rjshae

An enormous arthropod snake: basically a large, legless insect with a long segmented body and a toxic stinger tail. It has a similar ecology as the terrestrial snake, but is generally stockier and not quite as stealthy.

The faces in the OP? They look nothing like Jean-Luc Picard. I mean, like... what? I... what? Do all bald people look alike to you or something? I think Messier-31 is probably picking up on the similarities in the nose structures. But Patrick Stewart doesn't have as broad a jaw line and lacks the prominent brow ridges of the dwarf model. Hence they bare only a passing similarity, and I certainly don't understand why that is even a problem. Just a common troll, I expect.

I hear that dwarven females actually have their beards down below... but that is probably just a rumor.

Who is it?

In a culture where magic has long been prevelant, various defenses against magic-based crime should have also evolved. The better-quality locks should be resistant to magical tampering and there should be traps and alarms that are triggered solely by magic use. Anti-magic grenades may have appeared, as well as arcane technology for defeating divination.

Bah, another ignorant troll. Come back when you've learned some history.

Well dang it; they were going to have a bunch of animations of characters banging their heads uselessly on the door then collapsing on the ground. Why would you ever put the thought of smashing doors into their heads? Hope they end up with lots of different styles doors, like repaired doors, barred doors, split doors, massive oak doors, talking doors, reinforced doors, stone doors, bronze doors, hot glowing doors, doors leaking a gas or steam, leather doors, porticullis', ... and all kinds of secret doors.

Very nice. Love the bone structure of that dwarf!

Spider Zombies -- a parasitic worm takes over this giant spider, turning it into a necrotic creature that is driven to bite other creatures and spread the worm eggs. It's slower and tougher to kill than a typical giant spider, but is non-toxic (apart from the disease risk of the bite).

Annual US market for guns: $2.8 billion 2012 US market for games: $14.1 billion Your move, Congress. Actually I'm all in favor of responsible video game ownership, just as I much prefer responsible gun ownership. I'm just suggesting that Congress shouldn't necessary expect to safely throw the video games industry under the bus in order to sate the virulent propaganda of the NRA.

Yeah, a multivariate check against several possible thresholds would help obscure the influence of a specific social skill. Sure you might succeed, but in the process you may gain a prerequisite mini-quest that will elevate your favor with the faction by the necessary amount. Plus you might have to kick in a variable financial contribution (bribe/gift) of some amount.

Wildman? Well I never gained that impression from my read-through. Hmm...

To me it looks like a console game. Wildman may well end up a decent game, but it's not one I would normally try unless the reviews are glowing. If you want specifics, I can say I was put off by three things: (1) A mix of two completely different game styles, only one of which I usually prefer; (2) the graphics are in a style that I don't find appealing; (3) It's set a primitive culture with little technology (or magic?). I didn't particularly like the layoffs shortly after the KS started, but that's just business and didn't influence my viewpoint.

It looks pretty good; a lizardman with a full tummy. If you are interested, you could start a portfolio page on Elfwood.

Here's a relatively new kickstarter: Project Awakened Looks like a modern-ish FPS with a design-your-own-character concept. Graphics look pretty decent.

Name: Malesh, "God of a Thousand Faces" Portfolio: illusion, lies, cunning (Change, confusion, cowardice, chaos, madness, nihilism, survival, looting, swindling) Symbols: A different symbol with each manifestation Manifestation: This deity never appears in the same form twice, but typically manifests as an unkempt humanoid of either gender. Malesh is one of the old gods, having survived in the face of divine purges and conflict by frequent changes of form and by re-inventing himself thousands of times. He will typically represent himself as a newly-raised god, then gather together worshipers under a charismatic leader to form a cult. Inevitably, such groups become a nuisance upon the population by seeking to subvert and disrupt the established order. Malesh rarely has more than a few thousand followers at a time, but his origin with the old gods means he has little need of support from his followers in order to manifest significant power.

The Orlan painting is signed with a K. I don't see that on the Sagani painting, but the styles are somewhat similar (hair brush strokes, shadows, &c.). What I wonder is: does the Orlan really only have three fingers on his left hand?

Err... now wait a minute... in a fantasy game filled with wizards, dragons, demons, wands, elves, teleporters, psionics, and unicorns, you draw the line at monks having extraordinary abilities?

My understanding is that this will not be a sandbox game; you'll be limited to traveling to fixed area maps per the IE games. However, I don't think we've been informed yet about how this travel will be performed. It may be strictly point-to-point, or it may involve free or somehow constrained movement across a strategic map.

A slight variant on Osvir's proposal: Give every spell a brief description and a long description, similar to how it is done in D&D 3.5e. The (line-wrapped) brief description shows up on a mouse-over pause for the spell. Something similar could be done for equipment as well.

Reloading from an earlier save where they had access to the deeper stash is only slightly better than travelling back to the camp, because then the player will still need to travel back from the camp plus perform any intervening actions. This is "metagaming" the hard way. Having a deep stash is little different than using a storage container somewhere; the only thing it saves you is a lot of useless running back and forth. More so if you put some thought into it ahead of time; less so if you play stupid.

Mmm... there might be borderland cases where you are less than sure. But I guess the game can be conservative and only let you perform jump if you can definitely make it. Okay.

The one element of lists I don't much care for is inventory exchange. Drag-and-drop is generally quicker and easier than scrolling down the list, selecting on an item, then clicking on the transfer button. There's probably no perfect approach, alas.

What do you mean by 'slot based'? And yes, if you limited the number of items a player can have there is no need to have categories. I believe he means that every object takes up exactly one square slot. That means a pebble takes up as much room in the inventory as a full suite of plate mail. It's not a very realistic system; in the IE games where there were a limited number of slots, it basically forced you to toss away everything but the most essential objects. A big, big problem with this is that you're not always sure what is important and what isn't: is that letter from the count worth handing on to? Or the mysterious key? You end up dragging around a ludicrous pile of junk. I'm all for seeing the end of that approach. Having key rings, potion bags, and scroll pouches is just a poor substitute for having category tabs.

There's no point in having a jump or climb skill unless there's a cost for failure. If it's a certain succeed then the designers might as well just make the barrier walkable and add a suitable animation. For a chance of failure, players can just reload whenever the attempt fails. A middle ground would be to make a certain obstacle circumventable only if a character meets a specific skill requirement. Thus you can have a wall that can only be successfully climbed if the skill level is X or higher. This type of barrier may be useful for creating obstacles that require a certain experience level, or for creating the potential for a party split (which may be tactically interesting). A rope can be simulated by making it an item that temporarily applies the climb/jump skill level of the wielder to the other party members. I'm not sure about a rope and grappling hook combination; perhaps the game designers will need to decide where it can apply (i.e. gain a hold).