rjshae

If the developers were spending a lot of time here, I'd be concerned. Development often takes dedicated focus, and I suspect that following a forum board, with all its vagarities of opinions, may be an unhelpful distraction. Frankly, I'm surprised they have been posting as many updates as they have, since other KS projects post a lot less frequently. (But I'm certainly not complaining about what they have presented. ) In a certain sense, a logical target audience for the KS updates may be the people who actually didn't contribute to the KS (as was pointed out in this Gamasutra editorial). Updates are probably useful for generating buzz, and perhaps for performing a sanity check with the KS contributors. My 2cp worth.

I think the OP did present some of these for the warrior and the red, red rouge class. For wizards, perhaps there are unique spells and rituals, unusual crafting recipes, or special methods for building your spell books? Chanters may learn to play unusual instruments that allow them to perform specific songs in ways that provide unique benefits.

Real torches imply 3D shadows; from characters, furniture, objects, and walls. I suspect that isn't going to happen; we'll get a glowing, flickering halo instead. What I would be interested in seeing though are different light sources: various torches, lanterns, hooded lanterns, oil lamps, and candles. As for a poorly lit night scenes, they could potentially use varying color saturation. Areas near light sources can display normal colors, while darkened areas can be displayed using a more monochromatic view. (Like a, say, blue-tinged black-and-white view representing night vision.) That would allow them to provide some illumination even in the darkened areas. I'm not sure how do-able this approach is though.

Learning a secret style might be a good excuse for individual NPCs to detach themselves from the party for a spell. Or it could be something that they pick up as an accomplishment only if you let them loose for a time. Basically that would be an enticement to recruit them back into the party at a later date.

Another fundamental difference between the inexperienced lock picker and the master is the time it takes to pick a lock. Yes a master can almost automatically pick any simple lock, but he can also do it with an economy of motion and a minimum amount of noise. I'm not sure of the best way to model this. Perhaps a modifier to the skill check depending on how likely the attempt is to be detected? After all, the rogue will exercise some judgment regarding how likely he is to get away with the attempt. Maybe some type of meter showing the pick success rate against an increasing likelihood of being caught?

So you're looking at it more as an alternate reality... rather than a game? What I'm suggesting is that a NPC concept is not rigidly bound to follow a particular path, and that the NPC's path is chosen to give you a different, yet balanced experience based on the class you choose. It's mainly a concept for replay value rather than pure simulation for its own sake.

^^^^ Mmm, not exactly. I had more in mind something complementary to the PC's class and persona. So if you take a Rogue, the city refugee becomes a duelist fighter rather than a thuggish burglar. But Osvir's suggestion also makes sense; the type of character you meet can vary depending on when you meet him or her. I just think it would add replay value to not always meet exactly the same cast of characters.

What do you think of the idea of one or more of the companions being developed as a general personality concept, rather than being focused on a specific class? For example, a companion could be a mentally-scarred refugee from a city slum, seeking justice and vengeance for a heinous crime committed against his family and neighbors. However, he may have arrived at this point as a street thug rogue, a brawling fighter, or even a wild-child barbarian. Thus the companion would have a class selected from a limited set (depending on the PC type), but his portrait, persona, and even many of his stats could be about the same. Another example could be a scholarly younger son from a wealthy family who was expected to join the local covenant brotherhood, but instead may have revolted against his family and elected to become a wizard, cipher, or even a bard. Just curious really...

Well don't get your breechclout in a wad. Nobody wants to see that.

I'm hoping that the PE pantheon doesn't try to be too logical about its structure. Historical pantheons are often like extended families with strange, quirky stories, eccentric relatives, and often contradictory, emotion-driven behavior. They aren't organized like a thesaurus with everything laid out just so.

I really enjoy well-done humor, but some types of frivolity can ruin the experience of good drama. Silly deities thrown in for comic effect is absolutely the wrong thing to do in serious role playing drama. Likewise with Monty Python references and sci-fi one-liners. Toss these on the pyre of incongruous ruminations. Good humor is hard to do; stupid humor is best left for spoofs and robot chicken episodes.

