IndiraLightfoot

UpgrayDD is right, it would be awesome, Friar Godfrey, if OE would employ your chant capacity, as it were, to be used appropriately for certain environments in the game.

Great! Hopefully, you'll soon find a perfect balance between character size and reasonably wide space for combat and stealth tactics.

Yup, Rid of Me, a big plus indeed!

Rubicon: I happen to have a good old 22" too, and I love it! Rjshae: I did just that. I copied the image in top left corner and stretched it to fit my 22" monitor. The characters get to be a bit more than an inch tall, or max 3 cm, and they are obviously more slender than that, so I'd like to see them 1.5 times that size on me screen, that would make a nice difference.

This is something that needs to be done right, especially if people's screens continue to get bigger and the resolutions higher. When I watched the video the characters looked okay, but on a laptop or even a 20" screen it will be a bit hard to stand out for a character. P.S. Like 55 secs into the video somebody takes a snapshot of Josh, or are there will-o-wisps in the vicinity of OE's HQ?

On a similar note, will we find ourselves running away from combat to replenish those 'per encounter' abilities? These are both valid points, and I hope there's some smooth way to deal with them.

It would sure be nice to have, Termofobia! And yes, welcome to the forums!

Categorizing them weapons into categories will be important: And some weapons that haven't been favourites among the masses before perhaps will be the new black, as it were, e.g. halberds. Lucerne hammers, anyone? Personally, I feel an urge to pickup a good old flail, the kind where you have a spiked ball on a chain, coz the way I see it you get bludgeoning, slashing and piercing there, all rolled into one.

Wonderful update, Josh! The combat system seems very interesting indeed. But how will the game play? I mean, IE games are obviously built around pause. When I play BG EE now, although I've disabled most tickbox-reasons for pause, it still pauses quite a bit. That is good if you're new to this kind of CRPGs, but if you're a bit more seasoned, it can be annoying. Also, no pause in BG EE today, feels like the party are standing the throwing punches on flies. There are a lot of misses, so I'm glad for glancing blows. BG EE combat today feels twitchy. And, I mean, in NWN2, the first couple of gos, one did use pause sometimes, but when you got used to the system and had meta-gamey knowledge, I rarely did pause at all. So, how does PE play when you don't pause? Does it keep you on your toes and is there a combat flow to it, where party and enemeies move around constantly? Sure, it won't be an action CRPG like Diablo or something, but it can still be a nice flow to the combat. And your emphasis on tilesets makes me drool. I mean, what if you could mod it like you could in NWN1? That was sure a bit easier than NWN2 - but I'd be good modding at that level too. I just keep my fingers crossed it won't be too hard to make mods for PE when that day comes. A question: Why distinguish between Natural armor and Armor armour? I mean, it's still, say, hides, stone and metal. There shouldn't be a distinction, no? Or is it there as some system that druids and rangers can take advantage of. They get bonuses against truly natural armours as opposed to artificial or handmade armour? And chanters are getting cooler by the day! Here's an idea: What if chanters can use their songs to block ciphers' sound manipulations, almost like those music-cranking dudes in Dishonored that block out Corvos abilities via music. On why the heavy D&D inspiration: 1) OE's PE was from the get go overtly inspired by IE-games, and they are fans of it to begin with 2) It's been explicitly asked for by backers, including classes 3) Most CRPGs (including MMOs) I've seen are more or less direct descendants of Gary Gyxax' garage figurine melee fest Will it be D&D? No, we see so much innovation already from the devs, but it will definitely be a game in the spirit of that great tradition. Although, I think MonteCarlo's special clowns will be sorely missed.

Well, it's not. I'm almost ashamed of admitting this, but I played Diablo 3 quite a bit last summer, and in act 3 and 4 online (when people still were playing online), I often stood in the midst of battle on me own as a monk and taking abuse in spades minutes on end, alone, in parties of 4. Monks were better than barbarians the first two patches as far as tanking went (with the right gear, of course - the entire game was built on chasing gear, lol!) The concept of monks lend themselves well to the tank concept. They have meditated themselves into bodies that are beyond hardened. Body and mind is one, and in PE body and soul is one.

Josh, thanks for the heads up! It is more than I'd hoped for already, coz you describe positioning, observation and adaptation, and most importantly, the very possibility to sneak by hostiles! It sounds great. Hopefully, you can more or less use that system for attempts to retreat or escape combat that's going south too. And yea, Commando ruled its genre back then. The feeling when you got dropped down by a chopper and started to press on was phenomenal at the time.

