better - the surpluss resources (if there ever really be such) could be used for the mega dungeon... but what really matters is that if you CAN make an interesting mega-dungeon in the first place and if you have ideas for it. Do you?

ahahah 10 pageeees, youuu guyyyys. wasn't there a article on nerds threatening to quit DA if they didn't remove homosexual elements? Hell yea. Hell yeah!!! Rock'n'roll baby. Do it Avellone. Your only and only chance. Don't let the icky sweaty ****ing nerds get in the way. yeehaaaawww. nerds, meet life, life meet nerds *looks astonished at nerds*

Like my close friend wisely said (who plays a lot of tabletop RPG's, card games, etc etc and designs then, he pledged too as well) - Obsidian isn't basing the battle system on DnD (or on any other tabletop systems to that matter) now and they're thinking stuff carefully so hopefully the prior, glaring problems with weapon balancing from previous Forgotten Realms titles won't become relevant.

OFC i'll support Obsidian's choice, no matter what it is. I voted Justin Bell if only to reinforce an antagonism to fracking Jeremy Soule who'se style is pretty unremarkable & kinda insulting to Justin as well if he's on the job by default. You nerds you!! You would think a lesser-known composer would pour his heart out on a project like this, you know. And I'm somewhat suprised people have forgotten BG 1 & 2 composers, seems like a some kind of insult to those guys consider how ****ing good OST's both have, with major stylistic differences. I really haven't heard anything like them in a long while and i'm a music guy/composer-want-to-be myself. NWN's music was kinda good but the pool of songs wasn't big enough for the game (too much replay) and as for NWN2, idk haven't played much of it. I really miss the weather/outdoors music of BG 1 though!! or any music really. They went all for the epic, grandiose fantasy stuff in BG2 and forgot all about the atmospheric music... though that might be because there wasn't much wilderness in the game anyways (or tiny/peasant towns anyways), everything had to be big.

This is really pointless. They've made their point clear: they're probably going after something totally new or try something different with old systems. You can only comment on previous titles shortcomings for the best result. And for that, i'd say that watch out for making everybody able to cast everything or same POOL of spells: this became a problem in BG2 where rangers, clerics, mages, druids, sorcerers, monks, friggin' everybody has spells (and the same ones) so spamming was huge and roles were lost. It got only worse in ToB, what with fighter's summoning celestial fighters etc. Ofc potions lost importance due to resting and spells, you sold them for money. Also, all-can-cast also means that magic becomes everyday/bland in the process... but i think you can redeem this if what more fighter types learn sparsely + spells are pretty specific/unique than MAGIC MISSILE/ARMOR SPELL. Dialogue/character spells, psionic spells, you name it. It's like those goofy innate abilities in BG series but more useful. Maybe have different pool of spells for lots of folks too? Heroes the TV Series RPG :-P Also be careful with buffs, don't want to see the all-buffs-before-big-fight-(cos-i-can-rest-when-no-enemy-is-around). NWN 1 & 2 revolved around boring buff spells though (with extended periods or strenght) and that blew too. I think best magic is when it acts interestingly besides those effective direct spells - like really goofy but powerful/strangely working spells. Make spells fantastic and perhaps akin to grenades or an battle-turning interventions or DESPERATE by-chance moves when used at right time. I'm still thinking about how different (and FUN) BG's would had been if something like Wild Mages were introduced from the start.

I love it, would love to have it, but reality is what it is. What Tim Cain said in the interview is for the best.

