Haerski

I must say it's kind of irritating how you constantly make claims on what I want from my stories even though I never said anything along those lines. I guess I have to right some wrongs then... How could I begin... You didn't seem to get my point at all looking into this segment. But first: From what I have heard from you of Vampire Masquerade they actually have taken love into account as they have stated vampires can't feel love? Am I right? So even in harsh universe as such they have to explain why this force doesn't exist in the story, which IMO is better proof for point you think I'm trying to make here - which I'm not - but aaahh.. lets move on... As for Warhammer: Agreed. Love doesn't fit in Warhammer 40K. I never claimed so and never will and I don't undesrtand why you still keep bringing it up. If you just didn't understand something I said then I apologize for being unclear. English is not my native language. Did you think I use my free-time playing Japanese date simulators? Well, no. I enjoy all kinds of stories with or without love and would very much like to play in both universes, but never had time. Hopefully some day... Maybe I'm not one of those "most people pushing for the precence of love..." then? Because I like to feel something when I play... sadness, happiness, grif, laugh, love, everything goes. Eh... We are on Project Eternity board and everything I write here should be considered to be in context of PE if I don't say otherwise. If I want to discuss love and romances in games in general I would go to general discussions board, where my approach would be radically different. But as we are here... I was talking about PE, which is - as you confirmed - probably going to be aiming for believability and realism. End of story. Defining "normal" would require few hundred pages of discussion, but obviously my definition of it is much broader than yours. In very very short I would say normal means for me a character I can easily relate to. Now I put this very simply: If that character meets attractive woman in his travels and doesn't seem to feel in any way interested, it's huge break in believability for me as normal man with normal instincts. I'm still not saying it should end in Bioware style romance, but these feelings have to exist in the world or it is - like I said - going against gravity. It's different, but for me these "fill in your character" tend to be boring and blank and I much prefer more restricted, but full characters even if I can't choose my Geralts hair color or love interests. TW2, which you mentioned in end of this segment (and which I cut out.. sorry:( ) is actually one of my all time favorites. And yes, I defend love in games in general and I'm deifinitively not pushing Bioware PC-NPC romances, even if I'm not against those either. What I said in my first post were purely my own thoughts on subject in context of PE and I'm not actively pushing any of them. In general though it's unbelievably underused subject considering how big possibility it is. For Example Doms wife in Gears of War, (Again very tragic) aforementioned Planescape: Torment etc. Most games still seem to avoid the subject like the plague which is shame. Isn't anyone else tired of playing single alpha males/females? To first paragraph: Depends on a story like I said To second: I'm not expecting anything from Obsidian. I'm stating my preferences on subject at hand in context of PE butnowI'mstartingtorepeatmyselfandit'sgettinglate... I trust them so well I have courage to state my opinion here without being afraid I ruin the whole game. So if I state reasons why I like love as theme in games it's "masking what I really want to get support". WUT? Actually, I have to confess I really wanted to turn PE into aforementioned date simulator with big breasted anime girls, but now you seem to have ruined my plans. You make too much assumptions by what you have seen other people say and do. What about replying to what I said; not what someone else said, in some other thread?

