Hormalakh

Interesting results so far. I have no idea what this all means, but it's interesting. Barbarians FTW!

Anyone play the game Jack Smith? I would like that as a mini-game. Check it out here: http://armorgames.com/play/14015/jacksmith

So make fighters have sub-class type abilities in early levels. Unarmed ans barbarian. Don't make a whole class, eh?

^then why define them as classes? make them subclasses. We really don't have this problem with chanters, ciphers, druids even though they could probably be described as "sub-classes" of wizard, wizard, and wizard.

As long as Obsidian truly "decides." As in, it becomes an actual decision-making process and not just "let's use what's been done in the past." A lot of the fears stem from the lack of thinking that has gone into making those classes in the first place. I really find the poll interesting. The two classes that have not been voted for are the monk and the barbarian. It's too early to tell, but the poll is indicating towards those classes needing some major "thinking about and decision making."

Why didn't you vote monk then?

Right. The point is to see which classes will get the most play. I want to see what classes people are excited about and which ones people aren't.

Changed. Thought it would be funny. Clearly, it wasn't.

Hello. Based on what we know AT THE MOMENT about the different classes and your previous experiences with other IE/D&D games, I wanted to know what class you will choose to play as a party first. A few rules: There will be no multi-classing, so pick only one. You have one class you can pick for your PC. You will be obviously picking up other companions to help fill out the required skills in different quests, so just think about the class for your PC. Do not consider what we know about the companions (which is absolutely nothing). If you are going to be playing a game filled with only your characters from the player house, tell me the class that you will be playing for your PC, the one you relate to the most. We only have descriptions given to us from OEI and what we know from prior IE games and table-top experiences. Limit yourself to that and don't say, "I'd play this class first if I know that they will have X and Y implemented for sure." No design input from players, no aspirations for your classes. This is the first play through, so no meta-gaming. Think about what's been important in previous experiences and what you've enjoyed playing in the past or what might be exciting for this first play through. Comment below with which ones make up your party and other thoughts. Let me know if you think the poll sucks and what I should do to change it before the editting window runs out.

Isn't it weird though that we define the core classes with one metric - how they fight - and then define another group of classes with another metric - that they are really melee fighters except they fall into a certain category (monk, barbarian, some could argue paladin)? It's like monks and barbarians should actually be subclasses of the core class, "fighter." The rest of what defines them caan come from the character and the equipment s/he wields. A barbarian would wield hide armor and double-handed sword and a monk would have no equipment. Then the dialogue options you choose would be related to your role-playing that certain fighter. A wizard, cipher, priest, rogue do not have these issues because they are defined completely differently. They are not defined by the equipment they carry or the character that they define. The reason I bring this whole thing up is because ultimately these classes (the monk and barbarian and maybe some others but to a lesser extent) will not be played in the game and are thus a waste of developer time. Yes, yes I know people play barbarians and monks. But why spend so much time and energy creating a whole new class when you could just fit them under the fighter class and add a few special abilities that describe those classes (barbarian rage is available for fighters and unarmed expertise too) and just play a fighter? Then when you want to be a barbiarian, you play a fighter with the special abilities of rage, you wear barbarian hide, and wield a double-handed sword. If you want to be a monk, play a fighter with the special abilities of unarmed combatant, don't wear armor and wield a staff or other amulets that give you armor class. You are effectively a "monk" through role-playing and an effective equipment/special abilities design. Why do we believe that monks and barbarians require a wholly separate class? Why are paladins a wholly separate class without just being priests that are good in combat? We get a little bit of that in the description (clerics are devoted to a god, paladins devoted only to a cause) for P:E. So, that's why I'm asking what defines a class. When we can describe how classes are defined and use one singular criteria to distinguish among all our classes, then we can truly flesh out what makes each class stand out. Otherwise, we've got monks and barbarians really being a subclass of fighter and paladins being a subclass of clerics. If they just give the special abilities to those larger roles, and make a few restrictions (you can't have barbarian rage and unarmed mastery at the same time) then what's the point of spending all this time creating wholly new classes? Edit: I've added a poll (in the general discussion forum because that place gets a whole lot more traffic) to make this same point. I want to see how many people actually play these classes that are "vague" for lack of a better term. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62349-what-is-the-class-you-will-be-playing-first-as-a-party/ I got the idea from monoka's link to that blog. Very good read.

I'm glad so many of you are taking up my question because I think that we're all hitting on pretty much the same thing: namely, defining a class isn't as easy as it seems and that a lot of implementations of classes has been done poorly in the past. And voila. I have found out why I hate the monk class just as much as I dislike the barbarian class. They've worked these classes into the game backwards. Instead of taking a broad approach of "what kind of job would be important in an adventurer's field?" and creating characters from that broad class, we've started to take specific characters and stretch them to fill entire roles. This is the same thing that has occurred with the monk. We've taken a very specific cultural application of a fighter and tried to stretch that role to fill in another complete role. It looks misshappen in our newly-created world. I know it's probably too late to propose this, but I really wished that the devs would take another look at these "vague" classes (barbarian, monk, ranger) and think about them some more and "rework" them (and maybe give them new names if needed). Then we have the somewhat-vague-but-better-sketched-out classes (druid, paladin, chanter) of which they're already - it seems - looked at one of them (the chanter) and made a few changes. And finally the "core-four-type" classes which are extremely broad and can have a variety of characters playing them (wizard, priest, fighter, rogue, and cipher) which really haven't ever needed any changes. Thank you guys for the very well-thought out comments! Keep them coming. They've been able to articulate points which I have been thinking but just haven't found the best way to say. Edit: That blog post was a great read mokona and I think the same criticisms work for the monk too.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned and has to do with video game based dungeons is telling the story of the dungeon through the art, loot, enemies. You don't need to hit the players over the head with what the history of the dungeon with a long drawn out exposition given by some guy who knows all there is to know about the dungeon. A lot of times, the way the dungeon is designed and the things that are shown tell a lot of the history of the dungeon, its beginnings, etc. I find that to be much more engaging than a long dialogue from the quest-giver. Generally, this usually isn't a problem for many dungeons, but I have seen a few terrible examples in the past and thought it was worth mentioning.

