Shadenuat

Expensive cents, you can buy a car on these. Quality post. Might&Magic used training and item durability as a money sink. It worked fine, although nature of the game (respawning monsters, AoE spells, flight and relics falling from dragons and titans) still meant player could collect millions with nothing to spend them on.

Avellone's dress mawed by wolves just recently is only argument I need. Things like durability or, say, "heavy" critical hits and failures are mechanics that can bring immense joy and frustration both, but I'm alright with that, I like all these unique situations in games.

I want to buy them, but I don't want them to replace *the best* items in game (well actually I don't mind buying some relic ending up best thing of it's kind in the game, it just have to be quest-like, with dialogue and stuff, not a press of a button). Unique items in stores should have some trick, a crutch for specific encounters. Bad example: Robe of Vecna, Barbarian Blade +4 ("oh we need to put it there what if player would't find other +4 swords?"), ect. Good example: The Trollsayer. Arguably not the best sword in IWD, but I never go in HoW expansion without it. Reflection Shield. Not the best shield in BG, but I always buy it for characters like Aerie or Vi. There's no universal answer to that, as far as I've seen when making and playtesting fan made modules, economy is a combination of multiple factors and depends on how you play. Character maxing Diplomacy can avoid every bribe option in game, while brute will have to spend loads of money on those AND on repairing weapons. I don't see the problem with that however, I find it natural a player with high Steal/Trade/Metagame knowledge having loads of excess money, because you base economy for an "average" player party. You could probably try and calculate an average amount of money a metagaming hoarder will have at the end and add some super-expensive easter-egg like moneysink. Say, a 14/5 secret Mega-dungeon level you can only open by paying 20.000 gold; fortress upgrade; ship; personal mercenary army; whatever. Having Loads of Money is a reasonable way of playing RPG, in Fallout I liked to play Persuade/Trade/Gamble and carry 5 companions in PWA with gauss weapons. *Don't like RPG's When people think about crafting and consumables they probably think a lot about WoW and all the other crappy mechanics. Crat a +11% to accuracy hell that's what I always wanted, how fun. Consumables are only interesting when they stand out. In original Fallout, things like Jet and Psycho standed out as they allowed to survive combats where, without them, player would end up chunks of blood on the floor. By the way, same was with armor - going from leather to battle armor felt different, it changed gameplay, it changed what encounters you could fight. In original Baldur's Gate, having a Potion of Magic Blocking on your warrior fighting sirenes or mages was a stand out moment, and you could't even survive without those, or scrolls of Magic Protection, when fighting straight with demon from Durlag's Keep. Also, Detonading Arrows. Also your swords were breaking like hell because of the plot, so carrying crappy wooden sticks or clubs and even placing profiency points into them was a thing player might do. Now for example let's take last Obsidian game having crafting or consumables, FNV. It's really cute, but nothing really stands out. Yeah it's in the nature of the game, it's a shooter, but what's the difference between molerat stew or radroach stew? And journals and stims, I remember using them for metagaming purposes only, never for combat. And when I was low on health, I gulped 50 different foods/vegetables/stews not even paying attention to what exactly I ate. And do we really need all this, item degradation and stuff, if every enemy running onto you carries one or two weapons with him? Upgrades were incredibly cool in FNV, though. I'd want to see inserting some sort of quest unique gem in a sword and see it change it's color, like when you add a new barrell to your revolver in FNV. Overall I want to see all, I want items in shops and crafting and durability and unleash Tim and let him roam. But consumables and crafting have to stand out, everything has to stand out if you want that to be used, and to be memorable. If you'd add a silver sword to crafting recipes and add an enemy immunte to non-silver weapons, that would stand out, but you don't have immune enemies, because people hate unkillable monsters, right? Well from what I see, if you don't add spikes of difficulty to game which can be solved by consumables or crafting, people will continue to ignore you mechanics, not paying any attention to it. Sometimes I wonder that the real problem in making somethinng useful is not to make it so, but to make player comprehend it's usefulness. +50% to damage against werewolves is not as self explanatory as ability to actually hurt them with a weapon, like in BG.

Will it be as fun as Arcanum, Tim? Please make it as fun as in Arcanum. I will send you a chocolate bar from Russia then with cool picture on it.

I am in awe. If this is what 2D can look like with modern technologies, I am not interested in 3D games anymore.