Please people, don't start the Steam vs GoG - debate again now that it's granted. I'm a little disapointed when i learned from this topic that it's the Kickstarters that are really anti-gog but now, what can you do. Though I want to blurt quickly to you guys that Obsidian IS taking a risk putting it on GoG since there won't be any guarantee if people will either buy it or get it from through torrents or rapidly uploaded to rapidshare et all. Think about it. Also, to quickly blurt another perspective: the industry is pr much in a state where piracy is seriously cannibalizing sales so you really can seriously argue that Steam IS a little price to pay for the service... because it could seriously be much worse with a tighter noose on consumer's (PC gamers!) neck (possibly no pc games developed over console ones). And if you've read about Steam, you should know that despite it's shortcomings sometimes, it's run by nerds as well so it's a little hard for me to believe that their greatest intention is to FOOL YOU GAMERS. They've made it pretty clear on several occasions that they have no plans to sell their company to bigger firms eg EA. Sorry for the hit-and-run - commentary though but this steam vs gog debate should seriously be elsewhere than in Update #4 topic! and you should also read about it more from all perspectives from various sources in the internet and otherwise. Now, let's hope for answers to the questions in this topic... EDIT: now that i think about it, IDK if it goes like this but it almost seems like that translations might be necessary to announce during the pledge so that you could even GET money out of consumers/possible fans of Obsidian from countries like eg. russia where you can get any game pirated either through internet or even physically in the market a couple days before the game is even released in the country. It's like fighting a losing war, can you get the money out before it becomes easy to get through other ways. The only hope really is that gamers WILL buy it from places like GoG or Steam. But yeah, this from sales perspective. Maybe games like these had to be followed by their actual sales AND by how much it got pirated by different parts of the world so that the real demand for genre/type of games/the spiritual successor can be realistically estimated. EDIT: Somebody in the comments - section also mentions that the Pledge 25 dollars (digital download through Steam) needs to be changed to Steam and GoG. Just a fyi

Hell yeah!! Honestly nice job, this spark pledges. I'm surprised of how many gamers WANTED DRM-free game/GoG. It's also a great idea of featuring dev's talk about the project in the Kickstart page as well. Only really needs translations (as a next stretch goal?) and this should steadily get a lot of pledges in. Also, update the right column of 140 dollar pledges to feature the beta access as well. Sorry if this is a dumb question but does pledgers above 140 dollars get beta access as well? Can those that have beta access do beta testing for Obsidian? ' : ^ B And yeah, whoever apologized in this topic previously said some wise words. Hold on tight to your dreams... i'm imagining you guys having like a super secret drawboard of Excelent Systems and other cool ideas ready for this (though even if you don't, don't stress, just do your best ofc and hold on to vision). Blargh, sorry for the obvious.

Have companions warn you for attacking your companion (that all agrees is On Our Side) so that accidental attacks are avoided, then make all party hostile to you and attack you (you lunatic!! whatever got into you?? stop killing him you idiot!!). It makes sense, ne? Who the hell just "kill" people just for fun? OH... oh yeah, the area of effect spells-accidental kills.. well, that was solved by making party invicible to own AOE damage (which i disliked strongly)... I mean don't be such a babies - in BG1 companions attacked each other in time (well, it was badly written/handled but it did it's function) for disliking each other (ofc were uncontrollable when fighting each other), in Fallout you could kill your follower since the game treated them more like automaticly-following friendly NPC (whose inventory you could look but you couldn't steal his stuff) - killing him resulted in other teammates attacking you and the surrounding people becoming hostile as well. Arcanum had a really cool idea with how to handle this - when they lose their trust in you for real, it lead them to gank up on you, save some of them who just hated others or had other reasons to side with you. It made sense and it was human, who would ever tolerate or side with an lunatic serial murder who'd kill even teammates? Please don't spoil any of the games i mentioned otherwise.

Honestly, i'm just bothered that how COMMON undead is. It's like a custom in our culture that early-level PC group has to stumble into high-level necromancer-animated skeletons in a random foggy graveyard somewhere raised by someone you don't care to know with dumb Evil Reasons. Structurally/game-design wise, it's boring (location, lore (as it's more of a fascist/inhuman everyone-acts-the-same, nobody gives reasons for attacking - type of enemies) and script-wise) and unreasonable. Like you don't need to drop the concept but you honestly elevate the encounters a lot with better enemy design and just by WHY these things exists anyways! Or let's talk about the impression you get from undead: you killed lichs for breakfast in NWN 1 (or...killed Githyankis worth 400 exp in NWN2 for breakfast. so much for vorpal blades and legendary hunters...) when in BG2 you were just ASTONISHED that you can't seem to harm the ****er in any way and you get struck by bizarre, dangerous spells (while watchign the freak do that strange hip-hop animation in it's place while churning out the spell). Or that doomed warrior who was really tough at the Ulcaster School in BG1. Or jesus christ, that seemingly indesctrubtible warrior-horror or soul or whatever that attacks you after taking the Idol after that really disturbing quest, again in BG1. He almost IS invicible, btw - he just has ridicilous amount of HP and great armor, so much that you have to resort to coward/summon tactics w/ probably half of team members dead anyways). I liked as a kid that i was given a REAL limit : no, you can't kill this, his power is just insane. You can't take all items/do what you want in this word like some big baby. There's not even any good reward from killing him! It sure left this kid frightened/mystified and humbled, that non-satisfactory quest with the haunting music. It's not Obsidian's fault though, D&D always had animated skeletons/zombies for no reason. And yeah, suprised at how unthreatening zombies are... might be an interesting scenario where unstoppable (makes sense) living dead keeps springing up everywhere with ridicilous frenzied power and your job is to survive/escape (zombie horror/survival!) or locate the problem that raised them... it's not a whole lot different scenario than the undead/mutant/radioactive city from Fallout. Talk about frightening/horrible experience folks!! You just felt horror+disgusts+anxiety+pity at the mutants and at the whole place and it's history - who the hell would make THIS happen in millions of years... The music and setting for the place was fantastic, plus the nagging fear of possible radiation from the place.

