Hormalakh

What if Edair likes being clean? What if he frequents the taverns in the slums (wearing rich clothes don't make sense - he'd be robbed)? Why would he dress any differently than anyone else around him (that would bring attention to him)? How do you know that the common soldier's attire isn't what Edair is wearing? Perhaps all common soldiers are given that attire. Or perhaps he doesn't want to be known as a common solider. Maybe he wants to be seen as "that goofy guy that nobody bothers" and has nothing to steal. He's not a guard or anything, so... He's just the dude that comes to the tavern. Nobody knows him. Nobody cares. It's truly beautiful how low-key he is. He's quite well done. It's like the artist is playing mind games with us. He's the only guy in the image, and people just pass his image by and look at the next guy. It's like meta-awesome... I don't know how to put it... The artist has done a great job. (Did you notice that he's got a whip? I don't think a lot of people have noticed that.)

Yeah this has never been done before. Roll BG2 soundtrack...

Just call it Eternity: Tales from Dyrwood. Honestly, you know how Fallout got its name? http://thiscageisworms.com/2012/04/09/tim-cains-gdc-2012-talk-fallout/

Honestly...Edair exactly fits that description. I think you're looking at Aragorn from rose-tinted glasses. We have a bland looking guy without a personality to attach him to. Or are you asking for a scar across his face? How exactly would you make Edair unimpressionable but at the same time make him memorable? I think his memorable qualities come from when you deal with him in the game. I actually REALLY REALLY like Edair's concept. He's the guy you don't bother because he's bland. He's got nothing that strikes out at you. It's done so perfectly that you don't even want to add him to your party. It's beautiful...*sniff*

Fallout 1 had an awesome way of doing this. You walk in, the NPC says "Hey! Get out of my house!" Tarry too long, you get attacked. Have different doors to houses being either locked or unlocked. Then if you walk in and you see someone, bam "Get out of my house." Tarry too much longer, you get attacked. If the NPC runs away, you'll probably have guards on you soon enough. This can be done well. Knocking seems too much of just a single mechanic to stop thieving. There should be a more generalized mechanic dealing with this.

This is, I think, a problem with some of the classes and how they've been defined in the past. It's as if all sneaky characters have to be rogues, and all strong melee characters have to be fighters. We pigeonhole our characters quickly into "classes" and think that we aren't allowed to play them outside of those roles. We do know that PE is moving away from rogues being the only swiss-army knives in the game, i.e. they have all the skills, and other characters not having any skills. At this point, it's too early to tel lwhat Edair is like: I don't have his character sheet in front of me. But that doesn't mean that his class should be the only defining thing about him. We had a bit of a discussion about this here: http://forums.obsidi...efines-a-class/ As for how he can use his intelligence in battles: here is a great example from a comic that is based on PnP D&D, the Order of the Stick. http://www.giantitp....s/oots0808.html It's a big image, so I'm not going to post the whole thing here. Check out the link.

From the AMA a while back, we have this: http://www.reddit.co...nd_josh_sawyer/ hopefully that's helpful.

I forgot they already had that bit down in their design. I think it's a bit unfortunate. "Unassuming man who keeps a low profile" sounds much more fitting for a ranger/ rogue. Unassuming basically means he's of average physical build, at best. Keeping a low profile means he's not the drunken revelry or fight-picking or outspoken type. Together that doesn't bode well for a fighter; it would force him to remain rather bland. I hope they reconsider that part. Personally I imagine him as someone who prefers loneliness and the wilderness because he's not very socially apt and given to angry fits, as well as maybe having an agenda that requires solitude. He usually stays away from crowds but if he enters a tavern he drinks himself into a stupor and picks fights. Rage is barbarian territory of course, but still. Perhaps that's their way of turning a trope on its head. Who says all fighters have to be loud, brawny savages? A class doesn't define your personality, while a personality can help guide you towards a class. The two should be distinguished, and I actually like what they've done with Edair.

I don't think a race can be defined as savages. The way I like to see this is that we can have these kinds of "Aumaua" as well as these kinds of "Aumaua" as well as these kinds of "Aumaua" . That is to say that the race doesn't define the culture in isolation of other factors. The race plays a part of the overall culture in which we find the Aumaua. I know that the above pictures are of orcs, please, you don't need to tell me. It was used to illustrate an example.

Hey Rob, I would be interested in how you or your artists would best welcome our feedback in the art? Would you like us to put up pictures that we think could influence your art direction, or would you rather we opine on what you come out with yourselves? There have been quite a few threads with images meant to help/influence the artists on these boards. I want to know what is most helpful for you guys? Is there another way that would be welcome? P.S. Obviously I don't think we're going to take over art direction, but many of us -as is obvious- have opinions that we'd like to share. I'm just wondering what the best way, in your opinion, is to share it. What would you find helpful and -other than obnoxious feedback- unhelpful?

The thing is that they all are from the same part of the world: the Dyrwood. I know we want diversity in our games, but a lot of us want for things to make sense too. We don't need diversity just to have it. I'm a little conflicted about this: I want the world to be big and diverse, but each people should have their own place. Unless Dyrwood is some sory of "America" or late "Rome" where peoples of all cultures go to find a better life, it makes sense to try to stick to one culture per place. Also, the Vanicians are Afro-italians - so there will be that.

I don't think low-level design decisions like that have been made. The big decision made so far is that it'll be two-bar i.e. stamina and health.