Eh, sometimes love is untouched because it doesn't fit a story. Or at least, the story doesn't care about it because it doesn't fit the main character or main quest. Excluding love from the setting is harder, but it can be done too: just look at Warhammer 40K. And it's a tabletop game, complete with a version with pen and paper roleplaying rules. I can understand, though, why so many people are so adamant in repeating that no story can exist without love. There is some correlation between stories that have no place for love and stories with a downer/cynical tone, and some people dislike the latter so much they'd rather not think about them. I don't usually enjoy downers, either, so I get why some people tend to forget this other perspective. Of course, even if I don't usually enjoy downer or cynical stories, I can like some of them. For example, look at Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. It had a dark cynical tone, the story didn't really have place for love, and the closest thing you had that resembled that feeling was not being a monster and limited expressions of empathy. Yet I never felt that my roleplaying was artificially constricted, and it was written in a way that I thoroughly enjoyed playing and replaying it. If I had restricted myself to think that a story has to have love to be believable, I would have never found a game that turned out to be one of my favorite cRPGs. So there's that, too My point is that well done, believable stories without love are possible, and they can make for great experiences too. After all, the believability of a story comes down to how well it handles the willing suspension of disbelief, so if it does its job well, pretty much any premise can be believed and enjoyed (even the most unrealistic premises, like the existence of magic!). Therefore, I have to say that statements like yours, saying that not including love goes against the believability that sustains fictional worlds, are very narrow minded, and you're missing out if you continue thinking that. Now that I feel I've included a bit of a different perspective in this discussion, don't worry: from what the developers have said, the story likely won't go in that direction, and if it does it will likely have a sense of humour about it (which helps a lot). But it is a valid direction, too, and I felt like defending it. I also want to add that I think your expectations are misplaced. Some things you've said, like predetermined love interests or common background traits, necessarily make assumptions about what the player's character likes. From the updates on PE, it seems like the game has a big focus on giving freedom of roleplaying and customization, which goes directly against making assumptions like those. I'd rather have the focus on freedom than on romantic plots, myself. It remains to be seen if romances will be in or not, but I sure hope they're not included just to fulfil a quota. As for love, if it's going to receive any kind of focus it should be because the narrative demands it, not because some people need its presence in order to be able to believe a story. Far out stories like Vampire Masquerade and really extreme characters are not what I was talking about. "If Obsidian is trying to write believable story and world..." By that I meant stories and worlds which present characters as relatively normal people like Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, etc., where characters mostly have same needs and same dilemmas as we in real life. If there is going to be men and women and some character study in PE so it tries to portray their life in realistic and "wholly" manner I will hold it against Obsidian if there is no interest or history between any of the characters. It may be they have different kind of story in mind hwere focus is not on characters and their doings, but then it's different kind of story and these arguments don't count anymore. I haven't played Warhammer 40K, but for me it appears it's more about world itself than individual characters so it hardly counts as case against these arguments. That's what I feel anyway and I'm not apologizing for it. As for freedom of roleplaying, it always comes in cost of deepnes of story. It's impossible to create world where player can make free decisions when developers still have to create consecuences for each. It's ridiculous to claim love interests go against freedom of roleplaying because so goes everything else in the story. You will always be restricted by limits of the writing no matter what theme it's exploring. Otherwise you end up with usual blank character which doesn't seem to exist in the world besides the events in hand, which is not bad choice, but IMO inferior to well written, but more restricted characters. Some might say it's not freedom of roleplaying if you are not able to romance anyone, but which one is right? I don't object to your last paragraph: Fitting of love as theme depends on story itself. If PE is just simple andventure piece revolving around some events in the world, then there is no need for love as theme, but if they have more ambition in character development, party relations, backgrounds and motivations (as I hope they have) like lets say Planescape: Torment or Mass Effect, then leaving it out would seem cheap. By the way, Planescape: Torment had very cynical/downer story and it also had one of the most heart gripping love stories I have ever experienced in video game history and for me it was probably single best part of whole game so are you absolutely sure love doesn't "fit" in some stories or is it just matter of writing it well? Love story doesn't have to be sunshine and happiness to still be counted as love story, does it?

I feel romances could be best handled as underlying feeling of affection rather than clear expressions of love. Or maybe it's thing from characters past, which he/she encounters again in some way during his/her travels, like in Planescape. Anyway I agree that some of the most interesting "romances" in movies or videogames were those without the big kiss in the end. (Nowdays it would be sex scene, which indicates they just fell in love) Chemistry between characters is all you need to make good romance. And if someone doesn't like the romance then no harm is done and they can imagine it as ordinary friendship or whatever they want. But I don't hate Mass Effect romances either. Actually even if quality of those is debatable I still feel they were important part of those games' overall style and atmosphere as character oriented stories. In late medieval fantasy setting same style doesn't feel quite right, but if written for people past puberty I think these might also work if they just keep overall story in mind and don't rush or force them. I still might rather go for your suggestion though. Leaving love completely untouched is in my opinion the worst option of all as it's anyway one of the biggest parts of anyones life and pretending it doesn't exist even in some fantasy setting is just that: Pretending. If Obsidian is trying to write believable story and world they can't go against natural order of things. It's like trying to write gravity as opposite. If they can link romances in your characters attributes, like Ffordesoon explained, it would be nice, but may be too much asked. I think well written predetermined romantic interest between characters is still very good option. Maybe my second favorite option is the one I briefly explained in beginiing: Hopefully Obsidian is able to think way for main character to have some history before games events as it would leave his/her past as great way to have deep study of these themes without need to overcome any game mechanical limitations and awkwardness. That will be very hard to achieve though as there are too many different races and classes to make just one "universal" background story. They have tons of tanted writers working on PE though so I wouldn't be surprised if they are able to pull this off. We'll see, but I sure hope Obsidian doesn't take the easiest way out and choose not to deal with love and affection in any way.

