Jojobobo

I wouldn't like to see anthropomorphic animal races. They strike me as lacking ingenuity as all you basically done is select a animal race, enlarged or shrank it to human like proportions and made it stand on two feet - where's the creativity in that? Obviously you create some creativity through lore and such but untimately the race is just a walking animal. That's why I think the Orlan and Aumaua are definitely good ideas, the devs have to get creative with them as they are brand new concepts - they'll obviously have drawn inspiration from somewhere but it's not as derivative as just using a regular everyday animal. Saying that, I don't see why there could be animalistic subraces. We have no idea how these races came to be; maybe the Orlan were originally some sort of animal that elevated itself to sentience, began walking on two feet and over time became significantly different from the base animal (just like we're quite distinct from the majority of primates). In that regard you could get a throwback subrace that reflected more their primitive roots; with claws, slit eyes, sharp teeth and an excess of body hair - that sort of thing. I don't think it's arrogant for humans to be in a fantasy setting, it gives people a race to play that is distinctly like they and so for most people makes the game more relatable.

Bet that won't stop them getting nasty with one another. Honestly, I'd have liked to see half-breeds - and more than just half-human half-whatever; a half-dwarf half-orlan for example. I've never seen a game where a half-breed had one half that wasn't human, and it would have made an interesting addition. But if it's not in the game then no big. Also this only rules out racial mixing through sexual reproduction, it doesn't mean to say a half-breed couldn't be made as some sort of Frankenstein's monster or through a strange occult blood mixing ritual - still that I would imagine would very much limit such an individual to being an NPC.

I think it's a fine idea, just not in Project Eternity as it is meant to be similar to old school IE games - which this mechanic is not. It would be nice to have this mechanic in a game where everything you did had a risk factor or chance to it - which would enforce the face you should just roll with the punches. In fact I'd be will to say this shouldn't really be in an rpg, or it should be in a game with rpg elements but isn't strictly an rpg. People spend to much time designing and preparing characters in rpg games to enjoy leaving aspects up to chance.

I can see what you mean, but if they're putting in an Ironman mode to implement this would probably be trivial. Granted in most games without an Ironman mode people play dead is dead anyway, but it is just nicer when the process is automated.

Arcanum didn't use a tutorial, and it was fine. As long as the UI is intuitive, I don't see why there necessarily must be one. Maybe have a more simplistic starting area so you can aclimatise to the game, but having text boxes spring up telling you precisely what to do is a bit trite. EDIT: Or if they must have a tutorial, have a way that it is easily bypassed. For example if the tutorial was set in a tunnel, show the player right at the end once they've played through the entire area once that there was a hidden passage they could have used from the start to bypass the whole thing.

I liked the Vodyanoi in the Witcher, so that's how I'd like my beastlike races to be in P:E - not playable and antagonistic. I like races that follow inhuman and inscrutable gods that put them at odds with humanity for reason the PC will never understand.

So we all know that an Ironman mode (or "The Path of Iron"), is going to be in the game - but what about continues? Continues would be a middleman where you could die maybe 1 or 2 times (or more preferably, a number of your choosing) and then your current save would get deleted. This would allow the difficulty to be more tunable, which is in my mind a good thing, and I wouldn't think that it would be much more difficult (if at all) then implementing Ironman mode which they already are doing (with Ironman, you'd simply have zero continues). Plus, whilst not reminiscent of IE games, it would be reminiscent of games on old consoles such as the NES or the Sega Master System, etc. A good idea, or does it stink?

Being completely left field - I'm going to say Ocean House from V:tM~B, not in terms of appearance but in terms of ambience. I want proof that an isometric game could scare me, something which not one has achieved so far. Od Nua was mad, his home should give a disturbing insight into his troubled mind.

I don't think followers leveling up when they're not with the main party is a great idea, it's essentially rewarding the player for work they're not doing. At the say time, it's hard to imagine a follower would sit idly by twiddling their thumbs when they're not with the PC - so an argument can be made quite easily for either side. Maybe they level up, but at a greatly reduced rate.

I'd like a minor non-playable race in the main game to become playable in the expansion.