I think it would be fun if there were a new companion you could add to the party once you reach the bottom of the endless paths, thereafter opening new conversation threads and side quests. But I'm not sure what type of companion you would find down there that could survive. Perhaps somebody frozen in time?

Good news: Sui Generis just made their KS goal with a few hours to go! This project should be interesting to watch. It's technically very interesting; I'm just not sure how good a game they will make. We'll see...

Yet another reducio ad absurdum argument. You are the perfect example of why options are needed; your expectation of the game is wildly different than others.It's a balancing act on the part of the developers. You want a game that has no options, but which you wouldn't play if it didn't meet your expectations. How does that make any business sense? It doesn't. If you don't like the options, don't use them. If you don't like the developers spending time on options that others like, well that's too bad.

Whine, whine whine. Where did all of the real gamers go?

It seems like this gets back to the Pareto Principle. There are options the developers can provide that make the game a different experience and satisfy a significant portion of the audience. Then there are minor nuances they could provide that make a small group really happy, but most people will just ignore. I'm not sure what the correct balance is, but I suspect it is in the single digits.

I had this crazy idea for a freedom of speech solidarity T-shirt. It makes a particular reference to the Egyptian court's recent decision to sentence seven Egyptian Coptic Christians to death in absentia. Basically, the graphic looks like the old Norman Rockwell self-portrait image, except it would show a bearded arabic muslim male painting a picture of himself. Next to it, the caption reads, "Egypt sentenced me to death in absentia, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt". What do you think? Would it get me targeted by somebody's hit squad?

Hmm, there's perhaps a few problems with this idea. If my PC starts believing in a god of rhubarb, does that god suddenly pop into existence and start granting priestly powers? It's a chicken-and-the-egg situation. If the supposedly factual creation myth states that the gods created humans, but humans created the gods, then how did humans pop into existence? What if there was the godly equivalent of souls? These paragon souls take a more refined shape, form, and function from the interaction with mortal beings, but they continue onward, in some manner, after their last believer has died. Perhaps they slowly return to the primal essence from whence they came, then are reshaped, or reshape themselves, into another divine being.

Well, the PC version was due out 10 minutes ago. The other releases were delayed because of a crashing bug. Ouch!

Wait, you're unhappy because, despite all of your accomplishments, the nobility is still snobbish toward low-born peasants like you? Guess what, me bucko... that's normal.

That's good, but... in IWD I often ran into pathfinding problems because of the large party size. Collisions occurred when I tried to move the entire group along a narrow path, causing half the party to take the long way around. I hope the developers are going to test for that case; using just two characters may not reveal the problem.

Really? Not everybody wants the same thing, and many of the preferences being expressed are incompatible. Options allow you to tune the game the way you want to play it. That's not bad design; that's marketplace flexibility.

Well... whatever weird or wacky ideas I may have had for a pantheon I've added to a netbook called the Diadamon Pantheon, which was last released in the 9th edition back in 2007. It's not going to be updated again and is freely licensed under OGL, so basically help yourself to any notions therein you find useful. Thanks.

It's not a rant about DA2. It mentions about what it did wrong and I learned from what it did wrong. What I've demonstrated applies to ALL RPGs, or should, if they are to be called RPGs. RPGs are ABOUT their worlds more than anything else, DA2's world was not convincing - it wasn't plausible, consistent or conveyed. What DA2 does wrong is very important. But it's not my focus of this topic - it's to remind Obsidian to focus on conveying the images, the sounds, the feelings of PE's world - as well as a logical consistency to its world and people. Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir, but eh, why not. It's the internet. Perhaps I want validation, or my points disproved, which I don't see you doing. Do you know how utterly arrogant you sound? It doesn't lend your message any credence. Basically you read like a troll. As with any game, DA2 had its good points and its weaknesses. I personally found it entertaining enough to play it to nearly the end. It has some design elements that remain appealing to me. What you need to do is accept the fact that it is mainly an action RPG.

Well hopefully we'll have limited zoom on the main view and we can use the mouse wheel for that.