Frenetic Pony

Pretty standard stuff. Choose one "Your characters if F*d because of X" see stuff like this, The Witcher 2, etc. Choice 2, the world is going to end! You live in the world, so you should probably stop that. I understand the problem of motivation, but it's so utterly limiting in story and what you encounter in RPGs. Then again there are RPGs that don't have that. And you can easily stop yourself in the middle of those and ask "wait, why don't I just stop? Why is my character even going on with this?" I suppose it's just a limit of the type of game being made.

Power consumption and price. Price... not really. Power consumption? Just as good as ARM. Intel is rockin it in the mobile world as of this year. They might surpass ARM by next year if what they're promising comes to fruition. A full on Core i5 power in a friggen tablet isn't going to be beatable by any model of ARM based processors if they can pull it off like they're hoping (not a guarantee of course). Do we know the price yet? It wouldn't surprise me if it's $800-900. Power consumption is going to be terrible. It's obviously not going to be as good as ARM. We know how good ARM is, we know how bad the i5 is, the hardware is out for all to see already. Errr... no. The Core i-series gets updated every year. Next years update is called Haswell, and promises a Core i5 at a ten watt TDP, or thermal envelope. This is the max thermal energy put off by the chip, and essentially relates to what fans and how much room you need for a tablet. The higher the TDP, the bigger the tablet/laptop needs to be. Currently the TDP for Ivy Bridge,t his years and what my laptop is running, is 17 watts. Regardless, the Haswell architecture is also highly tuned for battery life. It shouldn't be surprising to have an 7-8 hour battery life in a tablet only a little heavier than the current Ipad by next year. But yet, this model will be expensive. What won't be is next years update of Intel's Atom chips, the current revision is named Clovertrail (for tablets), and is decently competitive in price and power compared to ARM. Next years is codenamed Baytrail, and may well surpass the next generation of ARM chips, The Cortex-A15 cores, which scale much better in speed than ARMs current A9's but don't do terribly better in terms of power consumption so far. Also... this got way off topic then again I suppose everything that needed to be covered was. Any ARM compilation is going to rely on the OS's it's being compiled for, which may be a problem depending, and either way will almost certainly wait until after the game comes out on PC/Linux/OSX/x86 first.

So every RPG does this. It's kinda what ruins MMO's and falling behind your friends in the level curve. It's what's ruined, in part, The Elderscrolls games. Every time you level up, you gain health. Why? Serious question, why do you gain health? The enemies you encounter then gain damage. Your actual net gain versus the enemies you face might be nil. No change whatsoever on gameplay, except maybe low level monsters go from a challenge to a nuisance. It's of no real benefit except making a little part in the players more basic brain functions feel better that a bar has gone up. Which isn't really needed, there are other bars. Just get rid of it. Get rid of automatic health gain, and suddenly balancing isn't as much of a problem, because you need to deal with less changing numbers. Suddenly levelling creatures isn't nearly as much of a problem, you don't have to keep amping up enemies health and damage nearly as much just because the player and party have gained more levels. Get rid of it so players don't have to constantly re-adjust what a good weapon is in terms of damage, don't have to throw away old health potions because they don't do enough anymore, don't have to wade through enemies that can't hurt them simply because they're too high of a level. Just, don't do it. Shooters don't do it, huge open world games like Just Cause and Red Dead Redemption didn't. People still played them for hundreds of hours. It's just a headache and extra work with no real benefit, a relic of the original Dungeons and Dragon's first edition that no one's ever questioned for 40 years so far as I can tell.

Power consumption and price. Price... not really. Power consumption? Just as good as ARM. Intel is rockin it in the mobile world as of this year. They might surpass ARM by next year if what they're promising comes to fruition. A full on Core i5 power in a friggen tablet isn't going to be beatable by any model of ARM based processors if they can pull it off like they're hoping (not a guarantee of course).

