Hormalakh

*BAH!* More zombie intros?! The one thing I hated about BG2 more than anything else is the 10 min intro before you could actually start playing.

Anyone know whether there's an update tonight? I was a little unclear from last week. Gotta get my fix....

That is victim blaming. Phil Fish acting outside of social mores doesn't give people the right to send abuse his way. Nor do we know if it's cause or consequence. I've seen it happen before recently that someone blew up after suffering abuse for hours on end, and then got seen as the ****. It's important to know the context. You don't get to see all the feedback, so it's not possible to get an accurate image for us, but I hope you're right.And yes, of course we should be able to field criticism. I'm reminded of a quote by Patrick Stewart, fairly recently, about victim blaming: I think it can be applied broader. Just because Phil Fish isn't very good at dealing with the pressure, doesn't give people the right to send hate filled messages his way under the pretence of "he had it coming" it's strinkingly odd to me that in our contemporary society, even the perpetrator can be considered a victim. is there no room for criticism left anymore? "Blaming the victim", a concept so deeply ingrained in rape victim advocacy, is absolutely nothing like what Phil Fish is goign through. Please do not devalue such a concept by equating Phil Fish's "dilemma" with it. Kthx bye.

they aren't on the forums as much because they're working on the vertical slice. it's ok to be critical of their decisions because that is what they wanted. some people are obnoxious but there are still enough good people out there that realize that obsidian is awesome at what they do for people like Sawyer and co to realize we appreciate their efforts. these guys are professionals. the amount of bile they have to deal with when dealing with scum that are publishers is NOTHING compared to a few dummy comments from puerile children about a specific game mechanic. someone saying "wahh I hate crafting skill" isn't going to take food away from the mouths of the dev's family; bonuses based on obnoxious metacritic scores does. I suspected as much. it's a rare case for a person to have enough hate against him from a group and for him to have done no wrong. doesn't excuse the treatment. although the COD comments were particularly crazy: that's a special kind of moron. also what is this about the codex? a lot of the most interesting discussions about RPGs and P:E specifically occur on RPGCodex. It seems some of you guys are projecting your own feelings about the Codex onto the devs from Obsidian.

man what a geezer. your back hurting you yet?

i'm happy with the changes and still am as excited about this game as i was on day 1.

Thanks, Chris, for the posting. Always great reading your posts especially when they include your doodles. 1- Priests and Religion: I really liked how you guys are thinking about letting characters still be relevant even when their role might overlap with the PC. You stated that they might interact if they are the same religion. How about the priest companion interacting/dialoguing with the PC if they're different religions? I think that would be cool and it can give even more characterization to that companion. How do they treat their "friends" and how do they treat their enemies? It is definitely more work and more writing, but it really makes replaying the game worthwhile and gives that character a lot more depth, at least in my humble opinion. I want some EPIC religion BATTLES! 2- Utilizing items/weapons/armor as character visual signatures: I noticed this specifically with Baldur's Gate 2, but I'm sure there are other examples out there too. Whenever developers create armor/weapons/items for a specific companion, players are presented with a dilemma. Often, the item that the companion has is extremely strong in the beginning of the game and is a worthwhile addition to the party. However, as the game progresses, newer/better weapons/armor become available and it makes sense mechanically for the companion to drop their signature item. However either developers won't allow/lock it (for story purposes or because it's the signature item or whatever other reason) or it just doesn't feel right (You're going to drop the shield that has passed down your family linage for another shield because it gives you +1 to damage resistance? OK...). I don't think that developers should ever force an item on a player ("If you pick this companion, you're stuck with his shield FOREVER!"), and at the same time, I think that the current crafting system as currently described actually helps with minimizing the player/developer dilemma of companions dropping their signature item. Allow the signature item to continue to "grow" with the companion as they progress through the game through crafting or as a quest. So, that way you can start the companion's signature item at a lower "level" and reduce how OP a certain item is, but at the same time, you can let the item "scale" with the companion as he/she grows in strength. The addition of gems/other crafting options that have been discussed are great ways to allow players to determine which way they want that signature item to grow. It could even be possible that the signature item would grow maybe marginally more than if the item being "upgraded" wasn't a signature item, so that players would be more likely to keep the signature item in play with that specific character, e.g. the knight's family shield is better than most iron shields and if (through crafting) you add the fire resistance gem, you get +30% fire resistance (as opposed to most other iron shields giving only +15% fire resistance). 3- Arcanum: blogging and the 60 minute playthrough: *Thumbs Up* with the idea for blog posts about your thoughts. I'd really like that. The 60 minute playthroughs are much better IMO than the 10 min ones from before. I really hope you get far enough into the game: there are a lot of interesting plot-type ideas in that game. It starts slow, but the payoff is definitely worth it!

