DCParry

<----Native English speaker here. Trust me, it's not all that clear to me either. When it comes to combat features/mechanics, Sawyer and crew have been maddeningly vague. As it stands, I feel more in the dark on it now than I did before we were told anything. Ok, In this interview (and in others), Sawyer has stuck to just describing the Perameters of everything. 2 Examples: 1) There's no Round or turn system ala the Infinity engine games and AD&D. -Alright. And? What does this mean, exactly? Does it mean that a mage can cast a spell every second without pause? That a fighter's attack volume is 100% dependent on how fast he can swing his weapon and nothing else? And here's a bonus question: if my Barbarian is using a Sword and shield, will I have the option to forgo a blocking action with my shield in favor of 2 swinging actions with my sword in the same time frame instead? 2) Classes won't be as rigidly defined as they are in D&D and the infinity engine games. -in the IE games, you knew your classes. You are a Rogue. And Rogues can't wear heavy armor. They can't use shields. They can't use Greataxes, 2-h swords or Polearms. etc. But in Eternity we're told that all these class-based restrictions are.... removed in favor of an "every class starts out virtually the same and then branches out in their own direction as they advance" system. K.... I can wrap my head around that, I guess. It's a system somewhere in between Skyrim and D&D 3.5. But.... I still want to know some fundamental details. For example, Can I make a Mage who wears Heavy armor, and uses a Giant Axe, and will there be mage skills/talents/perks to allow me to use my Armor and axe more effectively? And if so, then by definition, aren't I playing a fighter at this point instead of a mage? I hate to sound like a program record, but mechanics wise, the separating factor between classes still seems to be the way each one uses their soul magic*. For example, the fighter seems to have a number abilities that can increase her stamina and defense, which are probably a combination of training and a particular way of harnessing her soul energy. Mages on the other, use their soul energy for other results (altering things outside of one's body, i.e. fireball, arcane veil or adding power to the body with buffs). Also, technically, we will all be playing "fighters" as I assume at one point or another we will be "fighitng" things. Avoid getting too caught up on labels.

As I wrote in another thread about the same stupid issue: I like to play my games in mesh stockings.

Ugh, what is this, the X-COM forums? This is a NON ISSUE. The devs should not waste a single zot on thinking about save scumming.

Great interview and as always encouraging news on the direction. I enjoy crafting my main character and gathering individuals with their own personalities to follow me around much more than designing whole parties, but I am really impressed how Obsidian is finding a way to work with both desires here. I know this is old news, but I think it shows a level of thoughtfulness and engagement with the true range of fans that will make the game great. EDIT - Also, last screenshot, look at DAT HAT! RAWR

I demand jaunty hats.... jaunty hats of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Outstanding screen shot.

Last time I checked, I still didn't have my bright, green k.

Whoooooooooooot. Great update, I am enjoying everything and so far this is the only kickstarter project I backed have yet to be disappointed in. Keep up the great work! DECLARATION - I really just made this post to see my badges.

There will definitely be some larger structures. You are just seeing a small portion of one area. It isn't really Machu Picchu or Viking... it is closer to Machu Picchu with Viking layered on top. Why do I now want Viking Hang-glider guards to protect the village from all enemies?

Don't read too much into this. I have never been on a game where we didn't have a tough choice deciding what goes into the game and what gets excluded. You could send the choice back to the kitchen, and stress the fact that you specifically ordered your choices medium-rare. Zing! Don't forget to tip your waitress!

For a fantasy that is probably about a century (or 2) later in terms of firearm development than what Josh implies PE is, take a look at the Powder Mage series by Brian McClellan. I was skeptical but overall I enjoyed the idea. There have been a couple recent novels and series set in in 17th/18th century fantasy equivalents which I have found quite refreshing.

I wonder if there isn't something to be said about the quality of the visuals in the switch from 2D to 3D figures. I am just thinking out loud here, and I know it is a different genre and not exactly the same thing but case is point is the jump in the HOMM series from 2D to 3D (it was from the 3rd iteration to the 4th iteration I think). The 3D figures were just freaking horrible. They were so much uglier and had less character than the previous 2D versions. The rush before the aesthetic side of 3D caught up could have resulted in company's being less willing to take risks on these sorts of things.

More like Eternity Oddity. Or Space Eternity? Staring Ziggy Obsidiandust and the Spiders from Eternity. and off to bed. With what I am typing it becomes obvious I should go Damn you. My first character now has to be named ActionMan. Also, don't listen to Major Tom, I hear he is a junkie. EDIT - As for the "ruined" state of the keep, I think the stylized, fantasy ruined appearance is fine. Having spent many years of my graduate work at actual archaeological ruins, I will tell you they are kind of boring in a visual sense.

