LordCrash

Exaclty, if I jump you with a pike that's long twice your sword you should be quite ad a disadvantage! The range of spears is the real disadvantage in an head-to-head encounter because it makes you inflexible and slow.

I would really appreciate it if would be possible that every party member can wear a heavy armor. There never was a reasonable arguement why mages shouldn't be able to wear armor, it was more a pure decision of the developers (you're arguement with the interference is quite artificial in my opinion and there already were fighting sorcerers before). And even if everybody is allowed to wear armor there is no need for everyone to become a mage. Fighters are still far more effective in melee fighting, rangers are still better in range fighting and so on.

Shield and spear only makes sense when fighting in a big formation of several dozends or hundred men - like the Greek Phalanx as you said. But even the Phalanx fighters used their spears only in the very beginning of the battle or against enemies on horseback. In the head-to-head encounter they fought mostly with their second weapon, the short sword. But the waeponry of the ancient world is quite different to the one in the Middle Ages an the Renaissance because there were also some very different armor techniques. Fighting with a short sword is quite useless against an opponent in full plate and fighting with a spear can be very ineffective in narrow rooms and against very agile enemies. And even on the battlefield you can only fight in "one direction" with a spear because of its long body and its movement. Against attacks from the side there is very little defense possible (another reason why spear fighting is most suitable for formations).

That's because a sword could get stuck in the opponent armor or bones if the swing cut really deep. With a mace you crush things and it's more difficult to get stuck. A good hit on the helmet could be fatal. I think about it that way, at least. In the Middle Ages swords were mostly thrusting or even blunting weapons and not cutting weapons. The very heavy and large swords of the Middle Ages (Longsword, Bidenhänder, Broadsword) were often used the same way as hammers or maces but mainly for thrusting - in fact the later version weren't even sharp in most cases (rapiers). So the animation in games isn't always historically correct because the swinging of swords was quite unusual. The reason for not using swords is simple: the effective usage of swords needed a lot of training and thrusting wasn't always the most effective way of fighting in the heat of the battle against heavily armoured oppontens in full plate. Swords are good in a duel - man against man - but not in a big battle unless you are very well trained, fight in formation or fight on horseback.

It's kind of funny that the Palatinate (not Palitinate, look at the map) is a region in the middle of Germany which is a part of the German federal state Rhineland-Palatinate. Historically the (Electoral) Palatinate was a state of the Holy Roman Empire and was ruled by the Prince-Elector of the Palatinate who was among the other German princes one of the most powerful rulers in the Holy Roman Empire in the late Middle Ages after the Golden Bull of 1356 and who was also allowed to elect the Emporer. Some of you might know the capital of this historical state: Heidelberg It's quite interesting that Obisidan chose this name for one of the great regions of Project Eternity because the political situation in the Holy Roman Empire between the late Middle Age and at the end of the Renessaise was a very complex matter with shifting powers between the Emporer, his prince-electors and the lower nobles and the clerical nobility and some very destructive and brutal religious struggles and wars (Thirty years' war) all over Europe after the Reformation in the 16. century. Perhaps Obsidian chose that name randomly or for other reasons that I haven't thought of yet but I suppose it could be a hint of the social and political situation in that region (with a fantasy background as well for sure). Here some wikipedia links for people who are interested in history: http://en.wikipedia...._the_Palatinate http://en.wikipedia....ly_Roman_Empire http://en.wikipedia....en_Bull_of_1356 http://en.wikipedia...._Years'_War

I love swords though I know many knights used axes and maces in reality. But I like the look and the design of swords.

There was never a confirmation that the collectors edition will be a dvd case, the (vague) confirmation was for the NORMAL edition at the $65 tier. Most collectors editions are cardboxes with a lot of stuff in it and among that another, smaller plastic box for the dvd. If that is an arguement for you to lower your pledge....

Nice title, BG style.... Welcome to the Order, new recruits! It's good to have you all on board. Long live the Order! I'm sure our thread-master dlux will put you on the list as soon as possible and you will get your titles right afterwards.

- Having beaten Kangaxx in BG 2 for the first time (very satisfying) - Finale of Witcher 2 (you could only understand that if you read all the books) - Finale of Mass Effect 1 (just brilliantly directed, at least partially) - Looking at the text messages of what my companions do after I completed BG 2 (ToB) (just the most emotional and best ending after the actual finale ever)

You should never have to apologize for your personal taste. I think Komarck intends in some of his artworks that the background is some kind of different in style (which a significantly higher degree of abstraction) or even incomplete to put more focus on the characters. The "photorealistic" style for painting human bodies and espescially faces will always be a matter of discussion: some people like it because of its details and realstic approach other just don't like it because of the "too often photoshoped" look you described in your post. Your critics of the flat and not well proportioned armors I can see your point in some of the pictures. But this collection of artworks is made over the last decade and Komarck really fine-tuned his ablities in that topic in the last few years. It's also much more difficult to get that right if you paint in a more realistic looking style which much movement in it than if you paint scene stills which a much greater abstraction. There you can hide these slight errors in artistic interpretation and "purposed imprecision"

I know you like Justin Sweet's art since we already talked about that topic in the thread about him. I respect your opinion and your taste and I must admit that Sweet is also a great artist for sure. But claiming that Komarck can't hold Sweet's standard isn't quite fair since they mostly differ in questions of sytle, design and handling of the abstraction level but not in questions of artistic capacity. It's a big difference if you just don't like the style of some art pieces or if you say that they are not performed well. And I won't accept that someone claims the latter without reasonable arguements (I'm some kind of strict here when it comes to art.)

