mstark

I liked how, in BG2, you had to use your intuition, and learn which spells would result in a complete wipe if you cast it while your own party members were intermingled with the enemy. While I'd rather be without one, I wouldn't mind an approximation of the AOE attack to show up underneath the mouse pointer. I agree with this, I wouldn't like the target area to be an absolute, but rather an approximation of where the AOE will spread to. Maybe one circle shows where the spell will definitely hit, and a less opaque, larger circle to show where the spell might hit.

Given the fresh looking blood on the some of the cultists' robes I'd expect to see a freshly splayed corpse on the sickle-laden table, with appropriate amounts of gore surrounding it. Love it!

ermagherdiknowwtftthisisLIKE Aside from that, my sympathies with tajerio.

In BG2, hidden objects that require detection were highlighted (and played a sound effect) without the player having to press the highlight hotkey to see it. If, in PE, a detected object isn't revealed until the highlight hotkey is pressed, could you make the highlight of a 'detected' object appear in a different colour than that of "regular" interactive objects? The audible clue that something new has been revealed is quite nice, too!

Desktop mode has "limited" scaling, the same scaling that Windows 7 employs. You can scale elements, but it causes fonts and graphics in most/all apps to turn blurry because they don't handle the scaling well. This is similar what happens/happened on retina MBP when it was released, it simply scaled everything by 2x and used higher resolution assets when available, eg. when apps had included them. I believe there's currently no way for x86 apps to detect what scaling Windows has been set to and load/scale assets accordingly, 8.1 should introduce this. For example, even though vector based, a 12px font won't magically be turned into a 24px font, it'll still be a 12px font scaled to twice the size unless an app supports scaling and intelligently detects this. It gets even more complicated when you start involving web browsers and their scaling behaviour. Windows 8.1 is scheduled to include "enhanced DPI scaling", but few details have been released. It' probably something very similar to what the current retina MBP employs, but based on information released so far it'll allow more user customization.

I'm also worried about the attributes thing, but will wait to see just how much it will affect gameplay. I've liked a number of games that focus more on what set of abilities you choose for your character, rather than how you choose to allocate your attribute points. I do like the min-maxing of games of old though, it made sure your characters would become strongly unique and heavily specialized. I much prefer that to characters that are kind of good at everything but a little better at something. Other than that, great article, thanks for the link.

Dream: -Lush, ambient, living nature: having stags and bunnies look up and quickly jump away once I reveal them from fog of war, toads and frogs near ponds, birds occasionally swooping low, landing, taking off. Think along the lines of "Don't Starve", but less exaggerated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFevW7BBOpw Dread: -Empty forests: walking around a large forest area and encountering 1 NPC, 3 goblins, a troll, and a wolf, and some swaying grass.

This is interesting, since IE games could be considered to feature all 3 of these to a greater extent, depending on how you chose to play the game (I'll be intentionally over interpreting your choice of words to make my point here). Gear, while usually not feeling over powered, was always required in every situation, for example having to use a sword with fire damage to kill a troll could be considered absurd gear dependency, or having to wear decent armour to have even a remote chance of surviving an encounter (because it's 100% required I'd interpret it to qualifiy as an "absurd" gear requirement). You just couldn't complete the game with at least decent gear. I agree that combat pre-buffing became a bit of an issue in IE games even if I quite liked it. It encouraged rest-spamming just next to an enemy behind fog of war in order to reset all your buffs. I think PE will mitigate this somewhat by using passive buffs, like the Paladin auras that presumably don't require re-casting, but strategic party positioning instead. Regarding the third point, I believe potions and scrolls have to at least match spells and survival skills, which could be considered eclipsing. I believe this would add diversity to play style, rather than forcing users to play certain classes, or down certain skill path choices.

