Hormalakh

If you want to make a spells list, you want to break them up into logical classes AND add hotkeys to those categories. The colors don't matter at that point. ToEE was mentioned, that was one possibility. Being allowed to cast spells as they are organized into logical categories makes more sense than red,white,green. Arcanum also had something like this. 8 colleges, 5 spells each (even though per the game there would have eventually been more spells with Arcanum2). You could, once you knew the colleges, figure out what spells to expect in each college, with the increase in spells being more "awesome." So you'd pick the college, then the level of the spell. Easy to HOTKEY, easy to remember. We also have grimoires, so this should also be taken into account. Not sure how they work exactly, but they should be easily organized and HOTKEYED to quickly cast a spell with a succession of either keystrokes or mouseclicks. Once more for posterity: HOTKEYED. See my signature for more information. Hotkeyed.

Minigames are OK as long as they don't affect the main storyline IN ANY WAY. Lockpicking? No. You need that to proceed (without bashing in every chest, etc). Trap finding? No. If you need crafting to proceed, then no. If there are a few items that can be crafted with a mini-game, then fine. But otherwise no. Mini-games work as challenges for the players who are interested in them. Puzzles are mini-games too. But you shouldn't need them to beat the game. The other issue is re-using the same mini-game over and over again. Imagine playing the same puzzle over and over again. It's already lost its charm after the first time. Mini-games are the same thing. After having to lockpick the same lock the same way over and over again, it goes from becoming an interesting mini-game to grinding. Even "improving" the locks is the same thing. Sooner or later you're going to spend more time developing a fully-fleshed out mini-game (like Bejeweled or something) inside the game to make up for the fact that the mini-game is becoming boring. That's dev time taken away from the RPG. For those of you interested in playing mini-games, you can play bejeweled or something everytime you need to open a chest. When you beat the level, you can go ahead and pick the lock. Otherwise, you just move on. Let's see how fun you find that after the 30th locked door or chest. A few short mini-games for special, one-time things is not a problem. Continuous mini-games are a bad way to introduce grinding into the game.

The only thing agreed is that nothing is agreed. We're talking about RPG gamers here.

Also wanted to talk about certain status changes affecting AI. Fire, Acid, etc and enemies reacting to status changes effectively. Trying to put out the fires of their allies, etc.

Interestingly, the classes chosen to be played first thus far by ~180 people has barbarian, monk, and priest as the least played. This might mean something. It might not.

For anything you'll be doing innumerable times in a game, a mini-game is a bad idea whether it's 10 seconds long or 10 minutes long. The game will get stale after the first 3 times you play it.

While I liked Arcanum's crafting system for the most part, I felt that it was very different than anything a P:E would have. If you consider item crafting in Arcanum as the technological counterpart to spell-casting, you'll see that it was created to be an integral part to playing the game. The crafting mechanic was ultimately a spell-casting mechanic that utilized ingredients instead of mana. This explains the "either magic or technology" mindset in the game. Now, unfortunately, we don't have a technologist class in P:E, and this would not work. This should be something to consider when dealing with crafting as a mechanic. I agre that it should intregrated as best as possible into the game, but at the same time it should not become a necessity. If it's either magic or tech then that could be a possibility (certain classes are less likely to use magic but more likely to be proficient in technology) but we cannot exactly replicate Arcanum's mechanic into this game.

Time and lifespan are a person's perception of time is very very subjective. Many people live to only being 60 or 70 and gain wisdom in that time, but feel like they've only been on Earth for the blink of an eye. Others live only until 30 and live a very fulfilled life. Others live till they're 80 and are just as ignorant and unfulfilled at 80 as they were at 20. What I'm trying to say is that time flies and, perspectively, is as much a function of your memory as it is about how well you lived your life. How many of you remember your first time playing an IE game as if it was yesterday? Maybe for some of you it was yesterday, but for a lot of you the first time might have been some years ago.

Saying something "is childish" is childish.

If its a bug, no. Obviously.

