Hormalakh

I must agree. I would be willing to go for a handful of IWD cinemacut-screens.

Hey guys, when you're done figuring out the difference between cinematics and cutscene, let me know what the consensus is on the definition of a RPG. Thanks.

I don't think that was the inspiration for it. They don't really look all that similar.

I'll take that bet S_P.

Isabela is the character he was talking about apparently.

Most of the information is known but there was a few interesting tidbits, especially with regards to genders in RPGS and the hypersexualization of women in RPGs. [h/t: RPGCodex] http://provideocoalition.com/news/story/transvergence-summit-josh-sawyer-project-director-obsidian-entertainment

One ring to rule them all....

with my baby... :'(

I doubt it's been picked, but at least we're moving in a certain direction. I don't like the words "shadow" and "darkness" in the same phrase as it's too gaudy. (It's got shadows and darkness because urrr we're hardcore!) I do like "The Eternity Chronicles" I can work with that. TEC for short. That can be the overarching name. As for this specific "volume," what about 'Darkness over Dyrwood: TEC?' TEC: Darkness over Dyrwood TEC: Dyrwood Shadows/Shades TEC: Dyrwood's Shades TEC: Deadly Shadows TEC: An Urquhart Joint

God ...that took me 4 re-reads and a once-glance-over to get the joke. funny nonetheless.

Yep... "rhetoric always more rhetoric."

Happy anniversary! Very nice drawings Kaz. Is there a reason that the hatchling front-legs are thicker an more muscular than the back legs? J/W. Everything looks great!

Well that's a haughty response that rather misunderstands my point. But you're forgiven. LOL.... I didn't mean it to be. I meant to say that my understanding isn't correct, as I expected, but I don't think yours is either (which can't be expected). Anyway, apologies.

Ah. Thanks! Reading through your explanation about how classes work and the goals behind it, I'm curious to know about your thoughts WRT respec-ing. Are you trying to move away from respecing characters by allowing fairly viable builds regardless or will you still be allowing respec to happen even after you've tried your best to make most build options viable in their own way? edit: I do realize I'm leading the witness here

Wow. Thank you for that detailed response. For the most part, it answers most of my own reservations about the class/class-less mechanic. I did have a question though. I'm not sure if anyone else is confused by this but I've never actually been able to find a good description that distinguishes Talents from Abilities from Skills. Anyone know? Josh? As I expected, your understanding of the class system isn't totally correct either. For example, Josh described (at least from what I understood) a more shallow prerequisite tree than I was expecting. Again, the all classes use all skills idea is also a little confusing because, again we don't even have a full list of skills to be able to distinguish them from talents and abilities. Once again, I fall back to what I've said time and again: it's really tough to make informed decisions about a system when we get bits and pieces. We don't know how all the parts work together and there are things that aren't even fully fleshed out to get a solid understanding.

This is where multiple distribution networks would be great. Torrenting these games and then purchasing a license for each a la a game key or something. I don't think GOG will be able to serve that many people dling the game if it is that big.

I think most people don't know enough about the mechanics to make any accurate predictions but each person sees one part of the elephant and they extrapolate from that. I think a big part of the claim falls on the assumption that all the class mechanics allow the exact same options for talents and abilities (or effectively the same options, when you come down to brass-tacks and calculate each one out) across the board so that it really does play like a class-less system and that classes are just a hollow title to pacify those masses. The other part of the claim lies on the fact that we've heard a lot about how classes aren't distinguished like they were in IE games (rogues are skill-buffed characters, mages are OP nuke throwers, fighters are good low-level fighters and meat shields, etc), but we don't really understand much about how they are currently distinguished in game-play and when you take away what distinguished them, but don't replace the descriptions with new ways that they are distinguished, it's hard for posters to understand what's what. Edit: And then, of course, there are people who say things like this, but don't really mean it: "It should absolutely be possible to build a character who is bad at his class." Of course, this isn't for lack of trying. You've tried to answer these concerns in the past. But so many words is hard for the new generation to sit through. Ultimately I propose a video of the vertical slice to help players get a better idea of the way classes play, so that these silly claims can be put to rest once and for all. :D

thief was not a dark project. it should have been called Thief: Garrett's happy adventures. *FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU*

