rjshae

The primary benefits (to the game) of random encounters seems to be building character experience and using up party expendable assets. You could accomplish the same thing by providing pseudo-XP for travel across perilous regions of the world map, which can then be purchased in exchange for expendables. There could be a box on the map where you can put travel expendables; as you travel across dangerous regions, those are randomly used up and you gain XP in exchange.

You'd think that a horse would be the preferred mode of transport in a post-apocalyptic environment. But the only mounts I recall were the trader's pack animals. Maybe bicycles then...

it's all about this magical stuff called unobtanium, found deep in the earth's crust, or occasionally under oversized trees. Yes, that could be another motivator. It was called Lyrium in the Dragon Age series, which had some interesting properties and effects.

A world with cannon that can knock down castle walls and magic that can excavate earth and rock provides a reasonable motive for building underground structures. Perhaps earthen excavation is one of the primary economies of wizardly magic? Those who can shape and harden rock, or can summon earth moving brutes, may be much sought after by the wealthy and powerful.

Looting in ToEE was atrocious for that; after finishing off a room full of 20-30 baddies it would take forever to click through each of the corpses and weed out the useful gear. It was especially bad when multiple bodies got stacked up. Plus after a while you'd be guessing which ones you'd looked at and which you hadn't. Either grouping the loot or giving us a looting dialog window would be an improvement.

Horror usually works better when you start off with a sense of normalcy. That sets the baseline and makes it clear that horror is not the usual condition.

...and they used duct tape.

Yes, to me player choice is a key essence of what turns a game into a RPG. The fewer choices there are, the less like a RPG it becomes. A good design provides a range of choices in an integrated package that doesn't overwhelm the player and detract from the fun. The nice thing about a computer interface is that it can deliver a complexity of detail in a user friendly interface. Translating that back into a PnP form may... require some compromises, including simplification. But I blather on...

I never actually hated DA 2 and found that some of the concerns people were howling about seemed fairly minor to me. Having a family structure for the main character really helped with the assimilation into the setting and the story. But the combat seemed a little too twitchy and uninteresting, while the city mostly felt like an empty shell. I played it through a second time as a mage and it was more enjoyable. I'd rate it as slightly above average.

^^^ It might be of benefit when battling the Goblin boss or any of his champions.

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. --Voltaire. I just hope they don't run out of money.

By the same token, the game should not be full of npcs who engage in savage cruelty for its own amusement, because I would expect those characters to be hunted down rather quickly - as much by other 'evil-doers' as by 'do-gooders' or what authorities there are. But again, from what quotes have been offered on the development, it sounds like this is fairly in hand. Right, but one of the aspects of adventuring may be that you will interact with unpleasant characters with greater frequency, so they may seem more common. In actuality, it is because you are seeking them out.

Once your evil character becomes reviled throughout the lands for committing acts of cruelty and villainy, I'd have no problem with the game balance being shifted heavily against you. It is totally realistic for abject evil to be hunted down and crushed by any self-respecting civilization. Those of noble bearing would be willing to spend significant sums of gold to have you sought after by highly skilled specialists against whom you would be completely outmatched. Thus, playing an evil character long enough to reach the end game should require a significant amount of guile.

There's...something...about...that...sentence...that seems...a bit...harsh on...Josh... I agree.

Indeed. I count myself one of those people and I have very mixed feelings about the various presented mechanics, ranging from optimistic to indifferent to very disappointed. The majority of what I've heard thus far seems pretty reasonable and sensible; there's a couple of ideas that I'm not so sure about. Hence I'm taking a wait and see attitude toward the implementation of the mechanics because I won't really know until I start playing the game how well they will work out. Having played multiple different PnP rulesets I'm not all that sold on the D&D game system as a whole, so I'm open to some new approaches.

Perhaps some people don't like activated abilities because they are not an accurate representation of reality? For example, in real life one could presumably use a "called shot" whenever one wanted. By giving it a fixed number of uses, it makes the player aware of the designer's manipulation. There's a similar issue with cool downs for repeatable physical actions. I understand why the game designers use these tools, but they do possess a certain element of artificiality.

As the tailor said to the repairman, make it sew...

Eh, no, I don't think they were superior gameplay wise because of the PnP mechanics. I just finished BGEE and the gameplay felt decidedly archaic. CRPGs have benefited by the alteration of PnP rules to make them more CRPG friendly, not the other way around.

Trying to adjust and simplify the CRPG so that it can be made into a PnP game will most likely diminish the result. Hopefully then that isn't a significant factor in this stage of the IP development.

Tears of a Machine -- mecha anime-style RPG with teenage pilots; currently at $5,056/$7,000 with 69 hours to go. Might still make it... Ponies for Pathfinder -- a... ahh... pony-based setting, currently at $2,509/$3,850 with 25 days to go. Shades of Bunnies & Burrows. The Arcanum 30th Anniversary Edition -- An updated release of the Arcanum Role-Playing System, currently succeeding at $2,340. N.R.G. System Core Rulebook -- sword-and-sorcery setting based on d20, combined with an "Energy" system; currently succeeding at $2,161 with 17 days to go.

I suspect they're just busy actually building the game.

Fallout: Floaters and Sinkers

A lot of people rank on ego as a personality problem. What doesn't get mentioned as often is that ego is a terrific motivator.

Adam Antium