I sort of agree with this. I think it's better if races are only loosely confined by their innate abilities, and are more individual than we usually see. A racial group might have a certain history and reputation as per racism, but it shouldn't be confining as it usually is. I sort of agree and sort of don't. When 'race' amounts to elves and dwarves rather than skin color, the implication is that these are entirely different species. A dwarf isn't a vertically challenged human. A dwarf is a dwarf. The same goes with an elf or any of the other races. When you remove 'racial concepts' entirely, all you've got is a bunch of humans divided by how pointy their ears are or how tall they are, which is pretty boring. Which isn't to say 'likes to drink ale, speak in a Scottish accent and use an axe or warhammer' should be an in-born dwarven trait, or that there shouldn't be members of a race who stray well outside the norm. It is merely to say that there should be some commonalities in thought and behavior between members of a certain race to remind us that these races are not just humans with minor physical differences. This is where knowing biology and physiology can really help. Being able to know how races are distinguished in the animal kindgom can help you come up with truly well-thought out racial creatures. A very basic example is the horse, the donkey, and the mule. These are all horse-like creatures, but have truly different physiologies and biologies. In fact, the horse and donkey mating create the mule, a creature that while a hybrid cannot reproduce. Imagine a world where half-elves are sterile. Or half-dwarves.

so you're saying you're a race traitor?

hey man, whatever floats your life raft... Ideally, I'd like a whole party of frail nerds. In the IE games I liked to go with 4-5 mages at a time. And you could do so because mages were kinda OP. Now try going 4-5 bards. that would be quite a feat.

^Right... it's an abstraction. And it doesn't have to do with brain or computer processing power. It has to do with not having us being bored to death everytime our characters need to relieve themselves or sleep or anything else that's mundane because duh realism. These are artistic choices the developers make to make certain parts of the lives of our adventurers stand out and other parts to fade into the background of oblivion.

Uhh the first 3d perspective game I played was the first game I ever played. It was called Wolfenstein 3D. IF that game isn't archaic then I don't know what the heck you're talking about. OR rather, you don't know what the heck you're talking about. Perspective became an artistic choice before it became "archaic."

Wow. I'm positively shocked at the results so far. Nobody wants to play priest. Well about 2% do. Why are the priest choosing people most excited about playing them that the rest of us aren't seeing?

^That's the goal. But how to do this is the problem.

This is exactly my intention when starting this thread.

It wasn't my intention to have an "attitude" towards certain classes. My main point was that I wanted people's perspective on how we define the term classes and whether we can apply this definition in distinguishing between the classes given (from fighter to monk to wizard to cipher) by applying mechanics that follow this definition. That's all. The main idea tha tI've gotten back that seems to make the most sense is that classes are defined by special abilities. If that is the case, then magic casting is a special ability as is whatever a fighter does and whatever a monk does. Because many people define the "special abilities" as what distinguish classes, then we should apply this definition not only to the core-four, but also the rest of the players. Unless we say the core-four have one set of definitions and the rest of the classes are a "core-four plus special abilities" subset. Does that make sense?

Well well, what an interesting first person to pick to do your developer interviews. I now know the name of the person responsible for the either the amazing or extremely poor AI in P:E. Mr. Weatherly, please make sure you look at this thread and learn from the mistakes that BG and its ilk have made. Magic isn't the only place you need a robust AI. http://forums.obsidi...w-not-to-do-ai/ Read it, internalize it, and make us proud. I really don't want to be screaming your name to the heavens when I play P:E. "Weatherlyyyyyyy!!! Where are my smart hobgoblins?!?!?!" Make me remember you as the first guy who did a fantastic job implementing AIs in fantasy RPGs. Sincerely, An AI enthusiast

Some people want to watch the world burn... In other news, I find it interesting that there are currently about the same number of people (taking into account the fact that this poll is highly not scientifically accurate) wanting to play a core-4 class (priest) as there are wanting to play a class which, for lack of a better explanation, has players who can barely utilize the forum (barbarians). I wonder if this is part of the problem with priests or if paladins are just thought of as "priest + fighter"? Obsidian will probably have to think about the priest's role in this game a little bit further to make it as exciting a class to play as the cipher. Everyone wants to be Poirot....

What is wrong with you?

Only 52 people voted. Out of 70-something thousand who have backed the game. The numbers are too low to be a reliable predictor. Let's get like 500 people to vote then we'll maybe get a better idea. Maybe barbarian players don't know how to use the forum?

Finally! Some answers to the questions I've been asking.

YES Well I'm satisfied. I feel fulfilled and loved and basically a real human being now. Without you and the rest of the devs acknowledging my existence, how would I be validated as a person?