MNOne

I sort of suspect the concept art you posted might be a mage - just going by the way he holds his right hand (and partly the scroll in the left), plus the layered-but-flexible armour and cloak.

I'm not sure why that wasn't clear to begin with. It semed self-evident to me.Like you say, XP isn't a quest-bounded thing. It's tied to 'doing something', and the nice thing is that the amount of XP can be associated with the 'thing' being 'done'. Finding a town? Low XP - it's a hub, a place you go. Finishing a quest? Lots of XP - it's an objective you were meant to complete (and presumably involved doing more things than just going somehwere). Finding a remote hamlet? Medium (whatever that is) XP - it's basically a town, but it was a real slog to get to, requiring fieldcraft skills or good fighting (depending on how you got there). There's also more creative things to do with such a system, but that's up to context, story and the devs' vision.

In any case, XP has always seemed to me to be a way of driving/representing character development. Any system which does that in such a way that it works - which is a condition that is relative to the type of game you are playing, be it hack-and-slash, 'true' role-playing or whatever, dependant on the kinds of action which are available to you - must almost by definition be appropriate to that function. (Plus: we're playing a game. Why is XP always spoken of as a reward? You're meant to play games for enjoyment, which is why somepeople like to try to RP the experience as much as possible. That play is the reward.)

The issue with this is you just described a highly linear game. Since experience becomes Goal-based, and you can never progress without completing goals, you end up moving in a straight line. If Town A is filled with level 5 quests, and Town B is level 10 quests, you cannot do Town B without doing Town A first. But that's a highly artificial scenario, one which doesn't really correlate with many existing CRPGs. More normally you'd have a set of level 5 quests and level 10 quests in Town A, and a similar distribution in Town B.You'd also find quest chains - in any XP system - that led from one town to the next (A, B, C, etc.), back-tracking occasionally (A, B, A, C, B, etc.), whilst seperate quest chains would do similar things in parallel. It's bizarre to complain that any system must necessarily lead to an experience where all quests of a similar level are grouped together (not to mention the claim that any non-goal-based system must necessarily lead to a non-linear, as opposed to linear, game). Goal-based XP rewards are not intrinsically associated with any particular way of distributing quest locations or the order in which you complete them. You can augment the quest system like any other - some quests could be made mutually exclusive; some could be fetch-quests (though hopefully not many of those!) where the location of the 'whatsit' is randomised; still others could involve having a particular item in your inventory, the locations (where they can be found) of which are likewise randomised ('I found a strange-looking pebble in that cave' 'lucky you, turns out theres 3 more out there somewhere which allow you to do something cool'). Two of these lessen the linearity of a game, the first obliges you to make branching choices which bind you to a certain path in the story (at least temporarily). Not one of them needs a certain way of doling out the XP for finishing each quest of revealing the story.

You needn't even have to have each prologue bring you to the same place, either. If the event is sufficiently far-reaching maybe it wouldn't matter where you were. Either A) it's a highly noticeable event which shakes the world (but this would be much harder to make feel 'personal' for your character, be pretty generic and would be akin to the tired trope of 'you're special and destined to fix this big thing'). Or B) the repercussions of this event are felt in a few places, and the three or four prologue stories happen to be located near some of these places (part of the main quest might then involve tracking down some of the other locations, to learn more about The Event, and during a replay you may chuckle to yourself and say 'oh I remember, this incident I'm currently investigating was the inciting experience in my previous playthrough').

I think I'm with you on that. And with their own IP there's a chance to do something like that.I'd definately like to see a Defence Rating seperated from Armour Rating. That way heavier armours can give a malus to defence (slower to move/dodge, so easier to hit) but reduce the damage taken when hit. It also gives a bit more of an incentive for some characters to specialise in lighter armours than you sometimes see, where having the thickest piece of metal strapped to you is the best option.

True, I like that. It gives 'just a game' a way of saying something more (the whole games-as-art argument).Not to bump my own suggestion but a table of descriptors that can be dropped into otherwise generic text like quest-vendors dialogue (in addition to case-specific flavour text) would be a feasible mechanic to add depth to such explorations. It can be a wider-reaching thing - one person's character is a bit bigoted towards a certain species, but that only comes out in insulting terms they use if a character of that species talks to them (nobody say 'knife-ears'!). Another person has a bit of a thing for heavy-set characters and greets them as 'hey sexy'. Yet another is excessively deferrential to the elderly for some reason. I don't think different body builds would be too difficult to implement, for males or females. A mesh might work for armours and other wearable items that need to shift in size. Clothes in skyrim have to contend with subtly shifting heights as well as a slider that controls 'fatness'. The shirts and pieces of armour scale and change to take account of the person beneath them. A few presets would mean work, certainly, but not an insurmountable obstacle. Afterall, you're dealing with maybe 4 human-sized models (say average; buff; skinny; fat) to stretch or shrink an item to fit, then a similar number for maybe dwarfs diminuitive hominds, etc. If such species-specific models need a different mesh, then that mesh can be stretched or shrunk depending on build in a similar manner to that of the human model's. It would come down to making more-or-less the same number of models per in-game item as BG or IWD (human-version, elf, dwarf...), and then morphing the model per body-shape.

