teknoman2

i dont see your point. the name may be the same, but it depicts something different depending on the world in our world, trolls are people with a certain type of behaviour in DnD, trolls are tall, slim humanoids, with long claws on their hands and average intelligence in Middle Earth, trolls are dumb, fat, giants in a certain children's show, trolls were tiny, cute and kind

a troll image in the update... i see what you did there

in the end it all depends on how you want to play. in RPGs i put myself in the shoes of the character, and make the choices i would make if i was really in that situation... and of course i accept the consequenses and move on. there are people however who prefer to know what will happen if they make a choice and are choosing based on the desired result. no matter how many restrictions i could put on the game to ensure everyone plays it my way, they will find a way to circumvent them and play it how they want. so why bother?

on this matter, one thing i do not like about forgoten realms, where most IE games were placed, is that the gods and death are something trivial... and i do not talk about resurection magic. gods exist and is an indisputable fact, not a theoretical assumption to explain priest magic... also afterlife exists as a proven fact, so there is no real mystery in death. death as such becomes a trivial formality on the way to the afterlife. and since there is no mystery, there should be no fear either... it actually is stranger that the people bother to live at all so what i'd like in the PE cosmology, is gods that are more like something you hope exists and not a proven fact, and the fear of death to be a question of faith

anyhting that does not require this

if you have any IE game, go to the config and change the "updates per second" from 30 to 60 and then play the game... it will look like Benny Hill show

so long as they are writen right, i like all quests... except for mindless fetch quests even a childish-sweet quest can be full of moral issues and mystery if the writer is at a moment of inspiration when he makes it

as i said before, if you reload because you want to pull through a tough battle with all your characters alive, is fine. if you reload because you see the result of a choice you made and do not like it, then you are bad at roleplaying. an easy way to prevent the later, is to have delayed consequences, like the witcher had. at the start of act 1 you made a choice and did not know it's effects until well into act 2... to change it you had to actually replay the whole game

here's a little example using DnD a fighter does not need dexterity, because he will use a full plate that will remove all dexterity bonuses a fighter does not need intelligence, because he will not be casting any arcane spells and has no need for more than 1 skill point/level anyway a figher does not need any wisdom, because he will not be casting any divine spells a fighter needs no charisma, because he has no speech skills so that leaves us with strength and constitution. any build in which you put any point in any stat besides str and con is a failed build, unless you plan to multi class so any system that offers me a reason to make a wise or intelligent or even charismatic fighter, is by default better than DnD

well if i know that up ahead i will find basilisks, i use a protection from petrification and all's well. if i know ahead i have 3 fighters, i send forth my AC-over 9000 figher that can be hit by a roll of 20 only and lo and behold: all 3 roll several 20s in a row and kill him, then it's pretty much pure luck... or in reverse, if my character cant miss unless he rolls a 1, and for some reason that's what he always rolls, i dont think my "tactics" are lacking

well, in a game that used the same visual style as PE (3D models over 2D enviroment), temple of elemental evil, i had no problem telling who is who. even if i had all fighters with the same armor on everyone, there was always something that looked different. at most you just select them by clicking the portraits and let the circles tell you who you control

the main difference is PE is made with a ruleset specifically designed for a CRPG with a RTWP combat system TToN is using a PnP ruleset that is made for TB combat, and is adapting it for a CRPG. so making the game's combat system TB, has several advantages, especially on the fidelity of the system to the PnP original

i think it's called resting

That's kind of exactly my point. Regardless of whether or not it's indicated (the attribute source for the option), the specific dialogue option was spawned out of the Nameless One's virtual mind, and not from your own. Therefore, HE knew it was intelligent, because he had high intelligence, even if you did not. What I was saying was, if the game wanted to allow you to say something smart because of his high intelligence, AND say something false as well as smart, then you wouldn't know which was which, unless the game first went out of its way to explain to you all the specifics of why, exactly, that was a smart thing to say, and why it was true, THEN presented you with both options and said "You should be able to tell which one's false, now." Example: Because of Knowledge: Nature, your character can say "There are berries that grow in this area that can treat your condition. They are blue, with triangle-shaped leaves," OR "There are berries that grow in this area that can treat your condition. They are yellow, and grow in squarish clumps." How do you, the character, know which is false? Your character already knows; that's what Knowledge: Nature already represents... his inherent knowledge of such things. It's not some clever puzzle to figure out. Just something he knows. So, why shouldn't the game just say "[lie]" on the option that isn't true? Now, you know what he applicably knows about Nature in this scenario (that there are berries that can treat that person's condition, and that they grow nearby, and what they look like), AND you know that the game's allowing you to lie about it. All from two brackets and three little letters. The only way to do it with-OUT that tag would be to expect the player to read some encyclopedia entry on berries and what they can treat, then have them match up the descriptions in order to figure out something their character simply knows off the top of his head, right then and there. For the record, this isn't a counter-argument to something you've said. Just an elaboration/clarification on my example that you seem to have possibly misunderstood (or maybe you were simply making sure I understood that the attribute tag next to the dialogue option wasn't necessary? In which case, I do, and thanks for making sure I do. Seriously.) im not arguing that tags are not needed. but they are situational. in your example it is needed, because as you say, it informs the player of something he does not know, as it was needed in my FNV example. all im saying, is that sometimes (like the "Let me join you" case) it is meaningless. in my torment example, yes the character was smart enough to come up with the answer, but it was mixed with 4 or 5 other answers (some may have been based on other stats as well). so the player had to be smart enough to understand if and by what stat the answer has become available. that makes the player more involved than just choosing the tagged answer

