JFSOCC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS8EIpAZybg They had a whole series of these skits.

great post overall, but I'm not sure if we're going to see a feudal system, and since the game takes place in a colonial setting, you could set up your own colonial establishment. I know the Dutch Crown didn't care much about what the Dutch East Indies Company did in Indonesia, as long as the the taxes kept flowing home. So you could have pretty much a despot's rule, in certain circumstances.

You should have all the time in the world for puzzles.

you're right it wasn't that battle. It was the battle of Tegyra. 1200 spartans vs... 300 sacred band

My favourite "romance" is with Visas, but that's mostly because of Kelly Hu's excellent voice acting. And that was all very subdued. I swear if you could somehow bottle Kelly Hu's voice, you could sell it as liquid desire.

I would love to have my own sub-tropical port city. Let's say this would fit the Dragoling Trading Empire, or the Church of Hezeng. The city would have two levels, the "top" is where the castle and fortifications are, and can only be reached by lift, or overland. it's basically on top of the sheer white cliff. (in which there are quarried homes as well) The cliff itself is about about 20 stories high the "bottom" is a 500-700 yard plain extending from the cliff towards the sea. this is the city and the deepwater docks. The shape of the settlement is like a "C" with a lighthouse and a fortified tower on each end. (so a protected harbour) there's a river cutting through the "top" level which ends in a waterfall splitting the settlement unevenly. The river created the small plain (otherwise it would be deep water only) but the silt this carries is a chronic problem for the bay. The "top" level extends outwards over a large plain which thanks to the river is irrigated. From the bottom level there is a narrow gulley on the north side (as per C shape) which allows some foot traffic to avoid the lifts. The Palace/Castle overlooks the city from the south/southwest side of the "C" and has access to a tributary from the river (or a small meandering canal) It is a trade city, where space is at a premium, and the cliffs themselves are being dug in to provide homes and businesses. the "underground bazaar" is a small marvel of lights and smells and fairly high domed subterranean marketplaces. Just outside the "C" there is a small island, from which the guard fleet operates to defend the city and incoming trade fleets from pirates or other foes. On top of the islet is a small barracks and fortification, effectively splitting the entrance to the protected harbour. ---------- This is mostly after you've cleared the harbour of silt, rebuilt the docks, rebuilt the lighthouse, rebuilt the fortifications, recruited a small fleet to defend your harbour, dug the canal to your castle, built the castle, built the lifts, and built the road next to the river to connect up with the main roads towards one of the Big Big Cities, and convinced sea trade and land trade that your port city is an excellent and safe trade hub. Its major weakness would be a lack of natural defences from the top-side plains. I suppose you can always build a wall.

well duh, "for their time" is the key. I have no doubt that in time far cry or crysis will be considered outdated graphics too, but at the time of release, serious sam was nothing more than an engine demo, the first which dealt with the warped perspectives you got in other engines the further things got from the centre of your FOV.

Easter eggs are polish, if you have time for making them you clearly have a finished product

fantastic Nonek, but you need to add spoiler tags for those of us (like myself) who haven't played planescape torment.

I can only watch Iron Man 3 here in 3D, I ****ing hate 3D movies.

this smacks of good/evil dichotomy, of which I'm not a fan. But on the concept of sentient items with agendas, awesome, why not?

Crap. I was sure it was actually the story told by a still-living Spartan. That's why I simply stated it was historically 100% accurate, instead of inquiring as to the actual practices of the Spartants of old. I have a friend doing his thesis about the professionalisation of armies in ancient Greece. He comes up with anecdote after anecdote on how the Spartans sucked. Thermopile, they were aided by about 4000 Athenians, (who were definitely not just craftsmen pressed into service) the "revenge" battle you briefly see at the end of the movie 300, they were slaughtered again. In fact, they lost most of their engagements. They did however, have inflated egos. In one battle with Athens, Both parties agreed to send 300 of their best, when the battle ended, it was 2 Athenians left vs 1 Spartan left. The Athenians were like "We outnumber you 2-1, what's the point in continuing? we've won" went home and declared victory, the Spartan who remained went like "The Athenians fled the battlefield, clearly we've driven them off, we won" and that's the story he told when he got home.

why would you arbitrarily restrict that? I'd rather have all quests be diverse in nature. And I'd be cool with having challenging quests in either city. I think the bottleneck approach with chapters is a nice marker from which each chapter simply adds new quests to all known areas and opens up some new areas Because this way, you go to BBC1, (again, not the broadcasting corporation, I really need a better acronym) you do some 70% of the available quests. Then you decide to proceed with the main quest, advance in chapter, and new content opens up in the location you know, while you can now also move on to BBC2. This ensures that an area doesn't suddenly become devoid of content (that barren feel so many areas have when you're finished with them) because you've done all you could there. (at least not until you finish the game) This is what pacing is all about. Don't set it by location, set it by narrative timing. (IE, Early chapters, you join organisations and learn about the world. after doing some you gain some gear and a better position in these factions, you've become comfortable with the area you're in. Mid chapters, you've gained standing in the factions you work for and have gained some renown, meaning others contact you for more delicate assignments, some take you outside of the city you know. Mid-late chapters: the factions you work for ask you to establish business in BBC2, while some trouble is brewing at home. You know your home, but also have to explore new places. The challenges you get mean you have to move around a lot, but you're certainly getting a feel for the world. You even have established your own stronghold at a strategical location. Late game: most places you've been have some content, but the majority of the content is pointing you towards the exit, it's time to finish up and move on.) This strategy means that no location you find will become irrelevant as the game progresses, which I always think is a terrible shame.

I'm sorry but they had to invent space aliens to fight you because clearly humans were no match.

that's easily fixed by having a timeout for wounds after they're used. so, use ability, wound can't reload for x seconds. higher levesl means faster recharge.

secret bonus content.

you're joking right? Crysis was the most uninspiring game design. The plot was clichéd to non-existent, the monsters were boring, making use of numbers rather than interesting tactics, and their look incredibly unimaginative. And the suit was both overpowered and didn't encourage you to use it to the best of your ability. Crysis was an expensive engine demo IMO.

I believe what he said was that as a designer you should be OK with players not experiencing everything you've made for them.

I would be OK with having them be "lockdown" characters which disable magical abilities for a while on their targets. (bit like chi-blocking in Avatar) So your powerful warrior is going to do the ultimate sudoken move, finds it can't cast it. That way the monk would be a terrific force multiplier, and great help fighting boss monsters.

Are we really still discussing this? this thread is boring, let it die.

I love the fact that no-one said graphics, I guess we're all on the same line there. I wonder if we used the word "Visuals" instead, if people would vote differently. I love beautiful maps and background art, it it makes me feel like I'm in a magical place (which is hard to do) I might get mine. But graphics never made a game. Serious Sam, Crysis, Far cry were all cases of crappy game great graphics, At least the gameplay of Serious sam made it fun to do with a friend. It's just not nearly as important as any of the other options.

this is why I like the bottleneck approach they've said they're going for: once you've completed most of an area, you can move the story on, and the place gets repopulated with some new quests and new places open up to explore as well.

I suspect that players may game this system by having their monk character don armor in the middle of the battle, once the wounds limit is reached. I seem to recall you could do that in the IE games--albeit with the loss of a round. I imagine a monk in armour can take a lot of punishment, for a while. sounds like a decent way to make the enemy waste their best attacks and then get into dishing it back out.

Please make this game. please! I love empire building!