I like these suggestions - especially if there's a difference between different 'classes' of weapons. Are rapiers different from cutlasses, for example? WIll some armour-weapon combos work well/better? - i.e. lighter armour which allows for more movement paired with a fast sword which does slightly less damage but has a higher critical hit chance. On that last note, do general modifiers based on armour (or other equipment) types seem feasible? Very-heavy armour slowing attack rate - very slightly, mind, and by a %age - for example? It's not a must-have, but it would add extra depth, and the differences seem such that, at first glance, they wouldn't break the game. If I wasn't bothered about ensuring a sword fighter had a certain bonus associated with a rapier, I could just 'brute-force' the playthrough and get by by giving him whatever I found that was better than he already had (rather than search the shops for/craft a specific type). Battles might be easier with more forethought, or be accomplished with more finesse, but it wouldn't stop me playing and winning if I didn't bother to compare every stat in minute detail. That said, point (e) I would regard as a must-have.

Small and isometric as the view may be, I hope theres a bit more variety in the models than the were in IE games. I loved them dearly, but it got a little boring when every long sword was identical save for a different colour on very special magic items, and I vaguely recall flails having the same model as the mace. Certainly clubs and bludgeons did, and if I'm carrying around a gnarled tree branch I'd like it to look like one! I also remember in IWD2 getting some armour that was made of crystal or enchanted ice or something, but on the model it was just plate armour coloured blue. In that game you also got really nice and detailed icons for splintmail and chainmail armours, but put them on your character and exit the inventory and they looked identical. A similar thing plagued a lot of the polearm weapons - most just used the spear model. Whilst I agree that some designs are really far-out and crazy, in my view I'd like to see a few interesting items. Variety in the normal weapons is a must (see here for example, as well as many other reproduction companies). Magical or special ones should not be ruled out of hand (but ruling them out entirely doesn't seem to be many people's solution in any case). One thing that could be done with them is very special ones require a quest to get (and they should be good - so many games give you 'unique' weapons as a reward for a quest, but these weapons turn out to be worse than many comparable ones of the same level/quality). Then they'd be regarded as properly special, what with taking an effort to retrieve. No need for them to be ridiculous in design, but interesting accents - a viscious 'evil' blade with a serrated edge, a holy relic with a gold hilt (and I'd agree to the 'no sparklies' sentiments I've read). Things like that. Hell, I quite like the look of Skyrim's dragon-bone weapons and armour, and I don't think that's going too far into sillyland (so long as you have to raid the tomb of a famed dragon-slayer, or kill a dragon yourself and bring its bones back to a master blacksmith three towns over or something). TL;DR: Basically, the one consistent downside to my experience in IE games (in other words, those downsides not caused by my own ineptitude) was the lack of connection between the equipment I gave people and the look of said people when they were running about the world. So whilst crazy-over-the-top-super-ornamental weapons and armour are both stale and intrinsically aesthetically disappointing (to my eye), i would like to see variety in the 'mundane' weapons (cross-hilt swords, sabres, basket hilts etc. - as cosmetic or functional as the designers want) and I'd like to see that variety reflected in what the character models carry around with them. I'd also like to see some 'special' weaponry that has things every-day weapons don't, so long as it's, well... 'tasteful' is as good a word as any.

I'm fine with old fantasy staples, but I'd like to see something different done with them. - Orcs who have a degree of civilisation. Maybe they could take over the 'good with machines' role from the dwarfs/dwarves. Brutish-looking, mistrusted, treated as slaves for manual work by many - in essence, the perennial 'Other' - but keenly intelligent. - Elves based along the lines of Pratchett's Lords and Ladies (added bonus: that version comes with two different nations built-in - hedonistic sadists (queen's court) and sybaritic-but-jaded party animals (king's court)). Poorly remembered quote: 'Elves are magical: they are creatures of magic. Elves are wonderful: they evoke wonder. Elves are marvellous: they create marvels. Elves are terrific: they bring terror.' Or just militaristic and sadistic bastards. Different nations amongst non-humans would also be a majour plus. Most settings go for a variety of human or human-dominated kingdoms, but other races are very often (not universally, admittedly) treated as all alike. A degree of separation between species would be interesting too, but for me not really a necessity. It could be implemented (and should be, if it is) in a variety of different ways, from Athenian (everyone who isn't Greek is a barbarian) to geographical separation such as massive mountain ranges with treacherous crossings that prevent frequent contanct between mankind and elves.

I came here to say this. I would really like to see old people as playable characters. I agree, on the other hand if they don't actually let you play them as old, if the story never really is built for an older character and treats you like a young start up for too long? It feels off. The option, I'd love it there, but it can't just be there, the story needs to support it, or, more importantly, not contradict the choice you made. What might be a nice feature would be an ability to select an age 'stat' or characteristic on character creation. It does nothing but feed into the dialogue system where periodically NPCs or party members will address you using a simple [adjective] [noun] lookup system based on your age (or gender/class/species/favourite colour etc.). In essence: "Go thee here and kill ye this thing, [young] [pup]/[old] [codger]."