2. I agree with you that the ability scores or whatever you like to call them should matter: str, int, wis, dex, con and cha is a classic list. There has been a sad tendency to almost ignore these at the expense of fancy MMO skill trees (that usually involve no choice at all - ypu pick the best out of two, three "choices, and that's that. Horrible! The more choices we get in skills, ability scores and feats/pers or whatever, as well as classes, spells and perhaps prestige classes and stuff like that later on, the merrier. In NWN 2 you could make almost any kind of character. All my buddies playing it had quite different builds. Obviously, part of this was thanks to D&D 3.5, but I want character variety bordering on mind-numbing, something that encourages creativity and fun, and should a few of the "builds" (pretty tragic word) turn out be more powerful than others, then so be it. I often made characters that wer apparently worse off than they needed to be. I made a crossbow guy in MotB, sort of a Van Helsing vampire slayer. It sucked, but it made for quite an exciting playthru 3. I didn't even consider that, but yea, the difficulty settings should be generous in that regard too 4. I see, you miss diplomacy and fun RPG scenarios with speech and such. That is great, but it has already been done very well numerous times, but stealth or retreat/escape mechancis for a party-based CRPG haven't. 6-7) Alright, I didn't get that "profession" meant faction. And gods meddling with us mortals is just great, but if they serve as meta-gamey punishing tools for us reloading or resting too much, I'd give it a miss 8 ) Except for IWD2, BG I & II, as well as Planescape, was using D&D 2nd ed, perhaps the role playing game I've played the most, pen & paper, that is. So, I still loved it in its computer adaptation, but obviously a lot of roleplaying freedom gets lost in translation, and in that sense D&D 3.0 and the much improved 3.5, worked well for CRPGs. D&D 4th ed became some weird MMO-version of Dungeons & Dragons. Some of it is pretty nice, I have played that too, PnP, but the magic wasn't there. But to respond to you here: yes, gear was important in BG and character progression for several classes had wierd hiatuses, and it was very imbalanced. Spell casters, magic-users in particular, got very powerful later on, coz of spells, mostly. What I'm talking about is ensuring that choice and variety progresses for every level you reach.

In fantasy and horror novels, curses are indeed involving the very sould of the cursed. It's like a demon grip around a specific part of the soul, and to loosen that you must deal with the demon. So Ieo, I agree with you. The question is: Are players ready for that kind of heavy cursing, as it were? In MotB, the spirit meter curse led to loads of players throwing tantrums...

Rjshae: That is a very clever suggestion indeed, and it sounds fun too. It would fit the setting as far as we know it.

Malekith: As you saw in one of my posts, I mentioned Skyrim in a negative way. I usually do, but I did enjoy the open world as such, it was a mighty feeling. And hand-placed encounters are the best, OE should do that as much as is possible, but when they do use random encounter tables, as it were, these should be tweaked a bit to give us variety and surprises that go beyond clones. Ive played all IE-games, and I loved BG 1 and 2 to bits, IWD 2 was rather neat. Some great battles and a very nice UI, as well as D&D 3rd ed, which at that time felt like a breath of fresh air. However, the D&D games that I've played the most, both SP and on servers, are NWN 1 and NWN 2. And a large bestiary from Josh sounds wonderful. Weresharks FTW! JFSOCC: Exactly! Dream: Usually, that is a good rule of thumb. PrimeJunta: Thank you! And the way you put it should have been in my first post. That is where I stand on that matter. Thanks for all the nice replies, guys! Ieo: That was indeed one of my favs too! And sure there are exceptions, but if you play run-of-the-mill CRPGS you are sure to catch fedex quest fever. I wish for a great variety to quests, at the very least Sacred_Path: DAO was so disappointing so I didn't even consider DA2, and later, when I read about it, I was horrified. If I wanna go to the cinema, I go watch a movie KaineParker: I'm a bit oldfashioned that way and a sucker for replaying RPGs. I like it when huge chunks of content are locked away from me (as long as the playthru with my current pc gets a good run for the money). I think that makes sense and certainly encourages people to try diffent routes. In a game like NWN 2, OEI balanced that pretty great. For almost every class or race there was new content to be found and new twists to the story. I'd love to see them expand on that, now that the classes and races ain't that many Alexjh: My sentiment precisely!

