rjshae

Those are some interesting implications. But I do have a few questions. Should strength, dexterity, or any other stat interact with such a skill? Should heavier armors like plate have a higher maneuver check and if so should armor dependant classes like the fighter start with points in maneuver. For the first, I'd say whatever stat would interact with the proposed Armor skill. For the second, I'd say that it would be a favored skill of a fighter just like sneak would be for a rogue. Remember, the designers are not limiting skills based on class. A wizard spending points on maneuver would be no different than a fighter spending points in lockpicking. An armor skill by itself would just be a means to hinder armor use by non-fighter classes. Plus it's not clear that an armor skill is all that valuable. It needs to be balanced out with the other skills.

I'm not sure that the players would ever notice what algorithm is being used to generate random outcomes.

How about just having a general Maneuver skill that deals with movement while encumbered or constrained? Armor/Load is compared to the Maneuver skill to see if a penalty is applied. The same skill can be used to overcome spell effects such web or grease.

My understanding is that each class will have a specific set of skills for which they will automatically gain three skill levels the first time a skill point is spent. Otherwise, the skills are not class-specific.

I don't believe the developers have actually mentioned whether they are going to use mana.

That's... unpleasant.

Spider trolls. Hmm...

The real problem with bald dwarves? The constant glare...

I received several e-mails about this and probably some others did as well. Anyway, they have easily reached their goal, and a bunch more. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enworld/rebuilding-en-world

A couple of updates posted: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1312036782/project-awakened/posts They're promising a big "create-a-player" update next time. Currently at $84K/$500k with 25 days left.

No snow here; just freezing fog. We've had a whole bunch of it this year for some reason. It makes walking uphill in the early a.m. a pain in the rump.

Pools of Radiance. On the Mac. Man I waited forever for games to come out on the Mac back then.

I think you have an old calendar. Time to throw it out.

While i agree with you there i feel like the current model looks too human. You could have easily said that this was a human model and you wouldn't take a pause to disagree. So while it's not stereotype it's not really new either. Ah... well I'm still not seeing a problem, but we all have our own preferences. Personally I thought it had neanderthal-like features. It seems distinctive enough for this game's purposes. You're not exactly going to be seeing a lot of detail at the expected scale.

Hmm I think the developers said the game is going to have something equivalent to the "acts" that were in Neverwinter Nights 2, where only certain areas are available until you get to passed story "bottlenecks". By "acts" I read "unlocked sites". But there's no reason that shouldn't prohibit you from exploring the rest of the map. It just means some locations won't show up until you reach that part of the story. (Like a hidden ruin or some street in a city.)

^^^ I think these are just some samples to illustrate the work they are doing. Personally I'm fine with playing a dwarf that doesn't fit every stereotypical archetype. It's a new world; new rules can apply.

^^^ The NWN2 OC map didn't give you full access to all of the map. It was more like the old IE games in that sense. I always felt constrained by that model. As for "random encounters", well set piece encounters with a certain likelihood to occur is roughly equivalent.

That's basically how Fallout 1 & 2 worked. The problem with that was dearth of locations and the ability to blunder into Enclave Patrols and get exploded with one shot by a Gauss Pistol at level 1-2 with only a 0AC, 0DR, 0DT Vault Suit for "armor." I don't find "blundering into Enclave Patrols" to be a "problem". They do exactly what the are supposed to do. And anyway, Fallout 1 and 2 are actually proper open-world role-playing games. Just old-school ones. Right. But they don't have to use the fine grid of a Fallout or most of the old Gold Box Games; they could simply use an area grid like they have in many of the strategy games. (Kind of like point-to-point movement in "Curse of the Azure Bonds".) You move into a grid area and you are presented with some number of target locations within that area. Movement between the grid areas is what generates random encounters. There's less fiddling around that way with the pixel-by-pixel movement.

^^^ I'm not quite sure I understand what you're attempting to say.

Perhaps it is possible to provide a mixture of situations; some where it makes sense only to use lockpicking and others where brute force attacks are more appropriate? For example, if you're confronted with a locked and trapped chest in a town, then using brute force would make little sense since it could quickly cause an alarm. In contrast, an old, musty dungeon may have doors with encrusted locks that can only be opened through brute force. In the middle lies a situation where you're not concerned about raising an alarm, but all of the easy pickings have long since been looted. This leaves solid old chests and heavy, barred doors that would require significant effort to force open, but which can still be attacked physically by a powerful character wielding a suitable tool. These types of objects can be treated as having armor that is resistant to most weapons, hence requiring that the party lug a heavy pick around (or else summon a resilient creature like an earth elemental). Providing a mixture could gives a sense of flexibility while still yielding much value for the lockpick skill.

Meh. My main concern is about retaining legal protections for the offspring of mated adults. As long as that remains in place, then I guess homosexual imitative marriages are just another harmless social convention.

They can do a semi-open world by having a strategic map with some type of grid-based movement system, then placing a combination of set-piece, randomly discovered, and unlocked locales (areas) scattered about the map. That can create a sense of openness by providing access to all of the map while creating uncertainty about what is left to discover. It also allows modders to readily create add-on areas.

Sounds kinda neat but I doubt it's worth the effort of implementing. Well I mentioned it because that approach may make it easier to mod areas; you just add a new map area to the edge of an existing map. Shrug. No matter.

It's an old thread, but what would you think of this as a way to define borders?: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62261-a-wilderness-idea/ It's a decent idea as it stands, but I'm just not all that interested in wandering around in a randomly generated wilderness. The overland map approach in NWN2 SoZ could be used to produce something similar, albeit being viewed from a higher perspective.

Over the long haul, vertical monopolies tends to result in higher prices and slower innovation. Hence, I don't see this as a good thing. But hopefully it results in a net boost for the Linux market on the server side.