khango

I like Ciphers and Chanters the most so far. I've been a bit underwhelmed with the Wizards and Paladins, and have zero experience with rogues, but the other classes seem solid depending on how you play them. The main problem I have with Wizards is that there aren't any effective lower level AoE spells (that i know of) that don't hit your party members. I love the fan of flames, but I can never use it without roasting my whole party. As far as rangers, once I realized you need to focus on ranged builds they seemed quite a bit better.

Can I not be Khango, In memory of Genghis Khan ?

I submitted my survey with 'In Memory of Genghis Khan' on the backer portal, so probably it should be my title here.

I don't care that much one way or the other, though if you come up with a really neat goal, you'll probably drag some extra $$ out of me. Not sure I'm sold on wilderness areas unless they're a chance to just have un-main-story related mini-stories with a neat pay-off at the end (AKA Kangaxx). I'm not against more characters, but I hope all the characters are well done. Trying to turn Viconia not-evil was fun.

I just started a thread elsewhere because I didn't see this thread! Oops! I should have one, though.

Is there a trick to get it to show up? I'm talking the one with the green (k) ...

If you look at how close the vote was, that theory does not hold up. TB won over RTwP by roughly 1.5% of the total votes. That is too narrow a margin to be explainable by a passionate following. RTwP has a passionate following, too.

I'm fine with their trolls, though I'd love to se a larger and clearer picture of them (like maybe a concept art).

I guess it's off topic, but I feel pretty betrayed by turn based even being considered. I know it's my personal preference, but I also (as previously mentioned) I wouldn't have backed if they'd said that up front. I sure don't think it was even hinted at in the original KS info. Ordinarily I'd know better than to post OT like this, but I'm kind of angry. If they make it turn based I might not even make it through the first combat encounter. So please forgive.

I'm pretty sure the absolute worst thing they could do is decide to make it turn-based.

Just a call to action for any Project Eternity backers who also backed Torment. You better go checkout Torment: Tides of Numenera's Kickstarter page so that you can vote down the hordes of ToEE and Fallout fans who are trying to vote the game into being turn based instead of RTWP. I know I wouldn't have backed it if I'd thought there were the remotest chance in hell of it being a turn-based game and I suspect a lot of Infinity Engine game lovers will feel the same way. So I just thought I'd bring it up here on the off chance it helps turn out the vote a bit more. And needless to say, if you actually would want a turn-based system, DON'T VOTE. (Please?)

To be frank the high level ranged weapon fall-off the op speaks of is something I never noticed. My ranged characters were pretty decent across ToB if they had appropriate weapons and ammo. Once the good ammo was gone, there were often problems. However, if I had to use swords +1, there'd have been problems also. All that said, it's absolutely proper that ranged weapons outclass melee weapons. The Mongols marched across a continent on the strength of bows. The Brits brought woe to the French at Agincourt courtesy of the bow. Ranged weapons almost always give far more utility with less training that melee weapons. And sure, you have to have proper tips for the purpose (I think Mongols had something like 20+ kinds of arrowheads for different uses), but given that, you do plenty of damage with less risk. Sure, one arrow is perhaps better than having a head or an arm cleaved off, but it's just as bad as being stabbed. So I think it's only proper that ranged weapons generally outclass melee... I mean would you rather face a raging bear with a baseball bat, a longbow, or some sort of large caliber gun? I don't think anybody in their right mind would choose the baseball bat. Hence I always thought that aspect of IE games was unusually appropriate and realistic.

This is my new favorite update.

Love it. I think it's better than the concept art it was cloning pretty much. When people gripe about the shadows is it just that all the shadows appear to be at the same angle (1 or 2:00)? I don't really have an issue with their diffuseness. PS: I have to say the party looks a bit unprepared. I predict a wipe.

Evidently the other thread got forked into this thread so I now have to repost content here for no good reason... (self quoting to repost)

As someone who enjoys the works of Charles Dickens, I can't say that I think a spot of romance ought to be left out.

I am most impressed with the way PE is run out of the games I've backed on KS. Star Citizen smells like a money grubbing scam. I was on their mailing list for a while and it was all about how you could pay more to start with bigger ships. Didn't back it. I am OK with how Planetary Annihilation is going, though I find their backer site and communication methods a little frustrating. They really focus on live chats and streaming it seems like, though maybe I just don't go in their forums like I should or something. So far as doublefine, I backed Massive Chalice, but not adventure. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of their games. Brutal Legend is really cool, but it's a ***PAIN*** to play on a PC. costume quest and stacking are cute, but aren't really that fulfilling of games (I think). I'm not surprised at how things have been going for them, especially when there seemed to be no plan behind their first kickstarter. However, I think their new one seems more on the straight and narrow, and the concept of breeding heroes is pretty cool. In fact, I'd almost they skip the grid + turn based combat entirely and just focus on the hero breeding. Torment I'm not thrilled with in terms of updates. About all they've got going besides vague world building is a 'vote for these features' thing that makes me deathly afraid that they're going to make it turn based. If they make it turn based, I'll be tempted to file a charge dispute over my backer money on the basis that they aren't fulfilling what they claimed. (I ********HATE******** turn-based cRPGs.)

