Hormalakh

I loved the Tactics mod for BG2 because you could change that to 20, 40 or even 80k (and I think 100k) as the quest. That made the game integration (as you call it) much better for me. Of course, they could have changed this so people who weren't interested in running around doing quests and wanted to finish the story faster could do so, merely by changing this in a difficulty setting.

At the end of the day, both predictions are realistic. Only time will tell. Crowdfunding is the attempt of getting rid of the "semi-middleman" that is publisher. If it succeeds, it can only mean a better age not only for gamers, but also for the developers themselves. The ideal, to me, would be that there are only developers and players with nothing in-between them. And as I've suggested earlier, the modern infrastructure of Internet permits getting rid of the one remaining middleman - the distributor. But it's still not certain whether crowdfunding itself will succeed, so step by step I say. I can ultimately wish nothing but the best for Obsidian. Because if Obsidian wins, gamers win. This was not the case with publisher-funded games. Developers could create great games but still suffer for it both from their fans and the publishers. This whole KS thing has opened my eyes to the incredibly bleak world of game development. It's tough and I really feel for these guys.

The one thing with a class-less stronghold, is that when I want to replay the game, I am much less likely to go through the hassle of building up my stronghold EACH time I start a new game. Imagine if it was part of the main plot - that would be a boring boring time. If the stronghold is class-based and/or skill-based (at least 40-50%) then replayability when it comes to the stronghold will occur. Otherwise, it will lose its appeal after the first time through. A replayable stronghold needs several different "good" outcomes that depend on different character attributes. That's why BG2 strongholds were fun, even if you replayed the game.

Man, I really want OE to succeed, not as much because I want the game, but more because I'd like these negative-types to have to swallow their words. Come on OE, you've got a lot riding on this. Don't screw up. No pressure though :D

I'm going to tell you right now, Double Fine has an audience just as big and just as dedicated as Obsidian's audience. Double Fine's designers have just as much clout in the hardcore "PC Adventure Game" niche as Obsidian do in the "PC RPG" niche, if not more. Tim Schafer is many, many things, but he's NOT lacking in name recognition, I assure you. Well obviously I wasn't talking about his eminence, Mr. Schafer. I'm talking about KS that haven't been doing as well as DFA or WL. Mr. Fargo is also quite well-recognized, being the one who started Interplay after all...

Imagine magic being the D&D equivalent of Fallout's Energy weapons. I would love to see some awesome animations when you get crit hit and die.

I want to be able to play without a pet at all! My character doesn't believe in "owning" animals. He thinks that's just messed up.

^ Yeah it just doesn't seem time-effective for the devs to waste time and energy building up a whole "facial features" section for the 3d models.

In older IE games, magic didn't miss unless it was a touch spell. Your magic missles didn't miss, and higher level spells didn't miss. Usually, you had save vs spells instead. Should ranged magic act more like ranged weapons in that they should miss or no? Discuss.

I meant either IWD-type or BG-type images. I'm not talking about a particular artist's rendition, just that they weren't using real-time rendering of your model for the portraits. Usually with real-time rendering, you sacrifice portrait quality. Where did you hear that about Sawyer wanting to change expressions?

That is precisely why I loved playing as a mage in BG2. It was by far more tactical and strategic than melee fighters. It was like chess. Everything had a counter and a counter to that counter. You just had to out-think your opponent to beat them. Ultimately, I thought that was the whole point of RPGs. At least, when you play PnP you try to solve your problems using wit and imagination: I'd like to think that cRPGs try to do the same thing but at a more basic level. There were counters to breach. Everything had a counter. Even invisibility (true sight).

Ultimately it's all in Obsidian's hands now. They have the money to start creating a great game with a great IP that they own. If they succeed in making a good game, nobody will care whether it's publisher-funded or kickstarter funded. Selling PnP versions of their IP, novels based off the IP, etc etc will bring in money. It's all in Obsidian's hands now. I trust them to do a good job.

All of these ideas are great, but I think we forgot to mention one very important mechanic that should be implemented when dealing with weapons of different types having pros/cons; all weapons users (and maybe mages) should be allowed to spend skill points in improving their skill with these weapons! (I never understood why my mage couldn't use a sword in BG2)

If they are alreay planning on spell cooldowns then casting times are out? Notice I said *per-spell* cooldowns. I (somewhat) disagree, at lower tier spells (magic missle for example), your mage shouldn't be able to cast 50 of them one right after the other. He should be able to cast 5 or 6 per combat (with no cool-down, here I agree with you). But then, after the battle is over and his spell cooldowns are over, he should be able to cast them again (5-6 times) during the next battle, without having to rest spam. That's the whole point of spell cooldowns.

Strong (and smart) mages always threw down a contigency spell with immunity to normal weapons (for arrows) and a globe of invulnerability (for low-level spells) before casting any higher-level spells. Those mages were deadly, regardless of casting time. There was also Alacrity, improved alacrity, and a whole host of other spells for the smart tactician to use against enemies so as to make casting time, not that big of a deal for magicians. Casting time should be in. Edit: Your issue is with the AI. I concur. Please make a strong and robust AI for those of us who want to play harder difficulties.