Well, I would expect monk to be bald man sitting in dusty chamber in his brown robes studying books and whipping himself from time to time, but I'm not getting all hurr durr because Obsidians interpretation doesn't match that image. I think only attribute that should always be associated with monk-class is disciplined spirituality and ability to draw power from that and Obsidians vision fulfills this requirement. You have of course right to object, but in my opinion you are objecting for wrong reasons as it's only about pictures in your head and not about mechanical or balancing issues. After all it's brave new world and D&D and other old fart fantasy settings don't have power here. This is the general attribute of a monk. Not every monk fights, or train some kind of martial art for what I know. Those who do, however, still comply to your monk definition, but they also practice some martial art, and it for this aspect, not for some association with D&D, that I feel Eternity definition of monk so strange. But perhaps, as Mr. Magniloquent said, Obsidian can come up with a good background for this class that explains things better. Yes, here is link to the post. Lore behind PE monk: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63765-update-52-monk/?p=1329978

Well, I would expect monk to be bald man sitting in dusty chamber in his brown robes studying books and whipping himself from time to time, but I'm not getting all hurr durr because Obsidians interpretation doesn't match that image. I think only attribute that should always be associated with monk-class is disciplined spirituality and ability to draw power from that and Obsidians vision fulfills this requirement. You have of course right to object, but in my opinion you are objecting for wrong reasons as it's only about pictures in your head and not about mechanical or balancing issues. After all it's brave new world and D&D and other old fart fantasy settings don't have power here.

In Planescape it was different as the whole plot revolved around planes, but overall I'm not really fond of getting suddenly thrown in different dimensions. Even though I loved Planescape: Torment I usually like more subtle fantasy so maybe dream sequences or other creations of imagination would be better if we want some weird places in Project Eternity.

...snip...Why are you using word 'we' even though in last sentence you say you are never going to get your copy from Steam? Shouldn't it be 'they' as reference to those mysterious people who absolutely want to get this on Steam, but absolutely don't want to use Steam? In fact, is there any such person here or have we just wasted 4 pages of discussion just for sake of demanding things nobody really cares about? EDIT: In short: Is anyone who has constant problems with Steam or has other reasons for not wanting to use it really going to choose Steam version over DRM- and hasslefree GOG-copy or are you all here just for sake of argument? See my reply to Aoyagi. I argue here to support positive change in the industry in regards to Steam for the sake of future games that might not get a GOG release. For example, From Software won't be getting my money if Dark Souls 2 requires Steam client access control. (I *really* hope that they stick with GFWL... unlike Steam, that client is optional, only needed for accessing online features.) I used the words "we" and "your" to place emphasis on the effect your position has on other gamers such as the OP and those who accept Steam because only because they have no other legal option to play. I hope no one will ever again support GFWL as Microsoft has not updated that thing in years and it seems the whole platform is shutting down any day now after release of Windows 8. It's dying and no one knows when Microsoft is going to pull the plug. If Dark Souls 2 is going to include any online features needing good service platform like DLC then I certainly hope it's going to use Steam if we can only choose one. GFWL has bad habit of sticking itself to every version of the game, even Steam where it is not needed at all. As for your boycott it's of course your right. I don't like certain online services either and I just don't use them, but state of industry is not going to change as long as those "certain communities" keep pirating their games. That is one of the dumbest things that I have heard recently. Buying the game on Steam or buying a physical copy that requires Steam but cracking it to play without Steam still supports Steam and its continued dominance of the gaming market. Voting in favor of Steam with your dollar, etc. If a developer or publisher chooses to force Steam, tough luck for them: They should expect some losses for that **** move imo. Pirating games supports piracy, which is no. 1 reason why idea of DRM was introduced in first place. You just don't use **** move to protest for **** move and pirates are still the only criminals in this equation. That's just endless rat race, which hurts most all of us honest customers and that makes me f***ing angry and it should make you too. By understanding such behavior you are shooting yourself in leg and you may only expect even more online platforms and crazy DRM-gadgets to pop up in future. Tough luck for you and me thanks for those idiots.