Hey, I like option 3 but realistically speaking, your companion pool is limited like in BG2 and if you want to balance everyone out/make everyone useful/want to space them succesfully in the game, that is just not realistic... or at least it's tons of work, what with working out where you'd like to have your companies placed and who (since this system eventually leads to companion favoritism for XP amount). And remember that in BG1 the option 3 lead to (at least for min-maxers) that you obviously tried to play with the heroes you got from the very beginning of the game eg. friggin Imoen. The exp raise for the optional companions was in tresholds you see! So being lv 11 meant that companion is when met possibly lv 10 (possibly with profiencies you dislike/that don't have as much magical items as others). Or that you are lv11 but close to becoming lv 12-> still the companion is lv 10. I think the fun in BG series with Option 3 is exclusive for that as it had tons of goofy companions and you really did have a lot of areas where to churn out exp for your party. So i don't know what to vote. LET OBSIDIAN FIGURE OUT. EDIT: also you are bit mistaken! BG series had both Option 2 and 3. I'm talking about Option 2 above - which was only for when you met the companion for the first time (or let him join for the first time). Option 3 applied when you ditched the NPC and later re-recruited him. EDIT also WHOA this is -totally- dependant on story structure - will the NPCs join one after another, are some NPC's optional/to be found somewhere in the world, will there be forced joins (even if temporary, like in NWN2). I have no idea... these amazing undercurrents, these outstanding engineer worlds...

I don't know what the new system will be but I might as well drop some thoughts on previous IE-games just in case. Sorry if I have a demanding tone, I have written this before and not modified it as much (and it's more about commentary on previous games than thinking of making a new, working system instead. * consider bringing speed factors back (from BG) and remember to balance all speeds for all weapons accordingly. Give a reason to use maces instead of morning stars, for example, or for fighter a reason to use dagger or short sword or mace or warhammer in off-hand. NWN had a problem that since you hit equally fast on every weapon and magical weapon, you really didn't use weaker-dps weapons. * ...because the problem of AC and how/if the weapon bypassed the attackers armor. Since the bypass didn't occur and there were no critical hit bonuses, the reasons to use smaller weapons were nearly none. No Artremis Entreri for you, better use the largest-ass SWORD you can find, why not dual-wield two-handed blades... * Add to this that certain weapontypes got all the love for magical items and even if other weapon-types tried to pick up the slack in BG2, the longswords et all favorites were got EARLY in the game as well vs others... and beated the others in sheer variety and numbers. It doesn't matter if scimitars or spears finally (forgotten in BG1) had the Killer counterparts now, you got these way too late compared to others in the game as well. The only powerful bastard sword in BG2 was got almost at the end of tha game; same for spears; there barely were any magical Katanas (don't get me started on Ninja-Tos and Wakizashis, the add-on tried to fix this...) And obviously, JUST +1 and above generic versions for "lesser weapontypes" don't do like i described above. * Once you've got these down, you really need to vary and balance the damages on basic X weapon type to another. Maybe touch too many 1-4, 1-4+1/2, 1-6, 1-6+2, 1-8, 2*(1-4) and nothing in between for lots of weapon types... leaving only (unpredictable) amount of magic weapons and speed factor for preferrence. * Maybe weapon attack type should have a WAY bigger meaning, in case if battles are little less like BG hack'n'slash regular orcs and more akin to more tactical scenarios? Like besides "really the only type to give damage to undead"? Maybe this could become another decisive factor for buying/keeping a weapon, the strong suspectibility/resistance of different types of creatures to specific weapontypes? More tactical depth by "AHHA that guy really takes from bludgeoning, we can finish him quicker." I mean BG2 already had a lot of this but in the world of elemental monsters - it didn't seem to be a decisive/strong factor against more normal enemies, no matter how strong. * And maybe size should affect everything? Like short folk thinks bastard swords like two handed ones etc. I'm not sure how this would be handled apart from obvious restrictions, it's more work for designers ugh. * There's already a topic talking over the Bows in IE-series here http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60299-lets-not-repeat-the-bg-bow-follies/?do=findComment&comment=1193731 , nevermind that it links to my post only, the OP is right. Maybe put a requirement that ranged weapons have high profiency requirement so that not everyone would use ranged/some heroes specifically become ranged dudes? IDK how you pull this out. It'd be nice to see a thief or a bard who prefers shields/stealth, for one thing. The bucklers had close to zero good sides and zero magical bucklers as well. ! I'm a little astonished how meticulously most of CRPG's have followed the above problems/rules - you barely see a fighter with just a high-spear profiency (one of the oldest weapons in all worlds & city guard or peasant guard choice n.1) or HUMAN fighters using hammer or even axe. Or BG2 fetish on favouring dual-wielding, overshadowing others styles in bonuses - tower shields and shield-wielding fighters getting the flack this time (due to non-existant big shields). Or no any good reason to have profiency in Single Weapon unless you're a weakling or bizarre : ^ B (strange, you have one arm free and without restrictions which would mean a lot in a fight of speed...). What i'm talking about, besides obvious glaring inequality, is that you can barely vary the weapon profiencies in these games due to this in-balance and favoritism, thus inevitably leading to Only Good Choices in-game and frankly, lesser NPC or hero customization and RPG'ing. They also follow the racial cliches suspiciously clearly... It's not nice that you often have to start spending on plasma weapons and heavy weapons right from the beginning of the game because other weapon forms aren't just as good. The only best way to maximize the game and playing weaker/alternatively punishes you.

