mstark

Seeing as PE will be compatible with Linux, it'll only be a question of time before some fan ports it to the Android platform. I doubt the PE team will spend any resources doing so, and I wouldn't like them to. It's something that can, and likely will, be done by the fanbase. The OUYA is basically a cheap, low voltage, computer with a HDMI port, running the Android OS (which is based on the Linux kernel). You can install Ubuntu on most android devices, though most of them don't run it very well due to the OS not being well optimized for mobile hardware. There's little hindering a PE port to Android, as long as the device has the hardware to run it.

It's a great prologue! It just made me... never really replay the game, because it's a linear obstacle in the way of exploring the game's best, open, content. It's great for the first playthrough, not so much after that. It's probably just me, but I have an issue with such things in a game.

Some spoilers ahead. The first time I played BG2 I was a noob. I found it extremely exciting, and did my best to immediately collect the 20,000 gold required to continue the main quest (I had no concept of open world games, and barely understood that I was free to go do as I wanted, and wait with the main quest). I played it all the way through, I had to avoid most alternative dungeons/encounters because I was severely underlevelled/equipped for them, as I jumped right into the main quest without doing anything before it. I ended up in the final fight with Irenicus around level 14. I found it the best, most immersive, and exciting game I'd ever played (having played mostly strategy games and ARPGs before it (Civilization, Settlers, Heroes of Might & Magic, Diablo, Dink Smallwood)). Since then, I've enjoyed many games from different genres, but nothing quite like it. After the final fight in my first play through, I was devastated to find out that was it. I couldn't continue. All the rest of the games content that I hadn't explored was locked once you got to the last chapter. Compare this to finishing most open world games, where you can simply continue once you finished the main quest. I immediately set out to play the game all the way through again. I decided I didn't want to be betrayed by Yoshimo, so I didn't bring him with me. I explored everything, and did every single quest/encounter available before I embarked on the main quest. I was very high level when I started it, and most mandatory encounters were easy. But there were other challenges, all the optional dungeons were suddenly possible for me to take on - I had an amazing time playing the game through a second time, with new companions, and new places to explore. I flat out blindly loved it. I've tried to pick the game up at several occasions during the past decade, but I never got through Irenicus' dungeon. I hate it. I've started another playthrough of it now, and I'm well on my way on exploring every single area and quest once again. I've forgotten almost everything about the game, aside from the main plot line and Irenicus' dungeon. I'm loving it, but some of the controls, while exceptionally good for its time, aren't up to par with modern games. Game needs more context sensitive hotkeys, better party selection management, path finding, and inventory management mechanics like easily moving items between party members. I'd like to compare BG2's open world aspect to that of Morrowind. In BG2 you first have to play through a mandatory opening dungeon, whereas in Morrowind you're dumped on a dock in a ****hole, in an open world, with no other objective than to find a particular person in another city. I can see how BG2's dungeon is necessary for the main plot line, but I hate open world games where you have to get through an initial dungeon before being able to go do what you want. Going back to TeS, Oblivion and Skyrim introduced their own versions of this initial dungeon, and I hated both games for it. The world is open for god's sake, let me explore it as I wish. And please punish me for running into a random forest without any clue about what might be hiding there, or how to get out of it - just like it's a stupid idea in real life, unless you're informed, prepared & equipped. I especially hate when the initial dungeon is a tutorial dungeon, or a long, unavoidable cut scene. I much prefer the BG style tutorials that are separate from the main game, sandboxes that allow you to explore the mechanics of the game. I agree it sucks that once you've levelled a bit, taking on new companions becomes useless. I'm not sure what the answer to this is, but I don't think companions should automagically stay at your level while being outside of the party. It kind of makes sense to stick with the companions you've been through so much with, though. Abandoning them just because you need an extra mage for an encounter doesn't make sense, realistically. I much rather be forced to play the game through from the start, if I want to experience it with new companions.

