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I forgot this: - an option to increase the time "examine" text is displayed on-screen. It's sometimes to fast to read and switching the message log is cumbersome.

The current build is totally feature complete but I've noticed these tiny things that I miss and somehow wonder why nobody implemented them: - you can pan the game screen with keys (say arrow keys, they are configurable), so why can't I pan the boundaries on the map? It would make totally sense to use the very same keys to move around the map -- right now you can only click on a new location to move the boundaries, so... add those keys please! - three buttons on the map for slow/normal/fast speed -- fast is often used to navigate the map but there are no buttons on the map itself to change speed. - saving may take some seconds, it's annoying that there is no feedback about the START of the saving (there's only a log message when save is complete). It would suffice to blend in a green "Saving..." message on the bottom of the screen. - during save it is possible to press the pan keys, once saving completes the screen snaps to the very extreme of the pressed key (e.G. when I press "left" during save the screen scrolls to the very left right after save). It would make sense to disable all input when the UI is unresponsive or to clear the buffers right after save. - the bestiary is updated "behind the scenes" but I don't like to miss out on those updates. would it be so difficult to mark updated entries? just color-coding (yellow highlighting the updated entries) would be enough, much like quests white/grey colors. anything would do, really. - I've seen what you've done in the documentary "road to eternity", obsidian!! I've seen IT!!! so... where can I send my money to back "Eternity 2"? SUATMM!

Good idea and post, I agree with OP. Older games had an "obstructive" UI, meaning that they took a fixed amount of space away from the viewport. Modern games normaly "detach" single UI elements from each other (hotbars, windows, etc). This allows those elements to be overlayed and scaled independently. So, beyond the availability of high-res UI elements the UI should also be scalable independently from the background. Now Unity is VERY bad on the UI side. There's very limited support for it, so I think this will require a lot of work. And rendering text with a scalable font size (beyond the general UI scaling) is even more tricky. Much tricky work, but it would be perfect if those elements were combined: - ultra high resolution assets (2D UI and 3D world); - independent scalability of world, UI and fonts.

Yes, yes. I admit it. That was a crazy idea :D That's why I gave it that title. I already knew it would be absurd.

You, sir, expressed my thoughts better than I did myself And, I want to add, we backers should have more power in those decisions and be allowed to decide if we want more content or an engine that is more open. We pay their bills now!

You're right. The point is that it's not about just "modding" but digging deeper into the game and changing more then what is envisioned to be modded.

Unity as a development environment frees you from a lot of technical stuff without restraining you too much. It does not exclude those bullet points unless you don't want to break their paradigm for cost reasons. For example you can create a map right inside Unity and import models and animations from Blender, code C# with Mono and "stitch" it all together with as least coding as possible (btw, that "other" language *IS* javascript at 100%, it's context is not a browser but it still is javascript, just as a pointer look at Rhino, which is javascript server-side, or actionscript running in the shockwave flash VM -- language and context are two separate constructs, so Unity has not a "form of javascript" but *actual* javascript). But you can also plug in anything you like, just run Visual Studio 10 and code away 10 months in C#, then plug it into your game and profit from that extensions to Unity. As an example, see Castle Story (was also on Kickstarter). The voxel space data is processed into a model of the terrain that is then rendered by Unity, and modifying the terrain causes a tiny portion of the model to be recomputed and updated inside Unity. The conversion from voxel data to the model, rendereable by Unity, is not part of Unity, it was coded outside of it. Generally, Unity's maps are pre-processed up to the shadows, ambient occlusion and trees to speed up real-time rendering. This is fine, but when you want to break that paradigm (modifiable terrain) you have to code it. The poll was just about this: stick to Unity's quite static approach or make it as dynamic as possible (which requires much more work). There is absolutely no need to open-source Unity, the engine and the game are two different things. You can open-source the game that runs on Unity without having to open-source the engine itself. This way, you YOURSELF can use Unity directly to "change" the game. This is very different from modding, because modding is restraint by how much the game uses documented data structures (they don't need to be really open like XML or plain-text, they just have to be documented, see the WAD fileformat for Doom which was reverse engineered and opened up the doors to modding). Btw, that was one of the first modding communities. I remember it was quickly clear to all that the documentation of the data was the culprit of modding. So what I said is not just "modding" by delivering the documentation of the fileformats, but allowing us to use directly Unity to change an if() in the code and recompile the game... (and NOT recompile Unity itself). That and modding are two very different things. For scripting outside Unity it would be possible if the Javascript was compiled at runtime. Instead, it's precompiled and only JIT compiled at runtime (just-in-time compilation). Reference: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/index.Script_compilation_28Advanced29.html As you can easily see, without Obsidian coding to circumvent this limit of Unity and open up scripting, this will not happen. You'll just be able to change data. Admittedly a data-driven engine can be very flexible, but it won't still be the same as true scripting. WoW's LUA scripting for the GUI as an excellent example. With LUA, XML and images you can obtain next to any kind of GUI in WoW. But it's just the GUI, you can't change the innards of the engine, which also is running server-side, so it's twice no dice. That said, modders or coders (I'm a software engineer myself but I don't work in the games industry, I work in the management software field, that's totally different) should very well understand all I wrote and confirm that the poll makes sense. TL;DR: the poll makes sense, both ways are possible and good, it's more a matter of what backers want or maybe to push the boundaries of how games are designed today in contrast to 20 years ago.

