IcyDeadPeople

Some exciting new info about the factions in Project Eternity! It seems there is a cultural group of Glanfathan elves who are native to the region and sound like they might perhaps be a little xenophobic, in contrast to the Dyrwood Elves, who migrated to the area from across the sea, together with humans. These are the same race, same sub-race, but very distinct cultural groups, with different language, dress, values and customs. They will not be. Dark elves are an old concept, but the dark-skinned "drow" are a Gygax invention. We have a few elven subraces, some of which will seem more familiar than others. In addition to the subraces, there is significant cultural division between separate groups even within one subrace. The elves that came across the sea with their human allies to settle in the Dyrwood encountered Glanfathan elves that looked almost identical to them, physically, but spoke a completely dissimilar language, dressed differently, had different values and customs, and lived virtually at a Stone Age level of technology -- all this despite abundant evidence that an ancient empire once stood around them. As a result, the elves who settled in the Dyrwood tend to feel much more kinship toward human neighbors, with whom they share a language and hundreds of years of coexistence, than the Glanfathans. I hope this is a glimpse of the rich detail we might expect to see among all the different cultural and ethnic groups.

It could be simply a random chance, perhaps affected by certain perks or abilities.

I wonder whether incorporating some of these features into an Expert mode might benefit from certain non-combat skills (for example, herbalism, medicine, cooking, hunting, fishing, etc.,) that would seem to be relatively useless for people who are playing with the Expert mode turned off? I recall Tim mentioning that they would go to some effort to ensure that each non-combat skill would be useful in lots of different areas.

I don't believe this game will be promoted like a wide release AAA title. Isn't that the point of launching on Kickstarter instead of partnering with a publisher inclined to spend tens of millions on marketing? I'd imagine the marketing efforts will probably consist of a dedicated website, press demos, trailers and artwork posted on Steam, Facebook, etc., banner ads and perhaps some sort of clever marketing activities that don't require a lot of expense. I doubt there is hardly any interest at all for a game like Project Eternity in Asian markets, so I would be surprised if any of the marketing budget is allocated there.

Good to know, all this time I thought it was "The Lake of Drow Tombs"!

Can you elaborate on this? Do you mean because PE will have a larger party? Or because Arx Fatalis and Underworld were first person view?

I'd imagine your companion would probably be grateful for the meal and glad to be traveling with someone resourceful. Even heroes need to eat. We don't know yet if the "Expert" mode will include basic needs, but if so, being able to fish, hunt and cook your own meals, or craft a tent out of animal hides for sleeping, etc., would be a great complement.

It's simply additional layers to the game to add to the role playing environment. Say your first character is a mage who becomes an exceptionally powerful wizard and you complete the main quest or retire that character and start over. Perhaps you decide you want to try something completely different next time and play a sort of ranger character from the Southern Boreal region, a dwarf who lives off the land. You consider your character concept and make choices about stuff you think he would want to do. If he is on a long journey from his homeland to, say The Godhammer Citadel, he's probably going to provide for himself by hunting and fishing along the way, perhaps tanning the hides of his game to repair his fur armor or craft something new, like a tent, etc.

Tim did mention a priest today in Update #12, but he might have been speaking hypothetically.

Not sure about new content, but I know it's designed to work with modern display resolution, and it should be much easier to install compared with all the BG1&2 mods.

I'd like to try NWN 2 or perhaps Baldur's Gate, but I will probably wait for the Enhanced Edition, as it was a hassle when I tried to install all the necessary mods.

It looks like the Kickstarter is about to run out of stretch goals. What would you like to see for $2.4 million?

It could certainly be fun and add to the immersion in the world, however, I imagine it must be incredibly challenging to design A.I. game systems for all the hundreds of NPCs in the world to have needs meters.

