PrimeJunta

The only mods I've genuinely enjoyed are either (a) completely new games built with the toolset of an existing one, such as some Neverwinter Nights mods, or (b) broken but promising games repaired, such as Wesp's Vampire: Bloodlines mod, the Gothic 3 Community Mod, or the KOTOR 2 Restoration Project. I'm kinda hoping (b) won't be needed, and (a) needs access to just about everything. So my vote is all or nothing – anything in between holds little interest to me. I especially don't care about cosmetic mods for clothing and armor and such. When I want to play dress-up with dolls, I invite my niece and her Barbie collection over.

Permanent injuries are not worth the trouble IMO, as very few players would bother continuing after getting a permanent injury serious enough to affect stats. That's reload-tyme. (Or restart-tyme if you're in Trial of Iron.) The "verge of" mechanic would amount to a variant of "hovering at death's door." IOW, I think this would take a significant amount of effort to do, and have very little return in gameplay value.

Eternity: Queklain no Vengeant. (HT: Tales of Game's.)

It doesn't have to be a metagame feature. @rjshae just pointed out one way it could fit just fine in a soul-based game. Other possibilities would include a sudden religious conversion (-> respec to cleric or monk), a supernatural event giving or removing magical powers (->respec to or from wizard) and so on. Personally, it's not something I'd request, but if they do it and integrate it well into the game and its world, I have no objections to it either.

I for one prefer Kaz's art style to Polina's, although I like both a good deal better than most game concept art that's out there.

On-demand, unlimited re-specing is obviously silly and I'm quite sure Ob's not dumb enough to do that. OTOH having a plot point (or some similarly rare occasion) where you're allowed to do this might work just fine.

Check the example again: they would actually have 0 speed, 0 accuracy, and 0 damage when using a sword. It's multiplicative, not additive. In this extremely limited example with only three stats and skills, I'd use power * strike * [unarmed]. If it was a real game I might have some other skill that was more appropriate. It probably isn't. Which is why I use "power" rather than "strength." It's a different abstraction. Further, I would contend that there is no such thing as "strength." It's always contextual. Someone who is good at power lifting may or may not be good at shot putting. Shot putting and power lifting are different skills. Skills may have synergies, of course, so that it's likely that someone who's good at power lifting is better at shot put than someone who's good at chess but not power lifting, assuming neither has specific training in shot put. I was envisioning all checks as stat * skill * tool. It would make no sense to check just "power", without some way you're using it (the skill) and something you're using it with (the tool). There would be a very limited number of stats, a somewhat limited number of skills, and a broad range of tools, ranging from "unarmed" to "epic sword of manly manliness" and "meteor strike".

I'm sure there will be cheat codes for P:E.

Sure, that would work too. Lots of ways to design this type of system without ending up with muscle-bound archmages.

I would simply have it affect the relevant skill. A magic disruptor would a penalty to Hex. A muscle disruptor to Strike. A coordination disruptor to Shoot. If you want to add depth, you could have the field apply separate Power, Speed, and Accuracy penalties to categories like "all attacks based on Hex." So you could have a magic-slowing field, a melee-clumsiness field, a field that robbed the power from projectiles, and so on and so forth. And naturally there's nothing stopping you from doing all the usual stuff like flagging attacks as crushing/slashing/piercing, or elemental/illusion/enchantment, and then applying various circumstantial adjustments to those.

It doesn't. I only considered combat for the purposes of this simple demonstration. It was a long enough post as it is. I would add a few more stats and skills to handle that. I think they ought to be class-agnostic, i.e., equally useful for wizards, defenders, and archers.

