Remmirath

Of all of the UIs in all of the RPGs I have played over the years, from the rather old to the quite new, those of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale remain my favourites. I liked Icewind Dale IIs as well, although not as well as the first two. I dislike transparent UIs, and I particularly dislike floating ones -- it's far too easy to accidentally move them around, and I dislike how they look. To me they give an insubstantial feel that is contrary to what I want to see, and tends to clash with the game world rather than blending into it. I prefer a grounded UI that is integrated with the style of the game. The stone and wood and all was quite nice in the aforementioned games. I attempted to think of an example of a recent RPG UI which I liked, but the most recent one I could think of was Lionheart, and that was really not so recent any more. All the recent ones I can think of were not in styles that were to my taste, and many had glaring issues as well (such as Skyrim's mousewheel mania). I do prefer the |_| style, as I in fact rather like how it frames the action, but I have no real issue with a solid and interesting bar UI across the bottom of the screen, either. I would be somewhat annoyed by one with a gap in the middle, and would prefer a gap at the sides to that (although no gap would be best). The mouse movement side of it does not matter to me, but being lefthanded, I can say that if there were only one bar I would prefer it to be on the right side of the screen. It makes more sense to me. However, I wouldn't care all that much. So far you are. Like many post here, your pool is nothing but an appeal to sense of nostalgia, with no constitutive component. We all like the UI in BG, but there is a huge gap between then and now in terms of hardware and this design just don't cut it. I am honestly not sure what the hardware matters in this case. Yes, one can now have see-through and drifting UIs, but that doesn't mean that they're the best choice for any given game. Screen resolution is indeed higher than it used to be, and I'll admit that for people with widescreen and very large screens that could be something of an issue with the |_| style, but I think it could be worked past relatively easily with scaling overall and a bit of extra space on the sides for those with widescreen monitors. I would also not say that nostalgia is the right word for it, since I believe that most of us here -- and especially those in favour of more solid UIs -- still play all of those games and still enjoy them as much as ever. It's not a memory of a pleasant thing; it's what we like. Liking a style that was more commonly used in the past is not nostalgia, it is a preference for something that is not so commonly seen any longer. Similarly, I presume that you do not prefer the minimalist UI simply because it is newer, and rather because that is what you prefer. I respect that, and you surely have your right to this preference, but just as those of us who dislike that style have often had to put up with it even in games we otherwise enjoy, there are times when you must put up with a different style because that is what that game's style dictates. This, I believe, is such a case.

I expect that guns simply are less common than the other weapons, or they're saving showing them for a future update.

I suppose they would work as the other stretch goals did, and would only come into effect if enough money is received and have some end date with regards to possibly reaching them. Given that, I find that I'm mostly neutral on the subject, albeit slightly more on the side of "sure, throw open the possibility of more stretch goals". I would surely be happy to have more wilderness areas to explore, but on the other hand, I am not personally particularly interested in more companions -- and I wonder how much of an overall delay adding either would be likely to cause, or if it could have any negative repercussions. Cautiously in favour appears to sum up my attitude, really.

I like long and complex questlines. They can be quite interesting, and I'm generally fond of things on a grander scale. The longer, almost mystery-solving type questlines are also neat. On the other hand, I also like some shorter quests, and it would be a bit odd if all quests were very long -- I think a balance is good. I'm not so fond of the fetch-and-carry type of quest; by shorter quests I mean ones that feel as though they have some meaning beyond "get me some pelts!", but are just fairly short. More of the "go kill those bandits who stole my ring" type, I suppose. So far I get the impression that there will be a variety of different quest types and lengths, and I'm surely hoping that will be the case. I would like to see a decent number of long ones, as well as a large amount of shorter-but-still-interesting ones.

I think it's mostly because of this whole "everything must be cinematic" thing. Personally, if I want cinematic, I'll go for a movie. Cinematic is really not what I'm looking for out of most games, and especially RPGs. First-person I consider especially poor for RPGs; I don't play Elder Scrolls first person, either (well, except Arena and Daggerfall, since there's no choice there). I only really like first-person for shooters and perhaps the occasional adventure game or such, not tht I play much of those. I prefer an isometric view for both of those, but especially party-based RPGs. I've yet to see a free-moving third-person camera that isn't more of a hindrance than a help. Neverwinter Nights as problematic for this, Neverwinter Nights 2 was even worse (and made it very difficult to control the whole party in Storms of Zehir), and Knights of the Old Republic to my memory wasn't free-moving (or maybe I just used an option for it not to be).

