Adhin

I like the GUI mock ups look personally, definitely could use some optimization but that's what it'll get... GUI often go through tons of iterations anyway. To a point Lephys was making about 'blooming' GUI, I agree and unlike him I am gonna mention Torment, the first torment anyway. That had a good minimal GUI for the low res it was using because it used a right-click menu pop up. When you think about it, the right mouse button isn't exactly used for much in an infinity engine game. You hold left click to select, right clicking I think just gets used for 'shifting direction' of formations. But you can easily do a Shift+Click for that. Least that's what im hoping to see, a right-click option for a easy-to-use radial like menu, allows for a lot of icons and with multiple expanding layers allowing for a massive number of spells or skills or or items with out it taking up much of the screen. Granted they still used a button-click to 'cycle through' instead of pages like NWN/DAO. Also I kinda agree with the text being on left or in the middle... not sure why, always just feels more natural to me, but that doesn't really matter, ultimately. In the end text being on the right side is something I'd get used to with in the first hour anyway. Sides, I'm sure chatting will have its own floated interface or something and the text box is just a chat 'log' so you can review recent stuff. Least I hope that's what they end up doing. -edit- As per animated portraits... I'd rather they didn't. Don't get me wrong I loved them in PST but PST had a very, very specific design for each character that you couldn't change, at all, what so ever. Which would mean they'd end up using the existing 3D graphic of the person instead of a painted portrait which is what NWN2 did (minus it being animated). DAO/2 did that as well... personally I don't like it. It kinda kills the 'fantasy' thing for me and its just 'heres this still of your character your already looking at'. I'd rather it be a painted picture, with the option for us to add in custom ones via a portrait folder like the old infinity games (sans PST) and NWN. Portrait's aside, a little animation of effects in the GUI is often a nice touch. So little glow pops or flashing based off whatevers going on could be fun. But hey that's not really a first mock up thing, that's more down the road once you got the main stuff squared away.

Yeah I think to do the thing any real justice you'd need it both on an individual basis and a faction basis and anyone who's need some random guard or unnamed of a faction would need both. A, this faction doesn't like you, or doesn't care about you but this guy in it is still going to help you out because of things you've done for him in the past kinda thing. That's usually the kinda they they only ever do via the story and that person is just kinda 'out of' the faction loop till there part in the scripted story stuffs over with. But no matter how many points or categories they could throw you in depending on any mixture of stuff it'll have to be represented in dialog of you just have A LOT more data that all boils down to the same 3 things, hated, neutral or liked. Feel like a broken record at this point, but people keep just bringing up more data points which games, including new Vegas already had. They just failed to represent that outside of a little title next to the faction name. ****s gadda be represented in a more granular manner or its pointless.

Attributes and body type choice at character selection. Your kinda born with your structure/muscle makeup. You can work on it from that point but your gonna hit some plateau at some point. But I agree TrashMan Class really shouldn't effect armor look, never liked that about Diablo clone where your character changed how all the armor looks but I guess it kinda works for that game. Race/Class had a change in the infinity engine games but that's cause it heavily limited what you had access to by class. The only actual change was in Leather armor, Thief vs non-thief classes in leather armor... and that difference was Thief had a hood heh. So yeah body type/size should alter it, not much else. Would love a height and width slider like NWN2 had but doubt we'll get one.

I agree with ya Lephys and folks are silly. @Diagoras: ale and female have both different portion in bone structure and different muscle structures. This isn't a male is better then female or ladys beat dudes or any of that non-sense. On top of that you also got different body types with in either gender. But males have generally a larger percentage of muscle, most in there torso and arms. Women have a bit more in there hips and legs (for obvious reasons) and the way the hip-to-leg muscles wrap around at formed a bit differently. Take a guy and a girl, same height and weight train them the male will weight more and generally have more muscle. Bulk up a lady and put her next to some skinny guy whos never weight trained and.. shes gonna be the goddamn hulk compared to him. But that's a bad comparison if that's what your trying to do. Keep in mind that means less in relation to actual combat. Massive body building nonsense doesn't translate to good fighting, it just translates to A LOT of muscles (which can get in the way of movement). And either gender can get strong enough with good movement for any of this combat so... no major difference other then in the armor looks far as im concerned.

