rjshae

Anti-aliased text with good contrast, infrequent color and style changes, and a minimum of eye strain would be preferred, thank you.

Look it's a herd of trolls...

I like this approach, it makes each armor type feel unique. Something similar has already been seen in Arcanum and Fallout. For example, Arcanum's plate armors caused the wearer to suffer more damage from electrical attacks while Fallout's metal and Tesla armors were better at deflecting laser beams than most other armor types. Scientifically that's backwards. The better conductivity of metal armor would cause electrical attacks to channel around the wearer and into the ground. http://jockohomo.tum...h-voltage-tesla Heat and cold would be a problem though; they should just go right through to the inner padding.

In addition to the formulae and ingredients for crafting, I'd like to see more sophisticated infrastructure requirements. At the low end these could just be a few basic tools and a work bench. But as the item potency grows, so should the support structure. This would lead to a work room with tools, workbenches, a master craftsman, journeymen assistants, common and rare materials and components, plus, of course, the recipe. It should also take a significant amount of time and labor to finish a significant magic item.

I don't think this would be a good idea. Are you going to give every human enemy some freakish ability? No. Novel abilities should be rare so that they stand out when encountered. The developers can provide enough of a challenge with interesting tactics and situations.

You mean, don't make it like the Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale series end games? Or something else? It was more a bit of paranoia creeping in that things would go the route of most MMO's lately (including DnD Online) in that for most of the game one is progressing through various tiers of magically enchanted items that could easily be farmed. Enchanted items in my opinion should be the endgame; they shouldn't be commonplace junk. It's all summed up in the fact that running around with magical gear just doesn't feel magical in many RPGs, since it's so mundane. I'm big on mechanics that are interesting enough to function without magic and enchantments; they've already said the setting is low-magic in terms of healing, so maybe that's a good sign. I just think that modern RPGs have just generally become saturated with enchanted items, such that you're behind the curve if you don't have one by level 3, and I don't like it. Thanks for the clarification. I can relate to your viewpoint, and the economics of enchanted items doesn't make much sense in most cRPGs. From another perspective though, a scarcity of enchanted items for the general population doesn't necessarily equate to magic impoverishment for the party. In a medieval society, potent and costly magical items are likely to gravitate toward the wealthy and powerful, who, through quests, are also frequent targets of the party's activities. Thus one might expect that the party would be much more likely to accrue enchanted items than most. Where the presence of plentiful enchanted may make less sense (to me at least) is with a street vendor who is somehow selling expensive magical goods to the locals. Most of the ordinary population in a medieval society can't even afford decent armor, so how would they ever get their hands on a powerful magic item costing tens of thousands of gold pieces? Such items would be held close to hand by the rich and the nobility, so purchasing these goods should be difficult. Perhaps it requires an exclusive agent to handle rare goods, in exchange for a hefty deposit? Anyway, my 2cp worth.

...The written word is not a form of magic. They were keeping meticulously detailed census records in Britain during the time of William the Conqueror and even before. This is not magic. It's simple administration for the purposes of taxation and the levying of soldiery. The written word is as mundane and un-magical as you can get. Mmm... true. But completely besides the point.

The old AD&D game rules didn't allow much in the way of customization. I haven't seen that be much of a problem in more recent RPGs.

Financial investment requires an expectation of gains. I had no such expectation. Sales taxes seem more appropriate, since we're receiving a product in exchange.

You mean, don't make it like the Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale series end games? Or something else?

and let's not forget that there would be nothing in the game to use 3D vision on, since 70% or more of what is in the screen will be 2D where do people come up with these weird ideas that even an idiot can see that they make no sense? Yeah, converting 2D images to 3D; what idiot would try something like that? We're amused.

Yes, I would like to see more use of shoddy weapons and armor among the less civilized races. Looting the gear from such creatures shouldn't be a very profitable affair. They can be made tough opponents through other means.

...and I don't expect that they will in this release, since the computer 3D display market is not yet well established (but may be by 2014). Yet it is interesting to contemplate how it could be implemented. It should be relatively straightforward to project the area map and the graphical overlays onto planes (and volumes) in a 3D space. Likewise, the creatures will already have 3D models. The spell effects would probably be the more complex part. I'm curious to find out how they are going to implement those in 2D space. Shadows might be another concern, but I haven't heard how those will be displayed.

^^^^ I could see mage types being allowed to prepare some insta-cast spells in advance of combat (much as fighters can prep guns), but yes, allowing all spells to be cast that way would likely be unbalancing. The developers would then need to tone the spell powers down quite a bit to maintain the challenge.

Looks like a troll farm. Keeping fingers away from cages.

I'm sorry, are you in the right room?

The last segment of your first sentence seems like, well... complete rubbish. Regardless of the choices made, narrowing the focus of a topic automatically reduces the range of interest. But the project seems to have survived the decision and we can only speculate about how much each element weighed into the final support.

Well, we'll have to see how well it does in the marketplace. I agree that 3D TV is something of a gimmick, but 3D games are expected to be more immersive. (Just as stereo sound is more immersive than mono.) With a computer monitor you're closer to the display, so the 3D effect should be more engaging and cover more of your field of vision.

Did I say Flying Fortress of Doom? If I didn't...Flying Fortress of Doom! With a sauna.

With magic holding a significant presence in this world, I'd like to see some other types of record keeping. For example: A sea shell you can hold to your ear that contains an extensive recorded message. A glass ball that contains a memory, which you can experience by holding it up to a light. A magical font that stores glimpses of historical events as seen by the people who experienced it. A magic scroll that tells a different part of a story to each person who reads it. A legendary tapestry that re-weaves itself into a new pattern each night.

There are many aspects of the game that they have not yet mentioned. Hence, I think your logic needs a little work. I'm not really expecting 3D in the initial release, but at some point in the future we may end up seeing something equivalent to the BGEE for PE. At that time, it is not unreasonable to expect 3D to be included. But this would depend on Obsidian retaining the data used to generate the areas and creatures. Thus, I hope they save off that information.

I dislike armor use skill because it's a bit like a shoe use skill. Some other solution would be preferable.

That's not a testable conjecture, and hence it's non-scientific. I therefore reject your reality and substitute my own.

I'm fine with this sort of thing, but random encounters would need to have a pay-off or it just becomes something to avoid. If it isn't something you can avoid, then it's not really random.

I imagine the penalties for boresighting to target your spells from inside the tank are going to be huge. Dodging will be a bit of a problem as well. At least for the other guy... If it's pre-mechanized armor you want, then I'd probably go for chest plate armor, which would protect my vitals from bullets while leaving my limbs to waggle about and weave spells. For an advantage, I'd like the armor to be as light as a feather. Will that do it?