AGX-17, your dumb attitude of turning everything into semantical debate is getting old. I, as some others, were talking about the ways of delivering lore (to player), which also is used frequently as "lore" term when it comes to games, inbetween gamers. Either make some effort to understand what people say or just **** off. I am not you. I am not that much interested in winning debates, or debates at all. I am interested in ideas on game design, learning from them and sharing them. Debate can have those sometimes, but not always.

What I want is, when I'm told there's that X, I can go and ask around about X, instead of instantly getting a codex entry with mysteriously stacked together "exerpts from" and such. Partly, that devil, VoiceActing, is to blame for that happening. Compare Morrowind to Oblivion and Skyrim. Almost everything you know about lore from last two games in TES series usually comes from books, loading screens and the main plot, with rare exeptions. On the other hand, Morrowind used keywords as dialogue system. It seemed bland and encyclopedic to many, but it still was a better way to explain lore than books (not that it had problems with books). Ask an ashlander, a redoran guard, and a telvanni wizard about something like Empire or the Nine, and they will tell you three different opinions. Just another strength of heavy text game with little VO.

I baked both projects, so I kinda feel about this like Gorlum talking to his reflection in a lake.

As for humans, local Fallout-esque reputation with a few modifiers from intimidation/strength and character's overall reputation could do the trick. Age of Decadence also had an interesting twist - if your kill counter is way too high, it becomes a new intimidation option.

Someone was well aware about the animal problem when making Neverwinter Nights 1, so he made scripts for animal behavior, simple but effective: for herbivores they'd run away or be territorial, for non-herbivores they'd hunt or can attack you if you come too close, and domestic animals searched for their masters if attacked. It's really nothing special, just a few strings of code. I am not a coder but managed to make animals in my mod to run around searching food and double tap to their lair if attacked. Even wolves in BG1 are not hostile by default. It's just that when designer starts to place enemies, he thinks "oh shi--, player needs some low level xp, how do I do it... yeah, let's place 20 wolves and check them as hostile faction, that will teach 'em!".

The art there is very good. I like fantasy stuff and sketches too, color palette for all of them is great, and there is something classy and truly professional about it overall... http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SwCLiasQHY8/UPHUkp7TqQI/AAAAAAAABDE/sN0VpEkYgi0/s1600/bighornSheep.jpg is that oil? In the age of tablets I can't distinguish one from digital art anymore. Eh. Wizard's mansion is actually very cool...

Never underestimate the power of Google.

Check food merchant and bartender in Torment. Check on food and armor in Morrowind. Is a religion centered text which has nothing to do with how lore is represented in games today. It's a book with purpose. Codex purpose is usually to tell player about the game. DA:O codex is an example on how it should not be done.

Codexes are lazy, particularly for fantasy games where printing press is usually not invented, and books should be scarse. If you'll remember Tolkien, aside from some written chronicles, he used folklore to tell about history of his world. Fantasy characters should sing songs about heroes and villains, about historical events and about fantastic places they have seen. They should have tales and fairytales to share. World's lore should exist in those, as well as in architecture, clothes and food.

50/50: Chris says what he's going to do, and we're cutting two random options Call a friend: Chris can call Tim once per game session Help of the audience: We all vote of the best course of action in game at specific encounter

Baldur's Gate 1 is cute like no other game be, it is a perfect baby steps to grand adventure, roaming country side as level 1 noobs, killing gibberlings and meeting awkward NPCs. It's like your school years, skipping classes, chewing on chips and mountain dew and rolling dice in a basement with your friends, with a book which has an ugly devil on it's cover. It's just perfect in that regard. And it's still looks very pretty.

Don't... even joke like that. P:E does not take place in a horror genre setting.

I am okay with Chris just singing his own tune and not caring a ****. I am sure that if he'll feel this is getting nowhere, he'll check on advice people are providing him with. He is just a stubborn bastard like that. Er, a stubborn debutante lady like that, I mean.

"YES THE DEATH SCREEN I KNOW HOW IT LOOKS LIKE, I LOVE THE DEATH SCREEN!!"

What I think they said was: there will be all the skills, but instead of acting as "win" buttons, these skills will help player to make a better choice in dialogue by gathering more information from NPC. Which is't exactly great either, because savescumming does the same and cheaper.

I think players will want to see the ranges of engagement (visually represented during combat, I mean). Will ranges change depending on a weapon? Will giant's or hydra's engagement range be larger than half-- amauma's? Cause that's kinda important to know when you move your characters around.

Or in a trap rogue placed. That would be awesome.