I never said I was against DRM-free PE on Steam, but if it happens in cost of any planned Steamworks features or complicates things in negotiations with Valve, then I see no sensible reason to fight against Steam's usual business model. They offer certain service which me and millions of others like and everybody here knows what they get by choosing Steam version. Others can get it from elsewhere. As a funny notice: Why are you using word 'we' even though in last sentence you say you are never going to get your copy from Steam? Shouldn't it be 'they' as reference to those mysterious people who absolutely want to get this on Steam, but absolutely don't want to use Steam? In fact, is there any such person here or have we just wasted 4 pages of discussion just for sake of demanding things nobody really cares about? EDIT: In short: Is anyone who has constant problems with Steam or has other reasons for not wanting to use it really going to choose Steam version over DRM- and hasslefree GOG-copy or are you all here just for sake of argument? P.S. Pirating games as protest for Steam is honestly dumbest thing I have heard in a while and is only gonna make matters worse. Just sorry excuse for stealing as they could buy the game on steam and then crack it to work without, which is no more legal, but at least somewhat understandable if they have problems with the program.

If you're using those programs then you have at some point agreed their End-User License Agreements and thus given them permission to monitor your behavior, which hardly qualifies as "spying." Didn't read it? Well, it's not their fault you willingly installed the program and blindly agreed to their terms. If you are not using the programs then good for you: You don't have to worry about Valve or EA coming after your precious personal super-secret gaming habits information. I personally couldn't care less. They are used for creating statistics which I very much enjoy reading and maybe make future games better for me. I highly doubt they ever end up in newspaper showing whole world how huge nerd I am, even though that would be pretty nice from them. DRM is a thing we currently just have to live with or quit gaming and I much rather have Steam running with all it's great features (more on those later) than any other third party programs. (SecuROM/GFWL/Solidshield/ etc.) Also information uploading after offline-mode is actually feature publishers can choose to have in their games and many go for it. It would after all be quite frustrating to lose all your achievements or progress towards one just because you were not connected to Steam servers at the time. Adds nothing to the game? Really? Both give you option to download and play your owned games anywhere, anytime, on any computer and in some cases even on any OS without having to carry your whole disc collection with you everywhere and mess around with complicated CD-key based DRM-systems and limited online activations. I don't use Origin so I don't know about it, but at least Steam also features Steam Cloud, which transfers your saved games to any computer you might be using. Very handy for me as I often play same games on many different computers. Lastly there are achievements, communities, friends, chat, Steam overlay which features in-game internet browser, crazy sales, great multiplayer platform, Steam Workshop, mod distribution, etc... Yeah, such an useless program just sitting there doing nothing...

I don't know. That 'idealist against corrupt authority' setting has been used a lot in entertainment industry and it doesn't have the same appeal for me anymore. It's pretty much cliché nowdays, but if they have some new ideas for it, then why not? Though, usually those plots tend to become kind of preachy and simplistic from moral side. (I haven't watched The Wire, so I don't know how they handled the subject)

If you are talking about overall feeling of not losing out I'm ok with that, but otherwise I have to disagree: If every option leads to equal outcome no matter what choices you make, it would be quite boring. Instead, when it has been confirmed there is not going to be any morality meter, we can treat every choice individually and don't have to look each of them through polarized good/evil glasses. Again: Why do we need to get rewarded for our choice? In The Walking Dead you made a choice and people could die because of it. Was that rewarding? No, but bad things happen. Seeing the consequence, no matter how bad, is kind of reward in itself and money and items are secondary things if the story is well written. What if in example given by OP you choose to steal the sword, but afterwards get attacked by the villagers who kidnap one of your companions and you could A: exchange the sword for your companion, B: Attack the villagers, which would be very hard fight, free your companion and maybe ransack the village after, C: Attack the villagers, but they manage to kill your companion before you are able to free him, D: Leave your companion to his fate, but maybe he appears later in game, lusting for revenge for your betrayal. These options are definitively not equal considering possible gains and morally not entirely black or white, but I would greatly enjoy making the choice and seeing consequences unfold. I don't mind if my choices lead to loosing money, items or even companions. It just makes it feel realistic and interesting and forces you to think about your actions. If you constantly make wrong choices (I don't mean necessarily the evil ones) the game should give you harder time. P.S. Also, if player chooses to steal, murder and betray, I don't want it to be easy choice. The game should really test your conscience in those situations.

