rjshae

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.

Initially I had that thought too; he'd probably also look good with less hair or a head band. But the look is distinctive and may well be cultural. It's an interesting figure study.

Since this is a concept drawing, the Monk image could be looked at as a study for the final picture(s). Yes it's got a few issues, but they're quite fixable. Overall I appreciate the uniqueness of the look. It seems very Dark Sun-ish with the prominent musculature and minimal, threadbare clothing. Monks don't stand still casting spells.

What's been discussed is the hope that Obsidian will leave hooks in the game for modders to add amateur voice acting. Then it's just a matter of finding some volunteers with suitable voices and delivery skills.

Ship-to-ship encounters with pirates are something I'm hoping to do in the NWN2 Toolset. It seems quite do-able: a place couple of ships with walkable decks next to each other and join them with some walkable boarding planks. There's no reason they couldn't do a sea-based random encounter map like that in PE or its sequels, perhaps with a cut-screen video before hand.

It's funny that you say that, I almost posted a list of examples, and "heads of your enemies" was going to be jokingly thrown in there. Yep, it was meant as a kind of gag suggestion. But I'm sure there will be some players who'll want to do it... Why not post your examples?

I'm not asking for specific work to be done i.e. large 3D renderings. What I'm asking is just to make what's available in-game and let us see a close up of the sprites in the inventory/biography section. Why would there be a waste of resources and effort? Okay, perhaps I misunderstood. I was picturing something along the lines of DA2. But I'd guess you'd need models with at least a few thousand polygons to make them respectably presentable; that's probably a lot more than you'd need for the isometric view. It's a trade off really. Perhaps they already have models they can use that would make the task reasonably do-able under the budget they have?

Well it kind of follows the rule of thirds, at least. Wouldn't any perspective issues be the result of the original 3D rendering?

Kind of a hard sell. The name contains "Torment", which wouldn't appeal to parents. There's also a picture of a really ugly berk on the front and the setting is hard to explain to outsiders. Those factors limit the market appeal. There's no other media of this type that people could use to relate; unlike, say, a normal D&D game where there is at least existing mythology and the works of Tolkien. You've also got a small market to begin with: CRPG, of which those who are enthusiastic about PS:T form an even smaller portion. It's a bit like trying to sell a Spelljammer CRPG. (Yes I know there has been one.) If games like Wasteland 2 and PE are successful in the market, then they may lead publishers to reconsider more exotic themes like PS:T. So cross your fingers.

I don't care if they are a little eclectic, but I definitely prefer companions that I'd like IRL.

Ultima IV.

I'll have to say oppose. Large 3D renderings of faces are hard to get right. For a game of this nature, it would be an utter waste of resources and effort.

Boss monster heads, treated by a taxidermist then mounted along the walls in my man cave.

Yep. It might be interesting to have a double inventory system; the first pool is for what you can quickly have on hand during combat, the second is for stuff you lug along when you travel. Content in the former is what impacts your mobility during combat. Stuff in the latter takes the equivalent of a full round action to retrieve during combat, after which it is transferred into the first pool.

They might need higher poly models for huge monsters in the main window, but I'm guessing that a few thousand polys should be more than good enough for rendering party members in an inventory window. Maybe less if the figures are on the small side.

Completely agree with the OP, but it's not a concern with this game.

Has anybody posted the PE KS story to SlashDot yet? It would likely be of interest to that community (assuming KS isn't concerned about being slashdotted).

Yes, Journal annotation option would be nice. Especially for those quests that you finish up two months later.