Really, so far I've liked the UI mockup in update #54 the best of all the ones I've seen proposed here. It looks good and seems to have everything that I want to be there. I don't need a map most of the time in an isometric game; if this were a 3d game, I'd feel that was necessary, but not here. I do, however, greatly enjoy having the feedback window, because I like to know about hits and misses and that sort of thing. I am fond of larger and more solid interfaces in general, and those of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale are actually some of my favourites. I don't have any real problem with them (save that in Icewind Dale, the 'select all' button is a bit too close to the 'rest' button). As for animated portraits, I'd worry that it would cause a lot of pain for adding custom portraits, and custom portraits are pretty important to me considering how many characters I usually go through in any given playthrough (and how many times I play games through). I wouldn't even prefer the default portraits to be animated, because I would find it a bit distracting and a bit odd. Animated portraits wasn't my favourite thing about Planscape: Torment, and although it was sometimes kind of neat there, I don't think it would fit with most other games. I don't like having the experience bar there, but I do like the rectangular format you have the portraits in instead of the square ones. I've always found that a bit more pleasing to the eye.

Ah, I see. That explains it. I prefer to make the PC fairly different from myself, and quite different every time I play through a game. If I have more than one character, then I like to also make them quite different in personality. Perhaps it's partly because I'm used to playing more than one character at a time when playing face to face roleplaying games as well that I actually prefer to have more than one PC if I can. I'll always find myself thinking idly about what the characters would be doing while I'm not in a fight or a dialogue or some such (while going from place to place and so forth), and unless they are specifically stated to be doing something I've no idea what the NPCs would be doing, so that annoys me and they often come off as being the blank ones to me because of that. Sometimes I'll take them just to be different, but it's definitely not my preference. Picking a personality specifically would annoy me, unless I suppose it had very little effect, because it would be likely to clash with whatever personality I came up with for the character. It would annoy me in the same way that having a fully voiced PC does, although not nearly so much (I'm not sure there's any other single feature that a roleplaying game has ever had that annoys me that much). The option of selecting no preset personality would, of course, have the same effect as not being able to pick any in the first place, and be cool and fine.

The isometric style certainly is a fairly large part of what I like about games such as Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, and it's only been very recently that I've even considered 3d to be getting up to the same level in graphics. For a long time the backgrounds in those games were a large amount more visually pleasing than any 3d games around, and still I find that for roleplaying games I prefer it. And, while 3d works quite well in a game like Skyrim or even Dragon Age, it doesn't work very well in party based games. It's much easier to control the whole party from an isometric view.

Four of them will almost certainly end up being some kind of fighting class, though exactly what mix of those I'll decide at the time. One will probably be a cleric or possibly a wizard, and the last one will be a rogue. I expect I'll then proceed to change that a fair amount during the course of the game, but that's generally more or less how my parties end up. I tend to prefer the fighting classes, and only have one or two of the others around.

Voice sets according to personality type rather than according to class is something that I'd prefer, I think, which is at least similar to what some people seem to be proposing. I rarely actually use the voices in Icewind Dale for the classes they're intended for, but it can get a bit odd at times if a fighter starts shouting about using their mighty magic or such. Do you consider your PC in every game to be an automaton, then? I'm curious about that. I understand that some people don't like to have more than one PC at once (although it's quite the opposite for many others, myself included), but I don't understand why some people either imply it's not possible or imply that they'd rather make no characters at all if they had that choice. From my point of view, the "hate roleplaying" option is to have characters with prebuilt personalities, but I suppose that just goes to show that different people often have very different ideas of what makes for good roleplaying.

I'm most looking forward to having another isometric RPG where one can completely create one's character (in sharp contrast to many recent games). Story, atmosphere, gameplay, world, and all of that are all also important and interesting to me, but I don't have any particularly set expectations about them. I look forward to them also, but in a more nebulous sort of way. It could still turn out that I don't particularly look forward to some element of any of that; hard to say. The huge dungeon is another thing I'm specifically looking forward to. I always like those.

Well, that's a bit better than I initially thought, but it still is worse than in Icewind Dale for me. The voices in Icewind Dale are generic enough that they don't interfere with any personality that I come up with for the character, but them saying things on their own occasionally as you propose would. I consider added characters (such as the full party in Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate) to be additional PCs, and so them saying things I don't want them to say annoys me just as much as it would if the only PC you have does it. Again, as a completely optional thing I would not mind it (as I could just not use it), but it would bother me if it were how it had to be. It's somewhat interesting, and if the characters I make have to be saying things I didn't want them to say, I'd rather be able to choose a basic personality, but I'd far rather just not have to deal with that at all. It has nothing to do with powergaming and everything to do with roleplaying.

