Domigorgon

Planescape would be a lot poorer without its Cant. Bring on the jargon, I say!

It would be great if we found legendary items and NPCs responded to that. I mean, if the sword Carsomyr is such a friggin important peace of lore, why doesn't anyone "notice" that Keldorn is wielding it? Finding legendary items should count just as completing quests. The world should react to that. It would also be neat if enemies (in random encounters, for example) checked out our equipment first. Imagine a group of bandits ambushing our party, only to discover that we are a lot better equipped than they are. So, instead of being confident that they can defeat us, they should be the ones to give up their money if they want to live.

Old man in the party who kicks ass, but can also share his wisdom with the player... heh, I get the feeling he might be something like Dakkon in that regard...

Not to mention that maintenance of such weapons is not something everyone can do (untrained). So, in order to use firearms, I see some skillpoints/dexterity/price prerequisites.

Well, there's no real need to lug everything around with you if you've got a HQ - like the Player's House. There you can stash away everything you won't be needing for the next quest, and come back for it when you do.

Actually, it's not really a higher resolution. It's only more pixels on the screen, but graphics are smaller because they use EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF PIXELS. The same thing goes for all Infinity Engine games. If you crank the resolution up, everything is merely smaller, not more detailed.

Personally, I don't like the monk class because they function best on their own, without equipment. Playing a monk and finding swords and armour that is then useless for my character... I don't like that. I hope monks in P:E will have many magic robes and sandals and bandans and quarterstaves and so on to equip.

Slow-reloading firearms is basically the same as crossbows. Maybe they do more damage or cause bigger criticals, but there's probably a longer pause between reloading. It's not game-breaking if utilized properly. Historically, early firearms did more to demoralize the enemy than do any real damage.

The classes in P:E are directly "inspired" by classes from D&D. Deal with it. D&D monk is little more than a kung-fu cliche (Shaolin monks inspired). Which doesn't really make much sense in a European-medieval-themed setting, but oh well...

Personally, I miss the hand-drawn inventory illustrations from Baldur's Gate series (not item icons, but the illos from the item description menu). I'd love to see that in P:E.

I really doubt that much (if any) of that data was saved. Too bad, really. I sure would like to play many 2D games from the 90's in higher resolutions.

Well, it sure helps that you are able to utilize ALL of your skills in the final battle, not just your prowess with a blade. Planescape: Torment did this right. There was a bunch of ways to end the game, and more than one dialogue-only solution. Fallout is a close second. I'm currently playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution and I'm pretty much pissed over the boss fights. I've put all my XPs to sneaking and hacking skills, which I use to go through much of the game, and then I get to boss fights with puny weapons and no armour. Sure, Project Eternity will feature a party of up to six characters who should be able to handle combat even if the protagonist isn't too combat-savvy... but then what's in it for the protagonist?

Inventory systems always involve a bit of the ole suspension of disbelief. In a normal D&D game it doesn't make much sense that one character can carry 10 swords and 10 armor plates and still fight and move around normally. One supposes that maximum weight counts only during travel, not during combat. My players merely suppose they are carrying backpacks which they drop at the onset of a fight, and pick them up when they're back on the road. That's what the Quick Slots are there for. It's what you have prepared. It would be cool to have only quick slots available during combat - that way you couldn't rummage through your backpack during battle for that potion of healing you never thought you would need. Maybe on the "hard" difficulity, though. I can see how some would not be too happy about it. I don't mind slots. Actually, NWN 1 did that nicely - some items might not have been too heavy, but they were large and took up a lot of space. Now, a giant baloon might not weigh much, but it's still a giant baloon.

I am not completely new to technicalities you mentioned, but it still is a bit over my head. What I do agree on is that the game should include high-res maps for those "screen resolutions of the future". Also, HUD should be compatible and scalable to whatever resolution one chooses. Project Eternity can then age like a good wine.

Well, Fallout 3 and NV dealt with this by dimming the dialogue options that were already explored. It wouldn't hurt to have a dialogue "log" when you need to check what somebody has said (in Baldur's Gate you merely had to scroll up). Having the companions initiate dialogue is OK, but needs to be appropriate to situation. As somebody already mentioned on the forums here, it doesn't make much sense to initiate "romance" dialogues while you're in the middle of a monster-infested dungeon. Unless it's that kind of romance. I would also like to point out that dialogue heavy games should take that into account: it's a lot of text. Don't make it tiny. Don't squeeze it into a small window to the upper left corner of the screen without a way to resize it or move it around. Whenever NWN 1 and 2 (non-VO) dialogues opened up, I had a hard time reading it. I would have liked to increase the font size and spread the text box from left to right. Planescape widescreen mods came with the option of increasing the font size, and I really liked that.

Also, let's see some FAT elves at least! Fat bald elves!

Whomever they choose, I hope the soundtrack is longer than just 45 minutes of music or so. The Elder Scrolls titles, for example, had Jeremy Soule. The soundtracks were too short and repetitive for a game that could be played for over 40 hours. Too often you heard the same musical theme, and not even as a leit-motif with different orchestrations, but the same exact music, over and over and over again. On the other hand, there's Kirill Pokrovsky (whom I've mentioned in another music thread already) who composed over 2 hours of music for Divine Divinity, and it's never one bit repetitive, and each track suits a given game environment. Not only that, but it's so smooth that you don't even notice when it repeats. I actually played Morrowind with a mod that stacked Pokrovsky's music over the original soundtrack, and it fit the game perfectly. I was really growing sick and tired of the Morrowind theme on repeat. Granted, in a fantasy setting there should be a few places/situations/battles deserving of EPIC musical compositions, but they don't have to play in every rat-infested alley or woodland copse. Keep the soundtrack responsive to situation.

Well, let's say you're alone in a town house with its inhabitant. If you attack him normally, he can still cry out and call the guards. But if you use your thief's silent kill ability, he will have no time to cry out, hence no guards/infamy. (it's like what you could do in Fallout 1 and 2 by using Super Stimpaks on NPCs)

Exactly. Include a tutorial, okay, but don't make it obligatory.

Yeah, but pretty soon it turns out that humans are the last best hope for the universe, and all those alien basterds were wrong to hold us back. Yay humans... again.

Humans could be like colonists, taking over lands from indigenous peoples. You know, like the 15th century Earth, only with orks and trolls instead of Native Americans. EDIT: Take that up a notch. Native humans are friends with local orks and trolls. And then some other colonist humans come, probably with an ally race or two of their own.

Fireballs should hurt everybody, not just enemies. Of course, guards or bounty hunters should intervene if too many innocent bystanders get killed.

No Candlekeep / Irenicus' Dungeon! Replay should take you straight into the action!

That's the third option in the second question. In F:NV you do see what kind of stat you need for something to succeed. So, if you've got Barter [45/50], you know it's time to find some magazines or level up, but until then you will just fail in that dialogue option.

Baldur's Gate had only dialogues. Planescape: Torment had dialogues and descriptions/narration (which I think added a lot of depth). To an extent, narration was reintroduced to some NWN expansions (HotU and MotB). Also, some stats and skills either opened new dialogue options (both BG and Planescape had them as prerequisites) or allowed you to make checks (Fallout 3). In Fallout: New Vegas you knew in advance that you could succeed a check only if you had this or that prerequisite. What would you like to see in Eternity?