@Lephys: Definitely not just you. I just want it to be better represented in text then just a hostile, neutral and happy generic welcoming type thing. Rather it be based off what you've done where applicable or based off where you sit on said grid in a more granular manner.

Well Weapons and Armor is more of a personal customization and generally the more the better as less means... no real customization options available. As far as the OP suggestion, as someone showed the Vegas basis thing is, mostly, already that but I kinda feel like it should be all on an individual basis for anyone whos not a generic NPC. For example you got Bob in Whatever Faction. Then you got a Guard in Whatever Faction, gonna call that WF for now. In a lot of games its just the faction and everyone in it is defined entirely by that so the Bob's and Guards reactions are entirely based off WF faction. Would be nice if Bob was 'influenced' by the WF faction in his reaction but he had his own, personal levels on the same kind of slider. As a further example say you help Bob before WF faction likes you... it ups your WF faction but it ups Bobs general opinion of you more. You could end up with Bob really likin' ya while the faction still doesn't care to much one way or the other. Beyond that most people's opinions of others, in general aren't to complex. They can be if you think about it to much but in general you either like someone or you don't. You can feel like you owe someone something, for whatever reason, and still not like them but due to that you help them on something. That sounds more like some kinda side 'owes you' tracker that supersedes a reputation like systems to some extent. They still treat you like crap but they'll do you a favor. Beyond that kinda stuff I don't really even see the need for New Vegas style reputation stuff. They like ya, or they don't, I guess a second slider to see if they're scare of you or not is something else but... Meh. Would be real awkward to be feared and liked, I'm not entirely sure how the crap that would even work. They run away screaming how much they love you? Generally speaking though you want things as simple as possible while hopefully allowing it to allow for complexities. Can be a hard balance, bit to easy to go down the rabbit hole of making things far more complex then they actually have to be. -edit- Remembered something else about this stuff. New Vegas didn't really use there's effectively. It just put you somewhere on a grid which came down to one of 2 things. They attacked you, they where neutral, or they liked you. They had all those variations and blah blah blah, but it wasn't audio-ly represented to the player where they stood, or that the system even existed beyond a basic single slider. That's the biggest issue I see with any system at all, how anything actually responds to you in game is far to simplistic to actually show how complex the under-the-hood actually is. Ultimately it just came down to a little title to that faction... which is where it kinda loses me and makes me think its mostly pointless if it can't be visually shown or via audio/text... and that takes a lot more work then just making something hostile or giving you a discount.

Think they said godlikes can't even ware helmets due to things like that. Which if they take the DnD approach of 'helmets don't do ****' then its not a big deal really. Always wondered why Helmets didn't do anything in DnD... they could come with some kinda 'effect' but it was always extremely minor and didn't allow for a lot of magical enchantment for the most part. I mean in comparison belts and rings did far more but then anyone could ware those I guess. Wing though yeah, that would require some breastplate modification but the overall look would remain the same yeah? Back would ultimately need a big hole or 2. I think for the most part they could keep the armor all looking the same between race/gender with just proportion shifting to fit said forms and heights. Didn't read the customization post yet, but pretty sure they're going with the infinity engine of certain parts of the armor having a color swap you can do on a per-character basis to make it easier to pick out specific ones.

Helmet Hats! yes! I can use a mouse-like-races shield as a Monocle as well! Joking aside I agree in general that if your gonna scale things and form fit for races, it's silly to not do that for gender as well. The important part, for me at least, is that they don't make the female variants grossly different. It should be fitted not get turned into a bikini and we already know Obsidian wont bikini up this nonsense. Just make a male and female version of plate, make there designs identical but more properly fitted for both and fit that to all the races. Problem solved, yeah?