I do hope it comes relatively early in the game, but I'll be cool with it if it doesn't. Just a longer wait to acquire more party members on those playthroughs where I don't feel like picking up NPCs. I don't much care how it'll look. I'm sure however it ends up looking will fit in better than what I might think of beforehand. That would be quite a bit worse, to me. I mean, if you want a character with a precreated personality you've already got the NPCs that can join up. I'd much rather just be able to create more PCs. I wouldn't have a problem with a preset personality choice being completely optional, of course, but such things rarely are.

It'll be hard/expert/additional settings for me the first time. I certainly intend to do Path of the Damned and also Trial of Iron at some point, but I prefer to save those things for later runs through the game.

I'll probably read through many if not all of them, if they're there. I'm more likely to read such books when a setting is more unfamiliar to me, and that would apply in this case. I'll usually read them every now and again even if it's a familiar setting, because they can be interesting, and rarely do they take much time at all to read.

I'd think that archery should have some of the advantages and disadvantages of firearms, although not as extreme -- and also not as easy to use. It is somewhat slower to knock and fire an arrow than it is to swing a sword, so a slower attack speed makes sense to me. Against most armors arrows are also quite likely to penetrate, and they do a lot of damage when they do. Of course, hitting a likely moving target from a distance is more difficult than hitting the same target when you're right next to them, and in-your-face melee archery really shouldn't work well at all. Another thing that often bothers me is that strength isn't taking into account with regards to archery at all. It takes more strength to use a bow than to use a sword, and that is often not reflected (strength requirements to use various bows translating into more damage would make sense to me). I believe the main problem with archery in many games is that it doesn't scale like most other weapons do. It either starts out good and gets useless, or starts out useless and at some point becomes extremely good. More different steps of bonus damage could perhaps help with that. I think ideally they would also be more useful used tactically in open spaces with range rather than in tight corridors -- a chance of hitting your party members standing in front of you if you miss the enemy could go a long way to balancing any large edge they might otherwise give in such situations.

I've been playing Lionheart, and the Dragonborn expansion of Skyrim (I believe I'm near the end on both of them), and I've got a multiplayer game of Icewind Dale going. I had also going a multiplayer game of Neverwinter Nights, but an excessive amount of bugs killed that about three quarters of the way through Hordes of the Underdark. Annoying, but not entirely unexpected. Also occasionally playing Guild Wars 2, but not very often of late.

I suppose in a way that would be a better solution to shields, actually -- make them a weapon that also does defense, just one that can be only equipped on the off hand. I do find it quite strange that you can only shield bash every twenty seconds or so. I've certainly never found myself waiting that long to do it. At least for me, and I am in general agreement with what TMZuk's been saying thus far, it isn't that it is an ability and is active use -- it's that it is, but it (in the case of magic) feels too cheap or ubiquitous or it feels strange that it (in the case of fighting) can only be used so often or used at all. As much as using a sword, yes. I'd say roughly half moving the shield around to deflect blows, half taking the chance and trying to get in a bash or slash with the shield. It's more of using it in concert with the sword (or whatever weapon you're using in your main hand). I can see some things, such as trying to actually force somebody backwards with the shield or trying to disarm them using it, as being activated -- things that take a lot of time, and open you up to potential attacks. It just occured to me that if activated abilities in melee cost you something, such as not only stamina but a penalty to your defense score, that would make a lot of sense to me and would make it more obvious why you wouldn't want to do them more often. That's an excellent example of something that could be activated (also I also like the above passive tripping suggestion), and I would say should also make you easier to hit while you're doing it, be it activated or passive. I think it could also work as being something that you can actively try to do, but has a good chance of failure that's tied to how skilled they are. No, it doesn't. The problem is that a lot of the time -- most of the time -- they end up being treated like magic, and it is strange and frustrating. I'd actually like having a nice array of risky maneuvers that you can choose to try. It would add something interesting, it wouldn't feel odd that the character can't do them more often, and generally I think it would be a good thing. Overbearing techniques, disarming, tripping, attacking more than one opponent at once, things like that I can all see as activated abilities with ideally some penalty to defense for using that would add interesting tactical choices and not feel forced. Possibly also something to do with pinning weapon arms or imobilising the opponent, that kind of thing. More complex maneuvers such as trying to throw one opponent into another or snagging one to use as a living shield against the others could also fall into that category, I think, but would be even riskier (and perhaps difficult to implement?). Any sort of rolls or charges to break free of a crowd maybe could also. I quite enjoy tactical combat, and I do think that activated abilities -- when done properly -- can add a lot to that. It's just that they often are not, and a lot of games that have them have ones that take a dive towards the cheesy and the strange. Positioning I think also can, trying not to be surrounded and all that.