Umberlin has a point. Writers should have more ambition nowdays and make choices realistic. With such obvious options you aren't really making choice: You just pick option "by the color" and you only have to think in the beginning when choosing which kind of character you are going to play. I think The Witcher and TellTale's The Walking Dead have already raised the bar and people should expect more than usual karma meter morals. EDIT: We don't need more than choice and consequence, but results of our actions should not be seen immediately when making the choice. What about a character who's desperately trying to do the good thing, but results of his actions reveal to be much worse than the other, seemingly bad choice. Or a character, who chooses to do "the necessary evil" and saves the day, but as result gets in conflict with law or certain purist factions and has to aswer for his crimes. And why should we have immediate rewards, like money, items or exp, for making the choice? For me, seeing the consequences of my choice is more than enough.

I like the idea, but the new plot still has to tie into overall storyline of the game. If I work possibly hours to achieve one goal and then the game introduces me completely new one and just tells to forget about the former it would probably feel like I wasted that time. "Why didn't they make game about this in the first place? Why did I have to play that x hours long, completely irrelevant intro before getting into this 'real' plot?" What I'm trying to say is, if the game for example introduces you new main enemy, you still would have to find and confront your former enemy to convince him/her to become your ally against this new, greater evil or if that doesn't pay off, kill him/her. Or maybe both enemies join forces and become something far worse than anyone could imagine. Anyway, whatever happens they have to bring the original storyline in some kind of conclusion. Not like "Let's forget about Sarevok. This Demon Lord of All-kinds-of-nasty-things is far more important now!"

What? That sounds really about the worst way of doing fundraiser. Yes, they are making it very clear the final product is not included in price, but if they go with that approach they can be sure they are never going to get money for anything more than a prototype. And what then? Are they hoping for some big investor to get interested or aiming to start Kickstarter project using that prototype? Are those people investing even going to get to try that prototype? Too suspicious for me and MMORPGs have never been my piece of cake anyway.

To me it seems they are trying too hard to make the concepts look unique, but in process lost something more important. Somehow these characters just don't look likeable. There is something wrong in almost all of them, but it's really hard to describe it precisely enough. Only art I would approve right on is Aloth's concept and original painted Sagani. For now I wouldn't change anything in them. My problem with Aumans is pretty much the same as OP's. They are humanlike, but still different enough to make you feel uneasy. Why not make them just big humans? After all Dwarves are just small and hairy humans and no one complains? But if they want to make them different then they should definitively do something more drastic than this. Second complaint: Costumes are terrible: Barbarian in belly shirt? Wizard in... I really don't know what that thing is, but it sure looks stupid. If these totally-not-orcs even have to have wizard-class available, it should wear something more practical. That kind of decorative clothes don't feel right on this race. Then there is everyones favorite, Forton: Old, bald, shirtless man in 20-year-old bodybuilders body doing some kind of anime-hero pose... and of course the flip-flops. He's like mix between western medieval Catholic monk and Bruce Lee and I really don't like the result. I have this stubborn image in my head of him in robes taking quiet stroll on yard of monastery, when there is sudden scream for help and then he rips away those robes revealing that muscular body and runs off to fight crime on the streets. It's impossible to take him seriously after that! Edair and Cadegund are both ok, but nothing more than that. They just don't raise any emotions. Even if Edair is supposed to act unremarkable to hide his secrets, there should be small hunch of that "real him" in his portrait. Cadegund is even more bland. So much so I honestly can't even suggest any improvements for her. Glad the boobplate is gone though.

