Michael_Galt

BG2, just for the sheer scope of it. And you become some epically strong, facing pretty much every major "monster"/enemy type possible in the Forgotten Realms universe...

Or he could mug you because he wants to buy some drugs and hookers, and fix the clutch on his car. Perhaps he wants to strengthen his position in the "mafia", and they accept money as part of that process. Maybe he just doesn't like that you have fancy stuff, and decides to leave you in the hospital "just because" and really doesn't even need to sell or keep the stuff he took from you. There can also just be evil.

Yes, It is quite fortunate they are DEFINITELY not going to be using the combat system as a guide. I'm actually sorta hoping Chris Avellone contributes something to this thread after he is forced to play it. I mean, I would love to hear his seasoned thoughts on it. Plus, it might help some of its "winning!" features find their way into PE...

I never got that far in NWN2. I just didn't like how it played, especially since it forced me to keep certain party members, whether I wanted them or not. But that was AWESOME! More importantly, the writer for that will be working on PE... excellent. I am pretty confident I shall not be disappointed. I will say, I prefer "good" and "neutral" characters. I like playing the "classical good guy" paladin, who supports the weak, fights corruption and injustice, blah blah blah. Then I like to play my "neutral" character, that has a very nuanced take on things, and essentially follows his self interest and doesn't fall too heavily on either side of things. If he can do something "good" that isn't too dangerous for him, or is highly rewarding, he'll do it. If doing something "evil" applies to some group he doesn't care for, he'll have no problem doing that either. But I do want to play evil. I want a character that people in game fear, where I'm not just fighting for my survival, or "justice", but for power. 3 totally unique experiences, that would be awesome. I said I didn't want to do semantics about the definition of "evil", but that has certainly happened anyway. Most of the people that argue against "evil" options don't like puppy-punching. I agree- that takes no creativity. It doesn't mean it's invalid- there are plenty of people that get through life by intimidating and exploiting others. But I don't want just that. For instance, let's say you get the opportunity to free a bunch of prostitutes from an abusive pimp/owner. Instead, you kill them, because you think what they are doing is immoral. That is a psychopath, but arguably "good", at least from his perspective (if his religion or ethics support killing prostitutes). Alternately, you do kill him. But then you take over his position and don't change a thing. That is "greedy evil", but perhaps "neutral evil". Maybe it is even "lawful good", because prostitution is legal, and you gave them a better owner. OR, maybe you kill him, take over, and then allow for your clientele to be used in S&M against their will, because it makes you 3 times as much money. That is still "greedy evil", and not likely to be interpreted in some other manner, and almost certainly not going to be called "good". I could provide plenty more examples of how you could implement/write good, valid, "evil" options, as I'm sure they are capable of as well. I'm just hoping they do it. Not, "knight in shining armor", "reluctant hero", "I want moneyz", and "I'm going to act mean, and don't like doing this, but I will anyway, you just might not be happy with the results". I want all those options besides the last, with "Instead, I will assist them in defeating you" and "actually, since you revealed this vulnerability to me, I believe that I will exploit it for my own gain and destroy them as well".

Yeah, I think that when they say, "there isn't good and evil", they are just copping out. The reality is, typically you only get "good" and "neutral" options. The "anti-hero" option is really, "I'll do good things, but be 'unconventional' and have an attitude while I do it." I want to not just be defaulted into having no choice but to fight/subvert all the "evil"/"enemy" groups. Specifically, I remember playing DAO and though I had become a "blood mage", I wasn't able to attack Templars. Every time I ran into blood mags, I was forced to fight them. This made me angry. I wanted to say, "Stop! I'm one of you! Let's figure out how we can undermine the local chapter of the Chantry here, so we can have more autonomy. Maybe we can bribe/threaten the local magistrate to look the other way..." If there is a cabal of "demon worshipers" that are hunting me because I saw something that they fear if I reveal, will sabotage their plans, I want the option to convince them I want to worship demons and lead them to success. I don't want my only option to be to "save" the town- I want to be able to "betray" it. Arcanum and F:NV had a fair number of opportunities like this, so I feel they will be in this game, but I'll be sorely disappointed if they aren't. Insha Allah.