A game is not just content it is also an executable program (data and code). With a limited budget (albeit very high) you have to decide what to spend money on.

I know, I know... I'm mad. But this is my idea and it's totally... mad. PE will be a single player game, right? And you may play it offline, right? BUT... just in case... think about a global chat box in the SINGLE PLAYER game... while you play you could still chat as in an MMO. no other feature would be online and "online" would not be required... in fact imagine this: there's sitting a tiny icon in the corner and when you hover it, it says "chat offline". and you can play to your heart's content. BUT... just in case... think about clicking it and a spinner appears and after some 10 seconds your little chat box is online with many channels (general, help, "by zone", etc.)... wouldn't it be great to keep the Kickstarter/Obsidian community somehow still connected even after or, better yet, during play? Obsidian would just have to put up a next-to-no-cost server for chatting, even a meager bandwidth would do. Need help? ask for it online without leaving the game!

Your reasons are obvious. In fact, I can't say what I voted myself or I'd be accused of trying to form opinions. But I can tell you I was uncertain and maybe still am.

gah

Companions are great and dogs a great companions, but it would be best to have more choices. Just no silly companions like flying book familiars or hamsters. Oh wait, hamsters are ok. I said they're ok! Arraraghh.... no Boo, no... not the eyes, not the eyes please...

Generally, classic "races" in RPGs define factions. As long as good/evil factions are preserved (no evil halflings and no good orcs) it's alright with me.

Back then in the old days boxes were made with papyrus not plastic. 'nough said :D

Since when UK is NOT european? Just because you kept the Sterling doesn't mean your island is attached to south africa... And further north those countries are still european, so how comes? And (still!) Switzerland has still theit CHF but they very much are european... So please stop that nonsense. UK actually *IS* in Europe, no matter what that whishful thinking would suggest.

It seems like the majority is european like me, then give more love to europeans. Release the game 1 month later in the US! :D

Don't translate at all. Community tools will allow people to localize it and besides, in my language translations are often of poor quality, so I always play in english even my OS is in english because I don't like translations at all.

Flexible engine option Requirements: more algorithms more data structures more, better and cleaner coding at least an API or even open sourced portions of the engine no limitations on content creation whatsoever (maps, NPCs, bitmaps, sounds, items even some event providers that can be plugged-in) dedicated website where content is uploaded and retrieved from, with voting system much like Steam's Workshop Advantages: community will use the same tools as the devs over time, content will grow beyond what a single studio can ever do no end to variety years after release there will still be NEW content to play project eternity will actually be "eternal" as a *platform* for old-school RPGs Disadvantages: crowd sourced content is often of scarce quality balancing may be poor (overpowered weapons and excessive rewards), spoiling enjoyment for some players Steam's Workshop voting system proved to be not very reliable (see Portal 2's map sprawl and relation between actual quality/enjoyment of maps and votes given by players) no guarantee ever that good content will actually be produced by the crowd Less flexible engine option Current target, so no additional (or different) requirements to be met. Advantages: released content will be more and of better quality the "official" game content will be the actual "game" (play as the devs intended) and mods will be something to toy with only on a later time a sequel by Obsidian will be much more likely at least the base game content will have top quality as we are accustomed to from games like Icewind Dale and similar Disadvantages: longevity will be based on "replay value", not "additional content" community modding tools will still be released but on a lesser scale then the full-blown content creation tools used by the devs, allowing modders STILL to spoil fun with unbalanced content website will be generic (nexus) from which to download mods as seen in prior art (look at the mods for those games on nexus) THIS IS AN ACTUAL POLL. I'd like to know and see what you all think about it. It is not an attempt to manipulate opinions, I tried to express pros and cons in an objective way, and am wondering myself what I'd prefer.