Erm, you guys do realize that y'all are speculating wildly? AFAIK we haven't been told anything about the attribute system other than that a design goal is "no dump stats for any class," and "the same stats determine accuracy and damage for all classes." That leaves the field wide open. Personally, I very much doubt the "damage stat" will be called "strength." That would indeed be silly as it would make you picture archmages looking like the Terminator. Since we're speculating, though, here's an example of one solution that fits these design parameters without eliminating class differentiation: Classes: Defender - melee fighter Archer - archer Wizard - wizard Stats: Accuracy Power Speed Skills: Strike - skill in melee Shoot - skill in ranged weapons Hex - skill in magic Attacks: Longsword - strike, (A10, P10, S10) Dagger - strike (A20, P5, S20) Shortbow - shoot (A10, P10, S10) Crossbow - shoot (A5, P20, S5) Fireblast - hex (A10, P10, S10) Force bolt - hex (A15, P5, S15) Skill * Accuracy * Weapon A = chance to hit Skill * Power * Weapon P = damage modifier Skill * Speed * Weapon S = attack frequency All classes get to distribute 30 points between Accuracy, Power, and Speed. Defenders have Strike 20 Shoot 10 Hex 0 Archers have Strike 10 Shoot 20 Hex 0 Wizards have Strike 2 Shoot 2 Hex 26 So, consider a Defender with A10, P10, S10: Longsword: Accuracy, Speed, and Power 10 * 20 * 10 = 2000 Shortbow: Accuracy, Speed, and Power 10 * 10 * 10 = 1000 Crossbow: Accuracy and Speed 10 * 10 * 5 = 500, Power 10 * 10 * 20 = 2000 An Archer: Longsword: Accuracy, Speed, and Power all 10 * 10 * 10 = 1000 Shortbow: Accuracy, Speed, and Power all 10 * 20 * 10 = 2000 Crossbow: Accuracy, and Speed 10 * 20 * 5 = 1000, Power 10 * 20 * 20 = 4000 A Wizard: Longsword: Accuracy, Speed, and Power all 10 * 2 * 10 = 200 Crossbow: Accuracy and Speed 10 * 2 * 5 = 100, Power 10 * 2 * 20 = 400 Fireblast: Accuracy, Power, and Speed all 10 * 26 * 10 = 2600 Force Bolt: Accuracy and Speed 10 * 26 * 15 = 3900, Power 10 * 26 * 5 = 1300 Under this system, your "Strike" skill would also reflect your physical training, and your "Hex" skill your mental discipline. So, unless your wizard invested heavily into developing "Strike" or "Shoot," he would be pretty near useless with a sword or bow compared to a defender or archer. Personally I don't have a huge problem with this approach. It's IMO no worse even from a simulationist POV than the traditional d20 STR-EX-CON-INT-WIS-CHA one. A system where a single stat determines, say, both your ability to balance on a tightrope and pick a lock, or lift a big rock over your head and keep someone in a wrestling hold, or avoid catching the plague and swim across a lake isn't exactly realistic either.

FWIW re the actual topic, I'm very much in the "artistic coherence" camp. For example, Oblivion left me pretty much completely cold, whereas I enjoyed The Witcher a great deal. Both had similar levels of photorealism, but The Witcher had a compelling, internally consistent, and coherent artistic quality whereas Oblivion was generic, incoherent, repetitive, and bland. This is one reason I'm such a Planescape: Torment fanboy by the way – few games have such magnificently coherent and consistent artistic qualities, where the visuals, the text, the music, and, um... significant parts of the gameplay reinforce each other and form aspects of the same vision. So speaking for myself only, I don't think photorealism, lack thereof, or the uncanny valley have much do with whether a game snags my imagination or not. It does have an indirect impact, in that pulling off a coherent artistic vision in glorious photorealistic first-person 3D entails a great deal more work and expense than doing the same in sprites, let alone ASCII. And yeah, I am looking forward to The Witcher 3, photorealism and all. My computer is from 2009 and about due for an upgrade, too...

@AGX-17, communication theory makes pretty clear distinctions between symbols and representations (among other things). They're not the same thing, and realism of a representation does make a difference in the way in which it's experienced. The word "Gandalf" is not experienced the same way a painting of Gandalf by John Howe or Sir Ian McKellen playing Gandalf. All three are symbolic representations, but "Gandalf" is purely symbolic whereas the latter two are more and more representational. Now, to your (rhetorical?) question. You can't use NetHack as a communication medium either, but its system of symbols is very much a symbolic language – an @ does not look much like a heroic swordsman, nor a ; like a deadly kraken that can drown you in one hit of a tentacle, but that's what they represent. You may not be able to communicate in NetHack, but NetHack is able to communicate with you, in its symbolic language, and to understand what it's saying, you have to learn that language. Many of BG's symbols are more representational, to be sure, but still abstract enough that it matters, especially compared to games that strive for photorealism, like Skyrim for example. And of course the BG language has plenty of purely symbolic features; hit points and attributes for example. Put another way, the OP's question is entirely legit and did not merit your sarcastic response. Here's a thought: if you find a topic pointless, why not just stay out of it instead of trying to piss on it?

If they're any good, damn straight I'll read them. I loved the ones in Morrowind and Arcanum for example; the BG's and NWN OC's not so much. Not a huge fan of the Sword Coast and related areas; too generic for my blood, so I don't get all that enthused about the lore either.

