rjshae

Thank you for the interesting responses, Steve. If I may, a general question I'd like to ask you is regarding AI: how much consideration do you think will be given to group AI by intelligent enemies? Will trained enemy soldiers attempt to fight in formation? Will they coordinate attacks so that, say, suppressing fire will be targeted at the party's PCs while the heavy fighters take on the PC front line? Likewise, will they work to protect their spell casters? Will they exploit bottlenecks and other terrain advantages? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Meanwhile, I hope your liver survives the PE experience.

Is this normal? Absolutely.

^^^^ Yes there are going to be players who don't want to mess around with a detailed inventory system, even though it is more realistic that way. It does get a little tiresome when the inventory grows significantly. Possibly there is something they can do with the Expert mode to enable detailed inventory, then keep it lightweight for the casual gamers.

Another option to be considered is entangling attacks. A net or a web spell could be as effective as a baton to the back of the head for subjugating a foe. Transporting the captive is a factor as well; does the party guard the captive while exploring the rest of the area or do they take the captive along? Would the captive have an opportunity to escape during overland transport? Is special gear needed to prevent this?

Yes, I was thinking along those lines. The body is dragged off to be eaten elsewhere (or buried), but the blood stains on the ground would remain for some time afterward. They could enhance the sequence with partly consumed corpses from time to time, followed by scattered bones.

Unless you're playing in expert mode, to me it would make a certain amount of sense to abstract some of the loot system. We don't need to be bothered with every little detail of looting the corpses and selling of the low-cost, mundane items. Nor do we need to track the spending of that money on food, drink, clothing, repair, and outdoor gear. Just assume that the one takes care of the other and you can get on with the more interesting aspects of the game.

For me, Paladins held some appeal because they are honor bound to "do the right thing". I could definitely live with them being chivalrous knights, or even samurai who follow the bushido. On the other hand, the general concept of a potentially fanatical individual who rigidly follows a religious (or other) creed is very unappealing. I'll have to see how they are implemented in the game to see if I want to play one.

Nobody is choosing the barbarian. I wonder why?

I don't have an issue with so-called traditional, nature-loving elves in the Tolkein sense, but I would like to see them have some radically distinctive differences from humans. Mythology describes them as supernatural beings, rather than just another race of humanoids. This could be exploited to fundamentally change their nature. For example, instead of the D&D-style split into light and dark elves, they could be split into two groups based upon their gender: Females are the traditional trouping elves who nurture the wilderness and wild things, but have an unfortunate reputation for stealing human babies because of their cursed relationship with the masculine elf lineage. The latter appear distinctively different than the females, having darker skin and a love of tools, civilization, and dark, deep places beneath the earth. Because of an ancient divine curse, the males and females are doomed to live apart because to do otherwise would threaten their immortality. For when the male and female elves come together to successfully mate, the pair immediately and irreversibly begin to age. It is this curse that has doomed elves to a steady decline in the face of more aggressive, fecund species.

With a split between Stamina and Health, I think a "non-lethal" attack would be okay under some circumstances. In particular, if the game allows the players to take captives for ransom, or engage in fisticuffs in a bar brawl, then Stamina-focused attacks seem like a reasonable mechanic. But it should be clear under what circumstances that makes sense.

A realistic level of gore is fine for me. Body parts flying all over the screen because of a sword strike seems utterly ludicrous and detracts from the maturity level, although it would be reasonable for an actual explosion. I appreciate it when the developers take the simulation seriously.

Yes, the amount of loot you could carry around in the DS games was ludicrous. Plus they didn't us item stacking, which was a nuisance.

Door stop? Candle holder? Paper weight? Seriously though, it would be interesting if this setting had some unique funeral rituals. Perhaps secondary bone burial or placing the embalmed body on platforms mounted on scaffolds? Maybe the body is buried and a sacred shrub is planted above. If and when the shrub flowers, it is taken as a sign that the soul of the corpse was reborn (somewhere). That brings up another thought: is there an institution that performs the service of finding where a soul was reborn?

I like to see dungeon designs answer the following questions: Why was this built underground rather than on the surface. Secrecy is usually the reason, but how did the builders hide the construction work and keep it secret? How is breathable air circulated through all of the rooms? If it lies below the water table, why isn't it flooded? How is food energy being generated for all of the denizens? Typical residents of a dungeon are predators at the top of the food chain, so they need a lot of game. Undead dungeons make the most sense in terms of answering these points. For a living dungeon, an underwater river may supply many of the requirements: it hollows out underground spaces, creates a temperature differential that circulates air, supplies food in the form of fish, and implicitly requires a water gradient that thereby clears out any flooding. Other than those, I think you need a non-toxic energy source of some type, or perhaps an active magical portal to provide a conduit for air, food, and water. More than one portal would be better since the two can create a pressure gradient. My 2cp worth.

