septembervirgin

I like your notice of the issue of ability damage. It might be that damage does an effective percentage reduction of attributes and at certain extremes limits skill use, eliminates some defensive measures (a broken arm is often incapable of wielding a shield properly), and hampers communication skills. Status effects (to borrow the term) are not always so bad as brute force can be. An interesting monster is more than just effect on a target. Monsters have an ecological presence and in as much as the term "monster" is accurate, their presence and life is damaging to people. Their presence can also damage the economy as it damages resources used by people and they resist communication or are unable to understand communication. A monster is something we wage war with because we cannot do anything else, in so much that it is an actual monster. How is such a thing to be interesting? Monsters that I find interesting are largely non-sentient: magical insects, oozes, fungi. The monsters that appear in fairy-tales, folklore, legends, and myth are equally interesting but only from the standpoint of recognition or fascination with a unique rendition. Sometimes recognition isn't so joyful: if we become bored with repetition and see no pertinence. The best monsters we can imagine are new monsters that teach us to think and think well. So let us hope that monsters are not just "damage dealers" but also interesting, unique, and thought-provoking. Monsters should seem an essential part of the world and also present a challenge to understand *how* that monster is a part of the world and the situation being presented to us. They should be pieces in a puzzle. There should be histories and philosophies that attempt to show what monsters are and why. A unifying theme shouldn't be so pat and easy that we grow bored of its permutations. Back onto the subject of battle with monsters, I seem to recall Wizardry as being a game that demanded attention to monsters as combatants, at levels of the maze where these monsters were poignant opponents. At around fifth or sixth level, creeping coins were a deadly menace but damn interesting. Remember creeping coins? Little golden oysters that zip through the air and tear at flesh like piranhas. They were illustrated as treasure piles. Animated objects are fun foes. Imagination is cool stuff.

Even if you're offering everything I could get at $140 for $110, I'll still give you guys $140 because I can't afford it and the monsters under my bed eat my brain at night. However you should straighten out the offers on your Kickstarter webpage, there are contradictions between what you're saying, what you say on your Kickstarter sidebar, and what the main list of rewards state.

Nah. Everyone has alot of mod tools already and my garage is full. I'm not fooling anyone I know, I'm too poor to have a garage. That's really just my backpack.

POGO!!! Implimencatioshuns!

I find weapon immunity in monsters to be a drag except where it's something I can share. I identify with what I can have. It wrecks immersion to require a mass variety of weapons for each fighter type. Four should be the most. Long range (bow), medium range (gun or javelin), melee (spear if they're closing fast, one handed weapon otherwise), wrestling (dagger). As to special immunity -- maybe to magic. I agree with immunity to magic. Immunity to magic is good, lightning, fire, that sort of thing. But not immunity to a weapon. Conan would have a fit. Unless it's a slime or a jelly. That rocks. Yes, slimes and jellies and such should be immune to almost all weapons.

How about the title, "I don't believe what a jerk that guy is." It's really alot better than "The Nameless One" or "Bhaalspawn".

