Hormalakh

Curses should be applied to the person, not the weapon. That is to say if a cursed berserker sword of +3 was wielded, the sword could be unequipped, but the curse remains with you. You still go on berserker rampages until you apply a remove curse spell regardless of what weapon you use. The curse reapplies itself each time you wield that weapon. There should be items like the cursed belt of gender change (or whatever its called) should be unequippable until after the curse has been removed. More than one way to apply a curse, and generally speaking curses should be applied to the person. What do you think?

I actually really liked what someone else said here on this thread and wanted to expand on it. Firstly, I don't like either 2-8 or 2d4 or any variation of that. I played old IE games for many years without understanding exactly what those meant and I hated it. It was too complicated for me. My proposal. Make the whole thing have a range, but base damages on probabilities that are skill-based. For example, you have a sword that does a damage range of 2-12 fatigue points, and 1-3 health points. Then you utilize both randomization and probability. This post requires some understanding of probabilities so go here if you don't understand what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia....on_distribution At a low character skill, you have the same range-distribution (2-12/1-3), but at a lower-mean for a Poisson distribution. Therefore, while you are likely to hit with 12/3, it is extremely rare. It is more likely to hit with a 2-4/1 range than anything else. At a medium character skill, again you have the same range-distribution (2-12/1-3), but at a gaussian/normal distribution. Therefore, you are just as likely to hit 12/3 as you are 2/1, but you are more likely to fall in the median range of 6-8/2. At a high character skill: again, same range-distribution (2-12/1-3), but at a Poisson distribution with a high median around 10/3. Thus, much more likely to hit at higher ranges. For those who like pictures, here are the differences. The abscissa (x-axis) is the fatigue hit and the ordinate (y-axis) is the probability for that. I didn't graph the hit-point damage. You can then also have different weapons with the same range-distribution, but with different coefficients of variance. So maybe at medium skill one weapon is more likely to have a wider variance than another weapon. http://en.wikipedia....al_distribution What do you guys think?

Well, if they internalize the skill check before giving you dialogue options, then you shouldn't have a case where your low intelligence character gets a high-intelligence dialogue option. But it should also work the same way the other way: a high intelligence option should only be available if your character is high intelligence. Since you don't need [dumb] as a tag for low intelligence, you shouldn't need [smart] as a tag for high intelligence. What I don't understand is, is why it's OK for combat to be a difficult tactical, strategy based issue, but dialogue and other aspects of the game have to be as easy as possible? If you're not willing to sit and read through the dialogue options and think about it, then just play a fighter. Always answer with "argggg you die now" and take it to combat, and leave the diplomacy to those of us who actually want to enjoy thinking about what is the best thing to say. Tags ruin this sort of thinking for me. ------ for those of you who didn't understand what I wrote up there: [intimidate] If you don't let me play this game without tags, I'll be angry. [intelligence] Something about dialogue being a tactical choice just like combat is. [wisdom] this joke tl'dr for those of you who really don't like reading and understanding but want to play an old-school RPG.

They could be found on coastal areas. Kind of like sahuagin from D&D. Sahaugin die within a day if they can't immerse themselves in water. You could change it to lizardfolk, but their primary advantage is a thick hide: you don't need an aquatic race for that. ... and coastal areas don't have any water nearby? I don't see your point. The party travels a day's march from the sea on a quest. Your aquatic companion dies. The point is that an aquatic physiology is at the minimum not a benefit, and possibly even an encumbrance, for a non-aquatic campaign. If there are balancing factors then that would be fine. But an aquatic nature in and of itself usually isn't useful unless there is swimming involved. Bring along a fishbowl. Or a lot of water canisters.