I kinda try to avoid pointing out war situations in relation to anything related to an RPG since singular combat or small team combat just doesn't translate the same. Either way I hope they show said beasts of burden, horses and otherwise, out and about. I don't wanna be riding them, as gameplay wise it wont add anything to this style of game. In a TES like RPG-ish game I get it, massive land to cover solo, useful to be on something fast. In BG2, Planescape: Torment? Utterly useless as it comes. Hell if they did do it in BG2 you wouldn't even 'move' faster, your horse would of still walked at normal speeds and it woulda ended up being just a 'new kind of combat specialization'... which is silly. I kinda hope they have some kind of encampment upgrades, involving horses and such that make traveling from down to down 'faster' in a mathematical sense. That being going from City A to City B (in fast travel) takes say, a week normally, takes half the time if you've bought a horse or use a caravan or something. I think any of that would be woven into less combat oriented roles, or just for atmosphere but it needs to be there. As for Dragon Age they had horses, they where even part of some of the family crests. The War Dog's weren't so much a 'we have dogs so we don't need horses'... it was just a magically breeded war dog they incorporated into there sociaty and warfare... horses still existed and where used. BioWare just gets lazy and never bothered to put models in to show them. Hell you had 'caravan' like stuff you wandered into with 0 animals. Beginning of game I think, after the war, you run into that dwarfs wandering merchant... no animal. He apparently dragged his big ass cart all over the place instead of using a donkey or something (which im sure lore wise he used a donkey or like animal). Ahh and at this point im just saying the same crap over and over heh, heres hoping for animals to be in the game for atmosphere.

Outside of religion or the world said druids in (which has always had some kinda impact on Druids in DnD, such as requiring a god or not to function). Well, Druid's in DnD have always kinda been the more sorcery type of the 2 main priest classes. Tend to have more direct damage related and situational like spells then cleric buff/heal stuff. Considering how PE's world involves souls as the source of power, not gods or some arcane web, weave, vortex or otherwise, I think would fit pretty well with a more 'sorcerer' like approach to them. Though I feel that should be more in theme then just making them a Wizard who doesn't use books for spells. Ultimately a Druid's gonna still be a priest, and it'll have a hell of a nature bent on it. Curious to see where they go with em as I fully intend to play one at some point. I've also always loved the focus on shifting as an innate thing Druids are good at others aren't. Nature aside, that's been one of my favorite traits about them that other classes just don't get and I hope they have a good chunk of stuff for that in PE.

@Ulquiorra: and I agree with you, my point, along with many others here, is that a 'Ranger' is in its vast majority of uses not a servent of nature. **** in DnD hes rarely a 'servant of nature'... that was just BioWare doing some of its worst writing. That's NWN in a nut shell, i LOVED that game, really did, but the game suffered heavily on the writing department. That and choices, of which you had mostly 0. When they made that game it was based off the idea of DM's making and running stuff for there buddies via online networking. Which is a great idea and it provided me with years of entertainment. It's just the vast majority of that wasn't actually BioWares stories, that was kinda an afterthought due to time pressures. Either way I agree Ranger isn't a servant of nature, druid is, and they're really the only ones that should be. Never was a fan of how forced you where into stuff in original BG, or NWN. They did a lot better job at that with BG2 and there later games after NWN. And Black Isle (or Obsidian now) has pretty much 'always' done a better job at letting you be what you want instead of forcing that kind of dialog choice on you.