You do realize that Baldur's Gate worked this way, right? (It wasn't a perfect mirror, but I recall many characters scrounging about for XP with Imoen so that they could make it to level 2 before going and meeting Khalid & Jahiera, so that they would be higher level when they joined up. Wasn't always easy for a multi-class.) This is a good point. I really, really liked the goofy/interesting heroes from BG1 (that grew up to directions in BG2, didn't matter if you didn't see everyone though). I liked a lot that they had their failures/weaknesses as heroes (and specific bonus abilities), even someone likable like Khalid was frail. Ahahah everyone remembers Qualey and where you got him? That ruled so much ahhaha. I still want to clear BG1 with Candlekeep tutorial group... But you know, they never had anything interesting to say ofc, like anything at all which was disapointing... moreover, I discovered that since the exp levels raised by treshold levels, they NEVER exactly had the same experience as your other NPC's so in order to min-max/to have the most levels by maximum experience you have, you really just had to stick with Imoen till the end. Then imagine getting people like Qualey or even Safana or that dwarf fighter/cleric at the midgame/endgame! I don't know if this is a weakness but usually, when you find more or less the "best" ways to finish and possibly break the game (dual-classes eg figther-mage in both BG, bards too in BG1) and have to meticulously plan your heroes from start to finish, it really really takes away from immersion and possibly makes you start over the game. *My experience with the IWD/BG1-2 whole-team dual-classing or planning that, despite getting interesting skills/RPG elements/unique elements to my custom companions (that i consciously tried NOT to max all the time - i tried to RPG my heroes!), there just simply were Right Choices and Wrong Choices. Some are over-powered due to too-much synergestics from both classes and some are too frail (so you never really dual-classed from thief to fighter-type of classes since you only got the HP bonus from the first 8 levels of the game). *NWN2 had cool ideas with deitys and subclasses like uh Pale Caster or whatever but I had to quit my NWN2 game because my hero was simply TOO weak and underpowered, despite having RPG'd him a lot (like Avellone did with his Wasteland 2 post). So never played that game again. *In NWN1 you either meticulously planned hero levels and dual-classing (naturally to the only choices that wouldn't make the heroes MUCH weaker vs enemies) from start to finish with set routes and by picking the same skills on every level or you just wasted your hero. No in-between really. *You could argue that Fallout 1 & 2 you just put a lot of points to most common skills in the game and forgot the rest (Wasteland - dilemma, plus you had to play the game to find out which were useless and possibly start over) - you put usually on plasma weapons right from the start of the game because they were simply the strongest weapons in game without any question. So you started planning hero from the start AGAIN (since some of the skills like plasma weapons were definitely end-game) rather than dynamically grow it to one direction or another thorough the game. Basically, the ideal game for me would be the champloo of alright/interesting heroes of BG1 w/ dialogues (that might have a hook/reward for keeping them around eg hero buff) with the more powerful heroes/elaborate heroes of BG2... But yeah, we already know what we're going to expect from the game companion-wise - moreover, new NPC's are always a lot of work for designers. Yeah, good idea. You could ask for team's thoughts (your a group that wanders together after all) on topics or some of them chime in AND take over the convo/ask a question or lead it somewhere else... like in real-life. You shouldn't have direct control for NPC's to comment.The vanilla NWN2's one-line comments were just comical so well, it's work for Avellone. )