And yet, none of those infinity engine games had item durability or crafting beyond scripted events... Just saying. I'll not mourn the loss of item durability or that I probably would've ended up putting limited skill points into crafting on EVERY character just to avoid the gold sink and your-item-needs-repairing time sink it seems it would have become. Instead of something more interesting or at least more suited to their character or even just something else. I think I get what you're saying in that the mechanic could have changed the way we make our characters and our teams. I just don't necessarily see it as a good change. I am willing to admit that it might have been an interesting mechanic, and the way I envision what was described is not what Josh & Tim et al had originally intended. But they asked for feedback, so honest feedback was given, and this is the decision they've reached (at least partly) as a result and now we'll never know. What I am happy with is that the team at Obsidian had an idea (that from the sounds of it they weren't 100% sure of) and they asked us what we thought, and they took our response on board in their discussions, and that the whole process can happen BEFORE it's too late to change. These guys have made a lot of really good games. I'm pretty certain they know what they're doing and any fan feedback on how to make the game is tempered by the fact they actually make them for a living, have done for a while now, and have to consider in far more detail "what actually makes a game fun for as many people as possible" than many people who just play them would. I feel like it came across as less of a good change because of how it was framed in the update. If they'd said 'shiny or dirty weapons and armor can give you reaction bonuses or penalties in counters, and polishing and sharpening your weapons before a fight can bring out an extra bit of bite, and the environment (swamp, arid, etc.) and really powerful creatures can effect their condition change, and going too long without the regular bonus-giving maintenance can give you a bit of a penalty until you see smith' I think people would have reacted more positively. That sounds like it fits into a game world, and produces positive and interesting effects - should you let your equipment wear down a little before meeting with some bandits? Should you polish it before meeting a noble? Did you forget to oil your weapons and let them rust in desert? Did some sort of tremendously strong creature with stone skin dull your blade? These things sound fun and like part of a game. However, when framed as 'weapons have toughness points and kind of linger in an intermediate zone while they slowly lose power and cost you money,' if I may make a negative sounding paraphrase, just won't get a positive reacting because it sounds negative. Especially when it seems coupled with having to spec a special skill, when weapon maintenance is something that pretty much anyone can learn and do a decent job of without tons of effort. Maybe the 15 or 30 minutes you spend with some oil, rags, steel wool, and whetstone around the campfire every night is 15 to 30 minutes you can't peruse ancient tomes, but it's way less trouble than learning to read, which ostensibly doesn't take a skill slot. Swords aren't exactly tanks that require multi-person mechanic crews or something. Like most of life, it all seems to be marketing. Which is really really depressing. As a side note, games seem to focus around weapon maintenance as something involving smiths and forges. However, as someone with experience in guns, bows, and swords, I have to say it's really not the usual case to have to do something so extreme or time intensive. Most of maintenance is things like keeping your arrows neatly fletched, your bowstring waxed, your sword rust free, your gun well lubricated and free from dirt. Sure, your sword gets chips and dings after a lot of use, but usually they're shallow and you grind or polish them out. Maybe sometimes you have to replace a bowstring or put a new grip on a sword (a couple of pins at worst if it's not a decoration). You really have to go at things for years really hard to need to take things in to a smith or repair person in most cases. As such, I think games have some sort of weird tendency to overemphasize maintenance into something more burdensome and specialized than it really is.

I'm generally okay with this, but I'm a little ambivalent about durability. In general, durability as I've experienced it in games that have it is something that either sort of turns your weapons into annoying Tamagotchi who need constant TLC, bleeds all your resources and turns everything into a grind where you conserve your good weapons until you've wiped 3 times and resort to your good weapons (because otherwise they'd wear out so often they'd never get used), or most awful, you accidentally lose your favorite weapon for the rest of the game because it 'wore out.' Unless your weapon is Lilarcor or you're playing survival horror, all of these options have traditionally sucked. With your proposed system, weapons need some maintenance (as they do in real life), but don't constantly create a persistent worrisome problem. So as such, it sounded like the best durability system I've heard of for this type of game. However, when I think about it, maintaining weapons seems like a bit of a drag no matter how it's handled unless there's some sort of role-playing perk to it. Could the repair of your equipment perhaps subtly alter people's impressions of your character? Could really excellently up-kept weapons have minor bonuses? Could your skill with a weapon increase as you oil it and sharpen it more times? Could you more effectively use a weapon's magic as you've used it for a longer period of time and gain familiarity with it? Could a rusted rune become legible over time as you clean your ancient blade repeatedly? Could its magic potential be tapped more deeply as you both use it longer and deepen a bond of care? I feel like there are intriguing untapped possibilities and potential storytelling elements to be investigated with weapon maintenance. But I feel that making them work would be a fine balancing act -- you want to establish a connection with interaction and visual feedback, but you also don't want to force it into the experience in a nagging and obtrusive way. Hence I feel like there might have been potential, but I still feel ambivalent. In any case I'm glad you read our comments and occasionally think some of us just might have a point despite only seeing the shadows on the wall, so to speak.

