Luridis

Okay thanks guys... I've never done much PnP and that was in Dragonlance and Greyhawk... So I'm not real familiar with how or when FR itself was introduced. All I really wanted to know is if it was in the lore before Gateway.

I'm trying to find out where and when the city of Neverwinter was introduced into Forgotten Realms. Anyone know this for sure? I know that Neverwinter appeared for the first time in a CRPG in SSI's "Gateway to the Savage Frontier" back in 1991. What I'm not sure of is if Neverwinter existed before that, or if it was something that was created specifically for that game. Thanks...

Unity 3D only supports one rendering window. However, there are some suggestions in that thread about how to use hardware or OS based scaling across multiple monitors.

RE to Obsidian on Update #36 Resolution & Scaling: Yay! But don't forget there are people who are not running 16:9, even though they should be with current panel prices. Movement & Combat Feel: Yay! Also, I'd love it if melee types had control abilities that automatically fire when an enemy attempts to circumvent them. (Think: An attack of opportunity that is purpose-built for enemy position control instead of just free DPS.) i.e. A light fighter type (Ranger-ish) would automatically get an opportunity to hamstring an enemy trying to walk past. A warrior type could get a free knock-down attempt via a shield slam to the back when an enemy attempted to run by. If the enemy is running the chance of success could increase for the defender. Roguish types would of course need some sort of evade ability since targeting the artillery line is a valid strategy there. And finally... of course this would need to work both ways with regards to players and NPC enemies. Damage Types: Yay! As long as I don't need a calculator or spreadsheet... those things are for work. P.S. I'd love to finally have a reason to equip a nonsword. UI Design: Double Yay! I just started playing NWN2 for the first time. (Yes, I'm behind in CRPG uptake.) I'll be honest and say I'm pretty sick of glassy startrekish UI's in just about every game that's made. And yes, I realize that with NWN2 a lot of design decision was publisher or IP-owner mandated. So no, I'm not shaking a finger at Obsidian with that comment. A solid UI panel would stop making me feel like I'm going to miss something going on behind the little icons. This is why me and a lot of other people want to see the return of the kokpit (lol correct spelling got sensored!) in simulators. If the designer deems [this] as the view port and [that] as the controls area I'll stop thinking that piece of environment lighting (brazier, torch, etc.) is an enemy casting a spell behind my UI. Core Four Class Design and Advancement: Triple Yay on the caster ideas! I've always disliked both memorization and mana pools, but have had no idea how anyone could fix them. What you guys have come up with there sounds new and interesting. BTW: Happy Holidays to all you great folks at Obsidian and be sure to enjoy the time spent with your friends and families.

if (headHat.Count == 0) this.headHat = HatStyles.SmartAssHat; Picture #1 makes me all waaa for two reasons. There's no lanterns above the doors! How do you expect me to have doors with no lanterns?! Less important is the lack of a green astroturf wipe-your-feet mat that makes you cuss like a sailor when you forget and step out on it in bare feet. Picture #2 makes me all ho-hum. I mean seriously?! A wonder-wo(man) class? I'm not down with the whole twirling thing and golden lassos aren't my idea of sexy restraints. Picture #3 makes me all whyyee?! The targeting circle doesn't appear parallel with the ground plane. And, the evil shrubs aren't pathing around the wall to get to him; they're just standing there lookin all shrubby. Picture #4 WTF?! Christo Rendentor? Best to leave RL religions out of video games, you never know who'll be offended and burn down embassy. (Oh, yes I did.) Picture #5 URRRR! OMG Michael Lee Aday! I love it. Picture #6 Oh, come on! Aargh! I can clearly see the upper thigh, and there's no unicorn panties... or dolphins. I don't know what to think. Picture #7 Well... mehh. It's different for a lemmings board, I'll give you that. But, I don't see enough places for the little critters to die. All jokes aside, that stuff looks great Obsidian! And, as to Rob Nesler's potty-mouth, I've only one thing to say about that: http://youtu.be/6GVCgTFw2Qk

Unity supports C#, a flavor of Python and Java via AOTC. (That's ahead-of-time-compilation.) External plugins are likely to be written in Mono C#. "C" is a low level language usually used for systems programming, it doesn't support classes or objects or even strings natively. You wouldn't write a game in C unless you were a masochistic coder or you planned to run on bare metal. (Without an operating system.) "C++" is for the most part used as a library language, it's great for things like 3D engines and OS boiler plate code. Because of the manual memory management in C++, I suspect it's used more often in console games. The newer and higher level languages are better for applications as they allow rapid iteration on code an have expansive libraries for things like image compression, XML, modeling, codecs, etc. It's not 1992 anymore and things have evolved past C/C++.

Cat-o-nine or tawes?

LOL! After the first paragraph I just had too...

You don't understand... It's made by a Marvel competitor, it's as good as gone... all of it. Ask the guys at Boom Comics what happened when Disney bought Marvel. Disney is bad news for anything it touches. In short, if they want to make an episode 7, they'll just bury any and everything in the EU that conflicts with their greedy interests.

