Greensleeve

So he splits casting durations (i.e. time to cast something) into 3 categories: immediate, short and long. These categorical stratifications are equal amongst all character classes (fighter, cleric, wizard, etc). I suppose this answers my question, except it begs the question: what percentage of a round (pardon the nomenclature) are immediate (this is obvious), short and long? You were right though, I was caught up on the use of duration and the answer to the question was right there. Now it's a matter of clarification. Well, they won't be expressed in percentages of a round, as there are no rounds. They will all be expressed in seconds, or fractions of them, instead. So hypothetically, an immediate might happen as soon as possible, a short would take 3 seconds (the standard round in KotOR), and a long might take 9 seconds to case. No need to express them any other way than in seconds really. As for Josh no telling us the numbers, I'm sure they're still tweaking them to ensure the system is nicely balanced, and they don't want to show us something they're not yet ready to.

Well, I mean, the only real similarities are hair, ears, proportions, and a raised arm. I'm not an artist though, so I might very well be missing something.

I predict that P:E will have multiple endings, New Vegas-style, and how happy or bleak they are depends on what you did throughout the game. I further predict that any hypothetical sequels will be set in some different part of the setting, far enough away so that the events of P:E doesn't really affect it much. Which, combined, means that P:E can have a satisfying ending that is only emotionally ambiguous. I thinks it's a very safe bet that P:E will have Fallout-style epilogue slide-endings, determined by your actions throughout the game. I mean, the people who've used this technique extensively, hell even helped codify if not create, these slides are all working on the game, so....

Who cares if children are in the game? It's almost guaranteed they won't serve more purpose than the little brat in BG2 who told you Umar Hills anyway. So yeah, I can do without kids and not feel I'm missing anything, nor that my "verisimilitude" is broken.

I'm quite frankly impressed at the lengths KaineParker goes to in his discussion with Valorian. I will just say this: KaineParker are making some very solid, good arguments in favour of obstacle/objective-based XP, as opposed to kill XP. I feel confident that the developers knew these arguments and used some very similar ones in early team meetings where basics, such as XP, were discussed.

Screw that. Super dark **** only. Like, everyone maimed or dead, the world falling into chaos and anarchy, world war on the way. This needs to go beyond grim dark. This needs to be so fundamentally soul crushing that no one comes out of this game without having considered suicide at least once. Because life is ****.

Oh, he did fine. And Bioware are not very bad at treating women, at least not considering DA:O, which is all I've played. I just feel he needs some practice in front of the camera, that's all.

Agreed. The interviewer needs more training. He'll get there eventually, I'm sure. Just not yet.

I have to object that first one. The Varangian Guard was only called such by the Byzantium court, so he wouldn't have been a Varangian Guard back in Scandinavia. There he would've been a man who had gone native, or civilised, depending on perspective. For the Varangian Guard, this is one of my favourite pictures.

They need a new mike, but the interviewer really isn't very good. Josh says a few interesting things, but I think he could've said a lot more if the interviewer didn't box him in with the questions about Dragon Age at the end.

Just found a nice rendition of how a Vailian duellist could look like : That is a quite lovely idea for Vailian skirmisher/duellist.

I agree, the armor and the sword is really nice as well. With 1,6m length that sword is like a small one handed pike. Pretty cool, I wonder how effective it (Estocs in general) was to defeat armor. Could it penetrate chain mail? Could blocking other swords damage the thin blade? I'd say that estocs were quite effective. With a rhomboid cross section, some weight behind it, the very stiff blade, and all would be quite effective. Intuitively it'd be more effective at penetrating chain than a typical middle age spear for example. When it comes to plate armour, I still think you sort of had to look for the gaps. I also strongly doubt that blocking, or rather parrying, would damage the blade any more than it would any other sword, maybe even less. I mean, you have no edge to worry about blunting, and the cross section is quite broad, so there's a lot of metal for durability. I think an estoc would hold up quite well. As for the koncerz, while it does look cool, it also looks very unwieldy. As in almost unusable out of the saddle.

I do believe that it is, accompanied by a gigantic mace and a glaive. I'd say that the size of the weapons is intentionally inflated to ensure they're nicely visible on screen. Josh has also said that there will be a quite large diversity of different weapons in the game, many of which are very rarely seen. The inclusion of the estoc is one of the things I'm most excited by, to be honest.