^ Or gremlins!

I like the idea of having racism in the game, but for Aumaua I meant more that I wanted them to actually have a violent, warlike culture which resulted in such a perception, rather than just being discriminated against due to their appearance. But if thats not the case, I suppose can content myself with playing a human or dwarf who just happens to also be an insufferable ****. Well, the primitive war-like culture might make them hated. Or perhaps it might be the "propaganda" usd by other races against them. "They're evil, bloodthirsty terrorists! Stay away!" Even though they really aren't, and are just trying their best to protect their homes from invasion.

Now that I think of it, I vaguely remember a sequence with Branwen and Xan in BG2. Was that by any chance the tutorial or am I hallucinating again? You really gotta lay off the weed. But yeah...Brandwen/Xan are in BG2's tutorial.

I don't think we'll have a "hated" race. Even orcs aren't hated by other orcs and "evil/lower-creatures. It doesn't make much sense to have one race take all the hate. I'd rather dwarves be hated on in specific places, humans, elves, orlans, and aumaua in other places, etc. Each one gets the "love"

YEah I'm not big into merchants in dungeons. You should go to a fight prepared, or be prepared to die.

^ Yeah. Especially if magic casters can also do melee damage (which is proving very likely). If wizards/priests/druids/ciphers/chanters can cast magic and fight with weapons, why would I want a regular fighter? What is he bringing to the table other than "can use melee weapons"? I think once they can figure out good legitimate reasons to be able to distinguish a fighter from a monk, paladin, barbarian and give viable reasons for why you would choose one over the other, then we're starting to get somewhere. I want fighters to be an actual viable option with abilities that other classes wouldn't provide.

The question then becomes where do we draw the lines betweeen the 9 classes? What distinguishes them? If they are mixes of these "skills" are all skills learnable by all classes? Do certain classes get "perks" for skills? Do they get special abilities that other classes don't? How can we make all the classes balanced so that each class is a viable choice? I know that we don't have everything set in stone in terms of classes: all we have are vague descriptions, but can you come up with your distinguishing abilities/skillsets that distinguishes them? So you're saying combat skills and non-combat skills don't define a class, but rather "class-specific skills" define them. Can you come up with 9 different skills that you think would do this? I'm assuming all classes can then advance down whichever combat and non-combat skills that they wish. Am I incorrect? i'm guessing this is similar to what Osvir said. Can you think of 9 different abilities that would distinguish the classes though? I like this idea. I'm not really clear on what you mean. What exactly are these progression metrics though? So do some classes get attack bonuses and others do not? Do some classes get more HP than others? Can you expand on this?

What do you guys think about classes from a games mechanics perspective? Should classes define very rigid borders between what a certain person can and can't do? For example, are rogues the only ones who can emply skills like pickpocket? Are monks the only ones who can fight unarmed? Are wizards the only ones who can employ spirit-based magic? Or are these classes undefined boundaries? Can a monk also learn some magic as well as thieving skills? Can a wizard also learn some ranger attributes? Can a barbarian also be partially a priest? If there are undefined boundaries, how undefined do we make it? Are some skills or attributes extremely rigid (priest spells ONLY for priests) and others unbounded (thieiving skills can be learned by any class) or is everything rigid/unbounded? These boundaries help players and the game world to be more/less rigid and help define our experiences. Thank you everyone for responding thus far.

I saw this article linked from another post and I really liked it and I thought it was good enough for even the designers to read. I have noticed that a lot of dungeons are really "simple" and this article talks about how to make your dungeons more organic and interesting. This is especially true with cave and sewer-type dungeons. http://thealexandria...ing-the-dungeon Anybody else have some good tips and ideas that have made your DMing experiences more fun? Anything you've seen other people do that has made your gaming experiences more fun?

I believe you need to contact Farudan.

The other problem that I haven't noticed anyone make is that if NPCs level up without you being there, they will be picking skills and other level up "feats" without your input, sometimes picking things that you wouldn't want. This happens in Arcanum where your NPCs level up their own stats without your input and can sometimes lead to annoying decisions where it wasn't the reason why you chose them as a companion in the first place. Too many fighters' skills not enough healing; too many pickpockets, not enough locksmiths, etc.

Nope never watched the mighty ducks. YEah I don't really like the bird-people either, but it would be nice to take features found on other animals and make them the distinguishing feature of a race, just like we do with elves(physique,ears) and dwarves(stature,beard) and orlan(ears,stature).

In my opinion, the tutorial as well as cutscenes should follow a few points: 1- It should be skippable. There should be a button that says skip; a spacebar shouldn't skip the cutscene as people who accidentally hit the spacebar or any other key would be quite upset to miss a certain part of the game. Skipping a cutscene as well as a tutorial should be purposeful. 2- Tutorials do not have to be a big chunk all the way at the beginning of the game. If there is a mechanic that comes in later in the game, then allow us to learn that technique later. Once again, skip the tutorial, if you want to either figure it out yourself or you've seen it before. Same with cutscenes. A lot of times, cutscenes are "rewards" to the players for having accomplished something. Keep them short, make them a useful and purposeful narrative mechanic. Don't go overboard. Make them skippable. http://penny-arcade....isode/cutscenes http://penny-arcade....e/tutorials-101