Pipyui

It's not like the whole world would be pitch black, and even at night darkness shouldn't be complete. In forgotten caves and dungeons though a light source should be necessary to navigate (unless you have a rogue with nightvision or something. Speaking of, a lone torch in the night should make me stand out like nobody's business). I think implementing light sources like torches and such could really enhance the atmosphere of such places. You should probably feel isolated and alone in such places, and what better way to help facilitate this than by sticking your party in a lone circle of light surrounded by unknown dark? Darkness can be as much narrative as gameplay mechanic. Speaking of gameplay mechanics, I'm ambivilent on the idea of granting torches auxilary bonuses. I wouldn't want it to act as a weapon or shield. If anything, it should just provide the party a buff representing improved vision in combat (enemies might get it too, but I would presume any found in an unlit cave would have an aversion to it and might even recieve a penalty). So you'd either have a wizard provide magic light, or hand a torch to a member of the party who wouldn't be hindered so much by the loss of one free hand. And speaking of narrative and gameplay, maybe you could do cool stuff with the lighting for one quest. Like, a maze that could only be traversed when lit, and stepping outside of the light would kill your character. Or, a fortress long lost, not so dark as to make a torch necessary, but where your light flickers ghostly visages of the dead inhabitants and their furnishings present themselves, reliving the last day of their existance before the fortress fell. In the realm outside of your torch's light, you'd see decayed furniture and bones, and at your approach the past would come to life. Maybe you'd pick up bits of history from the visages, and could use this knowledge to reveal secrets in the present fortress or solve an ancient mystery or something. Maybe those are both aweful ideas, but hopefully they help convey the potential I feel that light elements can play in PE.

Continuing along the path-drawing idea, I think it'd be neat if each waypoint showed icons indicating queued actions at that location for clarity. That way I wouldn't need to cycle through my party to confirm their queues, but could read them from a glance. Maybe I could add or remove actions from these waypoints, though this might be a bit much considering that the queues shouldn't be too complex, as elaborated below: Also, I'm with mstark on the queue limit. I can trust myself not to overqueue simply because it would be far from effective anyways. There's no need for a limit on this, as players can determine for themselves intuitively how complex their queue should be with consideration to unpredictable combat elements, and this is likely to result in fairly short action queues. My biggest concerns are of queue behavior as mstark has also already addressed.

To me, what makes game music memorial is not so much the music in itself as the setting to which the music is applied. I usually prefer to have my soundtrack fairly subtle most of the time, but to really strike at me during intense or emotional moments. I trust Justin Bell can organise some good music choreography to meet this wistfulness. Edit: Also, while we're sharing soundtracks: http://youtu.be/jTdcJWDNsao Simple, but perfect for its setting.

Most god(desse)s exist to address a question, I think, so I should start with "what changes when I make souls a reality" and churn out ideas from there: God(dess) of Binding: Alright, so souls exist. So why do I have this silly, dirty, impetuous corpus? Why is my metaphysical soul bound to flesh? Perhaps without anchor, the soul loses itself and dissolves. The body thus provides solidarity and identity. Enter god(dess) of binding. When a vessel decays and the soul is cut from the flesh, it is vulnerable - like a liquid without a container to provide shape. Thus the god(dess) of binding collects drifted souls and sews them back into new physical forms. (S)he doesn't necessarily repressent life and renewal, more like a being that connects the soul to the world - a function of existance. God(dess) of Decay: This is a staple god(dess). Why do I suffer disease and illness? Is my soul broken? Yes. The god(dess) of decay doesn't represent death, but the fragmentation or intoxication of the soul. Things lost or forgotten are represented by this god(dess). Past lives, history, dreams, health, status - the god(dess) of decay governs everything that falters or dissolves. You would ward against him/her to prevent the deterioration of the soul causing malady, or curse him/her when something's been lost or forgotten. Humans love to displace the causes of their misfortunes onto mysterious uncontrollable forces, so a god(dess) of misfortune is a must. Also, I like the idea of a god(dess) which interferes in the mortal plane solely to right an ancient perceived wrong, not of mortal significance, but deeply personal. Unrelieved regrets are arguably the scariest part of dying, especially after tremendous tradgedy or unrecognized injustice. What if you had the power of immortality, and an eternity to resolve or attone for a grievance of the past? A grievance so massive and influencial, that it has changed the face of the world / celestial form / simply your own existance and could take eons to resolve? Haven't fleshed that out yet, but I always love stories of journeys to heal tradgedy.

Yes. There seems to be a lot of hate going around about "savescumming" (why is the exact meaning of this term even being debated? Semantics doesn't address the real issue here). I like this solution though, and thought it deserved reiterating. People can still play as they like, choices made just won't always have immediate consequences. I think of this as more of a narrative decision than an imposed limitation or "desired behavior pushing" on players. Also, I'm on the no-combat-save train. It usually causes more trouble than good anyways.