Morrowind is still probably the best soundtrack I have ever heard, but after that Soule has not made anything particularly memorable or new. TES series basically repeats same themes from Morrowind with more epic arrangements and in other fantasy games he still uses same formula as can be heard in Guild Wars 2's 'Fear Not This Night'. You can almost hum Morrowind theme over it. He's great composer and there is nothing wrong in having distinctive characteristics in your music, but he has composed for so many fantasy games already it would be nice to see something new. And I'm already hoping for more folk music oriented soundtrack like in The Witcher. We have seen enough epicnes already.

Fair enough. It sure is sometimes frustrating trying to get message through using foreign language, when you can't quite find the right words. (And ironically that was partly subject of our argument.) Great we now understand each other.

If you want your opinion to be left in peace, post it on your blog and disable comments. By posting it on a public forum, you are automatically agreeing to let people disagree with it, comment and use them as jumping boards for a discussion of broader themes that are quite relevant at the design stage of a game. Oh my god. You could for change actually try to understand what you're reading. You can disagree with my opinion all you want, but it's just stupid to debate over some real life sociobiological things here as this is fictional world with infinite possibilities. Best thing is that from what I've read we basically see eye to eye in this matter. Only small difference is whether or not to make those races playable, but you still kept arguing what is logical. Yes, I understand and agree with you for all that humans communicating with animals thing, but our argument is purely about gameplay element, your in-game party, which doesn't have to follow logic or reason in fictional world! EDIT: And anyway, it's not like because "with this logic you could have alien race member in your party" you absolutely should have one. That's just very flawed argument when talking about gameplay, because gameplay aims for fun, not for logic. If you can justify some gameplay decision/opinion with logic it's of course plus, but making those decisions by logic has no absolute value.

Again, the same flawed logic. Necessity breeds invention. Frontier towns that interact with such alien cultures would devise ways of communication. Can't speak or write? Use symbols and gestures. Hell, we are able to communicate with dogs and apes, despite our differences. It's not perfect, but it's easy to extend the same principles to communication with entirely different species. Again you didn't understand my point. Implementing creature who can only communicate with you in symbols an gestures in your party would get boring and tiresome pretty soon. It may work in brief quests and encounters with these races, but over time it will get old. This thread is about playable races and I have said all along I'm not against alien races in overall, just making them playable. And I'm not arguing they in anyway couldn't communicate with humans from scientific standpoint. We are talking about fictional world with fictional races and I'm only saying how I myself would like to see alien races handled in PE. You obviously have your own ideas, but it's not relevant to start any sociobiological debate over these things. I don't think they make any sense to have in your party in a way I imagine them and that's the end of it. It's just opinion. Do I have to write IMO in every sentence to make it clear enough? Uh, then write the game, so that it's not a freak show? Seriously, the same logic can be applied to eliminating female player characters: after all, realistically, women would be precluded from adventuring, much the same way they were in medieval times. With certain exceptions, but still. Yes, I think female characters should encounter difficulties because of their gender. For example in Mount & Blade it was made harder for female characters to climb the ladders of hierarchy. It was part of medieval culture and it would be very nice touch to handle that subject in PE.

By your logic, eg. Europeans would never be able to communicate with people outside their continent (or even country). And yet they did. Interspecies communication is possible, you just need a comparable level of intelligence. The process wouldn't be easy, sure, but it's definitely not impossible. Furthermore, you honestly fail to see the potential for conflict and interesting writing here? The problem of assimilating non-human species? The interaction between humans and them? I'm working on something similar by now and it's fascinating to explore, the alien cultures, different societies etc. You could have read my last paragraph. I'm not completely against every alien races. But... Humans all around the world have same set of voice formation organs, so every human should be able to speak any human language in existence, which makes learning relatively easy. Then again some insectoid species would most likely do it in some completely different way. For example ants communicate in way that scientist still can't fully understand. Grasshoppers by rubbing their legs into their wings. etc. Just how would those creatures communicate with ordinary people in an era where written language is privilege of scholars and rich? Of course those scholars might be able to learn the ways of their language, but how could some poor peasant or ordinary merchant? That's why they don't make sense as playable race: They just don't fit into society developers are creating. If this was world with modern science and education then it would be much easier to accept, but in medieval era without printing press those races should definitively be outcasts living as their own tribe and in mutual distrust between them and humans as most of them can't understand each other. You can have conflict and interesting writing without making them playable. Making one of them join your party and go adventuring with you usually just breaks the tension of that situation and just makes your party feel like that freak show I mentioned or some Pokemon game. (Gotta catch 'em all!) It's ok in games like Planescape, which was one big freak show in itself, but from what I have heard about PE, devs are aiming for "realistic" fantasy this time and that sets completely different requirements... at least from me. As Mandragore said making that race demons or other spiritual/supernatural beings would be easy way out of those questions, but it doesn't then again have as good basis for drama and conflict.