That was kind of my point, not that ARM is terrible versus x86 in and of itself, but that there's a ton of implementations of hardware and Android. It's not just "click and done!" But a lot of just, annoying gruntwork, and you have to make sure there's no bugs when recompiling, and etc. The PC groaning comes not from x86, which is just fine, but far more from different video cards and making sure they're certified with NVIDIA and ATI, and having to keep everything generic instead of being able to pull specific hardware tricks like you can with consoles. So no, it's not the end of the world to just compile it to, say, Android 4.0 and above, fire and forget and if it doesn't work on your device... I don't know. Make a test app that you download before buying? But it is work. It is money an banging your head on things most devs probably don't even want to deal with. It's why iOS gets the most Apps. You CAN just throw it onto an iOS device and it will work, albiet there are other stringencies such as having to update for resolution and aspect ratio every time a device comes out that changes that.

The entire main quest in Dragon Age, because it was one of the only game's I've ever completed solely for the story But seriously, a single quest? The most memorable RECENT one actually comes from Borderlands 2. Claptrap's Party. For those who don't know, Claptrap is a kind of annoying comedic relief robot of the Borderlands series. As a quest you have to hand out invitations to what amounts to his birthday party. Everyone you ask refuses to come. You end up there with just him. Spending two minutes sitting there with him as he tries to have a party even though he realizes your the only one that came. It was, in it's own way, probably the saddest quest I've ever done in an RPG. I felt more sorry for this comedic relief robot than I did for many characters in RPGs that tried a lot harder to be "sad" or tragic. Probably because it felt like he was a real character, with a purpose in the world, and one that you spend enough time with to know as a character. Other RPG's... just push it too much, like most of the characters that are tragic feel like they're there to be tragic, it's their lot in life. This was, not out of the blue, but a character with an entirely different purpose that suddenly was seen in a very different light. One that you laughed at, and thus kind of enjoyed having around, and suddenly your the only one there that likes him at all.

Why not have things that affect stealth? Stealth has always been, rather ugly in the IE games. But with modern tech having stealth be affected by the amount of lighting falling on the character is easy. As is line of sight (2d Line of Sight is VERY easy). Adding to that you could just have things like undergrowth or etc that help characters stealth through.

I'd love to see prestige classes add a few levels, maybe about 5, you can get in something more specialized than your average class. There's already 11 classes, each supposedly pretty flexible. Having fewer prestige classes is cool, and each of them adding an interesting set of more specialized abilities and powers than the more flexible base classes.

I wouldn't mind things like slower movement through, say, ankled deep water or thick snow. Height might also be a bit neat. An advantage to ranged abilities against enemies that are lower? Maybe a larger effective range and chance to hit. Also movement up being slower and down being faster.

Steal DNA, creat combined clone of Basil Polodieous, Howard Shore, and John Williams. Raise in top secret musical school from birth. Use as Composer. Or whatever. Justin Bell is fine. You know. As an alternative.

Unfortunately you can't just "Compile to ARM" like you can with x86. Besides OS concerns, Intel makes a large deal with x86 of always ensuring compatibility. Meaning that old 1988 DOS game will still run on that brand new Core i7. ARM does no such thing. The ecosystem for Android and how many different versions popular games are asked to support is described by people I know as something of a nightmare. The only reason iOS is any better is it's tightly controlled by Apple with tiny fraction of the SKU's used compared with Android. I suggest, for your own sake, that you ditch any plans of going with only an ARM device right now if you really want to play games on anything like a regular basis and want to have the most choice available to you. A PC is definitively where the most games are available right now, and while Microsoft is succeeding in actively sabatoging this it's still going to be true in the near future. That being said, Unity does have great crossplatform support. It would take work but Android support (for stock or mostly stock Android OS's of the right version) and iOS support are definitely possibilities. Though I take it from the devs that they are possibilties for after the Windows/OSX/Linux desktop versions are out. Maybe even Windows RT support. But a lot of game devs are absolutely balking at Windows RT and I wouldn't be surprised if Obsidian was among them.