Yeah, I'm honestly kinda worried about it. I mean, I don't know how they can possibly make a dungeon that large, that actually makes sense. I guess it could just be a haven for monsters/enemies, which get progressively stronger the lower you go. That way, it acts as a constant source of "training", where you can gauge your progress in the game, sorta like Watcher's Keep. But 14- that's just crazy.

Okay, so I apologize if there are already threads on this, but I was unsuccessful at finding them. I don't want to get into some sort of semantic battle of the "definition of evil", but I used that word to loosely define aggressive/ruthless/violent behavior. I'm really hoping their are legitimate options to pursue those paths. For instance, perhaps instead of clearing out the band of local bandits/necromancers or what have you, instead, you could chose to assist them by assassinating the mayor/"sheriff" or whatever. Maybe you could actually ASSIST THEM, because they promise you a better cut/reward than taking the "good"/"lawful" path would have. Maybe you find the thieve's guild, and they have you trick an unsuspecting individual into falling into one of their ambushes, since you can approach them. Maybe you find a group of ciphers that have been capturing unsuspecting travelers and making them into slaves, and you force them to provide you with some slaves of your own, rather than killing them. I'm sure there are other ways that this type of thing could be played, but I would really like some options to pick some truly "immoral"/"unethical"/"evil" paths. If there was a truly "evil" option for the main quest, that would be ultra terrific. As in, rather than "defeat nefarious group/person", you instead become their leader and begin expanding operations. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Except that doesn't matter, in the sense that they don't need to make more sales, since the people who pledged will have it- meaning, while it would be nice for them to make extra revenue, their primary responsibility is to the people who supported the game. If no one besides us purchase it, it really doesn't matter. The purpose of this game isn't to get "raving reviews" and to be massively economically profitable. It is for them to get the money they need to be able to work on the type of game they want to make, and nominally, what we are interested in playing. I just don't understand people's complaints about this, to be honest. I've never encountered any bug that really compromised my game. Have I had to reload an earlier save, or restart the game entirely? Sure. But have I had my computer overheat and break, or all my saves get wiped out/corrupted? Have I ever faced an inability to complete the main quest? No to all of those. I suppose that other people must have had those problems, but I think it's odd that I somehow managed to avoid that, having played RPGs since the mid-90s. That doesn't mean I don't want them to release the game without having attempted to clear out any bugs, but if they are going to allocate serious money and time, I would rather have more text/companions/quests for sure.

Meh- it will be patched over time. Every RPG has had to have this happen to it, regardless of who developed it. You simply can't get thousands of playthroughs to identify all the bugs present until it's been released. "Save early, save often". I would rather have more content, since that is something that you can enjoy immediately. I mean, modders will doubtlessly contribute, but they aren't going to provide expansive mods quickly- there is a benefit to having professionals working on it- higher quality work in general. And since they said that they only plan on doing a big/substantial expansion, that means we can't expect little additions to the game from OE, so I would like as much as possible right out the gate.