I think Nerei mostly covered everything, however, I'd like to elaborate that I think that including physics goes beyond being cost-ineffective and approaches the realm of impossiblity. 3D physics in games are almost exclusively implemented by 3rd party applications like Havok or PhysX, which need to be licensed. This could account for all 3D objects in the game, but couldn't interface the 2D image environment. To solve this would be a massive and expensive undertaking, and Obsidian would need design their own physics engine in-house. Now, a basic invisible 3D collision map could be concieved, such that 3D effects and placeables could collide with static environment objects like trees and rocks, but those environment objects would not be able to move in 3D space (accept maybe some very basic 2D displacement). Both 3D and 2D placeables could be scripted (no physics here) to burn, crush, or collapse, but this would need to be done on a case-by-case basis lest Obsidian make a big expensive project out of it, as Nerei details above. This said, I would love to see some dynamic environments like collapsable walls and such, but they would need to be individually crafted into PE.

I shouldn't throw myself so willingly into the gunfire here, but I don't think that magic being "real" or "superstitious garbage" in the real world is relavent to a fantasy RPG. The fun thing about fiction is that you get creative license to shape "reality" as you see fit. However Obsidian decides to implement magic in PE, I don't think that arguments of "real" or "false" apply, so long as there is ample narrative to support their mechanics. Sufficient narrative continuity to the system is what's important here.

Absolutely yes to RTWP. Absolutely yes to terrain modifiers for combat, stealth, and any other particular modes as appropriate (not exploration). Day/night combat modifiers I'm not too keen on - while it may be "realistic," it'd also be darned annoying and superflous. I'd accept and welcome it perhaps in a few dungeons where it serves a narrative purpose, but not as a core gameplay mechanic created solely to hamper me 50+% (caves and the like) of the time. Lighting modifiers to stealth and perception are enough to make day/night gaming dynamic in my opinion. If you can't see the game screen without a torch or light spell, you're already crippled enough. Dynamic environments I'm not even sure are feasible in a 2.5D game. Placed collapsable walls sure; but burning away trees, especially collapsing ceilings? I don't think is a realistic expectation to hold the devs to. Implementing physics effects on non-3D environmental objects is not gonna happen, and I doubt the 3D placeables will be prevelant enough to make it worthwhile for them either. That being said, placed objects like scripted collapsible walls revealing hidden paths, would be easy and A-OK. Cover: This. Also, determining whether or not this character is linearly "behind" an environment object is cake (linearly, PC-Tree------------------Attacker provides cover, Tree-PC-----------------Attacker does not).

Staple his face onto a doll and converse with it like you would your old friend. And don't throw out the bones, I understand they make a fine broth. Don't forget to hide the remains so nobody discovers you killed him.

I don't hate all DRMs per se. I actually see steam as a great platform for indie developers. However, I don't like to have my games tethered inexorably to a third-party client service, and I don't like at all supporting the movement of ALL games to this model. I can hardly buy a PC game anymore that doesn't require a client service to run. I don't need my games to "phone home." Then you've got steam, and EA's Origin, and Gamestop/Stardocks Impulse - I don't want everyones' client installed and have to pick which to run at any given time to play any given game. It's a personal issue, nothing more. ... Sorry about that. Anyway, Steam debate aside, I'm just arguing to not have the game itself phoning home regularly. If I want to update the game, I'll download a patch or click the "Update Now" button in the main menu. This is the only time when PE should be connected to the interwebs (unless the devs decide to add multiplayer after all). I'm not saying that Steam is bad and that you should feel bad for using it. Just different strokes for different folks - I want the option to avoid it or use it as I choose.

Changed. Thought it would be funny. Clearly, it wasn't. Nah. It was funny, just a tad uncomfortable. /

Did you have to ask with "pop your PE virginity"? I feel a little soiled now. In somewhat-format with next post (by ranking): 1 Ranger (it's been a while) 2 Cipher 3 Rogue Subject to change.

