rjshae

Merchant abilities could be implemented using talent trees, if the designers choose to take that route. Otherwise, I think you're pretty much stuck with tailoring a rogue using merchant-like skills (appraise, diplomacy, lore?).

If you're willing to do this, then you may as well make Health damage impact other attributes as well, such as Strength and Dexterity. The Drakensang/RoT cRPG uses a system where you can get up to four wounds, with each decreasing a number of stats. Of course, in that game you have an available means of repairing wounds during combat. Perhaps the developers didn't want to go too far in that direction? Those injuries do tend to significantly cripple the combat capabilities of the wounded character.

Sigh. One might suspect that these 'explanations' were invented after the map was drawn.

While an approach like this is interesting, it may be too much of a detail to be worthwhile implementing. However, if it was included, I could see weapon type familiarity being implemented as an 'Accomplishment' with some suitable benefit (such as a bonus [or non-penalty] to special attacks like disarm or feint).

I think it wasn't so much that it was bad, as that it didn't match people's PnP experiences. I didn't have a problem with the IE approach, and it's probably one of the easiest way to code up the identification process.

Damage absorption by armor is being discussed here.

Yes, AC is a high level probability roll up just like hit points are a high level combat impact roll-up. They're okay as long as everything is kept simple, but they don't produce anything resembling realistic results.

Yep. Too much effort required for not enough payoff, even though it's still fun to think about the possibilities.

The biggest flaw seems to be the backwards river running through the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood. The forks in the river are all wrong. If they fix that then it wouldn't be so bad. Overall I like the look of the map; it's done in a classic fantasy novel style that feels very nostalgic.

Please explain. Given the limitations of the human visual system there is no reason not to go lossy. You simply need to make sure not to go overboard, and no one will be able to tell the difference. They could perhaps do a hybrid approach: lossy compression for the background, accompanied by non- or low-lossy overlays for regions that display obvious compression artifacts.

I live in a state (much smaller than Spain) where the biomes range from rain forest to semi-arid, with old growth forests, rolling planes, glacial mountains, islands, wide rivers, rapids, volcanoes, earthquakes, brush fires, floods, landslides, avalanches, beaches, waterfalls, and so forth. Hence, it's entirely possible to have a good mix of conditions yet retain environmental realism.

My understanding is that Stamina is not going to be used for non-combat activities.

Short-ranged click = walk; mid-ranged click = jog; long-ranged click = run. Greater speed = greater likelihood of being spotted or heard from a distance.

I'd like to second BasaltineBadger's comments above; this has been so overdone. If powerful items are made available, the process of acquiring them should somehow be made very exclusive. The other one, of course, is a generic +X weapon, armor, or shield. Every magical item should have some form of distinctiveness, even if it is only minor. This could be a small skill or save bonus, or perhaps a minor attack-only bonus against particular enemies. I'd also like to find useful items that include negative qualities so that the player must make tradeoff decisions.

The only reason games used a nice even distribution of damage like 1d8 is because anything else is more complicated and time consuming. But there's no reason they need to do this on a computer. A more realistic approach would likely use a normal distribution, putting the damage on a bell curve. This is very easy to implement using the Box-Muller transform; requiring just two U(0,1) random numbers plus the log, sin, and cos functions. Doing this is trivial on a computer. The game designers would just vary the mean and deviation of the distribution depending on the weapon type and other factors.

Yes, that's true. But in that case the timeline of the stronghold development would need to be significant in the main campaign. The developers would essentially have to force your hand and make you borrow, or face calamity.

Yes, the AI for DA:O was pretty decent and I can definitely live with something like that. What I really want though, is to control the party's tactical positioning. In DA:O, the party size of 4 was too small and it didn't even allow you to form a front. As a result, all the battles just felt like the same roaming skirmishes. I hated the fact that I formed a bottleneck at an opening but the enemy just squirted through at will. (It felt even worse in DA2.) Hopefully that will be much improved with the six member troupe in OE.

The problem with cursed items is the problem with traps: game reloads. To avoid this, the curse effect would have to be insidious, gradually working its magic over the course of a significant length of game play. Alternatively, cursed items have benefits that must be weighed against the imposed penalties.

If there is no XP for killing monsters, then that changes the dynamic of respawning enemies. Respawned monsters become a deterrent against withdrawal; if you retreat from a locale to restore your health, then you may have to fight your way back in again.

It must be a slow news day...

My understanding is that the elements of the scene are initially being rendered in 3D, then projected onto 2D followed by artistic touch-ups. That means they will have the 3D information and can use that to determine shadows from the Sun/Moon directional lighting as well as from fixed point sources. If they wanted to, they could use the 3D information to generate the shadows only for each Sun/Moon position (and other lights), then turn that into an overlay. It should be monochromatic data, so I wouldn't think it would take up much disk space.

They could be found on coastal areas. Kind of like sahuagin from D&D. Sahaugin die within a day if they can't immerse themselves in water. You could change it to lizardfolk, but their primary advantage is a thick hide: you don't need an aquatic race for that. ... and coastal areas don't have any water nearby? I don't see your point. The party travels a day's march from the sea on a quest. Your aquatic companion dies. The point is that an aquatic physiology is at the minimum not a benefit, and possibly even an encumbrance, for a non-aquatic campaign. If there are balancing factors then that would be fine. But an aquatic nature in and of itself usually isn't useful unless there is swimming involved.

"Monk" is no more out of place than "Druid" would be in a non-celtic setting. What matters is that the class is integrated into the society, culture, and history; there needs to be a valid reason for those roles to exist in this setting.

I like having a distinction between defense and damage resistance. Beyond that, "keep it simple" usually works. I'm sure the developers will come up with a good design that works for their system.

To give item identification any depth, I think they would need to provide more than one set of descriptive information for every magic item. For example: Unidentified -- it looks like a well-made sword and is very useful for opening envelopes. Qualified -- it is unusually well balanced weapon and has some magical properties, giving it a 5-10% better chance of striking a foe and inflicting around 4-8% more damage. The weapon seems to hum slightly when you breath upon it. Identified -- this is the long lost sword of the winds. It improved attack odds and damage by +9%, while gaining a +24% to critical attacks against winged creatures and air elementals. The wielder gains a +1 to Parry and once per day it can cast gust of wind. You get a Qualified result after using it for a period, or by studying it with a low Lore skill. Identified requires a much higher Lore skill, either by a player or from an expert using various identification techniques.