Caerdon

I don't think it's so much "scared and resistant to change", but more "scared that it might end up being yet another dull, bland action RPG". I hated Diablo, and WoW, and Dragon Age 2, and Dungeon Siege. The fact that there does seem to be a scarily high emphasis on combat, and the fact that they're using D&D4e as part of their inspiration, doesn't help alleviate any fears in that regard. Also, it's not exactly 'change' if it's going to be like every other RPG currently on the market...what would be 'change' is if they made it into an actual roleplaying game - you know, the type where how you present yourself and how you interact with NPCs is just as important as which combat abilities you choose! Yet it's astounding to me how little faith and how little benefit of the doubt some people give to the devs. The whole point of this game is that it's not another moder MMO or ARPG. Still, if a dev were to utter a word like "cooldown" - a word that can represent ten different ideas that can be implemented in a hundred different ways - he'd be crucified for trying to make the game yet another WoW. Have some faith, people - and some respect, too. (Just to be clear: this wasn't directed at you.)

In BG1, most characters could reach level 8 and you had easily 100 hours worth of content. That's about 14 hours of play for every level-up. That was great. Leveling up every two hours is incredibly lame. Either a single level makes absolutely no difference or you grow way too powerful by the endgame.

How on Earth is that spell evil? There's nothing more natural than the cycle of death and rebirth and hastening that process seems like a very druidic thing to do. From a druid's point of view that's probably the very opposite of desecrating a corpse - more like karmic cleansing and atonement in death.

Could we please stop talking about the number of endings? It's a completely meaningless quantity. Most of the time it simply refers to the product of the number of different choices at specific points in the game, and each choice will typically result in a specific piece of dialogue or cutscene. A game with ten yes/no choices can have 1024 endings, but none of those endings are likely to particularly meaningful, enjoyable, surprising or thought-provoking. What matters is not the amount of different endings but how satisfying the ending is. Having the ending react to your choices during the game is one way and one part of making it satisfying, but it's not the only way or the only part. And while I love endings like that and I always prefer to have them, they aren't strictly required to make a game great - it just means that the other factors will have to be great enough to compensate. As for the choices mattering during the game, I'd love it if the game locked you out of a signifcant amount of content based on your choices, whether that content is areas to explore, people to meet, loot to find or plotlines to follow. The old IE games didn't have much of that and were great in spite of that, but I feel it would certainly add to my enjoyment.

She's a peasant. She couldn't afford it.

Seems rather disingenuous to be asking for sexy female armos because you're a friend of classic fantasy like Frazetta and Bell. Why? Because men in those paintings were just as scantily clad as women. Seems to me you're just asking for the very specific things that you're interested in (cheap titillation), rather than the artistic style as a whole. Besides, there's much more to classic fantasy than the type you're advocating, so don't dress this up as "those who like classic fantasy and those who don't". I like classic fantasy, including the style of the aforementioned artists, but I still don't want ridiculous breast plates and mail bikinis anywhere near this game.

The Shifty Looking Cow is the best character in any video game, ever.

I'd prefer it if friendly fire was always there, but you could adjust any AOE between Area / (1 + AOE_INT_bonus) and Area * (1 + AOE_INT_bonus). For example, with +75% AOE bonus a spell area of 10 could actually range from 5.7 to 17.5. Radius could always default to maximum if you don't bother to set it manually while casting.

But it doesn't matter what the attribute system is, you can always come up with those examples that don't fit the mold. Even examples that are traditional and common. And frankly, even though it was viable in D&D, the example of the Brute is, to me, an example of a bad melee build. And you combat that claim with one counter-example? If Eternity allows for more viable builds than D&D's attribute system, it's because of better attribute balance (e.g. the lack of dump attributes). I'm all for indentifying and discussing flaws in the system. It's just that throwing examples of character types that the system cannot handle isn't really a very useful form of doing that in this case, because you can do that regardless of the system.

Guys, when there is a limited number of uncorrelated attributes, the amount of different character archetypes they can accurately describe and differentiate is equally limited. It doesn't matter how well-designed, logical and intuitive the attribute system is, you can always come up with character archetypes the system can't distinguish between. That was true in D&D. It's true in every RPG. It will be true in Eternity. In other words, the whole discussion on whether you can build this or that type of character in Eternity is rather pointless. There will always be examples that don't fit the system. That can't be avoided.

I like this and I think I'll do the same. Not to mention, I'm still not really grooving on "Pillars" all that much. My brain still wants to see it as Pillows and ... well never mind. Eternity it is! Pillars of Eternity sounds like an oriental porn flick to me... I guess I'll get used to it eventually.

I'm going to call it Eternity. The 0.185 seconds you lose by not shortening it to PoE really isn't worth that much.

Despite what some people are saying, random loot does not have to mean that reloading can be abused. Loot can be randomized when you start a new game, it's as simple as that.