Err... it's pretty hard to suddenly flip an expected game mechanic like that on its head. If every other battle is winnable then having one that's not will frustrate and confuse and anger most people when they encounter it unless they're explicitly told it might not be winnable and they should run away. But that could be fun in and of itself. I remember fighting my first Crystal Golem in Icewind Dale 2. Panicking and running around and trying ot see what damages it was actually pretty fun, as was bolting for the exit. When I got outside I of course read the note which tells you how to defeat these things (mild not spoiler). Which was interesting to back and do, but still not as just NEW and exciting and different as having to just run away. So as long as people fully understand what it is they're being asked to do it could definitely be fun. Stuff like the Crystal Golem, or maybe an optional area you can go to fight a dragon or some huge terrible monster, but one you can't defeat until your a much higher level, would be interesting. Again, I think most people voting no can foresee the "ugh, this is different, how am I going to know?" Question. So while I'm sure it would actually be fun for many of them, it would also have to be done correctly. Obsidian is going to need to make it quite clear before hand, and preferably by example, of say another party of heroes charging out screaming "run away", that the thing to do here is to run away somehow.

The idea of splitting your party seems neat, but would have to be handled very specifically and carefully if any combat is involved. I doubt many people out there are going to handle two simultaneous battles well since the game is in real time and not turn based (even with pause and play!). That being said, I can't recall it ever being done in this type of game, so by that reason alone I'd like to see it tried at least.

So Kindgom's of Amalur (among others?) have a cool system where you had various compents for each weapon you're assembling, and each component gives different stats to the eventual items. It's pretty neat for crafting the item you want.

So a lot of mods are made using a game's original art assets. But, in Project Eternity, those assets are going to be baked into the environment, unusable by modders to create new environments. Thus this is a simple request for any 3d models and textures and other relevant assets to be shipped to players, maybe in a separate "mod kit" download, for modders to re-use as they see fit. I know, there will almost certainly be assets bought from Unity's asset store, or contracted out to artists for hire, that might not be able to be made available as such due to legal issues. But certainly any in house stuff made could just be put up so that modders can use them in their own, new areas.

Besides mods being available? I'm definitely replaying with the eventual multiplayer mod. But as far as what Obsidian can do, aside from making sure the shipping code is as open to modding as possible. Randomization works very well. Randomized enchanments for magical items. And randomized equipment to begin with, from chests and containers and in stores. It would be neat to see a list of unique very high level items that are randomly inserted into the game each time you play, so you'll never be able to access all of them in one game, and never know which ones you'll get. Further randomization can work for enemies as well. Ok, you might be fighting giant spiders or insert cliche fantasy monster here. But, levelling aside, you don't have to have the same giant spiders or X in the same place each time. The giant spiders in the giant spider room could be a swarm of smaller ones all with an effective poison attack. Or maybe a pair of large miniboss type spiders that shoot the equivelant of web spells at you, or maybe a queen spider boss monster with a few extra normal types around her. Randomization can even work for quests, or at least tiny quests and encounters. Assuming you are going to be "waylaid and can not go further" while travelling between areas there could be different tiny encounters that are randomly assigned. Maybe one where you're saving some random NPC, who might give you a cool unique item for saving them. Just as an example. Beyond that, I expect just giving players different choices and different outcomes to be cool. What companions you use, what class you are, high int/low int/charisma/wisdom dialogue stuff. Different endings to quests. It would be neat, assuming there is something like Prestige Classes, to be able to choose different ones for companions based on some quest or other.

It's nostolgiac and what many at Obsidian "know how to do". I still enjoy playing Baldur's Gate 2, and it's not like any of the 3d style of these games (KOTOR, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights) have actually particularly benefited. Ok, I enjoyed some of it in KOTOR. But really it should be good enough.

I imagine they mean the combat in Icewind Dale 2 sometimes being more tactically interesting. But I can't agree enough with the "lets throw in another battle". Before I quite Icewind Dale 2 I must have made Polar Bears extinct and killed every evil cleric to have ever existed. "Oh look, here's another room of the same enemy you've just spent five hours killing several thousand of. But MAYBE it will be challege or different this time!"

I've replayed BG2 several times, and while I still enjoy it immensely (try it with a ton of mods!) The first, exploratory and open ended story area is the best in terms of overally motivation and interest. Being railroaded never felt great in any of these games. When you have a somewhat open ended goal and a lot of areas to explore ala Baldurs Gate 2, Mass Effect 1, Dragon Age, KOTOR, etc. Well that's when these games have always seemed the best to me. You're making choices, and are unsure of where the story is going. Having a specific "endgame" in site actually makes me stop wanting to playing. Because most of the time I just want more stuff to do, and the game is clearly saying it's all over and there's nothing left. It takes away my agency as a player to decide what it is I want to be doing and gives it over to a story I'm almost always a bit less interested in. The only exception I can think of is Dragon Age, where I actually completed the game mostly because of the story, and wanted to see how it ended.