To be technical, it is a theatre, not an amphitheatre in the picture. You need to mirror the structure for an amphitheatre. Great update and good looking design for the backer pages. I hate to nitpick (oh, the IRONY), but can we get another screenshot background already? =) I mean, that one is pretty and all, but we have had it for a while. Maybe an Orlon frolic scene?

While a completely different game and set up, I was recently playing AoW2 for some good ole nostalgia, and I came to remember that I utterly hate large block UI's that take up so much real estate no matter what the screen resolution.

Extremely awesome update. The class and mechanics looks very interesting and I am looking forward to playing it even more now.

In reference to the prestige/taxes discussion. I think we may taking the terms and equivalency a little too literal. Tax rate (that is the amount you tax the inhabitants) and prestige are most likely separate things. I would assume that prestige affects how close you get to the actual taxable income. A higher prestige means that the inhabitants will pay their taxes with less grumbling, will be less likely to turn a blind eye to bandits and such, and less likely to throw the tax collector down the nearest available well. Now, this could be all abstracted in the prestige stat, with the functional outcome being higher prestige = more money. This prevents the scenario from becoming over complicated and turning into a mini game that consumes a lot of player time. Or, they could be cooking up something where you have a variable tax rate, with happiness and productivity and growth (I have playing too much Civ) reduction the higher you set your rate, but the higher your prestige, the less severe said penalties are. Conversely, with a low prestige, you will have a harder time getting the anyone to pay even the most minimal of taxes. They could also make prestige a +/- scale, with a positive meaning you are winning the hearts and minds of people figuratively so they willing follow the laws, and with a negative you are winning the hearts and mind of people literally and they will follow the laws, since you have their hearts and minds, in jars, in your pantry.

A lot of fin stuff in this update. The mechanics of the keep sound fun and engrossing, and I can't wait to see specifics. While there are always avenues for improvements, it looks like the team has taken a nuanced approach to the game-play aspect. I am more interested in the in-world justification. Does owning the keep make you part of the established political system or the area? Do you automatically become a noble person of some sort? Or a vassal to a larger political power? Will you be required to fulfill specific duties, such as provide troops or supplies to your lord? If you are not part of the political system, how do you control the surrounding areas? Brute force? This also brings the prison addition into a new light. Do you have any legal standing to hold prisoners? If do, under whose authority? Are there any civic rules for the treatment of prisoners? If so, is it dependent on their social class or ethnic origin? There seems to be break out attempts and ransoms, but what about legal extradition? Or orders from your lord (if you have one) to release a prisoner, either because corruption and influence, or you have in fact illegally imprisoned someone. Hopefully some of these things will be brought up, I would much prefer the keep to be integrated into the world (physically, culturally, socially) then just a collection of neat things to do.

I loved the heat maps during the SWToR beta. It was gratifying to see other people being eaten at the same places. Also, I would enjoy looking at the one out-lier. A spot that you know represented 1 person who just had to keep jumping off that one mountain waaaaaaaaay off the beaten path.

I am always curious about this. I am a rampant consumer of mods and community content (I played the living hell out of NWN), so I feel like something a parasitic part of this particular community. Usually I am on the side of community content as a great addition, but I think the situation has changed since the days of the BG's and even the NWN's.* I really got to thinking about this after a post on the BSN asking about a toolset for DAI (which, in my opinion, will never happen, but that is neither here nor there). DAO's tool set was set up in the hopes that it would replace NWN series as a factory of community content, and I think it fell far short of that goal. I mean, on the BSN the featured mods are still the little adventures that were done as part of a contest when the game released! Now, there are some great mechanical add-ons that I always use (chest bash) and graphical alterations (trailer companion looks), but the actual content is somewhat lacking (although there are some gems, like (Alley of Murders, Fragments of Ferelden, and Kal Shirok). It just never took off. I suppose there are a number of reasons for this, the faster game turn-around cycle, official DLC, communities spread over multiple platforms, and more games available in general, are all going to affect the way that players (and designers) deal with community created content. Now, PE is a different beast in many ways. The design cycle and expansion schedule won't be beholden to a publisher. Expansions will not need to be huge technological leaps forward in order to wow everyone. It has many things going for it that will encourage community content, but we have to remember the playing field is different than it once was. *My irrational hatred of TES had rendered me unable to play more than a hour of any of the games, so I won't include them, since I don't really know much, except that Skyrim does appear to have a vibrant (if not large) modding community, as evidenced by the recent release of the news-worthy user campaign. I think, however, that this is the exception that proves the rule. These sorts of campaigns have become outliers, as opposed to the dozens that were once available with NWN. There are many reasons for this, but I think it is also indicative of a substantial change in the atmosphere community content.