It's ok to drop some less popular mechanics like prone attacks, but with this reasoning a lot of flair may be lost. At some point, some "other" mechanics to spice up the soup are necessary, otherwise we're reduced to left-clicking as in asian MMOs. I'm not saying prone attacks are essential, in fact I'm not trying to push on that, but on the whole concept of having more options and ways to act. About the weapon differentiation, when I wrote (see above) I actually meant the first 20+ posts of this thread, yours included

LOL! Captain Kirk: set phasers to stun.

Maybe it was already said, but I searched and can't get any closer than this. Please be patient if I'm repeating something already "obvious". GRAPPLING In the update they say it's difficult to grapple a centaur. Fine. Give monsters a physical attribute that says "Morphology: Humanoid". Only humanoids may be grappled. Non-humanoids (like "Morphology: Quadruped") cannot be grappled. That even adds to tactical depth, because if you can grapple onto everything, it's less complex, so that reason to NOT implement grappling sounds like a reason to actually DO IT! PRONE ATTACKS Animation cannot be done for both, standing and proning attacks. Good. Then don't. Just do all standing attacks and then *ONLY* one prone attack animation for "elongated weapons". Then test all those weapons and when the animation is acceptable (which means, the weapon is actually "elongated" like all pole arms) the stick a label to it that says "May be used to stab while prone". This, again, adds depth to tactical/strategic decisions. GENERALLY Having differentiation on weapons (see above), stance (aggressive/defensive), relative position to foe (like, "backstabbing only from behind", "blank-point shot only at range below 3 meters", "bonus for shooting arrows from above and malus from below", etc.), *ALL* add to the tactical depth of combat, and is welcome! Obviously, some are more fun and used than others, but if you do only the basic stuff there's no way to "improve" for the player. So I think there should be some exotics in here, so that the player may continue to learn to fight better even after the initial learning curve. That also adds to longevity.

That's mod fodder! You're right! Once you can mod, that's a good candidate especially because it's "detached" from the rest of the game... I hope a modder will read this and make a mod out of it :D

BTW: It could be added as an "after-thought" and it would use assets from the game, so there shouldn't go much effort into implementing this, and the waves can be pretty easy to design, just toss monsters at the player by raising their levels, numbers and race. If it takes too much and detracts form the main game, I'd be against it myself! So, just saying, if it doesn't "hurt" the main game and, besides, it might be a way to test monsters and stuff for the devs themselves...

Never played Witcher 2 but if you think so, it probably is, because I don't think this is a new idea, it is very much an idea that I've already seen in other games. So, without knowing what you are talking about, yes :D "Witcher 2 arena style"! That's what I meant!

I've seen the wallpapers and one (that with the group atop a stone surrounded by those grey ghouls or whatever they are) inspired me to propose the following. It would be great to have a button on the main menu that says SURVIVAL (similar to Left4Dead2 survival playmode). That button would take the party from the "main game" (as-is at the moment of clicking) to the underground hall depicted in the wallpaper. That hall exists in the main game as a ruin you can visit, but it is "inactive". During survival, saving would be deactivated and death or any changes to the party would *NOT* reflect on the "main game". All you would do is stay atop that stone (king of the hill) and try to survive the incoming waves of monsters, which become stronger and stronger. Between waves you'd get some meager supplies and lore (an off-screen voice yelling "And now we will see how they fare against our four Giant Cavern Morlocks" or something like that). The player would have to survive as long as possible, with no end at all. In-game, there would be a book and/or a memorial stone/statue that updates it's inscriptions whenever the player does survival and show the "top record" he reached, something like: "To the heroes of darkstone, who died an hour before the King's armies arrived to save them. Three were the fierce Balrogs laying around them, testimoning their utter fight to their bitter end. Never will we forget their example." That would be "just for fun" and to "measure" the party's fighting power and stuff like that. Or maybe embed it in the game already. If it makes sense... Because if they *HAVE* to die in the end (and they should, that's the whole thing about survival without end) it doesn't make any sense if it's in the "main game"... By repeating it with higher level parties, the player would survive longer and longer. This means the survival mode shouldn't scale up to the player's level because that would defeat the sense of "survivng longer than before" and feeling stronger and stronger... I don't know if I got my vision across, I hope it appeals to Obsidian and backers. Maybe it can be evolved into even a better idea.