Well, the sort of player who enjoys finding nonviolent solutions is probably going to need that gear more when he actually does get into a fight, because his character is likely to be built with less focus in combat skills. And there will be unavoidable combat in this game. You get the same amount of combat-oriented talents, regardless of what you spend your skills. There are no characters with an increased utility function at the expense of combat abilities. Good point, thanks for reminding me. I had totally forgotten about that. Although I suspect that many combat skills can still be utilized for avoiding combat, and if specced that way, may not be ideal for fighting. But that's not a major issue, and would definitely be your own fault.

Well, the sort of player who enjoys finding nonviolent solutions is probably going to need that gear more when he actually does get into a fight, because his character is likely to be built with less focus in combat skills. And there will be unavoidable combat in this game.

Riiiiiiggghhht. You need more practical experience with swinging a weapon or a tool and less blind faith in your equations. And if you keep throwing numbers at us, at least let us see those equations.

The problem is not that there aren't incentives to find peaceful solutions. The problems is that there aren't incentives to avoid non-peaceful solutions. There's a difference. For example, the local law enforcement shouldn't turn a blind eye to you massacring a group of thugs just because it was all part of a quest. Even if the thugs attacked first.

When I play BG, I use the console to give lots of arrows to my archers. Instead of spending 30 minutes in a store training my mouse hand I get to spend that time actually playing the game.

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Classes being balanced doesn't mean they are all the same. Balanced means that the classes are (very much subjectively) considered, on average, equally powerful. That's it. If most players refuse to play a druid because druids are generally considered useless, there's an inbalance that, in my opinion, should be fixed. If everyone always maxes out Intelligence on every class because it's just so damn useful, there's another inbalance that should be fixed. Are those, in your opinion, inherent inbalances that "make games such fun"?

Well, Geralt has superhuman endurance, he's sterile and immune to all disease. I can understand chicks throwing themselves at him. Seriously. The Wicher is a great game. There's a lot of actual maturity in the way it handles it's story and themes, it's just a pity that sex and nudity is there only for pure titillation. The Witcher 2 was better in this regard, but not by much.

Mature content and maturity are two completely different things but often confused. Mature content is things that we can see or hear that for one reason or another are generally considered unsuitable for children. I've never understood why nudity is included. Maturity refers to the way a game presents its central themes, characters and story. A mature game doesn't go for easy satisfaction, whether it's through violence, titillation or cheap laughs; instead, it offers you questions without giving answers and makes you question your own answers. It takes a mature mind to appreciate the subtleties of a mature game, that's where the term "maturity" comes from.

A lot of backers will be in the early beta test for the game so i suspect that final bug count will be minimal at the release. Just look how long WL2 is getting delayed because of this kind of testing and KS approach, and backers do not have much problem with that (at least I get this feeling). If I am not mistaken, originally WL2 should be released in 2013 and its not going to happen Personally I don't really care that much how buggy PoE will be. There will be lots of bugs. What I do care about is that Obsidian cares about them - enough to fix them whenever they are discovered. If it will be the sort of bugs I've encountered in the WL2 beta - game crashes whenever you're trying to access the world map, saves getting corrupted, fps drops to unplayable levels - I do care about whether they're in or not. Luckily those are the kind of universal bugs that are relatively easy to find and fix with the help of a wide beta test. Hopefully both Obsidian and inXile will make fixing such bugs a priority. I haven't played WL2 myself yet - I missed the Kickstarter back in the day - but I'm under the impression that inXile has already made some real progress with the help of the beta community.

I agree. I just hope they keep the challenge believable, that it actually makes sense in the context. For example, a simple city guard should not pose a challenge to an experienced, high-level warrior, even if he's guarding a city only discovered late in the game. At the same time, no enemy that can use a weapon proficiently should ever become completely trivial. I absolutely hated how every single ordinary mook had +3 equipment in Throne of Bhaal. Granted, that was because D&D is inherently flawed and broken, but still.

Just out of general curiosity: how would you feel about after-release balance updates that adjust the game mechanics? Things like bonuses granted by attributes, item stats, class bonuses, racial traits, monster stats, enemy AI, loot system... I suspect some people would like to crucify me for even suggesting something like that, but personally I'd like if Obsidian kept updating the game so that no attribute is unreasonably (un)important in comparison, that all races and classes are equally viable, that the monsters that are supposed to be difficult don't succumb to some silly cheese, that there are always lots of great gear choices instead of a very limited selection of "best" items. Etc. Balance updates might affect your pre-existing characters, so take that into account when forming your opinion.

A lot of backers will be in the early beta test for the game so i suspect that final bug count will be minimal at the release. Just look how long WL2 is getting delayed because of this kind of testing and KS approach, and backers do not have much problem with that (at least I get this feeling). If I am not mistaken, originally WL2 should be released in 2013 and its not going to happen Wasteland 2 beta only includes about one third of the locations that are in the final game. Lots of gear, enemies, scripted events and even skills that will not be tested with a wide audience. Final bug count will not be minimal. Personally I don't really care that much how buggy PoE will be. There will be lots of bugs. What I do care about is that Obsidian cares about them - enough to fix them whenever they are discovered.