Lovely post, Osvir! I agree with most of your points. Some comments: 2) All that sounds good. However, I hope you don't mean that our pc and party members must have a profession to attain money. Also, I honestly think games where you are sorta made to be logger, trapper or fisherman just diminish the adventerous side to RP. Skyrim, once again: It is nice with a few handimen and artisans scattered in the game that can make stuff, but it seems a bit of waste of game-making resources. It adds a sense of a believable world, but I as a player don't want to be a part of it. I don't want to work in that sense in games. If I feel like mining I go play Minecraft. And regarding economy, I must one of a few who don't like the economy mini-games that sometimes sneak into CRPGs, you know where you control trade or your building town, cities or castle (It was the part I liked least about NWN2, and I love NWN2). I know the stronghold is in, but I want be holding me breath in anticipation for that one. Hope it doesn't rutn out like that pirat island DLC for Kingdoms of Amalur. It felt like chores and fedex quest galore. 3) See my criticism for point 2 5) For some reason that doesn't sound exciting to me. My pc should be the main character and the others I'd like to have around for the party feel of it. I don't want to explore away on me own with them, but that's just me. I mean, I certainly would give it a go if that was so. 7) A player shouldn't be punished for realoading or resting too much. If that is part of the game system, it is perfectly fine to do so. You could always refrain from doing certain things if you feel like it makes the game too easy, but don't have the game punish you for it. Again, Kingdoms of Amalur had a crafting system that made items far more powerful than anything you could find in the game, so I simply didn't use it. Strange punishments from some gods of game morality I think I could live without. Boy, are you gonna love this gaem, Osvir! Look at the great writers for this game. This is Obsidian we're talking about here!! 9) I know that you mean "mortality", and yes death needs to be made a bit more important than in it is in lots of CRPGs 10) Great point!

Sacred_Path: And just that one occasion where some bleedin' troll won't get put down by fire or acid! Perhaps it's a mutation or some magical pinky-finger ring or a whole quest of a cavernous spring that endows that effect on trolls only. I like it when there are exceptions to rules, just like there are in all grammars all over the world, else our languages would be like code in computer games - extremely logical.

Kenup: Regarding 2) Now I get you, and it is clear you're talking about me point 5). But you happened to write 2), so then I got confused. And you have valid objections as far as Oblivion goes. But I think what I'm after is the possibility of being surprised by an encounter of say five werewolves and then later a new encounter with five werewolves again, where their motives, conbat tactics, strengths and weakness are not all exactly the same. I think it can be done without any technological wonders, it is a matter of design, and as you say regarding 6) Obsidian is so trustworthy you can take them for granted, but I just wanna make sure any such diseases are shaken before they get a hold.

Kenup: 1) Unlocking areas through quests, I have no problem with. But what I don't wanna see is the game holding my hand and blurbing a sign that says "That quest is out of bounds for your low-level character" or something similar. Also, Area A leading to Area B, which leads to Area C that then trickles on into Area D is a bit too linear for me. At least make branches and networks of areas of that kind. 2) Elaborate, coz I didn't mean randomization at all. I just mean the freedom to create a reasonably complex character from a great number of meaningful choices, something I adore doing. 6) You'd be surprised, after games like Skyrm and Kingdoms of Amalur, or after crafting abilities that totally upset the balance of games, I'd say we have to vie for it.

NKKKK: KK, but it is all down in good spirit!

I hope you didn't get offended by my childish joke, Friar Godfrey, I just couldn't resist. I do respect your choices and your passionate belief, but I think you will have to count on a lot of unlawful and offending things in a game setting such as this: It will be loosely inspired by some feudal medieval setting after all, perhaps including religious persecution, inquisition and necromany, for instance. However, I truly commend you for playing CRPG: That is so great!

Alexjh: Yea, a plot can be smeared out to non-existence or at least something you don't even care about: Once again, Skyrim comes to mind. I'd like to clarify, that my point 5 is essentially there to avoid things like DAO:s extreme overuse of darkspawns or monsters as generic dots to blot out on a minimap. Also, I mention motives and background for enemies, and that I think is perhaps the most important aspect: I mean, Lizardmen that are devoted to a cult god and need sacrifices will be pretty hard to negotiate with, but lizardmen that try to expand their territory at the expense of some rival perhaps isn't. As a player of a CRPG, I'd love to get more of a feel for those cannon fodder paper-dolls that I slay. Why are they there, what is there background? And also, I think context and culture as far as monsters go is still underused in making fun and varied gameplay.

And I know that they know what they are doing, Rjshae, I just got a bit fed up with all the "what I do NOT want to see in PE"-threads. Me fingers itched to type up what I really wanted to see in the game. Malekith: BG2 to me is just about open enough for me, but I do love it if it is even more open. Let's just say linear games and force-fed choices are not my cups of tea.

Cursed items I doubt people would want to find is things like in D&D way back: Boots of dancing. If you strapped them on, you had yourself dancing faster and faster til you died of exhaustion. In PE, no stamina anymore. Finito! That leads us to effects like: Enter an alluring portal, and "Poof" instant disintegration. I can see ironman mode peeps crying about that one!