[Identifying found items]

Sorry for the minor offtopic here, but I think it's important in order to fit the concept of lore and identification in the world.

 

I'm all up for realism, so for me it's important to have different qualities of swords/armors: rusty, bronze, steel and maybe something more mystic (star metal).

This would also be a convenient and elegant way to avoid the boring and immersion breaking "+1" magic tag.

 

Distinguishing between the first three would require a very low blacksmith skill. And identifying such items would give you information on its damage. The fencing skill would give you information on the number of attacks per round the weapon speed.

Although for identifying something more exquisite such as star metal or recognizing a peculiar forging process (like the one in making a katana, it would require a higher skill level).

And forging such items would require an even higher skill, obviously (and having the schematics for such).

 

 

Now, as for unidentified items and lore.

I'd like for it to be possible to use unidentified items and make use of its effects (*). However if it's cursed, tough luck pall, cursed girdle of gender and Edwina gives you T representation in the game.

Knowing all about the magic associated with the item would require having a high enough lore skill or bringing it to someone with the necessary skill level. And please!, no uber lore master that knows it all on sh+ty town.

It could also be that for a few items, there would be two lore levels. The first would uncover the more basic magic properties, with the latter give you information on some high level stuff (eg: performing a ritual, gives room for interesting side quests).

IMO getting this information should be done in a convenient way like "identify everything on party", otherwise is becomes a tedious chore.

 

 

Finally, the trader skill together with the lore and blacksmith skills should give you information on how much gold an item is worth.

This saves you the trouble of playing the role of a mule carrying stuff that isn't worth a dime (this is really material for another thread about game world economics).

 

 

(*) although I'm of the opinion that weapons and armors should play better or worse depending on the occasion, instead of a matter of simply being better in a one-size-fits-all (which is boring and provides no strategy at all).

Furthermore, I'd love for some Diablo 1-ish items, where they had both advantages and disadvantages.

 

 

 

tl,dr: no identify spell, use a lore skill, nice items descriptions and artwork like in BG2

[What do you want the other race(s) to be?]

I definitely don't want insect people.

 

Humans, elves, dwarves, godlike and insect people as a fifth option?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who can succeed in a little "Odd One Out" here. I'd rather be half-kobold... Or anything else that seem to properly fit the universe.

 

I've used the same expression as you as it "fitting the world", but the more I think about the, the more convinced I get that the fact is that we know nothing about it apart from the fact that it's a fantasy game with magic where the pinnacle of technology are firearms.

Our pitfall is assuming that because because we'll have humans, elfs and dwarfs, every other race should fit according to D&D.

Should we really trap ourselves in this?

[What do you want the other race(s) to be?]

I would have loved all humans. Just different cultures of humans.

I think the point of having different races is that it allows exploring different social and cultural paradigms that are not possible with humans, due to our own fabricated idea weaved with history threads.

It's a sad truth that I don't recall ever having seen such a thing.

 

The strangest I've seen (as a playable) in any videogame have been the drow (in BG2), that where a violent matriarchal race.

(technically I played with a troll in ToEE, but yeah, in terms of culture or dialog, it was as flat as it can be)

 

When I was a kid, I remember seeing a cartoon episode (from Once Upon a Time... Space) where humans met a reptilian alike alien race.

And while they exchange impressions the aliens said that they ate, like, 90% of their offspring (eggs).

The humans where horrified.

The aliens proceed to explain that due to their large number of eggs laid out, if they didn't do such a thing the planet ecosystem would collapse due to their numbers.

And the human became more understanding, but still horrified.

 

I'd really like to see some out-of-box cultures.

[Mega dungeon (didn't see anyone make it a poll and Obsidian said it'd be a good idea to do a poll...)]

What I'd like to see would be for a region to have been devastated by war some centuries ago. And through time it got filled with criminals, undead and any other type of wild and demonic critter.

So you basically have a full region filled with ruins of a civilization whose knowledge is long gone... until someone risks his life scavenging it.

 

Some of these ruins are completely isolated, while others interconnect with several others through simple tunnels or underground areas (dungeons).

