Pipyui

I like this a lot :D we all know there are going to be Gods who meddle in what the P:E world does, Deity's will most likely obstruct our ways and toy with our character from time to time I imagine. 1 Dragon/Ancient Creature = as a Deity? With the question of Gods, will there be Demi-Gods? Heck, maybe said dragon/ancient creature can be in servitude of a diety, even against its will. The hand, sword, or voice of a god, so to speak.

If there are going to be dragons or some other sort of wise, ageless, powerfull creatures in PE, I personally would prefer they were fairly alien and unapproachable. I don't want to tame one, I just want to be humbled and awed by their knowledge and power in the game, rather than have them be just other bosses. In fact, I'd prefer I didn't, or couldn't realistically, fight them at all.

So there's a promance thread, why not a nomance thread? Chris Avellone obviously has some very loud opinions on this matter, does his perspective reflect any of the perspectives of the fine fellows in the forums? Although I actually have no particular opinions towards romance in RPGs, I can understand why some don't like it. Romance in movies are bad enough, and a little sour in fantasy books too. Emotional experiences don't always have to end in romance, despite what hollywood might believe. If a story is good enough, it doesn't need an ackwardly implemented love subplot for the sake of having one. And love is traditionally done in what some would say is a very demeaning way in video games anyway, and especially in RPGs - specific NPCs will love you, regardless of your character and actions. It's just a metagame of playing responses to please them. Very empty. How many of you dislike romance outright in your RPGs, and how many of you like it, but not in the ways it is usually presented? Should love exist exlusively in less interpersonal, even darker, forms as Avellone suggested - love for gods, ciphers obsessed with souls, berserkers and assassins finding a little too much pleasure in slaughter? Or perhaps you wish love to be parodied? Romeo and Juliet fell in love and died immedietly thereafter. A componanion makes obvious passes at your PC, and you are completely incapable of reacting to them given dialogue choices. You can pay for a night with a whore, but wake up with a debilitating STD in the morning and an empty wallet. Cynics unite! Or you know, attempt to make a cohesive force towards ending romance that will ultimately fall into shambles due to failures dictated by basic human sociology. Whatever.

I suspect what BasaltineBadger was getting at is that if the world were pieced together from the vanilla scenes, where does one fit in their own without interupting it? I should think an issue like this could be easily handled with a carriage service, or something. Otherwise, extra content entrances would have to be very cleverly placed on the original scenes. The trouble is this extra content wouldn't meld with the vanilla world.

I think this bothers everybody to some degree. I doubt there will be quests that your party can't handle, even if your PC himself isn't suited for them. For that regard though, I would like to be able to fail quests, either accidentally or intentionally. Even if this means just being able to drop quests from my journal (should I have to return to the quest giver to explain my failure? I don't know).

Huh, pleasantly surprised to see this thread make a revival. I know I've been pushing the whole "more incentives to spend, less requirements (maintenance costs) to spend" thing a little less than subtly. Maintenance costs are fine, but haphazardly throwing them around to increase spending isn't the right answer. I like where you're going, but personally think it needs to go a little further. Many RPGs already provide many of these services (albiet at completely trivial price), but they serve no purpose to the player besides novelty value. Carriage has a real cost? I'll walk. Food and rest? I don't understand either of those terms, I'm a restless machine. The other ideas not involving property, with a little creativity, might work, but it'd be a challenge to implement them without irritating players I would think. The short of the cosensus on this thread as I understand it so far is that property and some clever equipment maintenance are, for the most part, commonly agreed upon as legitimate money sinks; and that income needs to be significantly stunted. I'm still trying to ascertain what this reveals in terms of what players would accept and embrace as an economic model, though (basic principles behind money mechanics). Speaking of property... I'm loving the way you think.

Good point mstark. Actually, I hadn't even considered the proximity issue of wind and leaves, just figured it to be a constant on a landscape, but this makes more sense. And thanks AndreaColumbo for the link! I'll admit though, I feel a little like a hypocrit now, since I'm a recent fan of power metal (Blind Guardian, Rhapsody of Fire, Therion, and the like), and I'm certain the genre suffers considerably from dynamic range compression (especially Kamelot, I've yet to look into their new album, but I'm fairly certain their producers have no concept of dynamic range). Speaking of audio packs, there will be a Power Metal Pack, right? No? That's cool, I'll just make my own.

I don't care for the idea of stats varying with age, but NPC interactions based on age wouild be neat. Just select "young" or "adult", maybe even "elderly" if Obsidian has the time for all this, during character creation. Then people can call you "Sport," "Hey you there," or "Old man," accordingly.