I don't want PE to become some kind of freak show. Too many and too outlandish races do just that and secondly insectoids and such never make much sense as playable characters. What's the probability that two completely different paths of evolution somehow end up being able to speak same language? And if they don't speak same language, then how could creature evolved from some spider or lizard communicate with humans so it doesn't affect gameplay too much? And how could they live among us in society designed for humans, cause I'm pretty sure no one wants to see humanoids with animal heads anymore? There could be and I'm sure there will be weirder tribes of creatures as non-playable race in some corner of the world, but making them playable would probably just end up to ridiculous mongrel of human and animal features to somehow justify their presence in society and fit them in gameplay mechanics.

The whole point is for vitality to remind you of hit points because that's what the devs are aiming for with the "stamina" mechanism. They're both hitpoints (stamina/vitality and health). Health is a fairly constant (over short periods of time, barring damage) factor whereas "stamina" is a more variable (in short periods of time) factor representing hitpoints. The fact that vitality evokes images of health to you speaks to the point that I'm trying to make: stamina is only meant to be used as a hitpoint mechanism and not any other mechanism. Different vitality and health bars would just make things very confusing for someone who doesn't know the mechanic beforehand. Stamina as word describes much better what they intend to do with that mechanic: When you run out of stamina you are fatigued and can't fight for a while until regaining your strength. Logically if you run out of vitality you are dead.

I agree with OP. Sometimes maps in games are painfully illogical just to create variety, which IMO is not even nearly as important as consistent logic to help immersion. Of course there can be otherworldly phenomenons to explain some exceptions, but beside those world should follow laws of physics. I'm not asking Obsidian to hire geologist to do world map, but they should give this aspect thought or two.

I completely agree with OP that realism is never bad thing. I'm not really expert in swordfighting either, but one thing I know huge bodybuilders swinging swords, axes or hammers size of a small house is not cool at all. Just stupid. Second I have seen some videos and woodcarvings of full armored people wielding sword with other hand on grip and other holding from near the point of the blade. Maybe to protect the blade from damage and gain precision and balance, which I imagine were two key elements in fighting full armor against full armor. After all if you stumble in middle of fight wearing that armor you are pretty much dead and otherwise only way of hurting your enemy is to hit very small areas of weaker armor. It would be fun to see this style also in games even if it's not 'cool' in WoW-sense. Smashing and slashing just gets boring over time. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlfrmCUGoKE ---- Question for experts: What exact type was Narsil from LOTR movie trilogy? It had two-handed grip, but seemed still pretty usable... even with one hand.

Shouldn't this Obsidian Order exclusive stuff stay into OO thread? Doesn't concern most of us forum users. I see you made public P:E group too, but just for future. You can't. You had to donate an extra $8 on top of your kickstarter tier. But don't worry you'll soon realize it's no big loss when you see what kind of people make up most of the Order. I mean look at this steam group for only Order members. Why? It's just something to make them feel special and separate them from people who didn't give an extra $8. $8 for a custom forum tag and a false sense of superiority. Doesn't seem worth it to me. I kinda agree. OO started as just a fun way to support Obsidian and get people to pledge more, but now some see it as kind of inside group in P:E community. Why can't we all just be one big family and not draw unnecessary borderlines? 8$ more or less, every pledge was important. Also all the praise they get from developers and other people is bit unfair IMO if we take into account that some individual people pledged more alone than all order initiation fees combined. Where is praise for those people? I'm not trying to denigrate OO's efforts. It was great sample of community activity done right, but some take it little bit too seriously. EDIT: I'm not saying you can't have your own Steam group and inside game sessions there if you want, but promoting those activities here on P:E forums is kind of forum hijacking and excludes big part of community.