Just to throw this out there but 'Pocher' is one of those 'what side your on' kinda things. Go back far enough and anyone who hunts an animal in the 'kings land' with out very specific permission is a poacher... Robin Hood, as mentioned above, is very rangery and he was ultimately considered a poacher. Ranger in its very original use... sure. Ranger in its vast majority of other uses? Not really. As was stated before and, this part seems to not of stuck with you Ulquiorra... Ranger is a militaristic title. The only one that's not, the only one that literally doesn't involve any form of military or law enforcement (of which there can be many sides of) is are current day 'Park Rangers' and even then, in many of those cases, they're still a wilderness oriented law enforcement. My point is you can have a poacher who's a ranger. AS for why you'd want a ranger, or any class, that kills people because of rabbits? I... have no idea why you'd want that unless you intended to play a crazy person. Personally, out of your 4 options, the 1st is the only one that, to me, doesn't fit the 'Ranger'... but then it doesn't fit anything other then a 'crazy person' so... any class, technically, could fit that just fine... all you gadda do is make them completely crazy and has some kinda weird rabbit worship/obsession going on. UNLESS of course you mean rabbit as a 'kills anything going for 'nature' because all of nature is friends with each other' in which case thats... still not a Ranger, or a Druid for that matter. That's children's animals can talk TV shows, and its bull****. Either way you got a real bizar outlook on Rangers. Go look up Army Rangers or something...

This may of started off as horses but I love where its going. I don't think a complete absent of horses would change the world much, there are plenty of other animals that can fulfill that role and often have, other then short men racing in circles I guess. I mean the world would have to be filled with animals all cat sized and 'larger then elephants' and nothing in between for it to really impact stuff. As for actually having mounted stuff (I know its not the main topic here) I don't see the need to have a 'system' in place for players. You can always do it for enemies and not have it require extra systems. I know folks love mounts, but they're kinda pointless in a game like this. More so having to deal with 4+ mounts due to party size and... meh. It's just silly. What I don't want to see though is a lack of mounts, and then NO horses or nothing in the world to show that's a thing. That's a lack of environmental detail that kinda kills things for me. "Well the player wont ride them so we wont have them represented in game'. Issue i had with Dragon Age. I don't want to ride a horse in that game, but the fact they're no where to be seen (or cattle for that matter) is just awkward. More so when the lore/story points directly at there very existence. So yeah, I personally don't want mounts in this kinda game (even though I like mounts) and, horses or no, whatever society 'does' use as beast of burden, I really hope 'exists' as something in game so that detail isn't missing from the atmospheric story.

I was gonna make a big post about why I think people have the wrong idea of the Ranger class in DnD and... blah blah blah. But I deleted that, simply folks just take it as a Warrior Druid due to its spell list and affinity for non-'civilized' areas. No where in the actual descriptions of rangers in DnD are they described as such though. Personally, I would of liked to of seen spell list swapped focus kinda like Cleric's 2 chosen 'domains' but a singular spell list, or a single domain, been used for Rangers. Cause even I agree, descriptions aside, they're way to druidy on the spell side. ....though I still like the animal companion, druidy-spell list or not. Don't feel like that's off the mark to much... though it would of been nice if that was a feat option, not a 'they ALL have this'. Think that with the vast majority of classes in DnD though, other then the Barb-rage, I feel like a lot of classes have a bit to much forced nonsense... except Fighter, but Fighter doesn't have 'anything' forced... except a wealth of feat options heh. Anyway I'd be fine with a name change, but as I've said before (and others) Hunter is to focused. Sure you could turn that into anything you wanted but... If your not hunting ****, or that isn't a big focus in your life, why the crap are you called a hunter? I could make a survivalist, yup... but if I aint hunting stuff then...? Meh.

I prefer ranger but it depends what the class is supposed to be. A 'Hunter' is just that, a hunter, they hunt stuff. Maybe its trolls, maybe its just 'large game' but ultimately they're existence revolves around finding and killing dangerous stuff. A Ranger is a protector of a Range. A area, weather that's a city, or a small town and its surrounding lands. The only thing, to me at least, that a Hunter and a Ranger have in common is they're used to tracking stuff. I mean, a 'Hunter' doesn't even mean it has to be a good survivalist... some rich **** with a big guns a hunter, you know? Ranger takes a bit more self-survival and dedication to his chosen life style. Think to many people mix these 2 up as interchangeable, and far to many tack Ranger up with another version of a Druid which I also think is a bit silly but I can understand both of them I guess. Either way, I prefer Ranger. Hunting is a hobby, Rangering is a calling. Though I will say Hunter bugs me less when the class has a heavy ranged only focus... RPG that make Rangers archers only always drive me nuts, but then that's because often times people don't realize the names based off 'an large area' not referencing using a bow.

