Frenetic Pony

I hope it's been delayed if that's what it needs. Part of the reason I backed this was so that the Obsidian devs could take as much time as they felt prudent. If that's a two month delay, or a six month delay, or over a year and is judged for the better, then it's for the better.

Paladins don't sound quite as interesting as Monks, but hey I don't like Paladins anyway so whatever! The Orlans look nice.

I'm not really suggesting "streamlining" at all, but questioning how it actually impacts the game. If you just change "wood, water, whatever" to "bandages" in terms of words, it's the same exact thing in terms of actual game mechanics, but you don't have to pretend you've just slept for eight hours or are making camp inside the middle of a dungeon. Again, are you going to ask people to get all this stuff in the middle of a dungeon? "A cheery campfire in the middle of the pits of hell!" Seems rather silly, or restriction on where you sleep? Again, that just makes people backtrack all the way to where they can rest, and then backtrack all the way back to where they were, for no real difference in the end except annoying people. This, to me, seems to be an argument that leads down to what's already been discussed to death in several threads with no good solution ever coming of it. "Resting will work if we just think of something!" But it's been months and thread after thread, and no ones thought of something yet. I'm suggesting the opposite of going down that route, that maybe it's past time to give up the notion and think of something else.

Resting just doesn't work, and you keep going further and further down the rabbit hole trying to "solve" it and it just keeps getting more complex without ever resolving anything. I'll give an example: Respawning enemies, well then what's the point of resting to begin with? Congratulations, all your victories now count for nothing, and the world has gone back in time to the point where you've never conquered anything. Randomly spawned attacks: Annoying at most, and you can just rest again and again until you're full healed, which means it just takes longer to achieve the same outcome. Resource based resting: Lore problems galore! Last I looked I didn't need almost any "resources" to fall asleep, you can sleep on a rock. Nor do sleeping bags or tents or whatever wear out after use. And if you're talking about rations, then you're not actually "resting" now are you? Area based resting: Did I mention people can generally "rest" anywhere? Unless you're in the middle of a volcano it doesn't make any sense lore wise. And for gameplay, now you have to place "rest" areas by hand everywhere and test them for balance everywhere, or force players to just backtrack the entire way out of a dungeon each and every time they want to heal. It doesn't prevent "abuse" of resting, it just makes it more annoying without giving any alternative to it that would be better. Resting altogether: "You slept for eight hours in the middle of a dungeon while in mortal danger, yay!" Or backtracked, or etc. See the problem? Resting is a silly notion altogether carried over from how D&D is played around a table, not based on video games whatsoever. Video games are different, and need something different to work. Why not have... bandages and healing? There we are, a practical resource you can use up, is valuable, doesn't have any lore consequences, and just works better. Or something else for that matter? Anything else. There's been pages and pages spend discussin how to restrict "resting" already. A thing that was never intended for how video games work to begin with; a relic from pen and paper D&D being carried over despite so much of the rest of pen and paper D&D being ditched already for systems designed around how video games and computers work. It would be best, it seems to me, to ditch this last notion as well, and bring in something that actually works better altogether for how Infinity Engine like RPGs are designed.

So... how does PE decide how many spells a spellcaster can cast? Is it D&D like, where you can memorize/use a certain amount of spells at once, and then after their exhausted you need to rest or something? Is there a mana limit and you spend mana to cast spells? Something else? If it were possible, just as a blank slate, I wouldn't mind seeing a unique spellcasting system for each class. One memorizes X spells and that's their limit, another has mana and spends that to cast whatever spells they want, the chanters chant and etc. That of course precludes non specifically spellcasting classes from casting spells, but it also gives each spellcasting class a thing that their "soul" ability does, and creates some really interesting variety.

Being able to get an "epic" spell, like an "epic" piece of loot might be cool. "You must collect the twelve parts of the tomb of Yasha and assemble them on the full moon under the light of Mt. Tirnoth!" or whatever. And then you do that and you get some sort of kickass ultimate spell that takes all your mana (if there is mana) and summons a volcano or something. Point is, you could have some spells work more like traditional "loot" equipment than something you just get for free.

Looks nice, very Infinity Engine like, and I should remember, replaying Baldur's Gate 2 right at the moment (Big World Setup is back in working order, woot!). Not much else to say I guess. Good work.

Just wanted to point at this poll is terribly biased. "Hey, do you want a bad example of a minimalist interface or a good example of a more stylized one?" The poll results shouldn't be taken as representative by anyone. That being said, as long as there's enough information presented in the actual interface, and as few menus as possible then that sounds good to me.

320kbps mp3 for everything, nigh lossless to human ears. I think that about covers it. I'd be more than willing to download a bit extra for that.