They talk a lot about making PE have the combat of Icewind Dale, and exploration & story of Baldur's Gate... Baldur's Gate had the exact same combat as Icewind Dale, in BG combat was just more story focused rather than battle your way through these five dungeons to get your next objective. Personally, I would hate to see combat as it was done in IWD. It wasn't exciting, it threw in more battles just to make the game longer. Clean out the goblins in every cellar? WTF? I want the mechanics of IE battle, but in IWD it was used as a cheap way of making the game longer than its story. Yes, the IWD series had some truly awesome encounters, but so did BG. Just not all the time. I suppose the mega dungeon offers a great opportunity for exploration, combat, and exciting encounters... but I'd prefer it to be done in an Underdark/Watcher's Keep kind of fashion, rather than anything from IWD. Personal preferences, I guess.

A game that tells a story as beautifully as a good book; a game where you cannot wait to turn to the next page. A game that makes you think; a story that you engage in because you choose to, not because it forces a narrative. A game that is like a good friend—always there for you—never intrusive.

It's always amazing and encouraging every time that green "Developer" denotable pops up in a thread :D Thanks for the great reply Justin! I know the entire PE team is busy following the forums, but it's rarely there's any confirmation of what you actually read/don't read . I love the idea of this, if it's technically sound to implement . I think it could, potentially, be done by giving each tree a "sound area", say, a circle around the tree that, once entered, any sounds the tree might play gets added to the ambience. Volume dependent on how close you're standing to the tree. Potentially, in a forest area, this would cause several "tree sounds" to be played simultaneously, at different volume levels, simulating the effect of really being in a forest by layering audio on top of each other. An anvil might have a huge sound area, and by hearing the sound in the distance, you'd know you're nearing a civilized area . Games like StarCraft, where audio is incredibly important at pro-gaming levels, have a "maximum sound channels" slider, since the game can have literally hundreds of sounds played at the same time in a large battle. For the sake of performance, on a normal CPU, you usually have to limit this to around 128 channels. Issues with this idea: How do you decide when sounds are played, then? Should a sound be played when a PC enters the "sound area"? Or should it be played when your screen is centred over the sound area? If sound is centred around what a PC can hear, what if your characters are spread around the map? Should only the sounds the character closest to the screen is experiencing be played? Should the sounds the rest of your characters are hearing be muffled once you move your screen away? If sound is centred purely around the view port (what you're currently seeing on your screen), should the sound muffle once you move your screen away from the party into fog of war? Could surround be used to indicate that your party is to the right, so that's where all the sounds are coming from? Should there be certain ambient sounds that always play regardless of where you're looking? Birdsong, NPC shouts, kids playing... StarCraft, (using this as an example because, honestly, it's the best example I can think of), uses many different sound "types". If you give an order to a unit that is far off screen you will hear it's response loud and clear, but if that unit engages in combat while outside your screen, you'll only hear muffled combat sounds. I imagine PC comments would always be played as if you heard them spoken to you directly, but action taking place outside of the screen to be played in the background. As a designer, I envy all the exciting design problems you guys have to solve :D