I'm pretty sure it will be ported to consoles with millions sold, tablets OS's, internet browsers, and other before it's ported to the Ouya. I know the OUYA's makers sold you on some sort of dream vision of an indie gaming machine. We already have one, it's called the PC and/or smartphones.

I love that "Call of Duty" is doing better than Icewind Dale. But seriously, I got bored and quit Icewind Dale 2 a third of the way through. It starts out great but loses all variety and pacing after Targos. The plot loses all sense in terms of your characters motivations, the story is delivered in jabs of epic ten minute speeches delivered by enemies that should just be killing you with barren rifts of nothing in between, the game turns almost entirely linear with only combat that hasn't changed at all in the past tweny hours and hoards of loot taking hours to collect with a horrible UI to sort through. Don't think I've ever encountered a game that went from so fun to so disappointing for me as did Icewind Dale 2.

There's already a long topic about a pair of narrow areas of dialogue. But dialogue is a huge, broad topic with a lot to cover. The first is that, traditionally dialogue choices made presentable by things like a high intelligence score are automatically "better" than any other option. It's just a reward for you having that high int score, but it's not really interesting gameplay wise. Couldn't instead things like a high intelligence score open up previously unavailable option that might be an interesting viable option, rather than simply "better"? This brings up the question of who speaks for your party. Again, traditionally the Player Character speaks for the whole party. Which essentially means that if you want the options for better outcomes, or at least more choices, you need your PC to have a high int score, high charisma score, or etc. It's been discussed whether others in the group should be able to speak, or whether the group as a whole should have bonuses. But having a party member that isn't your PC speak brings up the question of whether you, the player, is in control of everyone, or whether there can even be the conceit that your party members are independent people with their own goals at all. If you are the higher controlling power of all, then you can't actually have a party member get angry at an action taken, because the conceit is now that you are all controlling and why suddenly can't you control them now? It also brings up the question of why you would have entire dialogue paths for low intelligence or low charisma characters. Specifically choosing options you know is bad when you have "better" options available is an option, but not one a lot of people are going to feel good about choosing when they might otherwise have enjoyed the low Intelligence/low Charisma dialogue. It's been suggested that your party members butt in when it matches their personalities to do so, with their own equivalent of the higher INT dialogue option that you can choose. Then there's the question of timed dialogue events. You might have seen these in Alpha Protocol and/or The Witcher 2. You are given a choice to make, and a time limit in which to do it. Alpha Protocol had these all the time, The Witcher 2 had these only for very specific extra time sensitive events. What do people think of these in Project Eternity?

"Suspension of Disbelief" is the term you and everyone is usually searching for when discussing these things. Meaning, essentially, wheter you get sucked into the story or not. And the more things seem to "make sense" or "are familiar" the easier it makes it for more and more people in general to suspend their disbelief and get sucked into the story. So yeah, it "matters". But how much it matters depends on who you are, and how much things "making sense" affects your own suspension of disbelief. Fortunately this is a fantasy game, and so we can assume we're already dealing with people with some amount of imagination.

Pretty much yes. "Zoom" might work, though I'm wondering what kind of... errors will crop up due to technical stuff. Though I can't imagine they'd be too bad. I'm just being nitpicky about wanting the absolute best quality possible. As for "stuff highlighted" when it's behind a wall, it honestly shouldn't be too hard to just make the wall or the roof or whatever disappear this time around.

Just make it an option that's not available in "expert" mode. In the normal game, you go throw money into some magical wishing well, and then BOOM! The character that threw money in can respec. In expert mode the well isn't there and there's no respecing. I mean, respecing can, after all, just be used for cheating. "Oh no, this boss is weak to this type of attack and I'm too low a level to boot! I can just respec all my characters to do that thing the boss is weak to and win, yay!" That's fine with me, even if I don't want to play it. I want a challenge, others don't or can't handle that challenge. An option makes us all win.