Hormalakh

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.

Are you asking us if we like to grind to power-up our characters? Why not just give xp for killing monsters then?

I thought it went really well. This was my first KS. The only thing I would say is that next time, the should have stretch goals planned out even for budgets they don't think they'll hit. Obsidian is a very well loved company and I wasn't surprised that they hit $3 or $4 mil at the end. People have been playing their games and loving them for a long while - something a lot of the other KS companies didn't have was name recognition.

There's always the player house with player created characters...

What if it were 6 of each? Six of each facial feature (with some slight differences between races/gender), that would barely compare to the ridiculously large numbers you were using. No. I only want 1. The face is barely going to be seen. The face is going to be a portrait. Instead of wasting time and money on modeling extremely fine details that would never be seen, I'd rather they focus that energy elsewhere. I mean where would it stop? If we can change the nose and eyebrows, then why not the color of their fingernails? Why not the color of their eyes? It's unneccessary detail. tl;dr - if its never going to matter visually in-game, why waste time/$ on it?

Edit: Failed (constantly) to embed the object. Any young whipper snappers know how to embed youtube videos?

I've mentioned this before, but I'll do it again. While I enjoyed Watcher's Keep, I found the whole Keep a little schizophrenic. It was interesting in that each level was completely different than the previous, but sometimes the changes were a little jarring. I realize that the whole keep was meant to be a sort of jailcell for "all of the world's baddest monsters," but I really wish that there is more of a connection between each level. If separate devs are to work on separate levels, I would really like for the devs to communicate with the devs one level above and one level below them. That way the transition between each level isn't as jarring. Then have one dev (Sawyer?) look at the whole thing and make sure there is some sort of overarching theme to the thing.

Yeah, I don't mind pink either. It would be nice to be able to see who's a backer immediately.

I think the badges would be similar to the ones developers have that have "Developer" written on it inside a square. Or moderators with the Orange. Developers' are green. I bet backers will be pink. I want pink, said no one ever.

So do I: that's why I was asking. It makes for a more interesting character creation too! Although, I do think that HP should be able to be increased on level ups or something - as you exercise, your health does improve. Lazy slobs sitting at home all day do actually have a decreased lifespan. Ultimately, it depends on what's more fun (all of this stuff is an abstraction anyway). One thing that just crossed my mind that would be a very fun (and "realistic" mechanism) is alcohol drinking: it might increase your maximum stamina for a time, but it would decrease your health bar as well (if you get drunk). Something to that effect. Or something even more permanent: gettign a boost in stamina for a decreased HP through some drug.