@Woldan: The Messer in the first picture is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to have Messers as part of the sabre weapons class in this game. @Karranthian: I believe one of the earliest screenshots involving character models, either the one around the camp fire, or the ones found through the German gaming magazine, had models wielding sabres also. So I think we're good regarding their inclusion. Edit: Also, the hussar's warhammer is lovely. I particularly like the crow's beak on it.

As far as I can remember, yeah. I think Josh motivated it by saying that he doesn't want to make people restart the game every time they feel they've become sufficiently much better at the system mastery aspect of things.

My concern doesn't lie with the globe that refills itself after every encounter. It lies with the globe that only goes down and only has one way to replenish. That's what Im referring to, healing your Health. Whats the solution for when Im 5 levels deep and at full Stamina but one hit away from dying because Im at 5 Health? Get on my hiking boots, right? I really, really, really doubt that you'll have to hike those five levels all the way back up. In fact, I'm willing to bet on it that you won't. Will you have to backtrack a bit? Sure. But all the way? I'll eat my hat if it's all the way.

See, the problem with that point of view is we're not playing a full party. We're controlling a full party, but we have a single character as OUR character (unless, of course, we only use Adventurer's Hall companions). This means that not only should we feel that we're not gimping ourselves by choosing some different class for our representation in the world. But it also means that we can choose and build our companions in such a way that we don't have to sacrifice one of our favoured companions for the purpose of a well-balanced party. Alternatively we could build our party around a favourite character, but that is also too restrictive on us as players I think. I feel we should be free to choose our party from the companions we enjoy, not from the classes we need. Because of this, diversity in classes is good. It allows us to play games with companions we enjoy more. Edit: Broken up for readability.

Well, classless systems, if I may be hyperbolic and utter some very generalising and sweeping statements that have very little grounding in anything but my personal experiences, are typically better. Lovely, isn't it, when the clause is around five times as long as the statement itself.

Now that's some sweet plate armour. Absolutely gorgeous.

I disagree about it being good wizard armour. To me, that very much looks like an armoured rogue, not wizard. The hat, the rapier, the practical, down-to-earth look of it all. Definitely a rogue. Fair enough - would perhaps work better for wizards if we'd lose the hat Look, it's an awesome battlemage with his splendid spellsword! Can't argue with that hat.

Skyrim isn't very Celtic, it's Norse. They actually did a surprisingly good job of adapting Norse mythological customs and ideas in the game. One of the best jobs in video game history, actually, though that isn't saying much. Bloodmoon is better, but Skyrim is good.

I disagree about it being good wizard armour. To me, that very much looks like an armoured rogue, not wizard. The hat, the rapier, the practical, down-to-earth look of it all. Definitely a rogue.

Aye, that'd work well I reckon. E.g. imagine this wizard : -snipped picture- Wearing one of these : -snipped pictures- Yeah, that'd look really cool. I am looking forward to the character building possibilities, as well as the added tactical options, given to us by wizards in armour. Though I have to say that Wayne Reynolds, who I think is the illustrator of that wizard, really loves his belts and pouches a bit too much.

Let me guess, Turkish nationality? This armor look's like Indian/Persian, not Turkish. Actually better European armorer's make similar armor design in Late medieval period, but these armors not similar to stereotypical "Shinning Knigth can". -pictures snipped- The question was directed at you, not the armour, I believe.

I feel as though the RPG genre is too stuck in its European rut. If nothing else just for a breath of fresh air. For example, I loved getting to Samarch(?) in Storm of Zehir, because it looked and felt different, very South-East Asian/Indian in visuals. It's rare to get that feeling of something truly different. Even in more original RPGs and settings, it tends to be either "more authentic European" or "different part of Europe" that's the primary influences. For a full game with more rarely used locales and feel to it, look at Expeditions: Conquistador. Another game that is truly excellent in term of being different, believable, and still cohesive is Final Fantasy X. They really got the world building right in that game. Edit: To contribute something that will actually answer the question directly, I would love to see an RPG with a lot of Near Eastern, Bronze Age influences. Mesopotamian, Sumerian, Assyrian, etc. Would be so cool. Not sure how well it would fit with PE though. I suppose it could be cool to make the original Glanfathan inhabitants a mix of Celtic and Near Eastern influences. Could make for something interesting, if they're mixed cohesively. On the whole, I'm really quite satisfied with what we're seeing, actually. I think the cultural outfits in particular are looking really, really good.