 

So you'll be able to explore some bits isolatedly, while others will be vast. And maybe on some of those the entrance crumbles and you'll have to find your way out.

Neat or what?

 

This would also allow for some connection to the main quest or some side quests.

[UI Stuff that you'd like to see]

Have you played the IE games? Characters enter scenes, move, maybe even performs actions (attack, drink potion) etc during dialogues. A full-screen dialogue screen would just be in the way.

That said, I would love sizable portraits of NPCs during dialogue.

Yes, but a long time ago.

I have forgotten about that. I had the idea that "time" paused during dialog.

[UI Stuff that you'd like to see]

ToEE had horrible UI. Radial menus can suck my ****.

I disagree.

The only problem with ToEE's UI was that the keyboard shortcuts didn't always work (due to bugs).

[UI Stuff that you'd like to see]

UI stuff that I'd like to see: GAME_UI.XML

This man speaks the truth.

 

 

On another subject,

I made this mockup due to a discussion at another thread, but it fits perfectly here due to its nature.

 

 

What do you think if we had a dialog interface like this, where the player is spoiled with delicious artwork?

[Stretch Goal - hire Justin Sweet to make portraits.]

Meh....I'm sure their in-house artists can do just fine and then the in-game portraits are a small part of it. I'd much rather they use stretch marks for more significant additions.....this just seems like a waste. It's not like I'll sit there admiring portraits or something, no, I'll see them, maybe think they're neat or not and move on out as I go about my business.

 

Don't get me wrong this Justin dude is great and all I just think Obsidian can make much better use of the kickstarter money.

I also have a preference for their in-house artists, I think that is only fair. Besides, the dwarf ranger as pretty good IMO.

But in any case I'd love to see more artwork in the game. A lot more than we even had on old IE games. And if they need Justin to join the ranks, even better.

To me this is a very significant add-on. It can give so much character to an NPC and to a location. And make narrations something memorable and exciting.

Although this art is reallly good, it's not really a portrait, no? This type of art would be great for narrated events, or even as cutscene replacements, but not for a portrait. BG and NwN1's portraits are more focused on the character's face, which makes it much more personal I think.

True. But I guess the problem we are used to a certain type of interface.

Now imagine we have something like this instead (adapted from the Age of Decadence UI):

 

 

Am I the only one who would like to have such a thing?

 

Note: this wouldn't be for all NPCs, just the major ones.

[How big of a spread should there be between level 1 and max level?]

One way I'd really love to see this implemented is by having none of the PCs attributes automatically increase. Unlike in, say, DnD where a fifth-level fighter automatically has five times as much health as a first level fighter, I'd like to see a situation where you have to put points into Constitiution (or whatever) to increase your health (and by doing so you'd be choosing not to increase your attack power or accuracy). By the end of the game, I think a reasonable (not min-maxed) PC should be able to be about 2x as powerful (double all the important stats for his class) as a starting character, + have a lot more options (special attacks, spells, et cetera).

Yes, I agree with this mechanic.

 

Also, I'd like to see some type of learning curve for attributes (assuming these can be changed, I hope so) and skills, such that after a certain threshold you need to use 2 skills points for a 1 point increase, and then 3 skills points for 1 point increase, and so on.

 

At end game I'd like to be a respected and known adventurer across some lands, but nothing epic or even close to god-like.

[Is the boxed version Kickstarter-only?]

I don't know, but I hope so.

 

Gives an incentive to be a backer.

[Production Beard stretch goal for the 4 millions mark?]

Grow facial hair as a stretch goal for four million? Do you know how stupid this sounds?

 

Edit - I would rather see traditional game content incentives or bringing on popular guest developers.

some people have no sense of humor

 

Besides, the idea would be for this to go along with something game related.

[Create subforum for polls?]

Or you can do what I did

 

The more important thing to ask is... do the devs even look at the polls?

[Production Beard stretch goal for the 4 millions mark?]

just for bumps you should add some "donno" option or something :D i'm pretty much neutral and i hope my "no" won't upset you, but really i couldn't press yes :D

 

No problem. That is cool.