Yeah when im thinking death animations Im not thinking like 5-10 ways to kill a guy with a sword... I'm thinking of itl ike swing animations. 1-2 per weapon but then the same for monster types. Basic example a bear, or a wolf. Giving them 1-2 ways to 'take down' with a special animation against a humanoid creature could do wonders for ranger pets or multi-faction combat scenarios you may run into (such as a bear showing up when your fighting bandits). I just think 1-2 for a lot that stuff would be a good amount of variaty for the battle chaos.

Sounds like a stamina/health system for per-use abilities. Kinda would rather it be the actual split personally. I just think running fast isn't one of those things you'd do once a day but I think they're making it as more of a running teleport. like ME2-3 Vanguard Charge where its not 'really' a teleport, but it might as well be with how fast your moving and ignoring everything on your path. So in that regard I can kinda understand per-day uses... kinda depends how it functions and all that. As for the 3 types of 'emotion based power' 1 of which is rage (so the other 2 are rage replacements). I kind of like the idea, but the courage one sounds like what the Paladin will end up doing with his war shouts (bolster moral and lower enemy moral) and anyone in a rage should have that fear thing, if they're truely furious enough. I do like the idea of kinda making a choice at lvl 1 as to what kind you want (and then maybe later on the ability to spent a talent to get the others). But... I dunno, I think they'd have to be different takes on rage or something that doesn't tread to much into another classes territory. -edit- As per the 'higher bonuses with number of enemies' thing... Yes. I always love mechanics like that with Berserk like classes (and often build then towards that if given the option). I also have a tendency to, awkwardly, focus on singular target abilities even with in that which... well whatever that's jsut some bizar tendency I have. Either way already mentioned that kinda thing earlier in the thread, and big supporter of stat bonuses for barb like classes due to fighting more then 1 enemy. -2nd-edit cause... yeah- Just remembered another thing... bonuses from kills (short term). 10-20 second buff due to a kill, stacks/resets timer up to a certain extent. Well, maybe not stacks but.. yeah. I could easily see this being a passive upgrade to rage where, when your in a rage, if you get a kill, you get some kind of bolstering effect... either little stamina refresh or speed/dmg bonus or something. Either way stuff based off getting a kill to get said bonus definitely something I also think fits Barb style gameplay.

Yeah I was happy to read they have a limited use rush ability instead of just a static 10% movement bonuses. It's more of a thing you think of then, when to use it, why to use it. Reminds me of Charge in D2 (or you know, bullrushing in DnD). I mean basic use is 'oh look enemies, rush em!' but it can be used to cut off enemies trying to circle around to the squishies. You know sometimes you get the situations where they go for the mage, everyones walking at the same speed and your fighter type can't overrun them to block... well a Barbarian in PE can. Love that, it's not quite my Barb/Psions example of just teleporting in the way but that's a perfect analog for it. Kinda disapointed its use/day instead of use/encounter though. Seems a bit silly he can only Wild Sprint a few times per day but a mage could throw out magic bolts 5 times every encounter... maybe it'll transfer to per encounter or just plane change it to per encounter so its more of a staple. Like as an example, Monks 3E, Stunning blow. 1 use per monk lvl, ends up getting out of hand, that kinda crap should just be smaller number of uses per encounter instead of 'well you got 20 uses.. space it out?' rather just be able to do it 3 times per fight, more limitation on the small scale but less on the big... per encounter was one of the few great things 4E did (along with health progression which I still prefer being less crazy but... yeah). So yeah heres hoping it becomes per-encounter eventually or from the get go, number of speedy runs per days a bit limiting for that kind of thing.