No offense, but thats bull of the hughest quality, propaganda used to sell you on certain martial arts in the same way fencing tried to make people believe it was more of an art than the older swordfighting schools. The term 'martial art' is of western origins and is Latin for 'Art of Mars' and was being used in fencing manuals in the 1500s. As to the rest of your post, please do some research before theorycrafting, as you'd learn just how indepth the martial arts were developed in the middle ages. Young boys from the age of 7 underwent a training regime that was comprehensive and a true 'art' that rivalled samurai and other 'ethic cool' warriors. EDIT: in short, martial art refers to a codified training regime and there were manuals in Europe describing many of the training regimes used for many of the different weapons from swords to halberds to maces, how to overcome armour with said weapons, etc. Yes. Well, if you can name me one of the monasteries where hundreds of European boys were trained to excel in their specific "martial art" and challenged rival schools for hundreds of years, I will concede your point. I'm not claiming that Europeans were all a bunch of wusses, that didn't know how to fight. There were obviously plenty of wars in Europe, just like there were in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. What I'm saying is they didn't have a culture that codified very specific manners of fighting COMBINED with introspection or religious training. The Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights were perhaps the sole exception to that rule, but they weren't exactly known for having a "specific fighting style" or unarmed combat. They also didn't train children- you had to join them of your own free will, and you had to be an adult (though their concept of an adult extended to teenagers). After I posted, I realized the fencing schools would come up, and that is fair point. The difference is, they were all specific to the time period they were in, and changed with technology. That's why ARMA can't just find a "zweihander master" to teach everyone how to fight with two-handed swords. Instead, they have to search for manuscripts which described fighting techniques, and study and practice them. That's fine, that still is not the same thing. That is martial training. I could teach you how to shoot well with an M16- does shooting well with an M16 make you a martial artist? No, of course not. Now, if you ONLY used an M16, and assigned special significance to it as a weapon outside of it's technical abilities, and had a tiered system for determining skill with it, and could shoot accurately from a variety of unnatural positions and situations that would not necessarily be practical, then I would grant you are a "martial artist". Because you put "art" into it. How many professional, standing armies existed in Europe during the middle ages? Not a whole lot, which was the entire concept BEHIND feudalism. The idea was that you had some well trained NOBLE knights that were heavily armored and well equipped. They led armies of mostly peasants that they LEVIED from their lands, with that being a condition of them living on said lands- that they had to fight when impressed to do so. Most of those peasants had absolutely no training, and were poorly armed and equipped, because nobles didn't care much for the thought of them rebelling (which they had a tendency to do). The job of knights was to be cavalry. They cavalry could be used to cause great damage to peasant fighters because they were much better armored, much better trained, and more mobile. Did the knights train from young ages onward? Yes. Did all of them train hard? Probably not. And how did they train? Well, they usually had "men-at-arms", whose job was to train them until they became squires to a knight. So, they likely got trained by 2 people their entire life. And were those 2 people masters? Not likely. And while they might have trained a lot, nobles/knights also had other jobs- like running a feudal kingdom. So, of all the knights, I would make a safe bet that a substantial minority of them spent much more of their time doing things other than fighting or training for war, since that was only part of their duties. Again, this isn't "West-bashing". I love the West. I'm a Westerner. But, we just don't have the same culture or history, which is fine. I don't care if there are "non-kung fu" monks- I'm open to that. I do want there to at least be ONE kung-fu style monk. If there isn't, no biggie. Then, my first playthrough will be as a Paladin- cause I love some "Templar" action

:sigh: Damnation. I had always wondered about this- it was so ripe for it! I really am extremely happy for PE, I had literally been wondering how long it would take for a legit studio to propose the very thing, but the steampunk setting just has so much more potential, in my opinion. Seems like this is going to be steampunk ultralight. Maybe in the future, there will be the "Project Eternity: 250 years later".

Yeah, sorry about that. I was going to allow multiple choices, and ask that people limit themselves to their "top 2", but I feared that people would either ignore that, or not read it, which would result in the poll getting really skewed, because people picked 6 items...

I agree. I didn't realize just HOW true this was until I did my run through as a half-ogre genius warrior. I had an HIGH intelligence, but also strong fighting abilities. My policy was simple- I would act polite and respectful to everyone, because I wasn't a brute, and wanted to prove it. But if someone said some degrading thing to me, on account of my heritage, I would politely give them one opportunity to "rethink" or "reword" what they said. If they didn't, I would kill them, unless I was utterly sure that they could defeat me. Needless to say, I had to kill quite a few people

Yes! I totally forgot about that- you could also break containers, which could smash the items inside in the process, and some containers were stronger than others. This was great, because you didn't NEED a "thief", but you had a good incentive for one, since otherwise, it would damage melee weapons, or spend possibly expensive ammo for ranged weapons. Great point.

I think paying with either experience or money would be great. If you were willing to "sacrifice", you could get certain skills faster, at the cost of "level progression", while if you were a Mr. Moneybags, you could "bribe" your way to "excellence", at least in a limited fashion- I feel it should be like the Arcanum system, where you have to have the requisite skill for the training first, and you can't "buy" that.

I like most everything I read there, but it looks like I'll have to play on "expert", as I very much dislike "unconsciousness 'death'".