Could you explain how it's even possible, if player is the only real source of action in the game? Some examples from other games maybe? Im realy curious about that. While not directly relevant to an IE-style game, there was a certain quest-necessary NPC in Oblivion who had a nasty habit of falling off a very tall bridge and dying... Ah, yes Oblivion. How I love thee, let me count the ways: 1. Jokes aside, I actually really liked Oblivion (I grew up with it, I'm a young`un), but things like that were really annoying. Trouble with a big open world, I guess. In Morrowind though quest characters were too easy to kill at my whimsey. Side quest characters sure, but main-quest characters should pack a little more pain (so long as it suits their characters, that is). Needless to say, this is especially necessary if I'm ever going to be traveling with them (don't need mr. bigshot being downed by his first goblin encounter).

I think as far as mainquest NPCs are concerned, I'd rather they couldn't just be killed on a whim. They shouldn't be immortal (Martin Septim is unconscious!), but they should be somewhere between fairly difficult to combat and almost inconceivably so. All-too-mortal quest characters were especially frustrating when you were informed of one being killed half a world away from you. Please, none of this.

Absolutely. Over-compressed dynamic range leads to diminishing returns in terms of quality over the long term. Fortunately most professional game audio folks understand this, though it does pop up now and again... Come to think of it, this also does much to explain why I so dislike this newage rap / hip-hop. Edit: Oddly specific request here, but for some reason the sounds of wind in leaves really strikes the romantic in me. Can such audio samples be reasonably tied with tree animation? A trivially specific request to bring up I know, but audio-visual continuity of ambient sounds would do much to enhance my immersion, I think, rather than just having sounds from nowhere. What do you guys think?

Glad to hear that Justin Bell has my bases covered. It sounds like he cares about just the sort of things that I do in regards audible ambience. Stick with it, Justin. Conservative music, dynamic range, and especially quallity ambient sound - I don't have to tell you that it really really enhances the experience of a setting, and is too often, and foolishly so, neglected. I'm already hearing PE in my head, and it sounds fantastic. PS: Interesting to learn of listener's fatigue. It actually explains a lot of experiences.

Pretty much agree with every point you've made up there, nothing more to add.

Sorry to derail your topic here, but can't I like "Offer options that are sometimes an obvious reward" AND trains? But it wouldn't be right for me to post without contributing, so I should say I like the idea that my companions can intercede my conversation when it suits them, even if it doesn't suit me. I don't need a party of yes men or mute drones, I need a party of people. Second, I liked timed dialogue when appropriate in the Witcher 2, but I don't feel it should be used in a cRPG like PE. I could be convinced otherwise though, and wouldn't throw a fit if it were implemented. Third, it's absolutely necessary that stats influence dialogue options (strength too, you don't need to be charismatic to threaten someone). I would like it though if some of these options could backfire, with subtle context clues to indicate that they might. That way I'd actually have to think about choosing to use my intelligence in dialogue, with fear that I might insult instead of add insight. It should be fairly clear which to choose when encountering established characters, but I might get thrown off guard when encountering a new NPC, for example.

I'm sorry for insulting you (I'll admit, my last post may have been a little passive-aggressive, but my concerns remain unwavered), I'm just trying to get a little more elaboration out of you on your arguments. As I said, I know my argument presented above was a strawman attack on your own, but I still feel that it addresses an issue many others here seem to be concerned with about your argument (it was meant as a medium to better relay my own concerns, not as an attack on you). I'm not saying that respecing is equivilent to the examples I portrayed, but that it is a small step towards those concerns. Players should be granted a lot of freedom in what they do, but too much freedom can lead to an undermining of a game's design. How do you intend to address the topic? Also, I did state that I supported respecing with hefty penalty, because I don't believe that a lack of full knowledge and experience with a game and its mechanics should be a barrier to playing it, but respecing should still be discouraged.

I can kinda see Rubicon's point in "if you don't like it, don't use it," however, so much as he tries to justify it, it is a rather silly argument to keep pushing without context. The trouble with this is that there is a very slippery slope between what you can let players get away with as a "feature," and what undermines the purpose of the game. Not enough money to buy that new battleaxe? That's fine, there's an optional discount if you don't have the funds. Don't like it? Don't use it. Ugh, that guy was almost dead; I just needed one more strike! I don't want to restart the whole battle, so I'll just redo that last attack roll. Don't like this feature? Don't use it. While I'm not trying to strawman Rubicon's argument like this, I am saying that this is a serious flaw with it. Please Rubicon, I don't intend to be mean, but if you're not a troll, try to respond to the concerns others have presented with a little more than "It's a feature! If you don't like it, don't use it." Anyway, on a completely different note, I agree with a few above that making respecing too trivial of a task demeans the value of creating a character and playing the game with that character in the first place. Spec-ing properly though, I feel as Sawyer does, shouldn't be a barrier to playing. Idealy, as someone above has also noted, respecing shouldn't be necessary, as character development should be very modular (hard to really screw up). However, since achieving such is a little far-fetched, I think respecing should be available at a hefty price, like a level drop or something. If a new player screws up their characters so much as to make continuing the campaign impossible, I don't think it would be fun for him/her to have to restart the whole thing without so much as a sandbox (respecing) to help facilitate the learning of game mechanics.

