rjshae

You weren't misunderstood, and I agree that a well-designed, creative, and novel encounter can be enjoyable in and of itself. But that's, what, maybe 10-20% of the total for a typical game? Most of the innovation comes with Boss monster fights.

As an alternative, the designers could provide bestiary XP in the form of rare tomes that are primarily accessible via non-combat paths through the game. Suppose you had, say, a pacifist faction rating because of your aversion to combat, then perhaps certain like-minded loremasters will be willing to part with these unique wares for a small fee.

The problem you are asserting isn't the fault of the XP reward; it's a problem with poor encounter design. My assertion would be that, all else being equal, combat without the expectation of a reward will be less fun than combat with an XP reward at the end.

No its not supposed to be anything. At the very least the devs decide what is it "supposed" to be not you. At the most, using the word supposed to makes your whole sentence invalid. Their original sales pitch did lean heavily on the implicit tie in to the IE games, so it does strongly suggest there would be some similarity. "Project Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPG's that we enjoyed making - and playing. At Obsidian, we have the people responsible for many of those classic games and we want to bring those games back…" "Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment." So yeah, the use of the word 'supposed' is correct here. That being said, I don't expect an exact copy because the state of the art has advanced since then.

I too like the idea of Bestiary XP, but it depends in part on how fine-grained they choose to make it. If you slay the first wolf that attacks you, then proceed to encounter 1,000 more in order to progress through the game, that could get old. Hopefully there will be different wolf types that you can tackle at different levels. Or else acquire new Bestiary XP at different levels for the same creature type (because you've learned more about it).

So frikkin' awful, you mean. Never has a more fiendishly subtle instrument of torture been devised by the hands of humanity.

They added romances to Icewind Dale too? .....please no. Bromancing the Bone; an intelligent club becomes a member of your party, forming a weapons set with Harry the Horned Helm and Sheela the Salivating Shield. Recharging the items requires a visit to the Last Bed and Brothel.

What do dyslexic zombies like to eat? Brians! *ducks*...

There's another way to look at this: replay value. If you can't cover every skill then there are side quests that you may not be able to complete. You can either wait until your party can satisfy that skill, or you can leave it for another play through. In other words, fewer skills means less replay value.

I can see where the benefits are from a coding and game development perspective; they don't have to worry about adding checks against a large number of skills (for balance purposes). If it was a PnP game though, I don't think it would be an appealing approach because it limits your choices for character creation and development.

I'm pretty much resigned to the skill system being the way it is; they're probably much too far along to make wholesale changes of that type. My current perspective is that the 5 Skills have become essentially a new set of attributes--they are general parameters that serve a relatively broad number of functions, rather than being fine grained tunable parameters.

I'm hoping that the AI will continue to be fine tuned in the patch releases. Movement impacts and FoW adjustments from environmental effects would be nice touches, and probably not too difficult to implement. Perhaps they will become available at higher levels? I suspect they would break the current system, since it is tuned for their absence. I sure hope not.

Agreed. Role-playing is all about player choice. Removing skills takes away from the player's ability to build the character they want. It's one of the elements I really disliked about DA2. IE games didn't have skills except thief skills and weapon proficiencies. Just saying. IWD2 had a skills system, as it was adapting to the D&D 3e rules. The earlier versions didn't have a skills system because neither did the AD&D rules. Most modern PnP RPGs have skills systems.

Ashley Judd

Marisa Tomei

Audrey Tautou

"Did you hear about my colonoscopy?..."

He's like a modern day Ambrose Bierce. The amusing thing is, when I've quoted from A. Bierce in the past, I was accused of being sexist. Ah, the heady days of PC intolerance...

Really? Because I was thinking more along the lines of bullet train, which IIRC works on the same concept. Huh? Well hopefully the bullet train is more economical than its alternative: aircraft. Otherwise it's wasting spending billions of yen on construction and support costs. But if so, then there is a valid reason for the bullet train to exist. Not so the hover toy. It will require construction overhead just to make the toy usable, and the potential users already have skate boards with free parks nearby.

Paranoia RPG -- "Paranoia is a roleplaying game set in a darkly humorous future. In Paranoia, a well-meaning but deranged computer desperately protects the citizens of an underground warren from all sorts of real and imagined enemies. You play one of The Computer's elite agents. Your job is to search out and destroy the enemies of The Computer. Your worst fear is that The Computer will discover that you are one of these enemies." Succeeding at £33,356 with 39 days to go.

I had a sneaking suspicion that it was a subtle manipulation intended solely to create a buzz and check for consumer interest, so I'm waiting until I hear more substantial news before I believe it.

I think there is a place for casual mode in gaming. Some people who once played computer games to excess now have much less free time because of a career, never-ending home repair, car problems, supporting a family, &c. They probably want to experience an enjoyable visual adventure without all the time-consuming grinding.

Personally I'm not crazy about George Ziets. The guy has nothing to do with Torment (he wasn't on the P:ST development team) and the way he gloated about inXile scratching RTwP combat in TToN really, really made me mad. Bummer for you then. *shrug* I'm fine with either turn-based or RTwP, which just gives me more freedom of choice... To each their own, I guess.

Medusa's Labyrinth is underway. "Medusa’s Labyrinth is a first person horror game set in ancient Greece. The game combines the horror of Amnesia with the sneaking and archery of Thief. The player will have to carefully pick their path through the dark hallways on Temple Island, through catacombs and amphitheatres to solve the mysteries that lurk within the labyrinthine garden at the peak: Hesperides." They're shooting for kr2,500,000, which translates to US$345,000.

Mmm... nothing quite like some broad generalizations and wild bigotry to shake the humor tree... No matter where you go in Europe, you find a people who hate somebody else. It never fails. A lovely place to return from.