If they get enough money, they can have the time to show a simple stone mansion transform into a castle over a period of time. If they can't get enough money, maybe no castle at all. Historically, we'd need to have permission of the local lord and have what the lord would view as an honorable claim to the land. Past and present service along with an oath to serve would help. Money would help. Building there and letting people live there might help or might be seen as infringement. If a character has a beginning trait or perk of "Nobility" or some such, they could have pre-established right to land, depending on their title (and the political situation). Random attacks? Also random beseeching. Am I paraphrasing someone? These replies seem familiar to me... Ah well. No harm, I hope. Random beseeching, where people would come with their problems, accusations, and wants. We've seen this process in Baldur's Gate 2, Dragon Age Awakening, and maybe some text adventures. The attacks are usually not entirely without warning. Tax delays and missing messengers. Obsidian might not have the budget to do their rendition of Fable nor SIms Medieval nor the unfinished Majesty Legends. So they'll probably have a simple system for noble leadership or leave it to a storyline. They might just have a mansion or ... a house. The widows and families of the deceased might desire their familial armor and weapons, any keepsakes that happen to be "dropped". If the castle is defeated, it's likely many would be captured and kept hostage. Civil hostage-taking was considered honorable in some eras. Assigning characters to duties (such as organizing the arms-at-men -- I mean men-at-arms) might also work. This can include provisions, toiletry, water, equipment, and other necessities. To simplify it all, just throw an experienced seneschal and a seasoned sergeant -at-arms to the task. It's best if the sergeant-at-arms is knighted, landless but well cared for. The seneschal is just to make sure it's done and things move smoothly now and then. "Traps set for wolves." Be careful, the merchants might want to visit. BOOM! "What? Was that an attack?" "No, just a merchant stepping on our defensive landmines." Sheer brilliance. Many forms of agarian life take place nearby castles for the sake of the castle. Groves, gardens, vinyards, butcheries and their suppliers, convents... these are taxed a portion of the actual goods which go to feed the castle-folk. I did read David Macaulay. Aberwyvern Castle. I don't remember an inch of it though. My own copy was thieved by some ass who lived a few streets down from me, along with a collection of toys and gaming books. Damn sorcerous toad. I get the idea. And in the mirror lives the fairest one of all. Llafoe Notseri Afeht, the Egyptian princess. Of course where they live might have more to do with their personalities and where they are found might have more to do with the events in their lives. I'll stop the commentary here. I think we all get the point that a game about castle-making could be enormous fun. And perhaps an edutainment game would be more interesting than a computer role-playing game. However, keep in mind these guys don't have limitless pockets and the game should be published by or around April 2014. You made some really good suggestions! Keep in mind the expense though.

A small aside: maybe JES is subtly suggesting that they're going to avoid abstract humor that has no place in the personality of the NPC. Perhaps they'll avoid NPCs that have no place in the world they're describing simply because it's their own license and own world. You see, when you make your own world you don't to need write in paratrooping clowns to save your own sanity as a writer, you can just write what you feel belongs there.

Melissa Disney has a remarkable voice! How much would she cost, though?

I think they intend to test this game on their own (with the assistance of all who have Beta keys) and to use their own offices to program this game. With the machines they already have, I think they'll pull through with less money needed than five million. However, it might be that they still receive five million or more. After all, we cannot know all, we see so clearly as Tiax. Tiax will someday rule.

For the main character, I rather like the title "That Guy's a Jerk".

Anyone who has browsed the Dungeon Master's Guide has noticed not only the most unrealistic summation of mental disease given in a popular role-playing game but also lists of poisons, diseases, and parasites that prove useful to any DM. Now, the problem with diseases is that many are very contagious and there's really no good provision in any computer role-playing game for contagious disease that's not a central part of the game story under very controlled circumstances (except in Everquest 2 and City of Heroes, but those were considered unwanted emergent behaviors). So only blood-bourne diseases and magically transmitted diseases (perhaps in most cases souls themselves are diseased and are responsible for all mortal qualms and sorrows, but I wouldn't want to support that concept outside a game setting lest I owe a certain awful cult money). Poisons are an important portion of many role-playing games and also an important portion of a Lady Gaga music video. I only mention the Lady Gaga music video because she seems remarkably charming and informative. In video games, poisons are usually the type one coats a weapon with and are rarely outright lethal, but also are very fast in effect. Slower effect poisons are unknown because most video games with stronger simulation qualities are also intended for the young, and we don't want to be seen as encouraging the young to dose their siblings with rare Stygian venoms. Quite the contrary, use of toxins on weapons in computer role-playing games could be seen as cautionary (and randomly occurring cautionary notes might appear on use of a toxin). The danger of using a poison should be included: an unskilled practitioner might sample an unknown bottle and suffer miserably, while clumsy applications of toxic substances may somehow induce poisoning in themselves or a friend. Parasites, such as the ever-so popular D&D rot grub, are deadly within minutes and have a strangely extensive life-span away from living human hosts. To infest the undead with such parasites is one way of saying, "We're really serious.", an accessible way to communicate gravitas. One might think of various slimes and carnivorous fungi as parasites too, as some of these can grow on the human body. All very amusing content to add into a computer game. And Temple of Elemental Evil is one game that did right with green slime, bless the designers. I'd shake their hand if mine hadn't been dissolved by research (I type with my nose). You must admit that the potential appeal of carnivorous oozes and fungi is immense! All in all, I think Project Eternity is a great power for education and through a well-made and considerate game, we might further our education and cautious civil conduct.