in torment, if the nameless had intelligence 20, could come up with dialog options that would not be available if he had 10 or 15 int. however there was no indication that this is based on the characters intelligence... you had to use your own brain to make the connection of the choice with the stat. if you were not smart enough to realise that this was the smart thing to say, you could choose a different option that seemed better

the combat screenshot gives me hope that something i found wrong with the area design of the IE games will not be here: height perception. in many areas of BG 1 and 2 and IWD 1 and 2 i could not see where the wall-floor corner was so i was trying to reach a place that seemed to be on the same level as where my party was. often it actually was a roof or the other side of a chasm, but had no visual identification of it being separate from the rest of the area

Precisely. Yet all declarations are not regarding future actions. Also, honestly? A lot of the time it's just helpful to the player to keep information organized. If your player learned some specific bit of info 2 Chapters ago, and you want to lie about it to someone now, I'd rather just have the friggin' interface tell me which one's the truth and which one's the lie, rather than having to look it up in the journal or something. The character intuitively knows that in like... a millisecond of thought, so why should I have to go "wait a minute... which is accurate, and which isn't accurate?" just because I don't possess the character's virtual brain but otherwise control him nonetheless. It differentiates between your character's knowledge of something's inaccuracy, and his obliviousness to that fact. You can say inaccurate things to people without lying. I know there functionally isn't a lot of difference, in the actual game world. But, since a player is interacting with this game world, it's nice to have the information. We're going to have all those spiffy Expert Mode-style options, to toggle indicators on/off, so you can always do that if it doesn't float your boat. But, it's not as if there's literally no reason, ever, to have [lie] displayed. that's also true. however the way i play it is: "if i dont remember it, my character does not remember it either". so the option to take away all tags is my cup of tea. im not against tags for those who want them, but sometimes, certain tags are just overkill. of course if i get in a situation like the NCR hospital tent in FNV, where i was asked to help the wounded, an indication that "[medicine 50] is needed to help this guy" is necesary regardless of the tag preference

a [truth / lie] tag used to declare your future intentions, is pointless Will you save us from the bandits? 1. Yes [Truth] 2. Yes [Lie] 3. No 4. I'll think about it 1 and 2 still allow you to choose if you will help or not when the bandits arrive, regardless of the tag if however you need to perform an action along with the dialog line, then the tag is needed Give me your money! 1. Here [Give the money] 2. Here [Pretend to give the money and stab him]

It's an isometric, party based game - the characters are going to be a an inch or two tall on the screen. So how exactly is "sex" supposed to work in an infinity style game that doesn't use cutscenes? And please don't say Witcher 1 nudie cards I just started playing the Witcher this week, and I have to say that this is the most hilariously ridiculous part of the whole game, which is itself a forest of hilariously ridiculous things. The game is not bad but my god, why I do I feel like it was made by a bunch of 18 year old drunk Polish dudes? actually it was... there was not a single person in the development team that had ever worked on a game before, and most were fresh out of school with some still in it. as the CEO of CDP said in an interview, it was a mess of randomness that by pure luck came and fit together for the final product.

well in arcanum if you played a woman, you could "work" for the luxury brothel in Tarant. as a man you could still work on other types of tasks and have "that work" as payment. there were no sex scenes of course, but it was hard to imagine something else was going on. sp yes, there can be sexual content without the need for explicit sex scenes

i dont think your example about FPS is right if you join some bandits for whatever weason, you will do it in an out of sight alley or in the forest, not in the middle of the town and shout it loudly for all to hear. and of course the bandits will not sent out messagers to every village to inform them of your decision to join

>A good game will not change your reputation unless you actually go so far that you get involved with the criminal activities of the bandits you're infiltrating. as you said yourself. so the game will not make you *known* as a bandit, if you just say "Let me join you". it will give the reputation, if you follow the bandits on a raid and attack a caravan. at least that's how obsidian games have been made so far

still PE though.

6 fighters ftw

we got a truckload of different gameplay options, so everyone can customize how easy or hard the game will be. i dont see the reason why some think that these options are bad design. we have easy, medium and hard difficulty, we have normal mode where companions do not die, a hardcore mode similar to NV, expert mode that increases chalenge and makes companions killable, trial of iron that does not allow saves, and we can mix and match all these from normal easy all the way to masochistic expert+hardcore+trial of iron on hard. there is an option for everyone and if this is bad design, i cant imagine what good could be