The idea was exactly to make people chose.

So that if there were a lot of yeses, the devs would go forward with it.

I guess they won't.

[What do you want the other race(s) to be?]

Undead (i prefer if they are ethereal vs zombi like) or Modrons-Constructs have REAL interesting concepts in a game like this cause the firsts lost his souls (if not, they will reincarnate) and the seconds doesn't have one to begin.

 

 

mmm...

constructs that have no soul

constructs that want to be human humanoid well, you get my point

constructs that are searching for a soul (reference: Wizard of Oz)

constructs that are willing to kill and cope with dark magic so that they can be imbued with a soul... so that they have access to magic too and be able to have feelings (cheesy I know)

 

IMO this has room for a lot of cool questions and scenarios.

It kind of opens the philosophical debate of what it means to be human and have rights (pro tip: AI and robots)... in the middle ages

 

p.c.

 

But I still want a matriarchal race damn it!

 

 

What doesn't stop to continue to amaze me is that people really think dev team would actually consider their ideas. Really, the amount of threads with people proposing various additions and tweaks is astonishing. Yet I would be surprised if a single idea actually made it to development stage, not to mention the game itself.

It seems Sawyer only checks the Tropes vs Women thread

Is there any dev out there? *there* *there* *there*

We feel lonely! *lonely* *lonely* *lonely*

 

 

Now, a little rant.

While I have faith in the dev team and believe that they can make a masterpiece out of anything, I'm very disappointed with their choice of including elves and dwarfs. Not to mention that it has been done to death decades ago, these 'races' simply aren't distinct enough. Elves are just slender people with pointy years, dwarves are just stocky Norwegians with puffy beards, and even if they would be played differently that still wouldn't change the fact that they're just humans with minor cosmetic changes. Yes, they could be made magical, they could be made long-lived, but the same thing can be done with a group of humans. There just really isn't any sensible reason to take an ethos, give them magical abilities and pointy ears and call them a different species, especially if it comes to the territory when such races can interbreed. If you want magical gypsies, then make magical gypsies instead of breeding entities. What's worse, it could and often does degenerate into planet of hats setup where all members of a race are the same, just according to ethnic stereotypes, like in Dragon Age, when humans have counterparts to various real cultures, but dwarves, elves and especially kossith were all the same when they weren't like humans. It's really like a different race instead of a different species. Now, if they were included as subraces of humanity that would be great, that would be awesome and it'd add diversity without simultaneously taking it away. But as is, it's just sad.

I think that they simply went with those 3 traditional first to be able to draw into the game a less "hardcore" audience. So they're just winking.

But I'm sure they'll give those races some interesting twists, at the very least at the sub-race level.

[Time]

Not to ruin the party, but there are already 2 threads about this

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60535-some-thoughts-on-urgency-consequences-and-parallel-non-linear-missions/

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60235-urgency-please-have-it/

[What do you want the other race(s) to be?]

We could even have races of constructs, or the undead, or fairies.

 

I'm not sure about fairies... But I like the idea of constructs and even undead. I'm just not sure if it would work.

What good RPGs have implemented these as playable races?

 

 

edit:

but what exactly is an undead race anyway?

a skeleton? (if so then from which race? doesn't make sense)

a zombie? (so tired of seeing zombies everywhere, even though I don't even play those games or watch those shows)

a vampire? (wouldn't it strip away its powerful figure?)

[What do you want the other race(s) to be?]

a race that has a different belief on how the soul/magic connect works than most of the world could be interesting.

I think that should be done at a faction/country/area level and not at a race level.

 

 

 

How about a slave race. They would be known as the Soulless. All other races would believe they are beings without souls. I'm kind of stealing the idea a bit from The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. A race of intelligent yet complacent beings would allow for interesting role play scenarios.

I have the same opinion as the race mentioned by OP. It is a nice idea, but it works better as a condition for a character of any race.

 

 

OP, I also don't see insectoids fitting in this setting. But we know so little, so who knows.

