Hormalakh

You know, I'd agree with you if I hadn't seen mods to these IE games make the AI incredibly better. All these tactics mods to the Baldur's Gate games tells me that it's possible to be done. Perhaps Black Isle/Obsidian thought that we couldn't handle better AI back in the day? Well since this is a niche market, I'd hope that they work on a stronger AI this time. The problem with a lot of these scripts is that they were mods and so not built directly into the engine. That probably made them so much less efficient coding. I really hope that OEI takes a look at this once again and considers whether any changes would occur. At the end of the day the devs know more about this than we do.

Yes. I will die. Yes. This is the highlight of my day.Why do you want me to suffer?!?! Fine, fine. I'll stop asking every day....

Wondering if it's going to be today or tomorrow. Getting tired of hitting refresh....

The AI might not be "human" level, but we can do a little better than "IF (see X enemy) THEN (attack X enemy). " Throwing in a few more possible actions would be nice. Allowing enemies to communicate with each other can do a lot to make combat more interesting.

She honestly looks more human than a lot of the other fan art sketches I've seen out there. "Fantasy chicks" that look like barbie dolls.... I never understood how that worked out. The Sagani concept sketch was the same way too. Very human, "flaws" and all.

I just hope that magic isn't as OP as it was in some other games like Arcanum...

Personally I like the fact that she's "masculine." It shows her being stronger than the regular female. Wearing a plate armor and being a general badass...

If time limits are added, there should be ways to complete the quest at a disadvantage and include deeper win scenarios. People would get get frustrated otherwise. For example, if you run out the time limit to save a princess, the princess dies, but you get to find out who killed her and you can end up killing them. Basically you "sort-of" win, but it is not the optimal solution.

They (samoans) got some awesome tattoos. Samoan warriors especially. http://www.empowerne...oday’s-society/ Below is a song sung repeatedly by women to the men being tattooed. Friend, stop your wailing and moaning, That is not the pain of a sick person. That is the pain of a novice! Relax your body like giving up, Give in, o chief! Chorus:Ah, you suffer beneath the blows, Ah, till you fall asleep, And you are not tired nor weary of it! Soon you will receive your pretty chains of adornment As yet they are seperate and not joined; The necklace is still in pieces and not quite finished. Give in, o chief! But soon in the evening You will look at your tattoo Comparable to a fresh ti leaf. Give in, o chief! Ah, if it were a burden I would carry it for you in my love. O be quiet and give in, I will withdraw when the blows have fallen Give in, o chief! The stylet and the hammer strike, The colour is applied so that it may adhere. Give in, o chief! Like water flows your blood, Ah, I feel pity for your condition. Give in, o chief! But this is the custom ages old, You constantly moan, but I sing. Women must bear children, Men must be tattooed. And the tattooer will be struck by the trade wind. Give in, o chief! The necklace may break, the string may break But you tattoo will not break. This necklace of yours is permanent And will go into the grave with you Give in, o chief! http://www.samoa.co.uk/tattoos.html

Regardless of what aumaua look like I really hope it's based off Samoan mythology/culture. They just seem like they would be samoan. Some of those guys are big too...

I did play the BG2 game this year. Just finished Arcanum again too. I'm finally starting to play Planescape and I have no doubt that it was a good game. I think a big aspect of RPGs is the fact that you can create your character though, so while it helped PS:T, it makes games less RPG-oriented.

Evolution doesn't exist in fantasy worlds. LOL. Fine. Why did the gods make them this way? Whim and fancy? Also I wonder what kind of ears we'll see?

In developing our wizard spell lists, I'm trying to have a fair number of melee-range (or close to it) single target or small AoE spells with serious punch. As someone else mentioned, there's not much motivation to use spells like Shocking Grasp when the damage is so-so and you're at serious risk when casting them. Spells can be interrupted in PE, so wizards who want to cast spells at close range are more likely to wear heavier armor (but cast spells more slowly). The "traditional" mage in light armor sticks to long range spells and stays off of the front line. Personally, I also really want wizards to be able to slam enemies across the face with their grimoires. Finally! Melee magic worth the hitroll....

Clearly they don't have the concepts set in stone yet. Know what this means? We can influence their concepts. One thing I don't understand is this infatuation with the race's ears. Elves, for example. I want to know why the ears are so big? Is there a physiological reason for the big ears? Was there some sort of evolutionary advantage for this? Big floppy ears seem like they would be pretty big disadvantage, with the Orlans falling all over their ears.

