rjshae

Preferred gerbils personally. They're very clean and charming critters... as long as you don't actually need to get some sleep.

If it's not a working, Star Trek-like Holodeck....it's still useless to me. The Oculus Rift Kickstarter passed and the technology was demonstrated at SXSW a week ago. Imagine being able to move your head about and look around the map in 3D. Yeah it's from a bird's eye view perspective, but still. Just saying...

To quench your thirst, you could always go and see a REAL waterfall. We'll all see the computer animated waterfall when the game is released.

I know it's pointing out the obvious, but those weren't kickstarter projects. They were specifically budgeted with the single-player/multi-player goals in mind. In contrast, a kickstarter has to work with what they get. Here you have a relatively small budget, split among dueling goals, not all of which will appeal to every player. I guess it depends on how much effort they decide to spend on each.

I'll guess $5.8 million. What do I get if I'm right?

I prefer magic not to have too much resemblance to modern technology; it should have a bit of mystery. The use of the elements for magic, while heavily used, does have the benefit of allowing nice visual effects. I don't see a reason to avoid using that mechanic. But there are some possibilities for making it more diverse and unusual.

There's racism everywhere you go in the world. It's just part of the human condition.

Issuing a game that provides both an off-line single-player mode and an online multi-player mode suggests that the development effort will be split between the two. For a player like me who is only interested in the single-player mode, that equates to a reduced effort for the contribution. That, combined with the lack of other interesting elements, means I'll probably just wait for the reviews on the released game.

Needed for that last post...

I wonder if it might be possible for the game to allow the opposition to be induced to surrender, rather than being slaughtered? That would require coding for the use of non-lethal force. I.e. some combination of subdual attacks, entanglements, and debilitating drugs (or spells) like a sleeping gas. That way, you can attempt to gain the upper hand without causing death. It wouldn't exactly be a pacifist run through, but it would not require slaying your opponents. (There might also be exceptions such as oozes, undead, and animated plants.)

Perhaps so. It reminds me somewhat of the Renaissance patronage system, which did have a success or two.

It's a horribly tragic situation that may not end even once Assad is out of power. The nature of this fight reminds me of the Spanish civil war, 1936-1939, although certainly the motivations are different. I can't see a democracy flowering in the aftermath--more likely it'll be yet another "oriental despotism". Sad.

I kind of wish they'd have an annotatable panel listing in-game people that you've met and where you met them. That might actually be useful.

The flattening out of contributions is normal for a KS like this; the biggest growth is at the beginning and the end of the drive. PE followed the same sort of contribution curve, so I'm expecting a similar thing here. The last three days is when the fun starts.

The ripest fruit falls by itself.

There's plenty of games where you don't need to kill somebody. I don't see a particular need for them to design a purely pacifist path through this game.

Caravans generally appeared when the distance to be traveled was long and significant stretches were unsafe. Otherwise, the use of caravans is actually less efficient--you have to stockpile goods and personnel until the entire mass is ready to proceed. If the cities are ports, then trade may be easier by sea; you don't have to care for transport animals and carry extra feed.

OP: are you trying to make a generalization about gamers? I'm a gamer and I don't have ADHD. But I do match several of those qualities merely because I'm introverted by nature.

^^^^ It's wickedly cool that KS projects are willing to show us early alpha demos like this.

The Inside Out Plane As with the Shadow Plane, this realm lives in parallel with our own, albeit in an entirely inverted manner. The realm of the Inside Out is the space traveled by spirits of the elemental earth; it is open where ours is filled by stone and is obstructed where we find air and ocean. The surface of this realm lies just beneath our feet, and it stretches downward like a crystalline ocean in a perpetual twilight of rosy heat. The dwellers in this world gain sustenance from the heat of the inner earth, and thrive in those locales wherein the ground is most active. Hence, volcanoes and geothermal are hotbeds of Inside Out activity, whilst rich old loam and virgin forests form their barren deserts. The inside Out is a place of constant strife where tribes of earth spirits battle over rich resources and mysterious stakes. Their struggles sometimes spill over to create the earthquakes that can split the earth and flatten cities. Travel to the Inside Out plane is not a simple task, as it requires a type of transmogrification understood only by the masters of elemental magic and certain powerful spirit guardians. But once it is achieved, the rewards can be breathtaking. The richest of the earth are at your disposal, requiring only that you find a means to extract it.

Yup, some people like team sports and some like individual sports; it's the same with CRPGs. Besides, I think you're more likely to get a better story with a single-player game.

Here's a clue: those two KS projects started before PE.

I kind of enjoyed exploring the shadow plane in MotB.

Well, you could always try that info@obsidian.net e-mail addy and see if they are open to making an exception.