That second part has two problems. The first is, if the monetary reward is what you're focusing on then the story hasn't done it's job. The second is by the very nature of a video game, at least this type of game. In these games you are an inherently victorious machine of devastation. And that's the real, fundamental problem RPG's or any other such games out there from shooters to etc. need to overcome. Inherent Victory. All such games are designed around the only way to go forward and to have fun is victory. So you've no reason not to slaughter everyone in sight, because that's just what you do. It'd be awesome to see an RPG, or even a shooter or etc. where you aren't inherently victorious. Something like Day Z where you can fail at any time, but it's still fun to do so. And really, really fail, not just a setback like in Darksouls. But that's not going to be Project Eternity, it's going to take someone smart and who doesn't give a **** about how other games are made to get it done. As for the first problem E.G. If you just give the same amount of reward for the diplomatic option, the only consequence comes down to the story choice. If the choice doesn't matter to you story wise, then it's not probably not a good enough story.

No no no, I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. Obviously, there's going to be a fireball spell yes? Right. Normally, in D&D and so many other fantasy universes, only the wizards and what have you can access this stuff. Only a wizard class can cast a fireball. Usually this is balanced out by a wizard class being ****e at fighting up close. Project Eternities current premise is that you don't need to have your wizard be ****e at up close fighting. So if a wizard can use a sword well and cast a fireball, and a fighter can use a sword well but not cast a fireball, then obviously the wizard is the default better choice.

So, a mage can use a sword yes? That's the goal. Can a fighter cast a fireball? Obviously if a wizard can cast a fireball AND wield a sword, and a fighter can't, a wizard is automatically more flexible in terms of builds. How does one balance that? Do you give the fighter more talents/points/whatever than the wizard? That's the only thing I can think of, at the moment. I'm sure there's more solutions than that.

Thank you for this, of all the mockups so far this looks the best to my eyes. Still might make my own thought.

The UI looks a bit... TOO Infinity-ish. I get the stylistic yearnings for the old Infinity games, some neat wood background. But a more efficient, more OBVIOUS interface would be nicer. The Infinity Engine hotbar was just... ugh. I.E. And most of all... it's just too big for how little it does, too old school in thought, seemingly looking much like the Icewind Dale 2 UI, a UI designed for screens at 640x480 or 800x600 if you wanted to get fancy! That thing is far too information poor for the amount of screenspace it's taking up. To give an example, I'll show the absolute best, most beautifully functional interface I've ever seen in gaming: Just gaze upon how much information is there, in relatively just a little more screenspace, and how clear all of it is! You've got a mini map, a log, a character portrait, level and xp and xp to next level for the character. Armor, damage done, movement speed, strength, dexterity, and intelligence, AND what bonuses are being given to all of them at the moment. All of the characters abilities, with their mana costs and cooldowns and how leveled the abilities are. An entire panel of items, a space that could easily be used for character selection. Not to even mention the top bar (which is already fantastically close to a character selection bar)! And still it has room and space for some personality and nice even spacing. Now that is an efficient, very well designed interface! That is something I'd love to see strived towards, that level of clearly readable information density all presented before you without a single menu or submenu or any of that to go through. In this case, yes I know about the store interface (after 250 hours I should) but that's my point! This is so efficient it can pack much the same level of complication as Project Eternity into what is basically a single, menu less screen. And while "Infinity Engine like" in some style might be a fine goal, in functionality the IE games were anything but the pictures of an efficient or even manageable UI.

I'd just love for their to be a very few handful of really well done ones. Something with changing weather and a time of day, something you could change around as you wanted. But most of all something that really felt like it was going somewhere. Assassin's Creed 3 had this "Homestead" thing that was your house. And it was obvious there was a ton of money put into it, you'd do all these side things to add stuff to it, and you'd get all these really nicely animated NPC's coming to your homestead to... play their animations. And that was it. It never really went anywhere besides them just showing up, as so much background idling. There was no overarching goal, no other rewards, no real customization or decisions to make. It was just a thing you did, and I don't think almost anyone was really happy with it. Having some sort of decision, or decisions to make, or an overarching goal with a reward at the end, or etc. would really make Strongholds feel worth pursuing rather than a side thing no one cares about.

I suppose an alternate ending to a quest could always be "you failed". Might be interesting. In most every game out there you always succeed in everything (or die) or if you're a failure then it's planned for you and taken out of your control. Failure as an option hasn't really been explored I don't think.

This has always felt like a dumb "mechanic" to have (aside from Alpha Protocol, MAYBE) but a good a fun "story" thing to have. I enjoyed it in BG2 and KOTOR where there was no particular "numbers omg!" that popped up saying "you got +1 to influence over..." which is something I despised, turning the entire exercise from a roleplaying, story focused decision into a mentality where I needed to get as many "+1's" as I could, because those are like points and the more the better! Having it be a story, and character specific thing, with no explicit, non diegetic indicatation (i.e. an "influence" meter) whatsoever could be fun, if done right. I was impressed by both the end of NWN 2 where Sand betrayed me, well ok not impressed, but surprised and almost impressed with it. Seriously, it still felt somewhat like Sauron just asking "no it's totally cool guys, you should join me instead" and Gandalf doing so because he decided Frodo was a jerk or something. But anyway, I liked the IDEA. And I loved the unexpected character interactions in Dragon Age. Even if it did have the ridiculously stupid influence meter and "this person now likes you +3!" stuff, being chewed out by an NPC for a decision I made was still great. Having your party react to you over time, in a contiguous storylike fashion, in one way or another, is very cool if done well.