^What he said. I think you just have an issue (why exactly, I don't understand) with rogues causing any substantial amount of damage. Could it be that the rogue has more "abilities" or "skills" that other classes don't have? If so, then we have to consider combat skills and non-combat skills for different classes and compare these.

Yeah that's exactly what I pictured too. That's crazy uncanny....

I would also like Forton to be a godtouched. We have way too many human companions. Edair, Cadegund, Forton.

I'd argue that kiting is actually the end result of RT implementations. The AI has to compete with player input, game state checks, some degree of sound/graphics processing* for a slice of each second. Each unit representing it's own AI. AI requires complicated algorithms to achieve good results, complicated algorithms require time and horsepower. So the AI in any RT system is going to end up with deficiencies simply because it's severely resource limited. Tossing some more processors at it helps, but ultimately, you end up bound by the amount of processing that can occur in around 1 second. Which isn't nearly as much as people think it is with AI, since AI generally consists of NP-complete problems. *While GPU's and hardware sound chips handle most of the processing on their own, the CPU still needs to process the triggers for the graphics at the bare minimum and depending on the implementation may process part of the job as well, older GPU's and on-board sound often require CPU resources during processing. That's absurd. Why is it then that other games like RTSs can employ effective AIs (at least better than these older games)? Those games are also RT. There has to be an AI in the first place for the processor to ... process it. Without a strong AI, you get these situations occuring. With a more robust AI, the game wouldn't allow for kiting. If the processor couldn't work fast enough, the game would slow down, but AI still wouldn't be as ridiculous as it is.

I've been thinking about this question and I have read some previous discussions/arguments erupting due to what I believe are disagreements in what a class should be defined as. The discussion on "Monks" and especially Forton has made me continue to think about this, and I wanted to see what Obsidian has to say on the matter: What defines a class? What makes one character in your world a different class than another character? From the definitions provided, they seem to be descriptions for a career path or a mental state that a character would be. But I can't be sure how exactly you are distinguishing between your classes. Are they distinguished by the skills they can have? By their combat styles? Philosophies or personalities of these characters? Any information on this would be really beneficial to us, the players. The reason I bring this up is because sometimes the distinction between classes are very vague, and often, different criteria distinguishes between classes (as opposed to a singular criteria effective across all classes). It's easy to distinguish between a fighter and a wizard, but the same criteria cannot be used to distinguish between a fighter, a monk, and a barbarian. The same thing occurs with a rogue and a ranger. Monks, especially, are the product of a philosophy fit into a combat style within a specific culture. No other class really is described this way. As I said in another thread, I hope the devs can articulate these distinctions to us and utilize one definition for the word "class" and define their classes by distinguishing between them through that singular lens so that a lot of these arguments between what a paladin or a monk mean can be better understood by us the players. D&D, because it is a game that has evolved through each new edition has had its definitions diluted, corrupted and sometimes made backward-incompatible, has made convoluted descriptions that are difficult to understand. When starting a completely new IP and gameworld, we do not have to work with these adulterated definitions. We should be clear about what we mean.

Hmm I don't think you understood the point of the 3x3. Have you played Starcraft? On the bottom right of the gaming HUD in taht game, they have a set of commands that you acn give to your units. These commands are laid out in a 3x3 grid and are also mapped to hotkeys.

I I can see what you're saying. Why not call them Martial artists then? There was a really long conversation about this back in the Monks thread too. I don't think we're going to get anywhere here. I would just rather they got rid of it and called them "Martial Artists" and not monks if we are describing classes as combat styles. Ultimately, I think this is something that Obsidian should really sit down and rectify. I also don't remember any "monks" in LOTR. Did I miss something? I read those books a long time ago.

They should implement some sort of "wait for a few seconds to see if choke clears up then push person out of way" implementation for pathfinding. It's what most people do in RL. You wait for the person to pass then follow along behind them, or you tell them to move out the way and go along your merry way. I think that pathfinding and a few other things should be player tested as soon as possible before the game comes out.

Soo...... when's the next update?! Edit: I miss the obesity thread.

Well the deadline was set before they ver thought they would have $4.1mil worth of game to deliver. When you expand so much in scope and depth, it's hard to keep a deadline (especially since they probably won't be expanding the team size too much).

I like the speed idea! Big cats and other fast land animals should be able to catch me fast even with boots of speed!