I like the idea, but I agree with Halric that it would likely put too much pressure on the devs to account the story for every concievable path a series of quests can take. Perhaps only in a few sidequests? Ones with little real reflection in the rest of the game. That aside, it may be conceivable to have quests not with randomized outcomes, but with randomized content. Fetch / rescue quests don't always have to send you to the same places, for instance. Or, side quests can have slight, maybe even quirky, variations in presentation depending on choices the player has made in main quests. If you let a bandit leader live early on for example, you might find later that he has kidnapped a couple's daughter for ransom, and you'll be hired to get her back. If you killed him, his sister and second in command has taken his place, and you find that the couple's son has been kidnapped because this young new bandit leader found him dreamy and intends to marry him. In this scenario, the structure and outcome of the quest doesn't change, but it's presentation cannot be predicted by those without a strategy guide. Is it fully deterministic? Sure; but it does I think add an illusion of randomness, or at least random consequence, to a campaign.

Where's the "tl;dr" option in your poll above? I kid, but what it sounds to me like you described is a way to play the game, for those of us who hate fun. As much as I enjoy being a masochist, I think I'll pass on being a merchant.

I think it might be kinda neat to not know whether or not an item is magical, though I don't know how well that might fit into the lore (perhaps magic has an intrinsic flavor). Of course, then we'd all just ask the wizard in the party to examine it, nothing really changes. The idea of using the lore skill to determine how many enchantments an item has can also be expanded to classify enchantments in merely qualitative terms at lower skill levels. You'd be able to ascertain that an axe may incinerate foes for instance, but not how much damage that incineration yields. Plus, since items are going to be mostly unique and not randomly generated, magic effects might have unique twists too - side effects only knowable to arcane experts. Also curses, definitely riding the curses wagon over here.

Well, I do think that giving players too much money is a problem, but more than that I think there needs to be more incentive to spend money. There's no reason to hoard gold and never use it, yet this is what I've done in every RPG I've ever played.

I don't think converting a 2D object to 3D to render shadows would be too conceivable. Shadows would be "baked" in when a scene is converted from the 3D model to a 2D image. Thus the only dynamic shadows would be used in cases of occlusion, and those wouldn't need to be too detailed. Perhaps this is what you meant, Rjshae? How will shadows be managed in cases of occlusion, where a 2D image layer is casting a shadow on a 3D model? In this case, self-shadowing is a non-issue. Already baked in. The problem would be in casting correct dynamic shadows based on 3D and not 2D geometry. I think an invisible low-poly model to cast shadows, while plausible, isn't quite the best solution to this problem. Maybe the shadow itself could be a special shader that includes angular data, and would be only visible and computed when it occludes a 3D model? Honestly, I'm not too knowledge in this type of thing, but I hope this helps.

Alright, so players are making and carrying around way more money than they know what to do with. Breaking coin into denominations makes distributing wealth across the world easier and more consistant (stunted goblins might carry a copper or two, but elite enemies may carry 2 or 3 gold), but I don't think this would stunt player income or facilitate player expenditure. What if we have tiers of coinpurses? At the beginning of the game, your wallet would only be able to carry a small quantity of wealth. When your party fills this purse, you could exchange the full wallet for a near-empty larger one at a shop. Bigger purses would be available from merchants further along the story path, or in more dangerous territory, so that as you advance the game, explore, and level, you would be able to continue earning greater quantities of coin while also being limitted in how much you could carry at any given time and level. Of course this also adds a little "fun" into deciding when to upgrade your wallet.

The blood won't stop flowing from my eyes! It's flowing other places too, but let's not talk about that.

Right, I think it's more important to limit income than to increase expensenses haphazardly. Or go with something along with what Rjshae suggested, though I'll admit, I'm not quite clever enough to fully comprehend his "spirit stones." In any case, I already suggested that inventory be limited at increased difficulties. I think this is an all-around good and simple solution, as it addresses more than just the wealth issue. We still need more reasons to want to cash in on our money though. Traditional merchants exist solely to offload loot. Weapons and armor they sell are never much better than what you find lying around. Is it enough to give merchants significantly better equipment to sell? I'm thinking we'll also need other sinks to put money into. Various maintance and upkeep costs could help, but too much won't "gel" with players well, they need more positive incentives to spend, whereas maintainance feels to much like a tax. It's better I think to reward players for spending than to relieve penalties for it. What variations should these incentives take? Some have suggested stronghold upkeep (a little better than simply a maintainance cost, because you get clear rewards for spending more). Others have suggested paying for content (in game currency, not cash-shop) such as gambling or dungeon levels. Hoarding gold is only so much fun when there are no good reasons to want to spend it. What would you sacrifice your hard earned gold to recieve? Remember, income isn't so infinite in this thread, so anything you buy leaves you with less to spend later on! Choose your investments wisely!

Detailed terrain shadows would be neat. This wouldn't need to be dynamic, and shadows of say trees could be done in high quality with sprites. Then lower quality dynamic shadows can be used only to cast shadows on (and be casted by) 3D character and creature models.