leveling up is the staircase mechanism you're thinking. also: think gamist not simulationist.

We haven't heard anything since the beginning about the sounds of Project:Eternity. Can we get some monster noises up in here please? Thanks.

The point I was trying to get at though, was that KoDP's encounters/events weren't really scripted per se. They were random, yes, and a whole bunch of them were created, but it was emergent. What I mean by that is that there were enough variables and randomness in these events that it wasn't always necessarily going to go your way. I remember playing the same vision quest one save game right after the other, and sometimes I could go to the gods'plane and sometimes I couldn't. You could sway the decision in yoru favor, but it wasn't always absolute. Basically "you couldn't always do the same thing over and over again in every playthrough and get the same result." That was what I wanted. Most of the time, combat plays like this in cRPGs. There are so many variables and variation that players find the game fresh every playthrough or with every reload. I want "scripted events" to also play like this: too many variables to take account of and "controlled randomness."

socrates supposedly states that knowledge is just remembering what we already knew in the first place and that we may be merely "remembering" it again. so lephys, i think you're right.

how so? each attribute is class-specific and play as generalities regardless of talents. the examples i gave were ones i came up with, without much thought. the concept is more important than the specific examples.

there is another thing that they can do that may work with attributes. they can make a set of attributes that affect each class differently but all serve as important aspects of that particular class. For example: A warrior - master of weapons and melee fighter: str - ability to use weapons dex - ability to strike without missing int - ability to know where to strike opponent. increased critical chance. soul - ability to work soul-based damage const - hitpoints and stamina Monk - master of wounds and melee fighter str - damage modifier dex - defense modifier int - abillity to know where to strike opponent. increased critical chance. soul - ability to work soul-based damage const - ability to hold wounds for longer period of time before they are applied as damage wizard - magic user str - ability to equip weapons and armor dex - ability to not lose concentration or not have spell dissapate while casting int - damage modifier soul - knowledge of soul-based magic and ability to see enemy's weak spots. increased critical chance. const - hitpoints and stamina or something to this effect. the difference with this attribute-system is that it's class specific. you pick your class first and then you adjust your attributes to match what flavor of that particular class you'd like to play.

NO! I want my pacifier now! When's nap-nap btw?

So this idea stems from a few places. Initially it came up after reading this: http://sinisterdesign.net/toaster-repairman-the-strange-and-unfinished-evolution-of-rpg-character-creation/ It talks about how combat is the main emergent mechanic in most cRPGs and that is why the skills and game mechanics usually revolve around that. I started thinking about games where combat was not the main mechanic and King of Dragon Pass was what came to mind. I remembered how that game had a strong "events" mechanic where it almost seemed like emergent gameplay. If you apply the same concepts to a cRPG, could you come up with some emergent non-combat gameplay? I believe you can. Imagine that while traveling outdoors and when changing in between maps in P:E (or as you get reports from the stronghold while traveling), you have certain events that play similarly to events we've already seen that play in certain locations on the maps (the drake egg, or the bridge jump). However these events are more emergent, like those from King of Dragon Pass: where a certain number of events may or may not occur (as they are random) and they would play out like the single screen stories with certain options. You make decisions that either have immediate obvious effects or events that have consequences later (which are not so obvious). Each party member acts like the clan members from King of Dragon Pass which allows you certain options/choices. Then, each of these events may affect certain other mechanics either immediately or later (reduce your health in between map movements, make you use certain limited-use spells, make you lose coin, cause you to fight a battle, gain a treasure) or they may change the ending of the game or certain other options. Perhaps Obsidian has already thought of this idea and are planning on implementing it. If they haven't, they should think about it.