So, this is separate, yet related. Almost everyone on this forum likely at least know what Baldur's Gate is, or played it (or Icewind Dale, Fallout, or possibly Planescape: Torment), but they don't necessarily know what Arcanum was, or even if they have heard of it, didn't play it. I bring this up because several of the people on Project Eternity (primary being Tim Cain) also worked on Arcanum. I'm going to list the best and worst features I remember from the game, and to create a poll from that, so that we can see what people really remember enjoying, so that perhaps that might encourage the developers of Project Eternity to include similar features in Project Eternity. I was going to put a list of things that you WOULDN'T want to see, but couldn't really think of a good list. Liked/Loved: - Classless. I loved that my character could be a composite of whatever I wanted. A little bit of a gambler, swordsman, chemist. The Fallout series also did this pretty well, but I feel that Arcanum really provided more concrete opportunities. As an example, there were plenty of people to gamble with, though not all had that much money, and you could get rich if you were good enough. I understand it won't be in PE, and I get the reasons for it. Looks like they are just making the classes slightly less restrictive (depending on the class), which I am a fan of. - Attributes MATTERED. I believe Arcanum was the only game I have played that had a Beauty attribute, which was well implemented. The reaction you garnered from people was based off of key factors: race, magical/technological aptitude, charisma, intelligence, and beauty. The aptitude was peculiar to the game, so no need to go into detail on that, and many RPGs have paralleled that with your faction alignment. Charisma and intelligence have also been done quite a bit, so no need to dwell on them. But Beauty brought in a new factor. The INITIAL reaction was based on how attractive you were- if you were highly attractive, you were more likely to get a positive reaction, if you were highly repulsive, more likely to get a negative one. I really liked that. In general, there was no need to make your character anything except average, but if you wanted to really "roleplay", you could sacrifice some other attribute to make yourself into a charismatic seducer/seductress that might have bad constitution, or luck, or dexterity, but is highly charismatic and attractive, so gets people to do what they want because of their charm. Or you could make them ugly, yet charismatic and brilliant, and though people would initially react badly to you, they would end up changing their minds because you were actually intelligent and witty. - Race mattered. Yes, it was set in Victorian times, so it was slightly a product of the universe. That being said, playing as a different race brought LOTS of different things to how you experienced the game. For instance, if you were a dwarf, many elves would react significantly less favorably to you than most of the other races. If you played a half-ogre or half-orc, pretty much no one would react well to you, and many would be plain rude or hostile. I've never played another RPG where it had as much of a net impact on the gameplay and "experience" of the universe. - Discovery. As a technologist, you could find or purchase schematics that weren't in your normal "skill progression" (the schematics you automatically learned under each discipline). Some of them were simple, some complex. It made it more interesting, because you KNEW that there was more out there and you had more opportunities for developing your character than the "conventional", "standard" method. I think they could have done that with spells too, but they didn't. I would love for that to be a feature in PE, for the crafting or alchemy. You have the "standard" potions/recipes/items you could create, but could learn or find others through exploration or quests. - Dialogue. Some just generally good stuff. There was "theological", "social", "historical" and "scientific" conversations, as well as just silly. It was a very good mix. I hope there is some real dialogue in this game, which goes outside the bounds of what is "necessary" to the main storyline or even quests altogether. - Backgrounds. Arcanum had some really interesting "pre-fabbed" backgrounds. You would use these to really laser-focus customize your character. Do you want an "idiot savant"? Well, there was literally a background for that. An arsonist? Sure, got one. And therer were backgrounds specific to certain races, that you wouldn't know about unless you made a character of that race and started looking through your options. I'm pretty sure they said they would have something like this in PE. - Training. Many RPGs have included training, but I like how it was implemented in Arcanum. You could "max out" a skill, in terms of the amount of points you put into it, but that didn't give you all the benefits. Finding the beginning, expert, and master trainer did that. So if 2 individuals that each had 5 points in melee faced off, it wasn't necessarily an equal fight if one of them had never received formal training. To me, that makes sense, as it says it was learned, but not taught, so it isn't "refined". Also, there were often quests connected to receiving higher level training, which added another dimension to your experience (and sometimes made that training "free"). - Lots of stuff well outside of the main storyline. You could literally wander around and find things. Many RPGs have had this, but I think that Arcanum had proportionately, more opportunities for this. Some of them tied into the main storyline, some had nothing to do with it. - The economy. There was a really good balance between how much money you could "make" and what you could "get". If you played a technologist, you could make items that sold for more than it cost for you to make them, which was a good way to make money. If you wanted to focus on gambling, you could also do excellently, without having to sell a single thing. Merchants had inventories that changed over time. They might have the same base items, but would occasionally get different things of similar type/value. You didn't have to worry about them "running out" of bullets, or some other type of expendable, because they would restock within a few days. I can't overstate how much I dislike having to find a different merchant to buy expendables from, because the nearest one "ran out". That's ridiculous. They are a merchant- if I'm buying the heck out of them, then they would get more, because it's making them money. - Pickpocketing dynamics. You could "see" everything that was stealable, and try to take anything. That being said, if you tried to steal their ring, that would be more difficult that swiping some coins from their purse. So it wasn't always based on the size of the item, but rather, the "importance" of it to the subject. Oh, and if you pickpocketed them while they were asleep, you had a MUCH greater chance of success, which makes sense. - Map travel. I liked that you sort of "watched" as you proceeded from day to day, rather than just "fast-traveling" immediately to another part of the map, just being told how much time progressed. It made the travel seem more "real". It was still fast, but it wasn't instant. Disliked/hated: - The graphics. That almost caused me not to play it. It was just too cartoony, and didn't seem appropriate to the subject. Luckily, don't have to worry about that in PE. - The combat. Pretty strongly modeled on Fallout, and essentially only playable when set on turn-based- pure chaos in real time. Again, fortunately, not going to be an issue in PE. - Party dynamics. Most of the NPCs you could have as companions, ceased being interesting as soon as you got them to join you. After that, they pretty much became mute. PLEASE Obsidian, don't allow that to happen in PE. I like the conversation triggers that have to do with quest progression, time spent in party, level progress, and interactions with various other NPCs, whether merchants, enemies, or whatever.