I had a lot of fun with a mod for Fallout: New Vegas called Arwen's Realism Tweaks. Obviously, New Vegas features would not necessarily translate well to the world of Project Eternity, and locational limb damage might be more a matter of random dice rolls or special perks/abilities, but as an illustration of what is possible, here is how those features worked in that game: Every single battle became tremendously challenging. I had to approach every encounter very carefully, often using traps, like frag mines or explosives in strategic locations, because direct combat with big groups would often result in wounds, burns, crippling injuries, blood loss, infections or potentially death. If you get hit, you might develop a wound or a burn that you can't heal during combat. You must apply a bandage or stimpak to the wound outside of combat. Bandages can be crafted from cloth scraps (broken down clothing). Burns must be treated If your wound is not healed, you start losing a lot of blood, and you must to use a a tourniquet (craftable from a belt) to to slow down the bleeding or inject a stimpak into the wound. Must be treated outside of combat. Bandages, tourniquets, and splints all add stat penalties while they are equipped, and are automatically removed when they are no longer needed. If you lose too much blood your carry weight goes down by 15 pounds. It can be treated by a blood transfusion, which is craftable out of a blood pack and surgical tubing. If your wound is not treated quickly, it can become infected. If your infection level gets too high you start continuously losing health unless you treat it with antibiotics. If your left or right arm is crippled, you can't use rifles or 2-handed melee weapons. To treat fractured limbs you must to apply a craftable medical brace (outside of combat) for a period of time (a few days or a week) until it heals. For fractured skull or ribs, you must to inject morphine into the fracture (outside of combat). You can only use a doctor's bag if your medicine skill is high enough (I think 50). Eating food and drinking liquids does not provide HP. Hunger, thirst and sleep rates are customizable to be higher than the vanilla game. If you don't cook your food it increases your Bacteria Level quickly and if this goes over 5.0, you get Food Poisoning. You gain no benefit from eating while suffering from food poisoning, it just makes you ill. If you cook your food, but don't eat it within a certain period of time, it spoils, and then if you eat spoiled food, it can increase your bacteria level. The total carry weight is massively reduced (walking around with some injuries, I can only carry about 70-80 lbs as a 2nd level character with 6 STR). Skill magazines all weigh 1.0 lb and the skill boost is cut in half. Without hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, etc., I find that encountering food and drink items in loot has very little relevance. After installing mods that add these survival features, or greatly enhance them in the case of FNV, I enjoy the games a great deal more and I certainly enjoy finding food and drink items, or a good resting place. I have a reason to get excited about finding an inn with a fire to warm my bones after wandering the mountains of Skyrim in a blizzard (because otherwise I might die), or a reason to be glad to see an old crusty Salisbury Steak in someone's oven, for example (because I'm suffering from severe starvation stat penalties). In FNV after installing mods, I would actually run out of food and water frequently, and I spent most of the game hobbling around with all my limbs crippled and suffering stat penalties from severe dehydration, hunger and deadly rad poisoning. In fact, I died of dehydration several times! This greatly upped the stakes and made it more fun to role play my character as he struggled to survive in a harsh environment. I was considering my character's perspective and making choices based on what I thought my character would want to do.

I feel the same way, really hoping for official mod tools, ideally with some sort of one-click integration for publishing our mods on Steam workshop. For me, this would enhance the value of the game.

Looking forward to seeing the Lake of Drow Tombs, whatever that is.

Sure, why not? So you would like to see locational damage affect not only the player, but NPCs and enemies as well?

We learned in Update #9 that the team is working on an "Expert" mode, which will be similar in some ways to Fallout: New Vegas hardcore mode. What kind of features do you hope to see in Expert Mode? EDIT: Also, do you feel any of these features should apply to your followers as well, or just the player character?

Yes, I hope it's incorporated in one of the new optional "modes" that J.E. Sawyer mentioned in the recent update.

If they add official mod tools as a stretch goal, I will immediately increase my pledge. I feel this greatly enhances the value of the game.

Icy, did you see the thread on the GOG forums about modding the game? It a pretty good and easy to follow guide: http://www.gog.com/e...tial_mods/page1 If you have any troubles, there are plenty of good folks on the GOG forums that can help you out as well. I spent an entire weekend trying to install the game and got so frustrated I gave up on it. There are just so many different components, and I would get part of it installed, but then there were some kind of WeiDu errors, etc. It's already been 10 or 15 years I think since it was initially released, so I suppose I can wait another year or two for the Enhanced Edition.

I was quite busy with school and work during that period and missed out on all the games released during the 1990s and 2000s. Recently had a chance to play Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and loved it, and Fallout: New Vegas is another of my all time favorites, so I pledged because I'm quite certain this team has the chops to make a brilliant RPG. Alpha Protocol and KOTOR 2 were also great games. I did purchase Baldur's Gate 1&2 from GOG.com a few months ago, but I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to install it with the bgtutu or easytutu, etc., whatever those mods are called, and finally I gave up. Perhaps I'll try the enhanced edition whenever it is released.

A Steam achievement could be fun, but any kind of in-game XP boost etc., would defeat the purpose of such a mode and make it less fun to play IMO.

Looks like there will be mage hybrids who use swords.

I don't want to see "junk" items that have no use in any kind of crafting recipes and serve no purpose in the game world.