I don't think the people here really understand the ramifications of this... I personally lost interest in Star Wars after the remakes and Phantom Menace. I'm not going to bother with engaging the horrid acting and dialogue in Episode 1. But, all that opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the nightmare that is coming for Star Wars fans, past or present. Lucas has always had a hands-off attitude about fanfare and fan material: web sites, clothing, etc. Disney, on the other hand, holds a diametrically opposing view regarding fans and intellectual property. Disney is after all, the entity behind the DMCA and Sonny Bono Act. Their bought and paid-for congressman was behind both laws. If you're not interested in reading the materials I linked there then I'll sum it up for you below... Disney is the largest and most well-funded draconian copyright whore in existence today. This company stands directly in the path of people expecting fairness and understanding from the owners of the intellectual property they know and love and asks them to pay a toll at every turn. Since, until now, George Lucas has been hands-off with such things the public backlash and outrage will be terrible once Disney seals the deal and sets loose their festering hellhounds on every Star Wars fan site in existence. And, all that "extended universe" you folks were discussing? Consider that to be expunged from cannon, buried, and forgotten forever. Because that's exactly what Disney is going to do to Star Wars.

I'm going to agree with some others here that have essentially said, "I'm not much interested in mages wearing plate." I remember the OP madness that was the Sorcerer in Diablo 1. That said, you could say metal close to the body interferes with the channeling of magical energies. But, I would like to see something besides robes. Maybe heavier armor up to medium protection that is made from special materials that don't interfere with magical energies: hydra scales, basilisk hide, or any other "magical" creature. I'd really like to see a "tailor" profession that is about more than shirts, shoes and robes. Certain materials could also have enhancement or handicap properties for some schools of magic. This could also be used to balance the heavier types of caster armor. Some schools of magic contain most of the ranged spells, others have melee range spells or PBAOE effects. Medium protection mage armors could weaken or disable magical energies used in hard hitting ranged schools and enhance melee range schools, and vice-verse for the light and cloth armors. This would make the player choose between a kiting + glass cannon play style and a survivable down and dirty melee play style for casters. Wizardry in heavy protection armor was everything that was wrong with the class in Diablo 1. The player had huge range and AoE damage but when monsters actually caught up to you the hits hardly counted, because you were in plate mail.

Congratulations on the baby Darren! My thoughts on Armor... First, I love the idea of "Cultural or material descriptors like "Vailian doublet"". Why? Because I like to look! I don't want it to always be a no-brainer which armor is better. I want to actually stop and look at stats. By the way, can you do away with color coding of rarity too? That also makes it a no brainer, "I got purpz dude". I hate everything being reduced to paint-by-numbers in MMO's these days. As far as grades and bonuses, one of the things I've considered is: How light would armor need to be in order to make both dodge and parry easier. Wearing something light, but stiff might make parry more difficult due to the reduction in hand speed. Where as, something light and soft would make both dodge and parry easier. In either case, the guy holding a claymore doesn't care much about either; because he only needs to hit you once. Variance in mechanic for the same overall benefit is what my thinking boils down to. What if there are several types of the same armor? Some that provide maximum protection with the heaviest penalties. Others that have a similar DR-type value but differing values in other areas. For instance: A chain shirt with leather sleeves and a long tail provides hypothetically 30% DR, but has -15% dodge and -5% parry. But you could also get a different chain shirt that is waist length with full chain sleeves that provides the same 30% DR, but has the drawbacks reversed, -5% dodge and -15% parry. Finally, there's a full Monty version of the chain that gives 35% DR and a penalty of -15% for both dodge and parry. The numbers there are entirely for the sake of example, but ya'll get what I'm saying. This gives players a chance at a little more benefit if they study their class and play-style and match the variants to fit that, as opposed to just picking up an item only if it's numerically superior to what you have. Even more interesting is if the player could use a trade skill to make modifications like those above. Ultimately, I'm sure whatever you guys come up with will be great. We're just hear to be a sounding board while you sort it all out.

Gestures!!!!

That is made of tiles, they're called pixels.

It is just an idea, and I pretty much expect Obsidian is going to find their own way of handling it. That said, if you want to run away and hide, then do so. No one wrote, "this is the way it has to be and you must leave because you didn't like my idea!" This is a forum for discussion of Project Eternity, and if you don't like discussion then go somewhere else. I will remind you the description of the forum reads, "Discuss your ideas about the Unity engine and what might work best to creative an immersive gameplay experience! Spoilers are allowed in this forum, but please be courteous to others and warn other readers ahead of time." BTW: Yes, I am strange and I freely admit that. However, you pointing that out, with a profile photo like the one you have is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?

Bah! Yes they do... look at how old these tiles are.