I LOVE this idea. While the Baldur's Gate series is my "favorite" RPG for its sheer scope and overall quality and features. That being said, Arcanum is my 2nd favorite, tied with F:NV. Arcanum just had so many great features and ideas, which I haven't seen in other places (with the nature of training and overall skill advancement being one). In fact, I think I'll start a new thread about that, if it hasn't already been begun.

Last I checked, flails aren't an organic part of your body. They don't have a "life force"/"soul"/"internal energy"- that's why. And going to your very argument, your argument makes even LESS sense, since those videos demonstrated real life humans doing things that should be technically impossible. Sledgehammer broke fewer bricks than forehead. The guy used his shoulder to smash through over 10 brick slabs lined up across 5 feet. Don't know how to say it any differently. Don't you think if the karate guys could channel their ki into a sledgehammer, which is technically superior to an average human in terms of damage production, they would? Of course they would- but that's not how it works. Talking "fantasy", magic weapons are INFUSED with magic. Just the same way bodies are "infused" with magic, to allow them to do extraordinary things. So if in real life, people can break bricks and boards with their bodies, have people break 100lb granite slabs on them while balanced on spearpoints, why wouldn't "magical" martial artists be able to do even more amazing things? Can a magic sword cut through a non-magic sword? Yes, that's the whole point. So if a non-magic hand can smash bricks, then a magic would could crush steel. Unlike weapons, bodies also have brains connected to them, which allow them to think, so if you want to have powerful "tools", you would use magically infused weapons. If you want to BE powerful, you infuse your body- or in the case of a "wizard"/"chanter"/"priest", you use magic to effect the bodies of others and/or your environment. Or if you are a "cipher", you use it to affect the minds of others. This is really pretty simple.

I understand when people don't want to read through 20 page threads, but this is only a single page so far, and multiple people have made the same point to "explain" how the animal could be used- they don't enter buildings (usually people don't bring horses or oxen into them, anyway) and they "wait" outside. I don't understand where all the disbelief on that aspect is. People used to do that very same thing all the time, prior to the invention of automobiles. There used to be wolves and bears and predators of similar type, but every time people left "civilization", the animals weren't spontaneously attacked and killed. While there were thieves that would steal animals of this type, it's not like they would routinely be stolen as soon as you left them unattended at a hitching post in town. Maybe you make that a dynamic- the longer you are away from your pack animal in the wilderness, the more likely it is to be "dead" or "missing" when you return. Maybe there is an increased cost of using an inn if you have a pack animal, since they have to lodge it. Maybe your chance of being ambushed increases with how loaded down your pack animal is, since that is a reflection of how much potential wealth you are carrying. If it is with your party, then it is safe, outside of an ambush. It has hit points, like anything else (hence it being worth it to get it armor), but unlike a person, most large animals can take significantly more "damage", so it should have appreciably higher hit points, depending on what it is. As to the silliness like, "Well, what are you going to feed it? Are you going to clean up its waste if it defecates in town?" That has no bearing on this whatsoever. If the developers implement rules that you have to do all these things, I guess you will have to do likewise for your animals, but this isn't a discussion about whether we should have F:NV style Hardcore Mode (that require you eat and drink). And before you rest in the wildernesss with your party, or by yourself, if you are soloing it, will you be setting up a watch in game that will show the party members taking 2-4 hour shifts during the night? I don't think so. That's one of those things that WOULD happen, but we don't need to do it manually, because it can be imagined. I'll concede I can "imagine" my pack animal as well, which is normally what I do, because I wouldn't be trudging around the wilderness with 100lbs of gear on my back. But, since it seems like it would something that could be done relatively easily, without "breaking" anything else, I would rather it was in the game.