I've never really thought of tieflings as elves myself. I mean, mechanically they occasionally share similarities (3e tieflings had a bonus to Dexterity), but they're actually pretty different if we're just looking at generic high elves or wood elves (if we bring drow into the equation, I'll admit the similarities get much larger). Not only are tieflings different thematically (demon-spawn who are distrusted and struggle with their own origins) but they're fairly different mechanically as well, what their demonically thematic racial abilities and a generally hardier constitution (along with, depending on the system, a bonus or penalty to Charisma). In any case, they've hardly confirmed tieflings (although they could, since the race was released by WotC as part of the GSL) as a race - they've merely confirmed something similar thematically (which I'm guessing means planetouched generally or something similar). Of course game mechanic-wise you are definitely right but I guess I'm just being snarky over the favoritism of tieflings (which is similiar to reasons why people like drows but Now With Demon Horns And Tails). I'd like to see want to see cool new races but maybe I don't like the idea that instead of cool new ideas/races, we'd end up more with human/elf-like derivatives, whose focal point is about their demonic/holy/catlike/shadow/etc FEATURES in outer appearance. It's a waste of a race slot and good new lore/ideas if old ideas like drows (everybody wants to be their life's cool Drizzt Do'Urden...)... IDK, it's a tough subject. As the designer, you'd want to please the audience (if only for possible pledges) but you might have to sacrifise some world beliavibility and (mature) script possibilites for favourite races like drows... and let's face it, a big draw for those races are coolness factor. But you know, that I'm being reasonable about this in these posts probably won't change the minds of anybody that like them already, so I'm thinking that (besides new races) maybe figuring out new esthetics or different culture or similiar for the old races is a good compromise? Idk any examples but maybe you can keep the essential features of Drows (black cool elves with white holy hair) and alter them to a fresh direction. Sort of what you already saw with the southern dwarven ranger in the update (which is pr much what i'm talking about these two posts - just extended to fanfiction-favourites eg tieflings and drows as well!) - for example, Incan-design drows and Pantherman drows in esthetics... Twists in old favourites. I hope this post makes sense, I tried my best to be level about this. EDIT Oh! You're right, of course nothing is confirmed yet. My experiences with tieflings is restricted to... BG2 (groans at the memory of Haer'Dalis) and NWN2 if it helps you to understand. I guess these posts were more about having bigger changes in races and hopefully having cool new ones than seeing the old cliches. *IEfan shrieks as Nivenus comes around the corner as a Rakhasha* EDIT2: jesus, basically my post bogs down to that i hope they change as much cliheish factors from old favourites as much as possible/to fresh new direction and hopefully include interesting new races that net-gain is more in the side of "different"/alien moreso than human. Like how ME has all these alien races that are still recognizeably bipedals like human's but with very distinct and different features, not FLOATING INTELLIGENT GOOS or other similiar stuff from Master of Orion and similiar scifi. Races not for just coolness factor, u know... okay i stop talking.

I really liked the near-extinct idea though but i guess we'll never see that. But imagine the emotional load when you SEE a human (as a part of plot a human telling you Important Stuff) or (suppressed?) human tribe/small tribes there or here (who really have no grand plans of UNITING rather that living daily lives & try to survive) and other races discovering THEM/the PC's team discovering them (either thinking ok w/e / there are other interesting races around too / these people don't have much to do)... Bit like seeing those rare/scarce Amazonian tribes. But yeah, this probably won't happen.