I prefer the Icewind Dale default portraits to the Baldur's Gate ones, and the Baldur's Gate ones to those for Baldur's Gate II. However, from what we've seen so far, I think the portraits for Project Eternity are shaping up to look really good, and somewhat similar yet distinct from the others. I like that. I'll probably mostly use custom portraits anyhow, but that's partly because I replay games often enough and make enough characters in them I'd run out of portraits if I didn't. That would be interesting, but personally I don't think I'd like the end result as much as a fully painted portrait. I also have some doubt that it would be more efficient, but that would depend upon how long it takes the particular artist to paint them. My guess is that it would actually take more time.

I definitely prefer the traditional novel style, but the only example there that would actually bother me is the different colors.

My problem with activated abilities (and cooldowns for them) is born of some desire for realism, I suppose, or some inability to suspend my belief sufficiently in some particular cases. Sometimes I don't have a problem with them -- it all depends on the way in which they are used. Defending with a shield, or indeed attacking with it in addition to attacking with the weapon, are things that I would expect my character to be doing in the course of a fight. Those are examples of activated abilities that bother me, particularly if it's the sort where one can only do it so many times a day. I like ones that are useful only in certain situations, and that one wouldn't be expected to do frequently. Attacks that are a bit of a gamble, such as various whirlwind attacks, in particular -- more examples aren't coming to mind, but I know there have been some other activated abilities that I don't mind. I like to assume that the character is reasonably competent at fighting, and so since no game has a complete level of control over the fighting, I prefer to assume that they're doing reasonable things with their weapons. When a few of those reasonable things can only be done a certain number of times a day, or only so often, it feels odd to me. Switching between styles or modes depending on the situation is much more to my liking. I can see both sides of this. But consider that a guy trying for a shield bash is going to to do exactly that: try for one. I understand what you mean about the cool down being an artificial limitation on how often a guy can do a shield bash, but consider the alternative: you can shield bash at any time, but the odds for success would go way down (as they would realistically) since using a shield bash -- to knock someone over, move their shield aside, push them back, etc -- would only work if it were timed perfectly. And, yes, doing it too much could be exhausting. So cool downs act as approximations of these two limitations: stamina and timing. Instead, the chance for success is driven way up, but the ability's usefulness is now regulated by scarcity (instead of just stamina, or just timing, or both). True, but then, you're only going to be trying for a hit with the sword (or mace, or what have you) as well. That's what feels strange about it to me. If I'm fighting using a sword and shield, I'll be using the shield almost as much as the sword -- but in no small number of games, it would assume that I'm mostly using the sword and just holding the shield in some stationary place, except when I suddenly decide to try for a shield bash (and then I can't do it again for a long while, but could try something more time consuming and exhausting if I haven't done that recently). Some of those more risky things that take more time and commitment to the attack, such as trying to knock someone over or push them back, I could see as activated abilities that wouldn't bother me.

So far I am on the whole quite happy with what I'm seeing. It's not exactly like any of the old Infinity Engine games in particular, but I certainly wasn't expecting that. It couldn't have been. It was obviously not going to use AD&D rules, so it had to be something different. The three most important aspects to me of those games all seem to be there to varying extent: isometric gameplay, character creation/customisation, Infinity Engine-style dialogue, and as a bonus the ability to make more than one character. There are some things I'm not so wild about. I don't like cooldowns or activated abilities, as a rule (spells feel different than that to me). There have been games where I find them reasonable enough I can ignore them, and I hope for this to be one of them -- it also sounds so far like one won't necessarily have to use those abilities for any given character. That's fine with me. I'm leery of the attribute system from what little we've heard of it, but I withhold judgement on it until I see more, and have no doubt I'll be able to enjoy the game even if it turns out to be not to my liking at all. Similarly, I'm not wild about crafting in general -- it usually ends up either useless or too powerful -- but even if I don't end up liking the crafting system, I can ignore it. Basically, the roleplaying aspects and the general feel of the game seem very much as was always stated, and they and the story and world and all seem like they're going to be cool and interesting. In a roleplaying game, those things are the most important to me. I'm very fond of combat as well, but I've played and enjoyed roleplaying games where I could barely stand the combat before, so I know it isn't as important to me -- and there are also aspects of the combat that seem like they'll be pretty cool to me. I did enjoy combat in Baldur's Gate and the other games. I still do. It wasn't and isn't nostalgia, because there was none of that when I started playing them and I enjoyed them from the beginning, and I still prefer it to many newer games. It's not the only type of combat I enjoy, however, and since it was never going to be like that (not AD&D), I'm mostly just interested to see what they come up with and don't believe I'll know whether or not I enjoy the combat until I have actually played it. Basically, everything that I actually had as an expectation seems to be happening. The other things, the specifics of the mechanics, mostly seem to be shaping up in a way that I'm happy with as well, which is nice -- though there are a few things I've concerns about, but no concerns that are large enough that they seem to have the potential to cause me to not enjoy the game.