I don't think that they've nailed down the Aumaua lore yet. But good points.

Tigers are truly majestic creatures. Here's an image of a guy wwho tried to make himself a tiger: The website I found it on is a little disturbing, so I warn you. Warning: Disturbing http://thevelvetrock...ess-part-2.html

Ohh that one kind of looks like a demon.

Which you do know is a play off of Bill Gates right? Stole the technology of another, made millions? I love that game...

Honestly, my feeling about monsters is this: Let's have as many as we can put in there, with one very big disclaimer. Since this game is in a completely new universe, I would hope that the monsters would tell part of the story too. A lot of times, the story can be told straight through exposition and dialogue, but especially in a game/interactive media, you can utilize other methods of telling your story. Just like some games utilize the backgrounds and settings to tell part of the story, I would hope that the monsters could do the same. We have the beginnings of such a thing with the biamhac (wind spirits) but I'd like as much of the monsters to tell part of the story as possible. If there are goblins in there, why are there goblins? What's their history? Where did they come from? Why are they there? And so on and so forth. We don't have to be given an exposition for each one: perhaps the places that they can be found, the items found nearby, the setting that they're in can help tell that story too, but ultimately they should feel like they belong in the universe. I know this is difficult to do with a large bestiary, so it might be nice to get a couple of them fleshed out and perhaps we can know about the other monsters in a later game. This is what I think Fallout did quite well. Each monster found in the game had a reason to be there: it wasn't always immediately clear why they were found in the universe, but there was always a reason.

I don't necessarily think that either mechanic for crafting is the best method. There was a thread a while back about other possible mechanics, but I don't think it went anywhere at the end. In either case, I didn't completely like BG2's mechanic because it was a little unwieldy, having to wait for the dwarf (can't remember his name right now...Cromwell?) to go through your stuff one by one and clicking next next next. I haven't played NWN2 and so I can't make a judgement about that. I have played Arcanum and I liked the approach that they were starting to take.

I was under the impression that it's a burly Auamaua, not a fat little Orlan? Can someone clear this up? Semi is different than demi. Semi can mean "half of" whereas demi means .... "half of." :D Except demi usually is speaking about a quality and semi can be used to describe a physical attribute. Demihuman would mean half-human in quality. Semihuman could mean midget. :D The Aumaua/Orlan thread was where a lot of us tried to come up with good resource images for the artists to use as guides/inspiration for their characterizations of these two races. Just thought I'd let you guys know, in case you were wondering what the rest of the forum members had already written about.

I'm not a big advocate of making everything optional: some mechanics should not be optional and also worked so that players find it fun. I don't think that this issue is a matter of gamers having wildly divergent opinions. It's a matter of not having found the better solution where all gamers can agree.

I think the dual-bar system isn't so complicated as to make gaming unfun. I do appreciate the new approach to previously broken systems - and I do think the health bar/dialogue systems are broken (everyone has their own opinion) - and I find that it will definitely make players play differently. The thing that I appreciate the most is that Mr. Sawyer is actually approaching everything from a perspective of "Is this broken? Do we need to fix it?" as opposed to unthinkingly restoring every single prior game mechanic that the rest of us are used to. I have a feeling that many of us, the gamers, are hesitant for change when it comes to game mechanics because we are familiar with the old and the new can seem daunting at first. Few people like change.

@Hattmannen Josh Sawyer has spoken about this before: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62556-the-man-said-its-not-so-bad-to-have-some-fun/#entry1284917 I'm not advocating against humor; I'm advocating against the game becoming either too ridiculous to take seriously or too much of a meta-game of the forum. @Ieo I actually like the fact that there is no railing; the setting is supposed to be the high middle ages. I don't really think that the historical period is known for its dedication to "safety." It actually helps to show that the time period and universe aren't just "safety first!" and is a little bit more gritty.

Welcome to the boards. I'm not usually a buttface. It's just we've heard about Minsc a lot...

From Sawyer Edair is an ordinary guy, but Edair is not indicative of all characters. He isn't designed the way he is because I think "that's cool", but because it fits his character. He is an unassuming man who tries to keep a low profile. Other wilder/more exotic/unusual characters will be available (and you can make them on your own). We started modeling Edair first in part because he is a very straightforward character. The problems we are trying to solve in modeling are not related to how cool the character can look, but to how we have to build and export characters in Maya, then into Unity. For such purposes, often the more straightforward characters are better because they're "neutral". Chain mail and leather not make you hop out of bed and scream OWOOOOOGA! but they're things we're pretty likely to have to create and they pose actual challenges for us when it comes to building and rendering it. Someone compared the painted portrait of Sagani to the line art of Sagani. You can certainly compare them, but they're made for different purposes. Line art drawings like the ones Polina has done will probably never appear in the game. They're made as reference. Any coloring done after the fact is mostly just to give a sense of volume to the character and his/her gear. The painting of Sagani is a great portrait and we'd like all of our portraits to be that good and in a similar style -- but no one is going to build Sagani from the painting of her. She's in a cool pose with a determined expression, but you're mostly looking at her back and side. I understand that people want to see more art, better art, and more unusual art. We will make it. It has always been our intention to do so, but a lot of the problems we're trying to solve right now are logistical, not quality-related, and while paintings like the one of Sagani or even the wallpaper of the whole party are exciting and beautiful, they don't necessarily help us build the game right now. Thanks for all of your feedback. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491414&page=167

Ohhh Ohh! Rob like my comment too! Edit: Awww