If you're comparing it to D&D, this is a similar progression except for two differences: 1) we maintain differences between classes (given equal level) as an integer rather than as a proportion and 2) because we use a 100 point base scale instead of a 20 point base scale, we have finer control over per-level advancement. E.g. in Pathfinder, a fighter starts with +2 Fort, +0 Ref, +0 Will. They progress like this (Fort/Ref/Will) 5th +4 +1 +1 10th +7 +3 +3 15th +9 +5 +5 20th +12 +6 +6 A rogue starts with +0 Fort, +2 Ref, +0 Will. They progress like this (Fort/Ref/Will) 5th +1 +4 +1 10th +3 +7 +3 15th +5 +9 +5 20th +6 +12 +6 It's a regular progression: they start with an advantage in one (for some classes in D&D, two), and advance at regular intervals. Of course, at high levels this falls apart because the proportional gulf between good and bad saves becomes so wide that characters have to overcompensate or inure themselves to specific effects to avoid being sucker punched. At 1st level, the difference between the good and bad saves is (effectively) 10%. At 10th level, it's 20%. At 20th level, it's 30%. To make matters worse, typically the obvious "good" stats for a given class reinforce the better saves and neglect the worse saves. Fighters often have a high Con, which means they are likely to have an even higher total Fort than normal. They might have a decent Dex which can bolster their Reflex, but it's rare that they have a high Wis (and consequently, Will save). Because save DCs are often balanced around the "hard" targets, it means that the weakest saves of a class combined with the weakest (or least important) ability scores for that class make them really, really vulnerable. This is why Pathfinder has a special Bravery feature for fighters at higher levels -- otherwise they'd run or freeze in terror more than half the time a comparable caster chucked a Will-based fear effect their way. In PE, fighters start with the following defenses: 25 Deflect, 15 Fortitude, 10 Reflexes, 10 Psyche. Rogues start with the following defenses: 15 Deflect, 10 Fortitude, 30 Reflexes, 5 Psyche. Every level, every character gains +3 to all defenses. At 6th level, the fighter would have 40 Deflect, 30 Fortitude, 25 Reflexes, 25 Psyche. The rogue would have 30 Deflect, 25 Fortitude, 45 Reflexes, 20 Psyche. The fighter's worst defenses are still Reflexes and Psyche, but they're only "just as" bad (by the same margin) as they were at 1st level. The same applies to the rogue's Psyche and Fortitude. And while the rogue did "catch up" to where the fighter's Deflection was, the fighter maintains the same 10 point advantage over the rogue that he or she did at 1st level. Of course, Attributes, gear, Talents, Abilities, etc. also can all feed into your defenses, but those are much easier to switch around than your class and level. I.e., if you find yourself particularly vulnerable to a particular type of attack (meaning, what defense it targets), the cause is likely easier to remedy in PE than it would be in D&D (because class is such a large component of that value as levels rise). It would be very nice to be able to shift these defense gains around with the use of "talents" (or whatever else option you'd like). You said you'd have all classes get +3 to all defenses each level. Perhaps it might be interesting (or some players would like to) shift these so each level they get +3 to deflection and reflexes, but +2 to psyche and +4 to fortitude each level, based on a certain way that they intend to play their character. have you thought about doing this? i'd like to play where i can subsubsubspecialize my party as much as possible. at the very least, it'd introduce another strateegic option to players.

i'd like to just post this here. I really disliked most of the CNPCs, I really disliked being forced to go find Imoen, I really disliked the style of dialogue, and I really disliked being flooded with a million quests by every shmoe on the streets of Athkatla. Basically, there wasn't a whole lot I did like about it. where's Helm when you need him?

i hope it's called Lego: Project. And i hope they change the models to look more like lego blocks. i miss my childhood.

Reminds me of the Assassin's Creed stronghold for some reason. It's pretty cool. I hope the mechanics are as awesome and tactically interesting as it's starting to sound like. Thanks for the update. I do hope that the stronghold doesn't end up making the game too easy for the player because of all the bonuses. I'm sure you guys have thought of all sorts of ways to preclude players from taking advantage of the stronghold to "cheese" through sections of the game and at the same not make the stronghold a must-have buff-zone for the higher difficulty challenges. Now if only we could get a vertical slice video....

Hey if you got a beta-access and want to not use it, I'll always take it off your hands.

An acid antidote is either a base (risky) or water (still risky, but less so.) you've just been chemistry'd.

well given that you also get to customize your character, that means that character customization becomes much more restrictive. gaining one chance at backstab could easily be made up with better skill/feat choices, even more so if you grind slightly and use that extra ability for an extra level or during the fight. the inverse also becomes true, by specializing you are deciding to give up something else, which if a potion every now and again can partially or completely compensate for that trade off (say for noncom situations, like picking locks that are worth it via meta knowledge) diminishes that choice as a choice. so you still end up with OP vs. mundane, you've only upped the difficulty so that you need to be OP, and thus that same level of restriction has been applied to everything else as well.Huh? What are u talking about? This has nothing to do with being OP. I've played the same class with the same skill set on two different difficulties and it made a difference to think about the strategy of when to use potions. Pretty soon you're going to say that spells shouldn't be as versatile because they make your character OP...