@Osvir: I do love the challenge perk bonuses from killing enemy types and doing other kinda weird things they had in New Vegas. Also like the quest based unique perks they did in all the fallout games and love that Sawyer mentioned they'll be in PE. Definitely would not want them to be the bulk of the games perks or heavily dictate play styles or anything, just quirky fun bonuses to act almost as a trophy for how you handled a quest or something. That kinda systems better used as flavor then the main bulk of character advancement.

Sawyer has given some examples using health and stamina values though never specified if they where max, but they where always relatively close to each other (like 54 stamina and 48 health) or something random but near-equals. As for the monk thing 'hows it work'. Definitely soul... like everything else. That's there unifying theme for how everything works. The Soul wasn't just mage magic, it was there explanation for anything in relation to mortals that did supernatural or superhuman feats of some kind. Mage throws a fireball? His brand of using his soul to fuel his magic. Muscle man manages to push a boulder weighting multiple tons? Adrenaline wont make you do that but soul power can. I'm kinda explaining it a bit corny like but it's kinda like how in DnD you have divine magic and arcane magic, both explained differently. Each one often explained differently even from world to world and monks having there own personal magic. Well, in this its always the same source but how it manifests, how they use it is the difference in PE. Least that's what I've gotten from it so far from there explanations. -edit- Oh and to add to what Lephys said, another way to maybe think about it would be well. He mentioned ability to convert said harmful whatever into energy. Doesn't matter if it leaves a wound in the process or if its closed... think of it like a pressure cooker, you get this concept with any kind of energy source in all manner of myths and stories. Store up to much for to long and things tend to go bad, explosions or fissures or what have you. Storing said energy, that isn't naturally your own, could just be a taxing process, would make sense considering the kind of life style said monks go through, extreme physical and mental condition beyond that of a normal swordsman. If that, in PE, is the diverting of physical harm into an energy source they keep welled up which they have to find away to expel before that energy causes them bodily harm - doesn't have to be in the same manner they got hurt. The energy forcing its way out as you lose your grip on it, I'd imagine would suck pretty bad one way or another. So... better channel it into a killer punch or kick or paralyzing palm strike before that happens.

Heh turn drunken master into Drunke Wizard? Buncha bottles hanging off his belt for when he wants to use some combust-like-cantrip. That is extremely silly and you could totally do it in a PnP game and I like it

I would 'love' if Barbarians had a higher health pool while rage impacts stamina (as they've mentioned it already will sometime) ultimately making them more stamina susceptible to stamina... I'd imagine stamina drains while in rage or when it ends you lose a chunk just like a winded state from DnD barb rages. Also any kind of bonuses related to how low your health is (not stamina) would be awesome. I'd also love to see bonus for fighting more then 1 enemy at a time as another risk/reward counter to the low health stuff. Just make the Barbarian a nasty brutal killing machine... if the odds are stacked against him as much as possible heh. Not sure where your confusion is stemming from on the health/stamina. But pretty sure the 4:1 ratio is only in damage. Meaning 100/100 or 120/100 sp/hp values, im sure we can have chars with more health then stamina, more stamina then hp or equal values... ultimately its just you take 25% of damage recieved (even in decimels) as health damage. So if you take 10 dmg, your health gets hit for 2.5 dmg (keeping track of the .5) Hope the coming up update has information on Barbarians... really hope it does.

Yeah, actually makes me wonder what other kind of mechanics they may use that're unique to a class like the Barbarian... specifically the Barb actually.

...no thats hurting your self for no good reason. It's a mechanic for the whole using your enemies strength against them... just in a more powery oriented thing.

I love that monk concept! And yeah sounds like using the enemies strength against them, but with soul powah to pack it up more (which is already a very chi/ki concept). Looks like I'll be making a monk too.. =D