No, it's potentially problematic (and thus depressing for some folks) because it tends to fly in the face of reality and tends to dispell that ever elusive, highly desirable element of verisimilitude that makes for a more substantial, less "gamey" gaming experience. Weak fighters, non-dextrous rogues, less-than-bright wizards, etc. are both oxymoronic and insipid. They are indicative of a system designed to cater to people caught up a in a highly relativistic and overly fantastical mindset that leaves the rest of us shaking our heads with a mien of distaste and wondering what happened to the idea of a game designed by and for adults. To use fighters as an example, I like the idea of high Str/Con fighters, high Dex/Int fighters, or medium-high combos of the aforementioned stats, but characters with mediocre or low statistics in those categories should simply not be viable as fighters. Don't we have to take the system as a whole before we start getting depressed by what we see as arbitrary builds? So you have your 10 str/18 int fighter. He will be viable and will complete the game. He may not, however, complete the game with an enormous two handed battle axe that weighs 50 lbs. Instead, he might be forced to use lighter, one handed weapons that will require difference tactics and present different challenges as the game goes on. If their are statistic locked eq (which it seems like a good assumption that their are) then this is another way to differentiate character builds, All warriors are not the same. And when talking about non-optimal stat distribution, I doubt we are talking fighters with a 3 str (who are then forced to use chopsticks because those are the only weapons that he/she can pick up). As an aside, I would think that this is a good thing in the sense of roleplaying, as you are less bound by statistical limitations in design your character, so you can make the burly wizard from the country who may not be as smart (med. Int) as the mamby-pampy apprentices (higher Int) who are the son and daughters of aristocrats and your fireball may not be the hottest (higher spell damage), but you can keep using your magic for much longer thanks to many years of hearty farm living (higher Endurance/Constitution).

I am going to put my serious hat on for a second and enter in the off topic discussion on muder/rape/torture - Central to the development of democratic institutions (even in their very origins, where they resembled modern democratic expressions very little) is the premise that a citizen's body, for lack of a better word, is sacrosanct. The most basic and obvious exercise of dominance and power over another individual is through control (or inscription, but when I write this I envision a giant Foucault with giant quill pen chasing a naked me around) over the physical body. In Classical Athens, the ideal citizen was in complete control of his body and he was protected from torture (and from execution in all but the most serious of offenses, say treason or just being a general smart ass). Now why was this such an important thing? In an Athenian democratic context, each individual had, if not substantial, actual influence upon policy decisions and governmental actions (remember, many of the political institutions were compulsory, meaning you didn't so much run for office as were selected by lot to serve certain political instances; that is not to say there were not offices that were ran for in the way we view it). The thinking was, if a man (and they were all men of course) is not able to control and protect his own physical body, then he is not in control of his own opinions and thoughts. As such, any influence he wields in the polis is suspect, as it maybe coerced and can't be trusted to be in the best interests of the state. This was so important that there was even a legal case in which someone argued that a fellow citizen's could not be trusted with political power because he had acted as prostitute in his youth, and if someone was willing to sell THAT, then they would most certainly sell their vote (I believe it is a fragmentary Aeschines speech, but it has been years and I could be wrong). Control over the body became the basis political and legal legitimacy (so much so that as a slave, who had not control over anything and therefore could not be trusted, your testimony was only admissible in court if it was obtained under torture). This is part of the reason why rape and torture are considered, in many ways, worse than murder/killing, as it is so deeply ingrained into a democratic ethos. Of course this is one of the problems with using torture in "extraordinary circumstances" and so on. As for looking at rape as somehow worse than torture, it seems something of a silly argument. The framers of the U.S. Constitution felt strongly enough about torture (as used upon citizens) to mention it in the document, and its (attempted?) removal as punitive measure was an element in the development of an idea of modern human rights. Unfortunately, the prevalence of sexual assault (at least in the US) and the resistance to facing the problem has created a divisive environment (when, you know, there shouldn't be). Also, I am not sure how useful it is to create a "hierarchy of heinousness" here. It is arbitrary and misses the point of the argument. These acts are terrible transgressions of another's individuality and rights. I would also argue, that besides any reputation side effects, there should be personal ones. Unless the PC is sociopath, repeated assaults of this nature (random murder outside of combat, rape, torture for the sake of torture, arson and so on) are going to damage his/her psyche, and should have ramifications in real game terms on their access to soul inspired powers.

That post gives me wood.

A four member party does feel a bit restrictive, and I agree that is often a problem in really connecting with many of the companions (the first mod I ever used for DA:O was the one where Dog acted as a summon as opposed to taking up a companion slot. I know it makes the game easier, and he doesn't have much of a character, but having him get the kill shot on the Ogre at Ostagar convinced me I needed him in my party at all times). I had similar feelings about the KotORs in reference to party size. Luckily, I think the size of the party in PE will help with companion interaction (both with the PC and with each other).

There are a lot of good companions in many of the games listed. But they all pale in comparison to the one, the ONLY, DEEKIN! He makes up for the other generally lack luster NPC's in the original NWN and shines like a twinkling, unique, doom singing star.