The way I interpreted durability, as described in the original post, there were two options possible: First option: Durability exists only as a money sink, as long as you remember to repair weapons every few town visits it won't have any effect on game play in any significant way. It'd help to understand how dumb such an option is if you've played Diablo 2, where repairing was literally only an extra click every so often. It wasn't tedious as it became reflexive after a while, but I ask myself, does such a mechanic really belong in a single player tactical, story driven, party-based, role playing game, where the possibilities for balancing/controlling income/outgoings are virtually endless? Second option: Durability exists as a money sink, but it also has an impact on gameplay because weapons would tend to break before before going back to town, on average. This would have the effect of either a) carrying repair kits around, b) carry multiple weapons of the same type, or c) investing in the crafting skill, which would turn durability back into option #1. Unless I interpreted the original post entirely wrong, other than arguing it adds abstract realism, is there any reason for such a mechanic? I strongly believe the developers made the right choice in the end. Based on the information given.

I can't believe there's no 10 hour version of that on youtube!

We need late to the party or the party doesn't start till you join in backer options.

I also believe full HD will be the mainstream standard (for laptops), like the current king 1366*768, and WQHD or 4k will be the somewhat upmarket option (that £100 upgrade 1080p screens occupy at the moment when you order CTO). I think, with the advent of high dpi capable operating systems and apps, the adoption of 4k for smaller devices will be much more rapid than the adoption of 1080p, though. Earlier, the only reason no one would dream of having a 11-13" 1080p laptop was that it'd be pretty much unusable in real world scenarios, whereas this next wave of devices will be more or less resolution independent due to better/automated scaling of the operating system (unless Microsoft utterly fails in their DPI scaling implementation). Two of the main reasons I believe the adoption will be faster: 1. The expense of producing higher DPI screens is only marginally higher than producing a regular one, there's just never been any demand in the market until now (based on price difference when buying 720p or 1080p replacement panels straight from manufacturers on eBay). 2. Users have gotten used to looking at razor sharp (300dpi+) screens on a daily basis thanks to smartphones, and a number of tablets. Stepping it up with the laptop becomes a more natural move, as long as the operating system scales. I find it quite telling that a number of manufacturers simply skip over 1080p and jump straight to WQHD (2560*1440/1600) or QHD+ (3200*1800) for 13" devices (Ativ Q, Ativ Book 9 Plus, Envy 14, UH90 Lifebook, kirabook). Yes, currently upper market, but compare that to the past 5 years, during which the only 1080p 13" laptop has been the Sony Vaio Z.

When looking at BG2 (DnD), I think a lot of the characters' toughness and survivability comes from their equipment. Most end game BG2 characters are absolutely useless if you un-equip all their loot, they'll die to a few sword swings, or fall to any kind of spell (bar a few exceptions depending on selected skills). Aside from a larger HP pool, a naked warrior is more or less just as weak as a naked wizard. The nice thing is that the loot, while awesome, isn't incredibly overpowered either. Your character is just about as tough as you could expect it to be while wearing a full plate mail, or at least I feel that way. Approach a sword naked -> get sliced to pieces regardless of level (unless you're a monk in PE) Approach a sword in full plate mail -> survive just a bit longer I also agree that HP gain between lvl1 and max shouldn't be more than double, I could live with a system that gives no HP gain at all, but I have a weakness for seeing numbers increase, inflated or not .

Out of curiosity, what about the 4k Seiki TV? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7674736 handling 2160p at 120Hz. One of the reviews describe the TV as limited to 30Hz for monitor use, but wouldn't that be due to the HDMI controller on the motherboard/graphics card, seeing as the HDMI controller (presumably 1.4b) on the TV set itself has to be able to receive a 4k 120Hz signal? (I'm assuming there's something I simply don't understand, since I believe you that 1.4 is limited to 4k@30Hz).

True that. I mainly had BG2 in mind, where you, depending on character, roughly double your HP pool throughout the game, unless my memory fails me completely.

You'll be fine with HDMI 1.4b and high speed HDMI cable, that's the HDMI standard introduced for 4k and it should start showing up on motherboards soon enough! It's the equivalent of the DP1.2 controller. If you're satisfied with a 24Hz or max. 30Hz refresh rate, then yes. That's the highest you'll get from HDMI 1.4a/b though. HDMI 2.0 support is what you'd want from an HDMI-based 4K monitor. Looks like you're right, if I understand this table correctly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_comparison I was convinced 1.4b (the double link, high bandwidth version) controllers was *the* 4k HDMI standard, but that it simply hadn't made it to market yet (afaik, they haven't been included in any consumer products so far).