Yep. Some of this may be too unrealistic and impractical for PE, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth discussing. (I think the devs already mentioned that they didn't have plans for spellcrafting, anyway) Huh! I'll admit, the fact that a game can do that without making a right mess of it baffles me. What game is that? I want to see that in action now. (not trying to be tricky here - curious in earnest) Consequences: Ahh, misunderstood that part (I think the "bouncing" example threw me off). I had imagined that you wanted to be able to define a spell's behavior something like an effect script. Such that you could create a ball that would bounce towards a target, but with a path defined by physics. Or a contaminating spell (not like "disease type spreads to others," but like "I want my incinerate spell to light other enemies aflame if they touch my first target."). So that's what I meant to describe as unrealistic. So far as spell clouds, explosions, or splashes, I had written those off as being part of the "visual" or "delivery" attributes. I see now that, for the former at least, this isn't so accurate. Explosions and splashes might differ only visualy and not mechanically, but a spell cloud or rain would differ mechanically. If there was a spellforging system, I would certianly like these options. -------------------------------------------------------- On a different note (and more in line with the OP), I think spellforging could work in PE in a more basic sense as scrolls. Like potions, you could produce one-shot spells perhaps a little too specific for regular use (scrolls that wouldn't see use in regular combat, but could, say, levitate your party across a gap to otherwise inacessible areas). The spells would be predefined, but you would need craft them and they wouldn't be an infinite resource. This could be worthwhile for providing hidden content in the world and making exploration just a little more dynamic, making context-specific events, and giving magic some usefull utility outside of combat.

^ ^ That's quite a take you got there. Details that particularly caught my interest were the delivery and personalization (like color) options. I'm used to being limited in making only touch, single projectile, and AOE spells, so having a plethora of means of delivery appeals to me. Unfortunately though, some of the more interesting methods like scattershot sound like ARPG elements - meaning they might not be possible in a pen-and-paper cRPG type system, where success and failure is determined by die rolls. Delivery by ethereal weapons sounds fun, but I fear would be very difficult to implement correctly. How does the game know how you want said object to behave? Besides predesigned "summoned floating weapon" and "flying spear projectile," I don't see many options here (though these themselves should be fine enough). Same argument applies to the "spell consequence" section. Consequence options would require a lot of specific details to be accounted for regarding other spell options, so I think many of the elaborate ones would require me to mod them in myself. Can't ask for too much from the Devs for this. Granting color and visual effect personalization options to the player sound neat too. I might remake a generic fireball spell simply to make it purple. This should be easy enough, I think (defining an effect texture with variable hue is easy, right?). Drawbacks are strangely not present too often in spellcrafting. I'd be okay with them, if they were well designed and specific to each spell effect. i.e. making a damage spell more powerfull at the cost of melee is silly if I don't wield a weapon; slowing player movement is fine, but if I create an AOE binding spell that is bigger and lasts longer at the cost of my own speed, does it really matter? Making it more powerfull, but binding myself as consequence is more appropriate for this particular effect. In short: delivery / consequece - maybe, but it would be quite the project. Color / Visual effect - yeah, go for it! Drawbacks - sure, just be carefull with it. Others usually come standard in spellcrafting, so ... yeah (I'm a word wizard). Edit: So in the end, I'm still pretty ambivilant on spellforging. On one hand it could be made pretty neat, but on the other, accomplishing this would be a considerable dev project.

Nice to have spare parts. Given all of the fighting you endure, spares are good. Could always use another waterskin. Tents don't fashion themselves. Companion Corpse! Modern art. Target practice. Anyways, I'd be more than pleased to receive final requests from my dying (or dead) companions. If I had befriended them well enough, it would be neat to get emotionaly-charged (though not melodramatic, please) content from letting them die on me. Heck, maybe on a second playthrough I could learn more about a companion through their death than I got from life (especially if they're that "solemn and mysterious past" type). Edit: Removed a joke in poor taste. Funny at 1am, but I'd have regretted it come morning. Don't give me that; it wasn't all that bad, just a little poor in taste. Ugh, I'll just stick it down here and read all the flamemail in the morning.

Fully persistent corpses aren't good because they can cause save bloating, but I'm not sure that was expected. I would of course like to see corpses persistent within a game session, or at least until I leave an area, and scavenger birds when I return to a battlefield would be awesome. Someone already pointed out though that the UI managment of this would be aweful. Perhaps you can tab between corpses / fleshy loot bags? The borderlands 2 idea would be good for boss encounters and the like. Leave the giant corpses lying around for posterity.

The trouble isn't in the functionality of Steam, many of us just don't like supporting DRMed games is all. A personal issue, and one for a different thread. Since my copy of PE will not come through steam (okay, I might make an exception if I can get it for linux through steam but not GOG ), I would just like to be sure that the game isn't insistent on self-updating. I don't need a game tied to the internet (Blizzard gets enough flak for that), or that even tries to connect to the internet without my consent. Update button in the game menu is fine, and if (when) it doesn't work I can just manually patch.