^I really like the idea of weapon perks, but I'd like to say that I think point 2) and 3) are pretty much covered by weapon speed. A weapon with slower attack speed is so because it's more tiring to use, a light weapon is faster because it's less tiring . I'd like perks to be something more unique. Another wild idea, maybe add a stealth perk to certain items? Like being able to bring a stiletto knife into a certain building where you'd be stopped for carrying a greatsword? That could make for an interesting rogue class sub-quest I'm all for a large variety, with subtle differences between types. Why? It would be the most realistic option. There are weapons in the real world that fill every niche, and though there may just be subtle differences between them, it makes certain weapons [types] obvious choices for certain situations. It also ensures that most weapons are viable, since each weapon will have a small difference as compared to the next one. A baton might be similar in effectiveness to a small dagger, though they would be two different damaging types: bludgeoning vs. piercing. In a large selection, I imagine small differences would mean there will also be items with great differences compared to each other, polarization due to a wide selection, so to speak. I hope damage types gets brought back in, and that armour has different properties against different types. I don't want there to be armours that'd provide immunities towards a certain weapon type, but I imagine a chain main to give +1 protection towards piercing and slicing type weapons. Plate would, obviously, give the best protection against most weapon types, but could have an associated stamina drain during combat, not so much that it'd empty your stamina in a fight, but enough to balance it with lighter type armours that allow would be easier to wear in a fight. That stamina drain would make the plate viable for fighters, who's likely to have a higher stamina, but less so for a mage, who's likely to have lower stamina. If they keep perks and protective stats subtle, but available on most pieces of gear, there will be no "this items wins the game" gear (quite like IE/D&D. Carsomyr is clearly better than a two handed sword, but you can get very far with a regular one, too, should you wish to). If you'd really want to have high resistance towards piercing weapons, equip an enchanted chain mail, enchanted chain hoses, enchanted chain boots, chain helmet, and a large shield. Also make buying equipment a real investment, so that buying entire gearsets for particular encounters isn't necessarily profitable, but a viable strategy. All of this was kind of in the IE games, though as has been mentioned, plate was almost always the obvious choice. I think something like a slow stamina drain, while attacking, would help mitigate this. IMO, the IE system was good, it only needs subtle changes to balance out the overpowered plate. I also want there to be useless weapons, in the sense that a kitchen knife would be highly inferior to a longsword, but still possible to equip. Because, why the hell not? . However, I'd like the main selection of combat weapons, the most ordinary ones that you'll likely end up using, to be well balanced. (this post started out as a single paragraph one, then I just... got stuck writing, I hope it's not been a waste of your time, if you read it all )

Just want to add I really hope we won't see any inventory micromanagement added to the game. Example: Grimoire (or any other equipment) swapping. It's not fun having to constantly jump in and out of your inventory to manage your party's effectiveness. This is one of the main reasons I'm opposed to the grimoire idea, assuming it will be an equip-able item. Handling the inventory, and switching out equipment, should be fun. And it is, if it's kept to sessions (much like the IE games does it, for the most part), and not something you have to constantly access. Another tip for improving the annoyances of the IE inventory management system: Make it possible to send looted items immediately to another party member instead of first having to pick it up, then move it to another character (again, right click - give to party member x).

Just as long as there's no grinding involved. I liked BG2's limited crafting, in the shaped of bringing certain rare items to a certain smith . Crafting in BG2 was an adventure, it made all your exploration and travels just that little more rewarding. It was immersive. Blacksmithing is a lifetime trade, we'd need a blacksmith class if you'd like to forge the items yourself...

You make very good points, and I agree with you mostly. Just want to point out that what I said was that it has been under development for that time period, meaning I wouldn't drive the 40 year old Ford, I would drive today's Ford, because 40 years of development would have improved it, even if it's still using wheels. Because those wheels, being core to the car, stuck with it for all those years. This is getting terribly metaphorical, you know the world is a strange place when insta death is compared to Ford wheels. Yes, there are other, likely better, systems. But D&D, as far as I can see, is a very robust system, and they've chosen, for all those years of development, to keep these spells in the system. Since the developers have said they want PE to maintain the feel of D&D, I'm fairly sure they'll be implementing similarly unforgiving systems, in one shape or another. Probably won't be exactly "save or die", but I'm not against the whole concept. Not in PE. (if you look at the quoted text in your post, it does say 40 years, I edited it quickly after I first posted . And no, D&D certainly isn't without flaws )

