rjshae

^^^^ Mmm, well I read it somewhere, but I'm not going to spend the morning trying to track it down. No matter.

They haven't said that magic can't heal; only that healing magic will be rare.

It's not leather armor. How do you know that? If it is metal, then sitting down or squatting will be difficult. The design isn't very practical for metal armor. I actually think it's modeled after this guy:

I can see at least four faces in the waterfall, plus a naked old woman's torso, a slide, and the snout of a wolf. People are good at finding non-existent patterns in noise.

I found his views on spoken skills interesting. His perspective does make a certain amount of sense; i.e. leaving the response choice up to the player rather than using skill levels as a trigger for particular answers. However, there are certainly big differences in people's verbal skill levels in RL. Allowing an otherwise boorish, stupid character to make a slick, diplomatic response may seem incongruous. I guess we'll have to see how it plays out in the game. As long as the conversations are not too linear (as in, say, DS2) or the decisions too black and white, it should be entertaining.

Move on.

Ain't that the truth, though. Gamers are the biggest bunch of whiners on the planet. Kidding... sort of.

The artwork is nice; I enjoyed it. There's very little likeness to orcs that I can see, which is just fine. If they want to give them a different physiology, they could give them a double backbone or perhaps an armored spine. That would make them less flexible but more resilient.

If that's leather armor, he has some big gaps down his flanks. Looks good though overall.

^^^^ That and shadows.

'Were the wrath of my pet, foul minions of clerical misplacement! I'm just saying...

Do we know that the inventory character images will have the same poly count as the in-game character renderings? They may also be using much lower poly count for in-game creatures.

I like this one. If not a portrait, then perhaps a small screen shot of the surroundings. I have a similar issue with names; my brain is mathematical in nature and works better with symbols or images.

To me they look pretty close to the human norm in overall build, with a few token differences about the head. The hands on the barbarian look a little oversized, but not with the mage. An unimportant detail, I'm sure.

Jojobobo: it's a game. Why is it vital that the dungeon have a purpose for you to "sink some time into"? It's all a complete waste of time anyway, like watching football or a stage drama.

Something that might be interesting to see is a terrain configuration caused by a powerful magical battle. A huge, scorched impact crater with chaotic magic loose on the interior might be one such example.

An earlier update mentioned that the outdoor and indoor viewing angles may differ. If the indoor viewing angle is more toward the vertical, that may help a lot with the interior spacial arrangement. Beyond that, since the animated figures are going to be 3D, perhaps they may also change the scale between the exterior and interior views? We'll see, I guess.

Only 14 posts, so I'm guessing this is a troll. As it says on virtually every picture, the art is preliminary. They're looking at concepts, not art contests.

Well of course they are all accessible from this side of the building; that's the only side you can see. Why would it be otherwise? I am curious to find out how they will handle the visual representation of the back side of buildings. Will they do a whole building fade so we can see the otherwise obstructed characters? Or perhaps a transparent area surrounding each character? Will they leave the back side doors (and other active features) visible so we can access them? I do remember becoming frustrated with trying to open doors located on the back side of buildings, both in one of the BG series games and one particular scene in Divine Divinity. Hopefully they can come up with a nice solution.

NNnnnnnooooo..... !!!!!

But then what will we do about the stay-puff marshmallow man?

Ha, nice. Thank you for the update. But... Cloth physics? WTF? That's a lot of detail for teeny tiny figures. Love the artwork. That building looks almost old spanish in style. It just needs a clothes line and a TV antenna... oh, wait.

Besides the normal gamut of terrain and medieval structures found in many a RPG, what novelties would you like to see? Here's a few thoughts of my own: Crannog -- an artificial island historically built in the lakes and rivers of Ireland and Scotland. Laager -- merchant wagons arranged to form a small fortification. Tower house -- a combination tower-keep and home. Jettying -- in which the upper floors project out above the lower levels. Moors -- I don't think I've seen a well-done representation of a scottish moor in a game; cold, wind-swept, rolling rocky scrubland. Hoodoos -- row upon row of them, as in Bryce Canyon, Utah. Sinking island -- This is an ocean island that rises above the waves then later submerges; not as a result of tides, but because of magic. River island -- reachable only by bridge or boat; a nice location for a fortified frontier settlement in a dangerous region. Tidal flats -- muddy, marshy, and bisected by channels, with tidal inflows and outflows.

For me the IE overland movement rate seemed fine during exploration, since the party is advancing cautiously into unexplored territory. It's perhaps comparable to moving about in Sneak mode with Fallout 3. The main instance where it grew tiresome was in cases where the map had already been explored. Moving across the map to return to a locale on a quest-related mission can grow old, especially when you need to constantly herd the party because of pathfinding issues. (This was true even the first time through the game.) It was less of a problem once everybody got boots of speed, or the equivalent.

While not wanting to see physical exertions like running have a direct impact on stamina, I would like to see the recovery rate slow down significantly while the character is exerting themselves. I'd also like to see some of the optional combat actions be limited based on the current stamina. A bruised and battered character shouldn't be charging around the battlefield.