Sorry, didn't mean to incense anyone with my previous post. The balancing thing wasn't a huge issue and a lot of fun can be had with it, but I do feel that spellcrafting as a "legitimate" game mechanic (at least in TES and many other RPGs I've played) was never much fun (except 100+% cameleon). You couldn't create many unique spells, it was mostly just "fireball and lightning! Complements perfectly my other generic damage spells!" Given the time and effort that the devs would require to put a spellcrafting system in place, I just don't think it would be worth it. This isn't at all to say that the devs shouldn't try to improve spellcrafting if they have any insightful ideas, by all means they should, just that I don't need a half-baked spellforging system stapled onto my game just for the sake of having one. Edit: I'm digging myself into a deeper hole, aren't I?

The trouble with spellcrafting, and the reason I think Bethesda removed it in Skyrim, was that it was too exploitable (now it's alchemy and smithing to exploit instead ). Mixing predefined spell effects never appealed to me so strongly anyway (I need something new) - at least not so much as to justify the work and balancing. When I want to create my own spells, I think I'll find the most enjoyment out of scripting and modding them in.

Well put. I'm also glad you managed to address a point that was part of the impetus for my original post, but that I had failed to nail down into a concrete idea - finding content shouldn't solely be a game of entering a tavern and conversing with every uniquely-named NPC in search of a quest. Also, needless to say I'm definitely on board with the option to include player notes in the journal. Along this line, it would also be beneficial for me to be able to mark points of interest on my map. Edit: Knick-knack, this thread is back!

Hassat Hunter poses a good suggestion, I think. Impose a "time limit" on a quest by dictating how many preperations you can make. If zombies are knocking on your door, maybe you can only accomplish 3 of 7 tasks to prepare for their eminent arrival before they bust in. The tasks may seem mostly equivalent in worthiness, but may change the outcome of a quest based on which you choose - maybe in what order you choose them. In a sense, you provide a pseudo-random mechanic to the player. It's completely deterministic (especially if you've played before), but outcome isn't immediately made obvious from choices made, and further playthroughs may yield new outcomes. On a similar note, perhaps you need prepare for the zombies, but don't know from whence they will come. You can prepare for a quest / encounter, but must account for uncertainties in how it will take form. Thus quests / encounters can have randomized elements, but they'd be implemented as a game mechanic, and the player granted control into how they decide to handle them. If the player is informed that assualt may come primarily from any of three sources - magic, archery, or phalanx, they could choose how best to distribute resources to prepare for any one in particular, or all three possibilities. Accounting for all would be safest, but you'd be effectively guaranteed to take heavy casualties. You wouldn't necessarily lose if you make the "wrong" choices, but combat could flow much differently then you had planned for, and you'd have to account for it mid-battle. This succeeds in making encounters more dynamic, and gives a level of randomness to quests without arbitrarily (much) imposing on the player experience. Could players reload and try again if they are unsatisfied? Yeah, but the option wouldn't present itself as being almost a necessessity to producing satisfactory outcomes. In this latter implementation quest outcomes aren't arbitrarily random, just quest application.

Cursed weapons of great power, but with high chances of critical failure would be neat.

Good going necromate! I think you just inadvertantly stumbled upon what could well be a religion of PE. Perhaps Forton is a monk who rejects the filithiness of his own corpus, and yearns to become an existance beyond physical limitations - a soul without a form. Maybe we can have a humanoid elephant race that lives a life of solitude because the people of PE find his countenance too ridiculous. Anyway, pulling that into the realm of seriousness, the physique of a foreign race shouldn't be too bothersome so long as it is decidedly appropriate (no furries in my RPGs, please / same style, no mix-and-match (leave the bug-eyed green aliens to fallout)). It's more important that they have a rich culture and history - that they enhance the world of PE.

Good question. If we can presume shaping magic is like making art, identical spells may be implemented differently depending on the caster. Thus one wizard's fireball scroll may not be identical to another wizard's. Reading an unidentified scroll and translating it into your own implementation might then require at least a basic probing, and maybe some experimentation. Could a booby-trap be hidden in there for the uncareful or unobservant? Maybe. Identification has it's own criticisms though, addressed in a thread from some time ago: Identifying unknown items Obtaining spells that tie together with your journey sounds neat, and Necromate's comment makes me wonder whether an alternative to learning spells through trainers could be to upgrade certain spells through trainers / quest(s). Also : I like the way you think. Edit: Tried unsuccessfully to include a pic, accidentally removed my profile pic instead

True enough, though as a function of soul, shouldn't a spell's form make itself evident in casting or probing its "structure"? The way I imagine it, it seems like a spell can only be cast if one knows how to shape their soul to accomplish a specific task. Without knowing the task, one doesn't know how to shape their soul. A scroll might facilitate the conveyance of such knowledge, and would itself define the nature of the spell. I do like the idea of finding unknown spells, but (speaking only for myself and my understanding of PE magic here) need it to be explained so that it is consistent with the nature of soul magic in PE. (<- smiley of "trying not to sound like an ass")