I'll have to agree to disagree. Martial arts take "martial training", and make it into an "art". Just training in combat doesn't make you a martial artist- you must also be expressing your "philosophy" through your fighting style. I don't know whether or not medieval warriors from Europe would or would not have "fared well" against martial artists, and it never happened, so we'll never know. Besides the Spartans, there were very few warrior classes in Europe that were "raised into" their culture of fighting from a young age. Most professional warriors were either mercenaries or nobility. Mercenaries obviously had an interest in staying alive, but I don't think there was any real group of "European martial artist mercenaries" that perfected a singe style of combat. I know the Swiss were famous for their halberd/spearmen, and the Germans for their "zweihanders" and axe-men, but that isn't quite the same thing, I don't think. Maybe. There's also a pretty big difference between a "wizard" and a "monk", at least in the way I conceive of it. The wizard is often stationary, chanting, waving, manipulating totems, whatever. So his magical shield is likewise "stationary", and thus, targetable. A monk is predominantly a melee fighter, and thus isn't staying still. That means his "shield" is just as breachable, but it's moving, which makes it more difficult to target. This is assuming he gets one, of course. And while I'm not against having monks that don't do flips and stuff like that, they would definitely have to be careful not to "unbalance" them by giving them armor. If that results in a decreased movement speed, or penalty to use of certain abilities, that would be fine. But otherwise you would end up with a fighter that would likely destroy regular fighters, when also factoring in his supernatural abilities...

Given they do have people that worked on both Arcanum and F:NV, I think it's fair to assume that there will be a broad variety of things you can "manufacture". I just don't want it to devolve into a constant search for the components all over the map, like it did in DAO or Skyrim.

I'm pretty sure that they expressly stated they wouldn't be responding to things on the forum, but would read them for ideas or to see what the feedback is. This definitely seems like a pretty big non-issue to me. It doesn't affect gameplay- the most you could say is it would interfere with your "immersion". But if all it takes is calling something that you identify as one thing by a different name, I fear it will be kinda difficult for that to be avoided.

Damn it, didn't realize that you HAVE to answer the other questions as well to participate in the poll, and now it looks like I can't change it... Nope, don't appear to be able to change it. Does anyone know how to get a hold of administrators? To the other point though, I think it is one of the "biggest" components of RPGs, since how they address if affects everything. Sometimes they go overboard and "simplify" it to the point where you have to do next to nothing. Other times, it is about weight or "space". I understand the reasoning behind each, but I think pack animals makes it less of an "issue", since there is nothing "unrealistic" about a donkey pulling a cart full of stuff that otherwise might be "carryable", but onerous.

I'm fine with "bags of holding", but what do you think would be cheaper, a magical bag that is linked to another dimension or changes the quality of this one, or a mule with some bags on it? I mean, for the "it would have to fight at some point" or "avoiding combat", I think it's pretty simple, really. It doesn't actually "enter" contained areas with you, because it's "tied to a tree outside" or some such other thing. If you were "waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself", then it is the same as a familiar, and has hit points, but tries to avoid combat at all costs. Realistically, if you are being "ambushed", I doubt their first thought will be, "Yeah, let's ruin our element of surprise by attacking the pack mule instead of the heavily armored adventurers!" Or, "I know, I'll ignore the mage and go after the donkey- that's a good idea!"