Plus a lance and some windmills?

An alternative approach would be to actually build into the game reasons for the player not to include selected companions at various segments of the game. Letting those companions leave allows them to follow special quests of their own and to achieve special rewards. The latter could be things like custom feats, or else special equipment or honors. Sure, the companion may return at a lower XP level, but that can easily be compensated for by the game engine: let those characters gain XP at a faster rate until they've caught up.

There are several ways the game can "punish" the player for not keeping a follower in the party. For example, they can have the follower "follow" their own path of level up progression, rather than the one you choose. They can also avoid having the follower standing around waiting to be picked up again. Finally, they can make sure that the follower can't be stripped of useful gear prior to being released (by having the follower object to being released without their fair share of the loot). Except the game should never be punishing the player for not using a given companion character. Rubbish. The game rewards players for selecting particular companions by granting them special missions and unique equipment; why should it not disincentivize the player letting them go?

The Realm of Dreams and Shadows Early researches into the nature of shattered souls revealed the existence of a chaotic, non-linear space that became known as the realm of dreams and shadows. It was discovered that the remnants of the shattered soul left behind an imprint on this extradimensional space, forming a "pocket" of distorted reality. These spaces reflected the essence and misery of the shattered soul, bearing some resemblance to the former reality of the victim, yet lacking an essential wholeness and self-integrity. They could range in size from a small nest to grand realms filled with all manner of strange wonders. Wizards learned to exploit these pocket realms, searching for spaces that were amenable to colonization and exploitation. They became safe havens where wizards could carry out their investigations and store their knowledge. However, over time the wizards began to mysteriously disappear, along with their pocket realms. At first the cause was a mystery, but it was eventually found that some shattered souls could actually heal, causing the associated pocket realm to collapse. As knowledge of this discovery spread, most wizards abandoned their pocket laboratories and returned to the mundane world, along with their goods and experiments. Still, a few pockets remained in use, particularly by wizards somewhat lacking in wisdom and mental balance. These maintained pockets often reflected the diverse nature of their owners, having oddball features and properties. The surviving established pockets can sometimes be accessed through portals and magical links. These entryways can be found in places like ruined laboratories or by means of a mysterious trinket whose original purpose has been lost. But entry into a pocket realm is a path not to be tread lightly; not only is the realm likely to be strange and exotic, but the magical outpost established there can contain dangerous or outrageous experiments. Even experienced wizards will be reluctant to enter such a realm as the risks may outweigh the rewards, and their apprentices are sternly warned against venturing thence.

I demand there be no more demands! Tutorials are fine, as long as you can skip them.

It sounds like that 'disadvantage' will be part of the story, so it's not like an optional feature that players can choose. Still, an interesting idea. Personally, I like to see balanced advantages and disadvantages in items because they create a choice other than "what's the best item" period.

Generating a complicated system for an unlikely outcome doesn't make for efficient resource usage (i.e. development costs). It would be better to use a wounds system as in Drakensang or DA2. But I can live with just applying extra damage, or better yet just using a normal distribution for all damage determination.

The problem comes in when the developers need to make conversation branches for the different races. A unique elephant man should attract a lot of attention and unusual responses. That translates in a potentially enormous number of conversation forks. It simply doesn't scale well and requires a significant trade-off against other features. I don't think this makes economic sense. The only way to make it work is for the weird to be an every-day occurrence, which would completely change the setting.

There are several ways the game can "punish" the player for not keeping a follower in the party. For example, they can have the follower "follow" their own path of level up progression, rather than the one you choose. They can also avoid having the follower standing around waiting to be picked up again. Finally, they can make sure that the follower can't be stripped of useful gear prior to being released (by having the follower object to being released without their fair share of the loot).

It takes work to develop a culture for each of these races. Do you just want to see a lot of weird-looking, westernized humanoids, or would you prefer fewer, distinctive, better developed racial cultures? Personally I'd prefer the latter.

Why is this a problem? Surely you don't complain about games that have nothing but humans. While I can't speak for Betraytheworld I personally I dislike when fantasy/sci-fi games have only humans for a racial option. As much as I love Fallout2 I would have loved to have access to ghouls, mutants, and robots as playable characters. In fantasy games where their are completely distinct races (as opposed to ghouls/mutants having once been human) it seems a bit bland for every race to look like a human variant. But why do you dislike only humans? You can get plenty of variety just by introducing unusual cultures. They have already announced multiple races, so are you looking for wierdness? The problem for fantasy then is that oddball races start to make the game too sci-fi like. Or maybe you're just looking for player characters with special powers?