rjshae

50" 3D LCD? Hmm, maybe that's when the modders will finally add the horse mounts patch?

Retract...

If we push it a little further, can we add add big bushy sideburns as well?

Remember, for their time period, the IE games were a huge step up from the old Gold Box games. Concepts in usability design also evolve.

I like to think these developers already know what they're doing.

Oh, there's definitely room for improvement--for one, that base screen resolutions are much higher should help with that too. I just started a new game of IWD2 but have decided to shelve it for both work and school, but the UI, hm... I don't like it compared to BG, even despite the fact that people get attached to what they got used to first. I haven't played BG in a long time, so I don't think it's muscle memory getting in the way--the IWD2 interface doesn't seem very smooth, a bit cluttered and stuffed at the bottom of the screen. I rather liked the 3-bar wraparound UI of BG because different elements could be disabled. Yeah, darn those decade old interfaces that were written for much slower machines with smaller displays. Why aren't they as good as the modern games?

Yes, that seems to be the majority opinion. Facing mounted opponents though is another matter entirely. Giddy-up.

Mounts in Oblivion felt awkward to control and all they did was get you into trouble faster. I like to think that a click and move game system like the IE series would work much better with mounts. But no matter.

Wouldn't it be fun if one of your characters could jump in the water, swim over to the broken bridge, scramble over the rubble and climb up to the top, then enter through the other door? Ah, someday...

Gah, please, no Luck stat. It's not a real physical or mental attribute. In the traditional D&D ability scores, I like to relate the mental attributes to the physical ones, thus: Str <=> Int Dex <=> Cha Con <=> Wis Int is pure mental processing power and the ability to carry lots of ideas and memories; Wis is mental, sensory, and neural health; and Cha is adaptability to social circumstances or emotional IQ. Not an ideal mapping, true.

She licks stuff. There isn't much more to say about her... Well there is, it's just really bad. Oh, you guys are harsh. She's a TV personality who works for IGN and has made frequent appearances on X-Play.

If you go to the trouble of bringing the pack mules on map, then what about the oats they need? Would you model those as well? What about tents, sleeping blankets, cooking gear, travel food, repair kits, water, &c. How do you protect the pack mules from predators?

I'd rather see PE make somebody's "top 100 games of all time" list a decade from now.

They could remove the FoW for the "Casual Gamer" mode.

I agree with the DA:O UI preferences mentioned above, or something equally elegant. However, if they have weather plus a day/night cycle, I would like an additional panel to track that information. Preferably including some sort of sky view. Thanks. Drakensang has another pretty nice interface:

Off-map pack animals would be fine. But they should show up as targets during travel encounters on the main map. You lose your animals then your loot is dropped; deal with it.

For most alchemical products, I'd just rather provide the rare final components to a dedicated alchemist (with assistants to do the scut work) then come and pick up the completed product at a later time. But I like calabi's notion of alchemists being a bit batty. Maybe they are missing an appendage or two as well.

Yeah, I remember that. Who'd have thought a bunch of wolves would provide such a ridiculously tough obstacle? At least in mixed battles, I'm okay with moderate level scaling of the elites and leaders, as long as the cannon fodder doesn't scale nearly as much (or only by quantity). That way I feel like the NPC levels actually matter.

Moving through friendly NPCs is allowed under the 3e D&D rules. It's not pretty to watch but it does help.

It's still a business, so they will have to work with budgets and timelines. If they don't know what their final revenue will be, that makes it harder to plan out what they can accomplish. Hence, I'm guessing that, at some point, additional funding might have to go toward add-ons. Stuff like extra side quests, additional effects, more illustrations, and added random loot items. Not bad things for certain, but not really quantifyable stretch goals.

A feature in the IE series that I found particularly frustrating was when doors were placed on the back sides of the buildings, where you can't see them. It felt like a mini-game of "Where's Waldo?".

I think John Rhys-Davies would make an excellent narrator. He has that deep voice and bardic stage actor delivery. But again, too expensive.

The AI problem with FoW is quite fixable; pathfinding is more difficult. You still see problems with the latter even in modern game releases. I don't know what the fix is; maybe in-game objects need soft and hard collision boundaries? Shrug.

Bit of a repeat here, but... A concern with the available spells being linked to grimoires is that the Wizard then needs to carry around duplicate copies of many spells; one per grimoire where the spell will be used. One fix is to use a separate item (such as a gem or bracelet) as the spell focus, but require that the Wizard periodically refresh the spell links in the focus. I.e. the grimoire is used to periodically perform this refresh, otherwise the spells in the focus go inert. The mechanic is the same: switch one focus for another and the spells change after a cooldown. Each focus is linked to the Wizard, but not the grimoire. You can take another Wizard's grimoire, learn the spells, then burn them into a focus. But a Wizard's foci are unusable by another; basically becoming a trinket at that point. The use of these foci allows plenty of room for customizability. You could, for example, have a certain gem type that favors necromantic spells but is weak in divination spells. You can also allow different numbers of spell levels in different focuses; some scarce gemstones allow more spell levels to be embedded.

I quite enjoyed those little touches. They gave the environment body and structure, especially because they followed physics. It brings the setting more to life and makes it immersive.