I really liked the BG system. The only thing that really needs to be improved about it is moving items between characters (maybe right-click, give to character x... ?). It could do with somewhat higher stacking, so long as that doesn't allow you to just endlessly chug potions and cast spell scrolls, because they're too easy to bring. I also feel like it should be possible to equip an item by simply dropping it onto the paper doll, and the game automatically places the item in the right equipment slot, and arrows carried in the inventory automatically being equipped when the arrow slot becomes empty... the kind of small changes that makes the micro-management aspect of the inventory so much more bearable. Apart from that, there's little that needs fixing about the BG inventory system. BGs inventory system remains one of the strongest ones I've ever seen. In my opinion, a simple case of "don't fix what isn't broken". And hand drawn items... <3

^there were far too many ways to abuse that encounter I disagree. I think bad gameplay is when you can charge into any fight knowing you never have to worry about anything unexpected happening. Too much of that in today's RPGs. IE games were very much about having to reload after a failed encounter, and re-think your entire approach to it. It was an experience, a meaningful one, because it made you think. And you can't possibly call instant death spells, as per D&D, unbalanced - it's been worked on for nearly fourty years. Arguably one of the most balanced, unforgiving, and thought through role playing systems out there. I'm not saying I'm for the game griefing you repeatedly just to "make it challenging", no. Spells and abilities like these certainly have their place in a realistic world, and I have nothing against them as long as they enhance gameplay.

I'm happy for extremely powerful mages, in alternative encounters (in the vein of the mentioned "attacking the king in his throne room"), to have access to spells of this magnitude. If the encounter is not required for any quest line, and it's an optional challenge to take on such a foe (think Firkraag, or Kangaxx), why not? Figuring out a way to protect yourself from such a capable adversary would add more value to exploration & reading, sending you on adventures where you might find out what protective spells could be required to shield yourself against such magic. If an enemy has a spell that causes instant death, in addition to a very capable array or more 'regular' battle spells, it might require the player to equip the right item to protect themselves from the spell. This would likely mean that you'd have to unequip an item that might give you better protection against regular spells/attacks, just to be protected from the insta death. It's an easy way of making a challenge harder by forcing you to find & equip particular items. Encourages exploration and research, whether you do it yourself or read on a wiki. That being said, instant, one hit kills, will cause reloading/save "scumming". That's not necessarily a bad thing. You enter a fight, die instantly, reload. Now you know better, you experiment with protective spells, or go look for different items, before returning to try again. If you keep dying, you know that you need to explore further before entering that particular fight. It's what made the IE games awesome, you'd replay fights, trying new strategies, or new equipment every time. Replaying a fight isn't a bad thing, not with the strategic depth of combat in the IE games. Compare it to a game like StarCraft, you play the same map hundreds of times, trying new strategies & units... it's part of the game. It's what makes it awesome. I replayed Baldur's Gate 2 SoA immediately after finishing it, because in my first run, I was a complete noob. Most encounters were completely out of my league, and I only got through the final fight by cheese. The second time, I took more care exploring, finding more quests, more items, more information, and managed to take on every area in the game thanks to this.

Haha, I love that man and his eloquence. Higher resolution on monitors across the board does indeed equate higher DPI, and the whole problem with "small fonts" is what the scaling discussed in this thread aims to solve, along with graphical asset quality.

More reading for anyone who's interested in scaling to DPI densities: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/03/21/scaling-to-different-screens.aspx

That's inexcusably bad dialogue writing. And a horrendous quest mechanic.

nvm (apparently no way to delete posts?)

Would love a system like this, where a magical item's properties are only revealed once the effect is triggered. Like with discovering the fire damage by attacking, say a weapon gives 30% magic resistance, only when that resistance is actually triggered, after a few spells (30% chance to reveal the property, since it has 30% chance to be effective) has been cast on the character wielding the weapon, is the effect revealed. The game log could show a message along the lines of "character x revealed a new property of item y". Convoluted? Maybe. But it would make the item immediately usable, but with its abilities hidden until discovered. That way, you wouldn't know you've found a truly epic item until you've discovered all its abilities. An item could have some descriptive text along the lines of "your feel a tingling sensation while holding the item", that would only disappear once all properties are discovered. There should be an option to bring an item somewhere to identify it, in case you want to make sure there are no curses on it. Also, named items, and items with non-discoverable abilities (like spells), would need to be identified for full use. For a long sword +1, you'd know once you've put it in your hand that it's a very finely balanced sword. At least if you know how to handle a sword. Wild ideas. Loving rjshae's idea.