I can clarify this, there is NOT going to be any shadows for things that move, IE no shadows from moving lightsources, the game isn't going to have access to the information it needs to do so, the only information it has are the things you actually see on screen. This is great for some things! You get a lot of cool stuff with that, dynamic lighting (without shadows) is fine, no particular worries about the number of polygons or texture size or variety, as you aren't really doing any of that. But what you don't get is any real way to do dynamic shadows (beyond a very limited point). I've also thought about how you might hack around a moving shadow from the sun at least, but your proposal isn't going to work. I think they're doing what I originally suggested, a cached shadow map of the entire scene, giving the ability to move the shdows around (in a 2d fashion) if desired, and of course the ability to cast onto dynamic objects just fine. And that's one of the keys, you get shadows that move a bit if you want (tree leaves swaying in the leaves) and correct shadows for casting onto dynamic objects just fine, just like you would do in any other game, but with basically unlimited quality, as most of the shadow map is pre computed why not super sample like crazy? To ACTUALLY get the same effect for a moving sun you'd need to do something like take that shadow map texture, sample the differing depths along the suns path over a hemisphere, storing say 1024 samples and treating each pixel of the shadow map as a 1d texture in and of itself, necessitating essentially a huge 3d texture for each level which you can't move and has to be loaded all at once, instead of how PE does it now, where you only need to load the sections of the shadow map (probably just stored as tiles) in the immediate area around the player. I.E. too much work programming wise and spec wise for reward gained. Besides, the game and night/day transition looks fine as it is. Better to spend time doing other cool things like getting SSAO and cloud shadows to work instead, or effects like rain and fog and etc. Heck fog of war isn't implemented yet.

Exactly! BOOOORING! About as generic as possible to me. This is what I think of Dyrrvood when I look at the concept: "These are just simple farmers. People of the land. The common clay. You know, morons."

I'm seeing Greeks, Italian's crossed with Middle East stuff, poor people, and (queen style) effeminate French pirates. Which is as nice a cross section as anything for cultures I guess! But of course I'd question the "I'm a poor peasant and eat dirt" Dyr concept. They look a bit too much like someone from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Help, help I'm being repressed!" The monk sounds nice, a bit more like a barbarian in being encouraged to go straight into the fray than I'd thought, but then again I'd expect the barbarian to get stronger the more he hits things, not the more he gets hit. It still sounds like a good concept for reasoning out and encouraging people to play monks in the same manner one might picture a "Monk". Good job!

Exactly! Piracy is a thing no matter if you want it to be or not. Rather than forcing those people who want to play, whether they be paying customers or not, to go and torrent it (a sometimes slow, annoying, bandwidth sucking process) why not REWARD people you KNOW have payed with easier, more direct, more legitimate feeling access too it for vanishingly little cost?

It would be interesting if summoned units were treated a bit more like RTS units. Often, such as in Icewind Dale 2, if you build out your party with the right summoners you can just summon everything you have, and just barf them at the enemy until they die. It would be nice to still have tactical considerations play into it, even if you can summon a dozen skeletons at once.

Their loss. I personally find it rediockous that poeple take on 10 quests at once, ignore them, and then complain when they fail. Their own fault, but it's not like they'll ever admit it. Never tell a player they are "playing the wrong way" like that. Ever. The goal is to make sure as many people can have fun as is reasonable, not to punish the player unduly for the way in which they wanted to have fun but the game wouldn't let them. I absolutely HATE that in games. One of the ways in which Halo has gone downhill since the first one is the invisible walls that block vehicles from exiting their designated area. Getting a warthog into a corridor section of Halo 1, just to run down every enemy inside with abandon, was some of the most fun you could have in that in game when replaying it. A small tick up in a few peoples immersion is definitely not worth a major section of players not having fun at all.

I still get a ticked about being forced to lose in that Jedi Council conversation in KOTOR 2. I was level 20 something by then, I was the destroyer of everything! I beat the, last boss, with no trouble, how can she beat the council with no trouble when I lost? Ugh. It feels like the same sort of thing. "My character is this, except when a dramatic moment is called for." As long as its noticed, perhaps it can be avoided.

Another nice update! Hope any environment maps for metallic armor are linked to local ambient lighting well enough. I also wonder if complex spectral absorption for metal is worth it, given how far away you are. Maybe, complex ior bdrfs I say! Including screen space subsurface scattering, or SSSS, because we need more SSSSs and it's really, really cheap. Regardless, yay for tint maps, tint maps on everything, on all the things! Since you're not pressed for background texture constraints, at all, on all the background assets too! Want a different color house? Boom! Done. Well whatever, the Skuldr looks like it could have been from Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate 2 when viewed from that perspective. Hope we get a video walkthrough of prototype 2 being played!