Edit: Now that I've read the arguments more fully, I believe that this whole argument is moot. If we consider that this game is RTwP and allow (as Baldur's Gate II does) the game to autopause when conditions are met (characters action is over and ready for next action, chracters round is over, etc), then effectively you are given a wider range when it comes to playing the game. For someone who wishes to determine each action for each character, (effectively a turn-based game) you are allowed to do so, and for the player who has shortcut keys ready and wishes to take combat at a more real-time pace, can also do so (by removing the autopause). If I'm not mistaken, the whole reason we were going into RTwP for this game was because this game was meant to not follow the D&D rules of rounds/turns and was to be action-time based. Thus casting a spell could take 12 seconds for example while swinging a staff would take 2 seconds. An example of this is found in Baldur's Gate II. When casting lower-level spells, the casting time (action time) for these spells is very short, whereas higher-level spells actually take longer to cast (some taking several seconds). While this wasn't a D&D mechanic Baldur's Gate II tried to implement it differently in a computer game, because it was feasible to do so. So we had casting times that differed with the level of the spell. With a robust autopausing mechanic (for those who wish to make tactical choices) and effective/customizable short-cut keys (for those who wish to chose one of many choices in real-time) you have probably the widest range of playing-styles. I think that people who favor turn-based action should not be clamoring for a turn-based game, but rather a robust and effective autopause that would allow the game to play to the style that they enjoy. At the same time, I think that people who favor real-time action should be clamoring for effective short-cut keys and methods to take multiple actions at a time. Starcraft and starcraft II are excellent examples of what I'm taking about. Very high-level players can make a hundred or more (some more than 200 actions per minute) effective action choices per minute. The game allows improved real-time strategic play because of effective short-cut keys and "auto-casting" mechanics. http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Actions_per_minute tl;dr - With autopause and shortcut keys you could either play it like its chess or like its starcraft 2.

The game is isometric/cavalier oblique in setting, but the characters and some props are going to be 3D models. Thi will be a little different than older IE games and I think that this is actually a good thing. However, since the characters are 3D models, they can go both ways with the portraits here - engine rendered 3D portraits or prerendered artist's renditions.

I had the same issue when I first played BG/2. But after looking online for a bit and learning how easy it was to upload my own portraits, I really liked it. The biggest pro that the older artist's rendition has is its ability to be modded easily.

I asked Feargus about the BG2 budget during the Kickstarter drive and due to NDA he said that he couldn't tell me. @daemon451 Sorry, I usually just let that question slide by. I'm still under non-disclosure with Interplay. Don't mean to give a lame answer like that - but it's the case. -Feargus Would you know about how much Baldur's Gate II took to make? Or is that also non-disclosure? -Hormalakh @Hormalakh Same non-disclosure and probably tied into non-disclosures that are now handled by EA as well now. -Feargus @Feargus Would you feel confident that with the current budget you have now, you'd have the funds necessary to make a game as good or better than BG2 or IWD2? -Hormalakh (We were at around $3.3mil then). @Hormalakh I am confident that we can make an awesome RPG for what we have. -Feargus Edit: Evidence from Kickstarter comments.

Thanks. Fixed.

Have you looked here? http://forums.obsidi...nd-what’s-next/ Also, if you are a kickstarter backer, instead of trying info@obsidian.net, you can try going to the kickstarter site here: http://www.kickstart...ernity/comments and ask a question. Apparently the comments are still up. You could send a question directly to Feargus/Darren/Adam through the contact me link on the right hand side. They'll probably be able to help you.

Touch ups by artists limit your ability to customize them during character creation. I don't think it's a bad idea, you just have to keep in mind th time that it takes to do that and the limitations it places on you when making a portrait. Ultimately even 3d models touched up by artists would either have to use the engine to render or be a pre-rendered jpg or something like that.

I'm not sure if this has been answered and this question came up in another thread (Beard technology). I wanted to get everyone's opinion: would you like to have your portraits show up as they did in Baldur's Gate (an artist's rendition) or as they did in Neverwinter Nights 2 (as a 3D model)? Please tell us why in either case. In my case, I've detailed my own pros and cons. Baldur's Gate portraits: Limitless customization. Ability to truly make your character look how you want them to. Inability to change the portrait when wearing different headgear or armor, or showing injuries. (Could use layered images to fix this however) Neverwinter Nights 2: Ability to change portrait due to injuries, different armor, etc. Easier to make animated portrait (head looks around, makes faces, portray emotions, etc). Will never be as detailed as artist's rendition. Limited by polygon count can make faces look blocky. Takes longer for devs to implement.

Robust modding is basically it for me. I'll end up playign the game 3 or 4 times for the first few months. Then I'd like to come back to it maybe in a few years and play with some interesting mods. I've noticed that the good old IE games had mods that always made the game fresh, even after 10 years.

I can get behind this. I was, however, under the impression that portraits would be akin to those in BG/BG2 where you have an artist's rendition as opposed to the 3D model. If you do have a 3D model portrait, then I can understand the different noses, eyebrows, etc being implemented. I just prefer artist renditions better, because you can always import your own picture in and there are many portraits made like this already from previous IE games. If the models are going to be changable, I'd like the changes to be seen from the isometric view. Thus beards make sense, as well as hair length and color. Body types (chubby, thin, muscular, pear-shaped, apple-shaped, etc) would also be visible. These are the things that interest me.