As long as I don't do 4857-8829 physical + 598-1380 fire damage I'm happy for whatever representation makes the most sense for their system . Using dice measurements is great for nostalgia, I was confused as hell by THAC0 and the whole "1D6" damage the first time I played Baldur's Gate. It took me finishing all of Irenicu's dungeon before I figured out that LOWER AC is actually better than higher (lol). I was 12, barely knew any English (BG2 was the game that made me think knowing other languages could be a good idea, for the first time ever. I sat playing it with a dictionary beside me o_O), I had never tried anything D&D before. None of these things made the game any less great to me, and it certainly developed me as a person, and made me forever love all IE games above all other. /end random story

Just have to say that this thread is filled with a lot of awesome ideas, love following it, and dreaming of what surprises PE will bring us

This is okay, but it has nothing to do with the OP. These tags aren't hand-holding, or stats related. Obviously it has to be indicated if a response is sarcastic (or any other emotion), since there's neither facial expressions nor tone of voice available in the game. I love the idea that, if the NPC you're talking to doesn't understand sarcasm, he will take your chuckled comment seriously and charge you. I just really don't want the result of my dialogue to be entirely predictable, they should also depend on the personality of the person I am talking to. If I'm nice to them, it shouldn't mean I will necessarily get exactly what I want. If I joke with the wrong person, I want to be misunderstood and attacked. No. Hand. Holding. Ever. No right or wrong options. They've said this will be the case, so I trust they will manage to pull it off. I love that the game will have dialogue tied to stats, just don't tell me what stat each option is for (so that I start calculating which option I have the best chance of pulling off a successful roll for), just give me my available dialogue options and let me figure out, based on role playing or my own morals, what I really want to say. I don't want my intelligence insulted, nor do I want to lean towards particular choices just because I have a certain stat level. I'm happy for ambiguous dialogue options to point out how they will be delivered, in cases where the dialogue option can't be written clearly enough to indicate this.

I hope that the promised boxed editions of the game (which will have to be delivered on DVD's/BluRay's) wont make them hold back on game asset quality. Kinda dumb that they'll have to make the two versions, the physically delivered game very likely inferior to the downloadable one, if the game will be large.

If they need to include dialogue option tags, it means the people working at Project Eternity aren't good enough at writing. A person can use their own wit to figure out what the different dialogue options mean, if they are well enough written. That is all. (I believe they are good enough, and because of that, there should be no such immersion breaking tags in any dialogue anywhere. Not even as an option)

Yes, yes, and yes! Seeing as the game will mainly be distributed as a download, there's no reason for them not to offer a lossless audio pack. Bring me a 300GB game, I don't care, I'll gladly drop £50 on a new HDD if I'd need extra space to experience the game at its highest quality! (Though, with 1TB in SSDs, I probably won't have to)

I would much prefer to have a limited set of completely unique maps, as compared to the very same, finished structure/statue/patch of grass pasted over and over in different areas of the game. This is exactly why I hated NWN, and completely ruins immersion. If they want to create a village with similar houses as to another area they can copy the 3D assets, change some details up, and render it again. That would at least save the time of creating entirely new models, since rendering can be done without using up man hours. IE games used quite a bit of "tiling", especially in corridor based areas. Didn't like it. I wouldn't mind if they made a set of reusable models for torches, chains, and other detail items, and then reuse them all over the game. It kind of irks me to see the same set of torches & torture equipment in every single dungeon, though. If it can all be made unique, I'd take quality over quantity any day with a game like this.