 

Assuming we will have tieflings as the godly race (which I'd love to), we already cover the demonic area, and its appearance somewhat also covers the minotaur aspect and even the reptilian look. (not that looks are the core aspect, but people enjoy variety)

 

 

If we don't get the tiefling, I'm all up for a minotaur and a reptilian race.

 

can't we have total non-human races resembling tanarri, baatezu, thokola etc.? never seen that before.

If we have tieflings as the godly race, would you still like to have one of those? Or do you see that ground as covered?

Well, they said the 5th one would be for "the truly odd".

 

 

I'm really curious on what they see as the truly odd. Maybe we'll get an insectoid race or a cthulhvian race

 

I would have really enjoyed to have orcs or ogres as a playable. So it's a shame they won't be there.

 

Alternatively I'd like to see a matriarchal race, with a culture similar to the drow (if we will have drow, then not so similar but still matriarchal).

From a biological point of view, most of these tend to be from the invertebrate family. So maybe we'll get an insectoid race.

 

Maybe a spider alike race?

 

More cool stuff by Sweets:

http://www.justinswe...047_mantis.html

http://www.justinswe...130_goblin.html

http://www.justinswe...S/136_ogre.html

http://www.justinswe..._minotaur2.html

http://www.justinswe...0_aslannew.html

 

(sorry for the minor artwork derail, but when you look at it you do wonder "hey, this would be cool")

[What do you want to see as new stretch goals?]

Guys, don't forget to check this important stretch goal too

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60610-production-beard-stretch-goal-for-the-4-millions-mark/

[Production Beard stretch goal for the 4 millions mark?]

Q: What is this production beard you speak of? What will the beard produce?

A: Basically the involved devs do some funky things with their facial hair during game production. See here.

 

Q: Why would they do that?

A: Because they are cool guys who aren't afraid of anything.

 

Q: What is the purpose of this anyway?

A: It challenges the devs into accepting it. Which in its turn challenges the backers into reaching a funding of 4 millions. IMO a really amazing feat that will help in bringing the best game possible.

 

Q: What does it all mean!? How does it work?

A: Obsidian will have to announce that they'll go full Production Beard mode if they reach 4 millions of KS funding (includes KS and paypal). In its turn it's up for the backers to make the project reach a 4 millions funding.

 

Q: Isn't 4 millions too low?

A: Maybe. But I had to pick a number.

 

Q: Isn't 4 millions too high?

A: Maybe. But I had to pick a number.

 

 

NB: challenge does not apply to female devs/artists. I hope nobody gets offended with this gender inequality issue, but I suspect that most will agree that bearded women are not cool.

 

 

PS: if you vote, please bump the thread if it falls behind page 3 (at least until it gets some amount of votes)

[Tropes vs Women]

I have a question about your (1) list, what about just female Wizard or Sorceress style character that isn't in an evil cult? Since the female 'wizard/sorceress' styled companion tends to pop up a lot in fantasy games. I'm not trying to poke holes I'm honestly curious since you were so thorough.

 

Well, isn't it obvious!?

Completely naked as well also. So that she automatically casts charm upon horny male

 

From http://www.justinsweet.com/

 

All of these are great in my book.

 

 

 

Some may wonder about this last portrait "hey, she's showing her cleavage. You lying bastard! Get him!"

The important thing to ask is: does it fit the character?

 

When I look at these last two portraits, this is what I think of:

1st) vivid colored robe, staff, headband...

She looks like someone that is a member of some magi order.

 

2nd) shows cleavage and legs, solid expression...

She looks like someone that isn't afraid to resort to both wits and charms. Possibly because she isn't part of any magi order and as such is possibly on her own.

 

And curiously enough, all of those first 3 pictures would work great as evil witches/wizards/casters.

Just because they're evil doesn't imply they should have to run around half naked.

 

Like I said: does it fit the world? does it fit the character?

[What do you want to see as new stretch goals?]

I'm really curious if the devs have looked into this thread and if the new goals will match anywhere near with the results we have here.