I think I've heard there will be an influence system, though I may be wrong. What I meant by alignment was archetypal alignment and the character's opinions, not a little shifting meter-thingie.

I think a very early respec is fine, such as after the first town as per FO:NV. Sometimes it's nice to try an idea, but you may not want to persue it very far and it saves on restarting the entire game (though I'd still keep race and background/culture fixed - just give people the ability to re-shuffle skill and attribute points). After that though, no more respec.

A mix of both is good. In Arcanum Virgil mirrors your alignment, and gets different character development later in the game depending on how you have impacted him as a person - he is clearly a character that to some extent is impressionable. However, not everyone should be (and not every follower in Arcanum is) - some people have scruples and codified beliefs that they won't change no matter how charming their peers are. So I'd be inclined to go for both - good characters who are corruptable, evil characters who are redeemable, neutral characters who drift according to the players whims and then characters from all three of the alignments who do their own thing irrespective of the PC.

I'd like Arcanum's stealing process: any person could see what an NPC had on them and then you could select items from their inventory and drag it into your own (with equiped items or large heavy items being much harder to steal than say keys). Using this, you can actually focus on what you want to take from someone - like a real thief would. This process could be refined, by having checks for whatever correlates to perception in this game to be able to assess properly what small items someone has on their person and where they might be squirreled away (maybe have them just not in their inventory if your perception isn't high enough, or maybe you have a "lucky dip" option where you try and take from their pockets but without being able to perceive what you are after the chance of success is lower), with equiped items evidently visible but very hard to steal. This is similar to the Elder Scrolls way of stealing from someone's person, but as your Elder Scrolls suggestion focused on stealing items on shelves and such in a shop/house which I don't think could be implemented well in an isometric perspective, I went for None of Them which I'm taking as your "Other, please state" option.

I say yes, play Medieval 2: Total War if you want to see how much fun guns can be in a medieval setting. They were a part of the late medieval period, so if that's when the game is set (approximately) then why not?

I like picturesque, so nice snowy mountains and stuff like that to me are fun. Swamps on the otherhand or barren rock, not so much.

I like the idea, but it's also very difficult to pitch a hint to a reward so that it's not either far too obscure for most people to interpret or far too simple that any player who comes across the hint feels like they're being smacked over the head with it. Plus the fact it rewards those who are good at problem solving - but not everyone is and they may just feel frustrated. As I said, fun but it needs to be handled very well to give it broad appeal among people who will play P:E.

I hope he's really 20 and his appearance is just a sign of how hard he's lived. People wouldn't be saying he's an old fuddy-duddy then, would they?!

HP gain could be controlled upped with feats, rare in game items or temporary buffs to compensate (slightly) on not gaining health on level up. It's puts a bit more focus on managing your character development effectively, but that's not a bad thing. An interesting idea, honestly I wouldn't be bothered either way they go (HP per level up, or some alternative).

I just hope they involve their ears somehow.

Where's the fun in that? Why not have a nice seemingly charming culture of Orlan and then find out they are really slavers (!) who eat babies (!!) and then they all start having freaky short humanoid sex right in front of the player to emphasise their loose morals (!!!). It's obviously far better to pigeon-hole in content that makes no sense and seems out of place just for implicit shock value - everyone knows that.

I think that elements from eastern cultures could quite easily fit into the setting - despite it being predominantly western. It's a fantasy setting, so as such they are far less constrained as to what elements they can incorporate without it seeming weird. I think have martial arts or monk sects will be fine, I'm sure they'll find a way to make them mesh in a way that doesn't feel out of place.

This is a toughie, saying implying that a quest won't inflict impending doom very very soon drains some drama from quests that the devs want to be dramatic - at the same time implying said doom and not delivering on it is also disappointing. Between the two, I'd rather do quests without implied time constraints that they don't deliver on - i.e. come and go from the main quest as you please.

All the better to hear you with, dear.

I don't know I do prefer to set all my difficulty settings to the hardest, but if they have both HoF mode, Ironman and a FO:NV style hardcore mode I don't think the game would actually be enjoyable with all of these features turned on at once. It really depends how they do things.