I'm considering maybe, just maybe this game will only raise 2.8 million. They were only asking for 1.1 million to begin with and had every assurance they'd make the game. So 2.8 million would be something really, really special to them (and later on, to us). Yet we've surpassed 1.9 million at this very moment. 1.9 million and counting. There's three weeks remaining to us. There's less than 50,000 backers. Will there be half a million, considering how many fans Knights of the Old Republic 2 had? Where are these fans now? You know, I'm not even sure I'll be able to run the game on my little, inexpensive dream machine that I purchased around Christmas for less than six hundred on Amazon. Yeah, I'd get a new graphics card (around 100-150), but would that even work? The world is full of strange surprises. Maybe I'll sleep with Paris Hilton tomorrow night. Maybe I'll just get a car that eats curry sauce instead of gasoline and lightning. That's probably the secret, subconscious reason I want a stretch goal to be an ANSI rogue-like version of this game. So while the rest of you are kicking it on LINUX, blinded by a flurry of clawed rainbows and splattering blood, I'll be maneuvering my @ around a maze of #, fighting off alpha-numerics.

What if the detective just doesn't like the cult (or any individual) and decides to insist that they're adjunct to any wrongdoing? Evidence can be planted, you know. Not all detectives are goodly.

If it doesn't get published by April 2014, we might begin to feel that our donations have been wasted. I'd wait until Winter 2014 but then I'm mild-mannered and sweet. I didn't put forth ten grand. I was tempted to take out a loan but those guys at the shop on the corner only give out payday loans. Why isn't there a Wells Fargo around here?

Maybe the dungeon should be a truly colossal living thing that somehow petrified and was used as a temple to the gods who petrified it. As time progressed, a vast religious complex formed around its structure. Maybe it was a huge truffle that had holes in it. Who knows.

Longknife, this is true, however we all have different feelings towards our own boundaries of expression. What if a dev decides to showcase a view that they disagree with strongly? In most role-playing games they gloss over contradictory viewpoints as if the opposing side is a big joke. Abortion cannot possibly be the subject of further discussion. It's done and over with, for that child of a topic is dead. Let's go on with our lives.

If there were creator gods, perhaps they weren't immortal and most certainly no longer in their heyday as a culture. They might have been conquered, displaced, and are now less than populous. I'm not interested in a singular creator god concept, especially if we're funding this by Kickstarter and it's not Bill Gates's pet project at present.

It will slow down but it will probably pick up speed again, especially if Obsidian does a battery of web commercials for it and if the game review sites pick up development stories from this project.

I am a hairy old man of 43. I was a little young'ne when D&D first arrived.

California, USA. I'm just so nice and warm living near LA. Nearing a Winter's day...

While such a dungeon should not formally be the centerpiece of the game, in actuality it's the true test of a CRPG designer's ability. Can they construct an entertaining and challenging dungeon and for how long. The dungeon should be enrapturing, fifty levels deep or more. You could pay an ivy league RPG fan anywhere from a thousand to two thousand dollars to sketch out a fifty level dungeon with hundreds of rooms per level, insisting that notes be pertinent to numbers in the rooms to potential use for each room. Populate the entire thing. Don't leave rooms barren. Make it look full. Pester these ivy league role-playing game clubs for ideas. Ask at MIT too, they're often better than ivy league, especially with systems. The concept of chthonic deities should not be unfamiliar to you. Sacrifices being burnt then buried or just buried. A massive subterranean structure could've once been conceived as home to the deities of the world. Before then, it might have been a shopping mall, but you know the walking dead and what not. Always happens. Oh. No, I'm not saying fifty levels populated entirely by walking dead. That's a silly notion. Anything less than thirty different types of monster, at least a fifth of which cannot be found above ground, would be a ghastly lack of variety! Try for one hundred types of monster plus human opponents.

They have tons of free advertising in the form of news exposure. They will have news on all the game review sites. They are going to pull more and more customers through the four weeks they have remaining. I think they'll get five million. They'll have two million shortly. Isn't it already more than halfway to 1.9? Wasn't it 1.8 this morning? Sorry for throwing numbers at you, but it will be more than 2 million by tomorrow noon and the next day it will be at 2.2 million by that evening. We all know that's true, you know that's true. Three million isn't a long way, it's an obvious stepping stone, long before these four weeks are up.