Yes. This! Remember that we're talking about a "race" here, not a culture. Races should be physiologically different from humans, elves, dwarves. Each race will have different cultures. So humans have multiple cultures. Elves multiple cultures. Dwarves multiple cultures. So aumaua should have a varied number of cultures. They shouldn't all be coastal fishermen. There should be some living in cities (even one or two). Physiologically describing these races might be better than trying to describe their culture. Do they have fins? Wings? Arms? Are they primarily land-dwelling, sea-dwelling, amphibians? How does their musculature work? Body type similar to a human? Humanoid? I would expect this to be the case just so they can wear armor and wield weapons, but imagine if this race didn't use armor or weapons. What if their bodies could change to becoming more armored, and their claws could be magically infused as they level up? Just a thought. I've always hated how every viable race is a bipedal-humanoid. It doesn't make sense for reptiles (from a physiological perspective) to evolve into a biped race even if they do become intelligent. I don't see enough quadruped races out there. Biped or quadruped? How do they make sound? Through vocal cords similar to humans? Do they only roar or utilize acting to make themselves be known? Languages would fall under a cultural setting, so there should be several languages. Are they as a species able to breed with humans/elves/dwarves? Are their children fertile or infertile (a la real-life mules, a hybrid of a horse and a donkey)? Grip strength? Do they have hands, talons, claws? Are they as dextrous as human hands? Feet, hooves, talons? Kangaroo-type reproductive organs (which would be cool) or mammalian organs (mammary glands, etc)? What about laying eggs or giving live birth? We have mammals that do both (see Australia). Skin tones/colors/texture? Scales? Cold-blooded or warm-blooded? Internal heat generation or heat gained from external sources? (Might make a difference for fire/cold resistances.) Any other unusual physiological attributes not shared with humans/dwarves/elves?

It wwould be nice for those players who didn't want to beta test but got it anyway (higher tiers) to pass on those opportunities to people who would beta test and actually make the game better for it. That rare individual.

If I'm going to beta test. I'm going to treat it like I was a QA guy. I'm going to try to break the game and tell them where the bugs and mechanics issues are. That's the way I'd do it. I'd treat it like a stress test. See in what ways I can break the game. So no day 0 patches for bugs that beta players didn't find.

Puzzles are a staple of any good RPG. Not liking puzzles is liking RPGs only for the acting.

The discussion is about two very different kinds of [tags], and it should be clarified which ones we are talking about. There is the [skill] tag, which tells you that a certain dialogue option exists solely because you have sufficient skill in a certain area (intelligence, wisdom, persuasion). There is also the [narrative] tag, that tells you either the intention of the character's words. These two are very different. One, often-times, stands in as a "insta-win" button, while the other might not necessarily be the best choice in a dialogue tree. An example might help elucidate this. Guard: Did you see who killed this peasant? You: Option 1) [Persuasion] Why worry yourself about a simple peasant? You are more important than this, etc. Option 2) No officer. I'm just travelling through. Option 3) [Lie] Yes officer. It was that evil adventuring party that I really hate over there. While option 1 is blatantly the best option since you have a good chance of knowing that it is effective in getting the guard off your back, it isn't clear which is the better option between 2 and 3. Maybe with option 2, the guard pulls you in for further questioning and option 3 saves you from having to kill the city guards. Or maybe option 2 saves you from a battle with the adventuring party who clear themselves. The point is that a [narrative] tag doesn't appear as an "insta-win" option. It merely guides the player toward understanding the PC's internal reasoning for a certain dialogue. Of course, there are other narrative tags except for [lie]. There might be [threaten], [coax], [tell truth], etc.

But there is no requirement that you be a "best friend" of someone to be a companion/ally. You can be a hireling. You can be following someone else because their agenda aligns with your own. You can be following someone else out of a feeling of debt. Myriad reasons. But none of them have anything to do with how many people are already around. None of those things would require me getting rid of any one character just to bring in any other character. That is purely a matter of balance and manageability. Per the dev team, there will be occasions where you might have more than 6 people who are "following" you, but those are for a limited period.

Eh not really. The way I see it, is that even in real-life, many people only have a few really close friends and allies that they would be willing to place their lives in their hands. Some people have a few more close friends than others, but usually you don't have a horde of people who you are willing to call "good friends/allies/companions." It's always a select few. Some prior RPGs have made companion limits based on a player's charisma. This is an abstraction of real-life. Six-man limit might be slightly arbitrary (why not seven or eight or five?) but as a general rule it follows what people would accept as a realistic possibility. It's not entirely arbitrary. Edit: the other thing I noticed is that some people consider the PC's party in different terms. Some call them followers. Others call them companions. I think companions is closer to what they are than "followers."

The point is that companions shouldn't be some sort of mindless, life-less quest option for you to finish and do away with. Companions should be just that, people who are by your side from the beginning to the end, through thick and thin. It's supposed to make players think a little more about why companions follow the PC and what they're willing to put up with. I understand this is a game, but a game with a well-thought out series of companions that act life-like makes the game that much more interesting. I truly do understand the perspective of players who want to be able to experience every companion (and the rest of the game) with the first play through - what some people call "power-gaming." It's how I play most of my games. But there have been those games where they've tried to minimize this sort of thing, and I've appreciated it. It's made me want to replay the game to further experience those aspects that I haven't. It's makes the world richer and deeper for it. Treating your companions like some sort of chattel should make the player feel guilty. Or at least fully think about that decision. That's what a thought-provoking game like this should do.