I think TN screens will remain the standard for people worried about monitor response times for quite some time . I'd love to see a high frequency IPS screen with high response times (though I'm more worried about colour accurracy and pixel density ). Dell's new eIPS panels compare well to even overdriven 120hz TN panels in tests: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_u2713hm.htm

You'll be fine with HDMI 1.4b and high speed HDMI cable, that's the HDMI standard introduced for 4k and it should start showing up on motherboards soon enough! It's the equivalent of the DP1.2 controller.

This. I want a relatively flat "power curve" in terms of pure number development, but I'd like new ways of dealing with more difficult situations, similar to the Baldur's Gate series. Though I wouldn't like the power to reach Throne of Bhaal levels. Even in ToB, where you grew to near enough godlike strength, it was due to your ability to deal with situations based on new abilities & experience, rather than inflated damage output and health pool. I remember restarting BG2 after finishing ToB and importing my lvl 40 assassin, and struggling in Irenicus' dungeon when trying to steamroll it solo without properly preparing for each separate encounter. That's how it should be. And guys, please, don't even compare a proper cRPG to an ARPG like Diablo, Torchlight, Path of Exile, and other various incarnations of the genre. I love these games, too, but I don't think there's much, if anything, that should influence the development of Project Eternity in any of them. It's a completely different genre.

I'm also hoping to see this in Project Eternity, it was one of the best parts of BG2, and one that added real replayability value. I'm afraid all of these will essentially be replaced by the Stronghold, which (I assume) will be attainable by anyone and isn't class specific. Unlocking the Bard Stronghold (the Theater quest line) is probably the only reason I'd ever consider playing a bard in BG2

DRAGONS! (and I love your art style, Polina! Bucket loads of talent and skill!)

I know :D. These are professional grade monitors with 10bit colour depth, though, meeting various specifications & standards, pushing the price up. There's a 4k laptop on the market, with 3 more landing before the end of the summer. WQHD is getting popular, too, on 13" devices (I think I could name 4 or 5 off of the top of my head that'll be out before the end of the summer). To make such devices usable, Windows 8.1 will come with improved DPI scaling, to be released in August. The mere fact that there are entire 4k laptops on the market that costs less than half that of a pro grade 30" 4k monitor should be telling that there soon will be consumer grade ones hitting the market, too. When they don't have to meet high industry standards it brings the price down by a lot. Most 27" pro grade monitors with WQHD cost between $3-5k today, compared to those, the new 30" 4k ones are a bargain. No, these aren't going to be "gamer" laptops, but then, not all of us are hardcore gamers with dedicated machines, this is the stuff that will be owned by the general public . Since my last post another 2 pro grade 4k screens have been announced, they will likely be in the same price range. Waiting eagerly for consumer grade eIPS/PLS ones .

Looks to me like, in between the attacks, neither of you are wrong. It all depends on how the system would have been designed, and what role it would have played. It could either have been a simple click-to-repair every time you return to town, a functional money sink but in essence boring. Not a choice. It could also have been designed to be a meaningful venture, think Dead Island, which was more or less all about scavenging any items you could get your hands on and putting them together in useful ways, because they degrade so quickly. I'm thinking it was the first option out of the two, which is why they chose to remove it. There wasn't enough time or budget available to flesh it out to something larger. Point is, we don't know now, and likely never will.

While I'm a big proponent for unbalance in single player games, it'd be great to see most, if not all, weapon specializations represented in end game equipment. I'd also be very happy if a few specializations turned out to be just slightly better than others, because it'd elicit that "aw crap, I should have picked that instead" feeling, which'll give you a reason to play the game again. Aren't we just a difficult bunch to please .

Much of the for/against arguments were given without much thought. Fortunately, the Obsidian team, presumably, did give it some actual thought. And they made a decision based on it.