Hi Obsidian fans and other forum users, there are already some suggestions out there about hiring various artists for different purposes for Project Eternity and I would like to add another one to the list. I've read many fantasy books so far and I'm very interested in (fantasy) art so I thought I share my opinion with you. Some of the most visually amazing, brillantly performed and adequate artworks, illustrations and book covers in fantasy have been made by the legendary artist Michael Komarck. I would like to propose him for the creation of portraits and other artworks since his pieces are definitely among the best out there in the genre. But have a look for yourself. Enjoy the artworks and please share your thoughts with me. Thanks.

I've nothing against console ports if they are done when the PC version is finished and shipped and the patching and PC support ist fully working. But there shouldn't be any mechanics in the game which can be ported easily to console controllers later on because most PC players (me included) don't want interfaces which are optimized for console usage, we want interfaces for mouse+keyboard and that's it. If OE decides afterwards that a port can be done and is worthwile be happy. If not I don't care.

Wasn't there a "Thank you" thread already opened? for spamming the forum....??? Don't get me wrong, I'm a real OE fan, but I just don't understand why there must be a new thread for every little sh....

I think NEED is the wrong expression. We should be grateful that OE even already thinks about how they will do something for the Order (cameo or something else). The Order is a really great thing and I'm a member of the first hour, so don't get me wrong, but in the end we're adding just a very little amount to the overall pledges.

normal edition: plastic collectors edition: cardboard

Not bad... but I really prefer Justin Sweet's style. Life would be boring if everybody had the same taste. What I like at Michael Komarck's art is the combination of the "artistic" background and setting and the relatively realistic approach when it comes to portraits and people at all. I would like to see PE in a rather realistic (not necessarily photo-realistic) art design and therefore Komarck would be a perfect fit. Sweet's art has that blurred, shady and "old-school" style which perfectly fits to the games with the old infinity engine but for a new game with HD graphics and background (as already confirmed) his style is a little bit too old-school in my opinion. And I particularly don't like Sweet's overemphasis on muscles and skin, looks a little bit like "cheap" covers of metal cds or dime novels.

Then the game is doing something wrong. I had never played dnd when I played BG/BG2 and PS:T. Didn't stop me from enjoying the story. TW was boring and uninteresting story with one of the stupidest features ever implemented. TW2 was a far better showing in the story department(I actually managed to finish it), but the main characters Triss & Geralt were still forgettable. Letho, Ivoreth, Roche and the setting were what saved it. DnD is a set of rules not a literary template, that's some kind of a difference. And the Witcher games didn't make something wrong in story and character development because the devs WANTED to build uppon the character created in the novels. CD Projekt never wanted (and never claimed that) to create a new world and new characters, they wanted to create a game in a fully developed setting with known elements. You can't fully understand Geralt (and some of the other characters like Triss) and the whole setting/world without knowing the proper literary background. You can follow the story in the games, for sure, but with the knowledge of Geralts character in depth you would see the games and the characters in a complete different light. This discussion is a bit misleading in this thread, so perhaps we should end it or shift it to somewhere else.... So if you look at my first post in this thread you should notice that I didn't talk about the characters but about the setting and the world in which the Witcher games are settled with all the ethnic and social problems. That' what this thread is about and that's what I wrote about. Character development is a nice topic to discuss but it's not the right place here.

OMG in which world are you people living??? Elsewhere you can get different T-shirt sizes if there are only a dozen people around. With a good printing company you only pay for creating the logo and afterwards you can order T-shirts (and other textiles) in all available sizes. So it won't be a problem to deliver the T-shirts in different sizes.

I would like to throw in the legendary Michael Komarck, one of the best fantasy artists out there. You can see some of his amazing artworks on his webpage. Definitely worth a look, espacially for portraits! Examples: Game of Thrones: http://www.komarckar...ccg_agot04.html ; http://www.komarckar...ccg_agot05.html Anachronism: http://www.komarckar.../ccg_ana19.html ; http://www.komarckar.../ccg_ana10.html Warlord: http://www.komarckar...m/ccg_wl03.html ; http://www.komarckar...m/ccg_wl12.html ; http://www.komarckar...m/ccg_wl04.html The gathering: http://www.komarckar...m/ccg_mtg23.htm ; http://www.komarckar...m/ccg_mtg03.htm ; http://www.komarckar...m/ccg_mtg08.htm Example of the Game of Thrones calendar:

Obsidian haven't created a better character than Geralt for sure. I've read all Witcher books and played all games (Obisidan and CD Projekt) so far so I know what I'm speaking of. That doesn't mean that Obsidian's characters are bad, not at all, but they clearly haven't the literary finesse of Geralt. And for the story: you're not even able to understand all details of the stories in the games without knowing the books.

We all don't want dragon-powered rats for sure. But what's the problem if the dragon at the end of the dungeon is a real threat to the group at every level?

I think the best RPGs so far in topics like racism, class-struggles, social problems and uprising, persecution, massacers and pogroms, complex political alliances and intrigues and the evolution of a new social and political world order are the two Witcher games which strongly reflect Andrew Sapkowski's literary template. And without doubt Sapkowski's Witcher novels are some of the best books concerning fantasy which have been written in the last two decades, contentswise and literarily. It's a shame that the Witcher cycle about Ciri isn't fully published in English yet, but you shouldn't miss the short stories if you're even a little bit interested in that kind of stuff. If the storytelling in PE could hold to that level (and something like that is the goal I think because Obsidian want to address real mature topics) I would be perfectly satisfied!