Exactly. It only took 3 pages of comments but someone finally explained what I could not. Yes this is exactly what I'm talking about. Thank you for being able to articulate my poorly worded question.

You could completely leave out "identify" as a spell, and ultimately only have a "detect magic/spirit" spell, that tells you if a sword is magical/enchanted. Otherwise, the equipment looks like all the other equipment. There would be no way for you to actually know if anything you got was enchanted unless you use that spell. Once you use that "detect magic/spirit" spell your enchanted items change their visual icon. Those with the proper lore no longer need to identify that equipment. Once they know it's magic/spiritual" a high lore tells you what it is. Otherwise, you can't know - you equip it and wish for the best. Or find a really ancient dude with a lore-score that's over 9000. eh, it's an idea. I don't really like it, but I don't hate it either. Mix and match it with other ideas given above and you might come up with something interesting, and that isn't actually a chore.

Uh, kinky? WOW... I didn't even mean it that way. I was talking about my sword. I don't think street fighting works well in a world filled with swords and guns. Let's lave martial arts to the crazy kungfu monks that don't really exist...

I think that there are plenty of places for the devs to get inspiration from. Since this game has been partially celtic/gaelic in its introduction, why not delve into celtic mythology for some monsters? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_mythology#Mythology_of_Ireland Hag of the Mist - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hag_of_the_mist Banshee - an Irish mythological spirit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee Changeling, Sheeoge, pooka (irish goblins) and other irish fictions - http://www.libraryireland.com/LegendaryFictionsIrishCelts/Contents.php/ Other inspirations have been from Italian, so I looked up some ancient italian mythology. Etruscian mythology is quite varied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Etruscan_mythological_figures Graeae - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeae Iynx - Etruscan bird of love http://books.google.com/books?id=hQtbJyFCd40C&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=Iynx+etruscan&source=bl&ots=QIts6Hrsog&sig=hrvOBfRjmxCsWonHOnJPonKN2gA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bGOLUPXaJpTa8wTkiIHIBg&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Iynx%20etruscan&f=false Lasa - class of goddesses Looking at some renaissance (since this is based in 1500's) monsters: we find the werewolf, the vampire, etc - http://books.google.com/books?id=UioYzDnNvecC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=renaissance&f=false Gargantua and Pantagruel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gargantua_and_Pantagruel Dr. Faustus a classic, has our old friends, the demons, devils, etc. Mephistopheles, etc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Faustus_%28play%29 And to not forget the old roots, let's also look at Beowulf. Grendel Grendel's mother The dragon http://ldolphin.org/cooper/ch11.htm

Your dude comes in for the grapple. I poke him with my stabby stick. *poke poke*

So what're your thoughts. Should we have typed-in riddles or no? What about riddles that need numbers as answers instead of words? Algebra anyone?! :D :D :D I really liked the genie question from BG2 when you enter's Kalah's circus in Athkatla. That was a great (and tough!) riddle. I actually tried figuring it out once using math and it took me a good 5 minutes I really liked it. There are also some riddles that aren't "what is the word that describes my definition?" type riddles. There are ones where the answer can be found in the world, but you have to find the paper. Baldur's Gate 2 had another one similar to this: it was the human skin armor quest. The answer could be solevd from the letters that the tanner gives you but once you knew the first three or four letters, it didn't matter what the rest of the puzzle was because you could always "game" the multiple choice questions into figuring out which was the right one. So, to conclude, if it's a definition type riddle, that's fine, keep it multiple choice (but give us lots of choices), but if it's a number riddle or a riddle where the letters matter and you need the in-world items to figure out the clues, then make those typed-in! P.S. I really recommend you guys to play the old Might and Magic 3:Isles of Terra game. It does a really good job of this "typed-in" riddle. Almost all the answers can be fond in-game (there are a few that are practically impossible) and I think PE could have a similar application. The questions aren't definition-type riddle questions. The riddles are thing that you needed to have read somewhere else in-game (for the most part).