Ultimately I prefer creating the entire party, but when I either cannot do that or feel like doing something else for a change, then what I want is interesting and deep NPCs who at least give the impression they have their own agenda and aren't just automatically glued to the PC. I admit I haven't actually ever played Ultima, so I can't comment on that one. It's still on my list of games to try out some day. Mostly when I've played Baldur's Gate I've done so creating my own party, as the option is there, but I like the large amount of variety in NPCs -- though there are a rather small number of them I actually would want to take around. Fallout doesn't rank very high on the scale for me, having in my opinion fairly bland NPCs on average (which some rather annoying AI tendencies to boot). I haven't played the more recent games yet, so the NPCs might be better in those. Planescape: Torment has some of the best, possibly the best, NPCs I've encountered. They're all interesting enough that I wanted to take them, have lots of interesting dialogue, and make great sense within the whole story. Even the ones I didn't like so much, still felt interesting to have along. Knights of the Old Republic was spotty. There were a few I liked and thought were interesting, and most I could've done without. Knights of the Old Republic II was better, but then it was a balance between a few that were quite interesting and a few that I would rather have not had anywhere around at all. I couldn't get past Jade Empire's almost complete lack of character creation and wasn't fond of its system, so I never played it long enough to get any impression of it. Not my cup of tea as a game. Dragon Age actually did pretty well on NPCs, in my opinion, though significantly better in the first game than the second, especially in terms of interactions. I didn't like all of them, but they all felt like there was something to them at least, and had enough variety that most of my characters could find a couple to take with them that made sense. Probably the second best, though not a close second. Mass Effect had a character or two who I liked, but I admit I had enough trouble getting past some of its obnoxious quirks as a game that I didn't spend terribly much time with it, giving up halfway through the second game. They seemed like they were pretty decent, though. I recall I liked more of them in the first game than I did in the second. I dislike it when the NPCs can't be controlled at all; it makes combat more annoying, and so for that reason I rate the series fairly low. Neverwinter Nights I really will only play multiplayer and dislike the companion mechanics intensely, so I can't really comment as to the quality of the companions themselves. They might be okay. Neverwinter Nights 2 had only a couple I could stand. I haven't got around to playing Mask of the Betrayer yet, although I do want to -- I just need to get past the camera controls somehow. I have only ever played Final Fantasy a time or two, and from what I could tell the NPCs weren't much to write home about. This was one of the earliest ones, though. They might've got better. I don't know. The series in general is not my cup of tea at all, so my judgement of them is not without bias.

I really like how that dungeon is looking, and that wilderness area. I do agree that the combination of the tan with the green forest areas is a mite confusing on the map, since I normally expect maps to either not reflect colour at all or do it throughout. It doesn't bother me, though, just takes a bit more time to suss. I hope the whole UI in that shot is placeholder, honestly. I'm not fond of how stacked up and over on one side it is, even beyond the transparency (which I realise is temporary, but it makes it harder to imagine how it would be without it). I liked the layout of the last mockup, though I also prefer the aspect ratio of the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale portraits to the squares. In the end, though, so long as the UI turns out to be functional as well as solid and decorative, I'll be happy with it.

This depends on what exactly you mean by that. If only the story, the overall narrative, is completely linear -- yes, it certainly does matter to me. Several of my favourite games have a completely linear story (Icewind Dale, for one example). If you mean not only the overall story but every instance of choice, no matter how small, including dialogue ... well, no, then it doesn't matter in any practical fashion, and I might begin to wonder why the option was presented at all. Even then, if the character creation were reasonably detailed and the lack of dialogue choice were to come in the form of no dialogue at all somehow rather than determing what your character said for you, I might end up considering it as a roleplaying game (or at least as much of one as some of those I mentioned earlier that are in a grey area). To me, quite decidedly the former, although the second does come into play and aid the first. There are many other types of games where one plays the protagonist, sometimes even while making choices, and those I do not count as roleplaying games. It is true that most games where you cannot create a character are also games where you cannot make choices in character, but that's not always the case. What differentiates a roleplaying game from any other type of game to me is creating the character and playing them, but you cannot play a character you've created without first creating them. Creating the game world brings more to mind games simulation games or such. It might frustrate me somewhat depending on how this was presented, but I would say it's a roleplaying game.