I was hoping to see the paladin class be a sort Roland (a la Charlemagne) meets Cortéz (a la the conquest of Mexico), and I'm not sure whether this announcement fits that hope or not. At the very least the notion that paladins won't have to be 'good' per se is in the direction I'd hoped.

Unfortunately supporting Linux through a repo would mean either have to support all Linux distributions or focus on some and leave some out. For example if you support it through a .deb package structure and using a repo, Debian users would be best served but others would have to manually download, adapt and repackage the .deb for their distribution (I use Slackware, so I'd have to repackage the .deb in a compatible format). I think the best solution would be Nixstaller (I linked it in my previous post) as it can support different distributions using a single file: during the installation process (done using a GUI, which means user friendly) the user is asked if the package should be installed using the distro's package manager; if so, Nixstaller will create and install the correct package - I know it supports Debian-like and Slackware packages, I'm fairly certain it also supports .rpm and others. That way if you try to install it again the installer will pick up you have an older version and update it instead. The downside is you'd have to manually download the .sh file again with every update and run it by hand, but I do believe this is the most friendly option taking into consideration multiple distributions. Steam distributes a deb and those who don't like repack. But I get your point. Obviously I'm being a Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/etc-centric jerk to some extent. However, Debian-based distros are probably 80% plus of people who use Linux on the desktop. And it sure would be nice to have automatic updates of some sort. But like I said, I can live with Humble Bundle and a Tar gz or nixstaller or something. Though doesn't the existence of nixstaller itself suggest that you could use a similar tool to pre-generate the packages for various distros?

Ideally, a .deb repo, a .deb from the Humble Bundle people, or even a tar.gz. I am not so fond of Desura. If you want my love choose something that will let me update it with my regular package manager instead of having to manually download or use a 3rd party app. I've got a bunch of games from Humble Bundles so sans the native package manager option, it's probably best.

Regardless of whether the combat log is 'necessary' or not, it was the mechanism for enabling the communication of necessary information in classic IE games - without it you might not know that your slashing or blunt or whatever type of weapon you were using was practically useless or extremely effective. There may be a means other than a combat log to communicate such things, but having them communicated via some convenient means is necessary. If something is bulletproof or completely immune to steel or magic or extra flammable and is so in a way that'd be obvious to someone participating, it ought to be communicated in some clear way to the player. If I, as a level 12 warrior find it blatantly obvious that my axe of flame utterly toasts water nixies (evaporated in a puff of steam) but is completely useless against a fire bobo, then as a player those things should be clear also. All that said, I can't imagine playing original IE games without the combat log. Outside of the easier difficulties it'd be a lot like playing the game blind.

I'm not a big fan of Diablo Style levelling or of Oblivion-Skyrim-Bethesda style levelling. But I also hate having to roll like 90 times to get something decent. I think I'd be okay with allocating a fixed number of stat points and then maybe getting 1 to 5 more over the course of the entire game if I'm really lucky.

I would be okay with some sort of special persistence only for the perma-death no-save-spamming at all trial-of-iron mode. I think I mentioned previously somewhere that I thought it'd be cool if there were a graveyard (or similar) somewhere in game where the gravestones matched names from previous wipes up to a certain limit and age, as older graves get sucked under. I guess to add on to that, I'd be okay if random common items from perma-death iron mode wipes occasionally got dropped from enemies. Like your party wipes and perma-dies, and then a couple playthroughs later the really common short sword +1 or whatnot your thief 'Steve the Tricky Fingers' or whatever he was named used when he died drops from some random creep as "Steve the Tricky Fingers' short sword +1" without any stat changes. Both of these features are just atmospheric and don't alter the gameplay at all. So they're probably not really 'NG+' or whatever you call the godforsaken mechanisms invented by marketers and psychologists to make people repetitiously grind for minor imaginary rewards (or, in the worst case, to completely break games).