Eh.... ultimately there should be someone prodding you in the world. Otherwise, why am I even playing the game and doing the quests? I'm just going to go get my stronghold and lay back. That's what my lazy character would want to do. Why would I sacrifice blood and sweat and tears if I don't have someone being a thorn in my side? Haven't played FO:NV so I can't say how that works out in terms of character motivations. Ultimately, there should be an antagonist, but an antagonist doesn't always have to be a person.

Yeah I have a post about this in game engine and widgets. Ideas: -Turning a "page" (spell book, character sheet, book reading, etc) should be able to be done with "up/down" or "pgup/pgdn" keys. Make this consistent and just use the same function for it every time. - Customizable hotkeys. - Make casting magic facile by using intuitive hot key methods (e.g. hit "C" for cast, then another letter for the school of magic -"S" for summoning for example, then a third letter for the spell-type - "F" for fire elemental, for example = C,S,F -> cast "summon fire elemental") - allow us to quickly find a party member by hitting the # corresponding to party hierarchy (1 is first member, 2 is second member, etc). hitting that number twice centers the map on the party member. Or if this is being used for quickslot, allow us to use Function keys to do so. - Allow skills to also use hot-keys. Use similar methodology to spell casting (e.g. S,T,P -> skills, thievery, pickpocket or S,P -> skills, pickpocket, etc) - Allow arrow keys to move map - Don't use Esc to go to main menu. Use esc to go out of 'current page' if in inventory or something. - Make hot-keys battle ready, that is to say that allow an expert player to play with one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. All combat type skills should be on left side of keyboard. (see starcraft) - Quickslot keys. -Multiple keystrokes are not a problem. Utilize them.

I loved 80's games. Like I said, it would be nice if it could be an option you can add/remove before you start a new game, like path of fury or ironman mode. Another possibilitiy is to make it data-driven, so that any localizer can make the necessary adjustments. Especially if you think more than one answer should work. Also, you can update riddles every so often with fan-made "mods" that change the riddles for you. You have a file called "riddle.dat" or something, where you can adjust riddles' translations as well as add in riddle answers that you think should also work. This shouldn't be *that* hard to do. Just throwing out ideas.

So I've been playing and replaying some of the older IE games and some other cRPGs these past few months and I've noticed that a lot of the riddles in the games are riddles that I couldn't remember the answers to many years later. I thought it was good fun having to figure out the answers again. However, as soon as I looked at the answer choices, the solutions were simple enough. All I had to do was pick the right choice (or reload and pick the right choice (or reload...)). Anyway, it would be nice if either on hard difficulty or as a game option, we would be able to type in the riddle answers instead of picking from a dialogue option. Might and Magic III:Isles of Terra is the only game I've played where I could/had to type in riddle answers through keyboard and I really enjoyed having to figure out the solutions. Anyway, it's worth bringing up. Computer AI is nowhere near being able to accept dialogue that is typed, but at least we can do a simple IF (typed answer) = "actual answer" THEN correct() ELSE incorrect() for riddles. It would be enjoyable and definitely harkens back to the good old days when video games were actually tough because of the riddles. For those of us who want to just go through the story or who don't have a strong background in English, we can remove this option to get through the riddles. I can see this being a problem for localization and translations, but hopefully there is a workaround. Oh, and don't make it case-sensitive.

No. Completing the game in one sitting means having to make quests linear and uninteresting. If quests don't have more than one solution, then powergaming comes into play. Think back to some of the older cRPGs. Many of them had several solutions and if I knew that I could solve everything in one sitting, then why would I come back and play the game again? Enabling powergamers with this sort of poor quest creation actually does affect my game - it tells devs to not worry about balance and creative quest creation, creating a poorer quality game and not something that could be later considered "a classic cRPG game" worth playing (and replaying).

If we want to play a game with multiple party members under the player control (unlike fallout or arcanum) then it would be best if the devs made sure to let us know their motivations. This would be easily done if they chime in whenever possible. As we know more about how they react to certain dialogue, that gives us more of an idea of how they are. Thus for thos of us who like to role-play them, we can RP them well.

I was going to suggest tiles as well, but I really think that it will be tough to sell the BG/BG2/IWD imagery if they did tiles. Those visuals were quite amazing. There could, of course be certain locations that used hand-drawn tiles instead of full drawn maps. Locations where geometric shapes made sense. Cities, mazes, certain locations of dungeons. But I wouldn't want them to go totally tile-set based. I want to see organic maps too!