[Why I'm not entirely happy with Update #7.]

Merin, I think you gave an interesting idea about point splitting on your thread http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60602-combat-oriented-vs-non-combat-oriented-a-possible-implementation/

 

I would just say have the combat and non-combat skill points poll sizes differ according to your attributes or your class.

Instead of being based on perks... which I'm not even sure if they'll be in the game.

 

This way you could still have room for some min-maxing.

[Slavery]

I want slavery in the game, so long as I have choices to fight it or outright stop it.

 

That's really a position that doesn't make sense in a medieval context. What does it mean to free the eunuch slaves who ran the Ottoman Beuracracy? What does it mean to free the serfs who were tied to the land their lord owned? What does it even mean to be free in a medieval setting, when your life is foreit for anyone powerful enough to take it, when a king can strip you of your property and exile you from your homeland, when 80% of the population must spend their lives toiling in the fields for the other 20% to be able to do anything else?

 

But it makes sense from a cRPG POV.

And having the possibility to do something and see its impact on the game world, to me at least, is lots of fun.

 

I agree that having an impact is really fun, but I'd prefer it if we had impacts that actually made sense, in conflicts that actually made sense. So, for example, say that we're dealing with a conflict between a top-down divine monarch who appoints lords who own serfs, and a germanic style monarchy where heads of households gather at Things and elect Lawspeakers and Shire-Reeves and Chieftans (who then go on to elect Kings / Emperors). Then, sure, you can side with the germanic-style state and think of yourself as promoting freedom, but while you're at it you're probably sowing chaos and instability, and you're not really changing that much. The heads of household will still probably have farmhands who can't vote, and the higher positions will still probably stay within one family most of the time. And what will most often decide how people vote at the Things and the other assemblies? The threat of force, and family loyalty.

 

Compare this to, say, the simplistic conflict we had in BG:II:SoA, where there are Yuan-Ti peddling children and pit fighters for the enjoyment of the Ultra-Rich. Some may prefer the latter, and that's fine, but I'd prefer the former.

 

Yes, this is exactly the type of things I want to see in the game. And I'm pretty sure we'll have those type of situations.

 

And in regard to slavery, like I said here

It would also be fun to try to abolish it on given countries (and maybe see a prospering country crumble because it only relied on it) or even become a slaver (and become a wanted criminal, or eventually build an empire on crime).

I'm expecting some backlashes from actions that initially seem the obvious thing to do, but its real impact is far more dramatic and less rainbow than the expected one.

Like having a country's economy crumble, lead them to poverty and finally war.

[Wizardry 7 - Classes i.e. Ninjas and Samurai]

How about PST?

 

Well, I think you'll agree that PST was somewhat unique in that regard, being that the mish-mash of different cultures was pretty integral to the idea of a planar hub like sigil.

 

But can you honestly say that it wouldn't be jarring in a standard European medieval fantasy setting?

 

Agreed.

Like I said, it has to fit the setting.

 

It would make sense if such classes only became available after the player had made contact to another culture across a vast ocean.

Well, this is possible material for an expansion.

[Wizardry 7 - Classes i.e. Ninjas and Samurai]

One could say, what's the conceptual difference between a barbarian, a fighter and a paladin?

They are all about mashing the other guy.

 

Simplyfiy everything enough and everything is the same.

A mage and a fighter are just humans who fight...

I guess you just tried to dodge the point.

What do those 3 classes have in common? They are able to inflict damage through physical actions using different types of weapons, such as swords... which surprisingly are also in line with the figure of samurais.

I would say it's quite different from mages, who rely on magic.

 

And it would be nice to have both something akin to the brute european animals of the XV century, as well as the more disciplined and refined orientals of the same time period.

 

Common misconception.

Well I could be wrong. My idea is that they weren't exactly known for hygiene or politeness.

If you can, feel free to post a link or two.

Funny thing is, even today, some westerners are seen as rude in some asian countries, due to things such as loud talking or blatant gestures or movement.

 

FWIW, I was born and raised in Europe.