hmm good point. perhaps all attributes should have combat and non-combat applications. which brings me back to why do we need attributes in the first place outside of character creation flavor?

i didn't really understand what you said, but maybe this may clarify: all skills are both combat and non-combat. they are the same skills. Sawyer has said as much already, http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/478748375852797478

So that one character can take all the non combat attributes and dump the combat attributtes and the other characters will dump the non combat skills? If I understand your idea correct it would work for a single character game but not for a party game. well, i would assume that these attributes would work in concert with other mechanics. So for example, lets say you've got a group of goblins you have to fight. If you want you can fight them, sneak by them ,or talk them out of a battle, a character with a high story-mental attribute (possibility of winning a dialogue challenge) could step in and take a shot at it. but then he's got to know skill:languages to be able to talk with the goblins or maybe skill: item crafting to be able to craft a nice shiny object to give the goblins as a tribute, etc. if he's got story-creative attribute, he can get a few different options (i.e. chances) to do this. if he fails, then he would be pretty useless in combat (assuming he has low combat-oriented attributes), and the rest of the party sort of comes in and cleans up the mess. the idea is sort of a mish-mash of the D&D attribute system and the attribute system in King of Dragon Pass, where some attributes could come in handy for certain "challenges" that occur during the game.

http://www.fudgery.net/omnium-gatherum/lag.html

then i guess i'd have to say that there really is no point in having attributes in the first place. we have the talents and the skills in the game already. just make the attributes flavor for character creation. the game isn't going to be completely combat is it? there are aspects to the game that are more "adventure-based" and those should be reflected in what I see the attribute mechanic as: an over-arching system that deals with RPG content as a whole. basically that is what distinguishes an RPG from a MOBA or a RTS-based "RPG".

Wouldn't that be basically turning the "story-mental" attributes into "conversation winner" social skills? as the combat-output would turn the attributes into "combat winner" skills? yeah, i guess so. i haven't fully thought this out, but i just wanted to throw it out there. i don't think every attribute has to be combat-based is all i'm saying. but at the same time the devs have to make sure that the non-combat portions of the game are just as important as the combat portions of the game.

You know what I would like? I would like the attributes to play as a balance between non-combat and combat type attributes. Have a few attributes that affect your combat abilities and a few that affect the story you get and make them equivalent in how often they are "tested" in the game. So, very broadly, you have your Combat-output (damage output, magic output) attribute and your combat-input (health, stamina, constitution, etc) attribute. Then you have the story-mental attribute (charisma, intelligence, wisdom, how likely you are to be successful at a particular non-combat challenge) and story-creativity attribute (number of different choices you'd have during non-combat based challenges). it doesn't have to be specific to what i just described, but something that allows your characters to have a little more flavor than just combat-important attributes.

I find it particularly disturbing that someone who barely knows who you are is so easily willing to give his thoughts on so dangerous a topic as politics. While some countries have people who very easily talk about politics, most people (especially in those places where the populace are oppressed) are unlikely to come out and say something about any governmental action to a random stranger. Who knows if you're a government agent or not? It sounds a little weird when one of the many cultural idiosyncracies of the American population to be so free when speaking is placed in a game world possibly without the same freedoms. It is an assumption that the developers make which doesn't ring true for many who live outside the states.

HEY GUYS! GUESS WHAT! I found a website from Germany with leaked photos on Pro....wait what? Dang it!

B list actor/musician backers: Jack Backers