Hormalakh

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!

Thanks! Didn't know! I'd still like them to try to reutilize as many components as they can to make the crafting trees as deep as possible.

Yeah I agree. I don't think dumb ogres should be able to understand the fact that they're being kited. Or maybe they do, but they aren't sure what to do about it. Ultimately you probably could kite them even if they kept changing their targets. But a dragon or something smarter should know better than to keep kiting you. similarly, a moronic goblin might not know to call his friends while patrolling down the hallway, but I would hope a hobgoblin would know that it shouldn't ever attack a party all by his lonesome. Zelda did this with its goblins in skyward sword... see 4:30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbeoRK9r07Y&feature=youtu.be&t=4m30s

@Jive5k Yeah, I agree. As long as things are properly thought through, I don't have a problem. Being sensitive to others' cultures and how we portray them is obviously not what OEI is known for, and as gamers we shouldn't be promoting games that have thoughtless design when being inspired by these cultures. @Sophos - Apologies for the misunderstanding. I think we agree for the most part. I just don't think that this is meant to be a medieval European-styled fantasy. There will likely be multiple cultures within those areas. It will not really resemble Earth in the historical OR geographical/anthropological sense. Will wait to see more from developers though.

Of course, but it's heavily inspired by Late Medieval Europe, so blatantly East Asian elements still feel out of place. Now, that may not be a problem if there's a good explanation for it, but otherwise... It would seem like I disagree, but I completely agree with you. I don't have any issue with it being any certain culture as long as it's described correctly. But saying that a certain lore item or culture should be a certain way because "duh this is Europe" is not a reasoned argument for this game. At the same time, if we are to take from other cultures as our inspirations and incorporate them into the game, we have to be cognizant of our biases. Be it Irish influences, German, or Asian. I'm tired of stereotypes and poorly researched games.

It's not Europe nor is it medieval. Per the discussions here, we should change Sagani too. And the Vailians can't be Afro-italians. The time period is meant to be in the 1400's.

I think this is because the team for this game is going to be kept as small as possible.

Yeh and what crap DNF came out to be... I don't imagine they will wait forever because after all, waiting too long would mean that they're losing out on revenue.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...sorry I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop laughing. :D Thanks for that. Pika pee. Watch this and understand... http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6406-Think-of-the-Children

The job of any good production manager is to set deadlines. Everyone will hate him for it at first, and it's a thankless job, but someone's got to do it. I would just rather they push the deadline back now and deal with the moaning and groaning now as opposed to later. Waiting 15 months or waiting 18 months is still waiting. But waiting 3 months and having the game now doesn't go over so well with most people.

Not sure if ...

So then his skills should include persuasion. What do you mean when you say "martial artist?" Are you talking about kung fu, judo, tae kwan do, etc. Why not boxing, capoiera, sambo, systema (russian martial arts), pankration (Greek martial arts), krav maga, wrestling, and a whole lot of other martial art types? Fencing is considered a martial art. Why only martial arts as they are narrowly known from a cultural perspective? You see when we think of "kung fu" or "karate" as THE martial art, we have been biased to this way of thinking due to the hollywood-ization of these martial arts. If all the martial arts that I described are possible styles for our "monk" then why not call him a brawler? Why put your class in a certain fighting pose that screams "Chinese martial arts!" when speaking about martial arts? We have already culturally-constrained our class to that of "chinese martial arts." This bothers me. It doesn't fit the prototypical definition of a class. Culturally constraining a class might be fine when we haven't discussed subtypes or cultures of a race (as D&D didn't when it first came out). But when the game itself specifically has cultures and subtypes as a mechanic in the game, we cannot define all "monk martial arts" as narrowly as we have. If you want to call him a martial artist philosopher, I'm fine with that. But the devs and everyone else should know that our world contains hundreds of different martial arts, all highly influenced by their cultures. As long as they realize this and keep this in mind, and multiple martial arts styles are used, all dependent upon the "monk's" cultural background, I don't have a problem with it. although, then I would wonder why we wouldn't call him a brawler instead and even limit our classes less because we can have philosopher brawlers and non-philosopher brawlers.