I respectfully disagree. There's a lot of systems going into this feature, and it would be artificial and difficult to separate it from the storyline. The stronghold was very much not an option in Neverwinter Nights 2, and IMO it was one of the better parts of the game, so it's not like there's no precedent. I.e., my vote would be to fully integrate the stronghold into the storyline. Just like the dungeon of Od Nua for that matter. However, I think it ought to be possible to complete the game while being a lousy baron, just like there ought to be plenty of optional areas in the Od Nua dungeon. Always assuming suitable consequences naturally – missing out on cool/powerful items and/or XP, like with any optional content.

We already know there won't be resurrection/raise dead magic in PE, nor (much) healing magic for that matter, so that one's out. Animating them as zombie minions sounds cool though. Macabre, but cool.

Woah. They are NOT short-changing us for the stretch goals. And most of it already coded...? Wow.

First reaction is, nah. There is stuff like that in cRPG's, and most players sell it as soon as they can to be able to buy stuff that actually does something, or in the case of unique but unsalable items, hang onto them under the (usually correct) assumption that it's a quest item that'll disappear once it no longer matters. I honestly don't see the point of hauling pixel junk into your treasure vault, even if the pixels are colored golden. But then I don't larp much in cRPG's, and didn't care for Elder Scrolls post Morrowind (which I loved because of the wack setting, not the larpy features). And while I'm sure scattering random pick-uppable objects around isn't a huge investment, it's still an investment and I'd rather have that effort spent on something that delivers gameplay value. However, it would make sense if it's tied in with actual game mechanics. There's been some hints about the stronghold gameplay. If hauling shiny to your stronghold increases its prestige which has gameplay effects – fun quests? better hirelings? cleverer burglars? something else? – then sure, that sounds pretty cool.

They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at Galileo. But they also laughed at Zippy the Pinhead.

Since someone brought up Star Wars, George Lucas actually did a metric buckton of research before writing the script. Specifically, research into mythology, especially through the writings of Joseph Campbell. In my opinion Star Wars owes much of its staying power precisely to those mythological roots. The blasters and lightsabers and spaceships and rancors and hutts are superficial; the story would work just as well if it had bows and swords and warhorses and dragons and trolls. (In fact, one Christopher Paolini wrote a pretty successful fantasy book where he transposed the Star Wars episode IV story into a traditional pseudo-medieval fantasy setting.)

Just my dime's worth – in my experience, social reinforcement works much better than top-down policing. Put another way, be the culture you want to see, reinforce (=make visible) your support for other individuals who are the culture you want to see, don't be the culture you don't want to see, and discourage (=call out) the culture you don't want to see. It takes time but behavior does shift. Sometimes it shifts in directions you like, sometimes it doesn't, but in an environment about the size of, oh, the Obsidian fan forums, all it takes is a half-dozen determined but patient individuals to make a big shift in the culture. There will always be a few individuals who make a point of making a nuisance of themselves, and some policing/moderation will (probably) be needed for that. (What kind of culture would I like to see? Well, for starters, I'd like to see strong, vocal, and near-unanimous social disapproval of, say, someone saying they'll rape your kids because they didn't like the game you worked on. There's critique and then there's douchebaggery; the former is necessary, the latter is a nuisance.)

Day-um. I can't believe I'm actually seeing people argue that researching a topic before writing about it is a bad thing. O tempora.

How about taking this even a notch further: only heal a random percentage of the damage the minion has suffered after it is unsummoned, and have the summoner only know how it went the next time around. Once the minion's max health has dropped below a threshold, it will no longer respond to summons. Then add some -- costly -- possibilities for the caster to restore some or all of that damage. I.e., a neglected, severely damaged, or killed minion + bad luck = permanently lost minion. This would motivate summoners to be a bit careful with their minions and give them ways to manage their health, and since there's no way to know whether it dropped below the "gone for good" threshold in any given fight, there would be no incentive to reload. By the time it's next summoned and it's not coming back, well hey, too bad.

Yeah, that sounds super annoying. I hope they don't do that; it would be intentionally **** design. I would, however, like to be able to win battles by running the monsters off (perhaps to regroup and face me again later?). But chasing xvarts as a quest objective sounds annoying. I'm not too worried though; they're good designers and if they put in morale failure I'm fairly certain they'll do their best to make it improve gameplay rather than add busywork.