Somehow I feel like you're confusing balance with trying to find and close largest number of exploits they can. And, there is a difference between those two things. Skyrim gets released... while everyone else was busy power-leveling blacksmithing, alchemy and enchanting, I was wandering about deciding which town to actually go into first. While everyone was talking about how great 1H / Shield / DW & heavy armor was, I tried a 2H + light armor build I really liked. In fact, it worked quite well if you took the block perk for reflexes and capitalized on your speed to dodge power attacks. Both armors could be made weightless for encumbrance purposes (longevity of stamina), but heavy still lowered your movement speed more than light armor. Not everyone plays min/max, or at least doesn't do it all the time. No one had to tell me to do something less than "optimal", I just did what I chose to do. Skyrim is a single player game, and so is Eternity. Best let people play the game they want to and you play it your way. I find it sort of odd that you're trying to impose your views of play style on other gamers. Before you come back making some lukewarm relation to retail value, Obsidian's reputation, or some other nonsense; remember, development for this game has already been backed by the people here. Maybe not all of it, but enough to ignore accepted design elements centered around seeking the approval of the retail channel in order to sell sequels. Edit: I guess that was the tired, 4AM way of saying I don't think they have to worry about appeasing the masses in order to sell a sequel down the road.

I don't see the difference really... The game will be single player. They're balancing it for a party you partially control, with the AI controlling the rest. If they intended not to do so then they might as well make one homogenized hero like Skyrim or The Witcher. The point of this kind of game is to play a character and see how your interactions play out in the world. That would include the people who decide to follow you; who's help you need to survive. Though, not from a meta-game perspective, but from a RP perspective. If every class has to do everything because they're all expected to operate independently, then you might as well toss the class structure in the trash. Having Obsidian's intended setup means your character has weaknesses, ones that need to be compensated for with the companions recruit.

I think the OP meant this more as a discussion of his own curiosity as opposed to arguing for or against what they chose to use.

I think that really depends on the variety of tiles they decided to use. Not enough and you end up seeing the duplication everywhere. Too much and you might as well draw the whole picture as one unit. There must be a happy median in there somewhere.

Personally, given the workload they have in front of them I would be okay with seamless tiled textures that ended up being the same resolution. Before you trip, remember that most 3D environments are made from tile sets now. Diablo 2 had a seamless 2D tile set and I thought it looked great at the time. And, just as was done in D2... They could make static multi-tile overlays for the areas where they just can't get the exact look with tiles. Let's face it, 6 different 640x480 squares of... you know... grass would be all the grass they'd need to draw. If they allowed tiles to overlap with transparency, the way tiled 3D environments can be done, then you're looking at limitless detail achieved with fewer actual drawings. Edit: Yea, I can really see this working with things like rocks, shrubs, walls, etc. that essentially can be placed anywhere on an existing tile and occluding only what's beneath the actual art.

I love these good/evil debates... I give you a conversation from "The Fall of Night" in the TV series Babylon 5. "But it was Kosh, wasn't it?" Sheridan asks Delenn, and she nods. "That's what he meant when he said that if he left his encounter suit, he'd be recognized by... everybody," Sheridan concludes. "For millions of years, the Vorlons have visited other worlds, guided them and..." "Manipulated us? Programmed us so that... when we saw them, we would react the right way?" "It is, as you say, a matter of perspective," Delenn tells Sheridan solemnly. Now, look at perspectives in the American Revolutionary War: The British Crown was described by the Founding Fathers as the evil and oppressive taskmaster determined to drive The Colonies into poverty with their taxation and exploitation. But, to the British Crown, the Founding Fathers were a bunch of mutinous insurgents, spoiled children grown fat on the New World. Men who were spreading their evil plots and terrorist ideas within the far reaches of the British Empire. Now, both perspectives are largely forgotten. Because, we've become allies for the most part, and fighting one another is pretty pointless now. Good and evil are revealed within that narrow porthole of perspective that we have created for them. Many a psychopathic killer has considered themselves an instrument of God delivering justice upon the vein and corrupt masses. That said, can we please move beyond these themes of a moral binary that has grown long tired? Human beings are so much more than the pigeon holes we place one another in. And, fiction is so much more interesting when it leaves behind the predefined and dares to explore the depth in the choices we make and those reasons that led us to make them. With that, I'll leave you an excerpt from fiction that I believe is just such an attempt to explore our own complexity:

So true, man. So true. I must parody this myself... "PC" Automaker - Our car comes with FM HD, a 6 disk CD player, 140 channels of satellite radio and can interface with 3 MP3 players at the same time. All of them are controlled by a simple 1 wheel push-knob design. "Console" Automaker - Our car comes with FM radio and a 6 disk CD player. The 5 controls for the radio are on your steering wheel, but you'll have to reach over to the small control pad attached to the dashboard to work the 6 disk changer, which is also carriage loaded and placed within the trunk to stay conveniently out of your way. Using one of 12 buttons to select from just 3 dialogue choices is about as robust as making a car with a manual transmission and a different lever for each gear. We may have used only 1 button in those games, but things had a hell of a lot more interesting with 10+ options to answer with different effects for each. BTW my mouse has more epeen at 18 buttons than any handheld controller I've seen for consoles.

Emphasis mine there... I think that's more true than most gamers will ever come to realize. Take a look at Jade Empire, I love it. But, something has always irked me about it. The game introduces alignment mechanics of "Open Palm" and "Closed Fist" as opposing philosophies regarding displays of strength. Then, the dialogue and actions of the game's characters completely belie that underlying idea. The Closed Fist dialogue of many NPCs, as well as the player, is reduced to temper tantrums, self-centered posturing, and outright attempts to equate it with evil. For example: On the PC version, in the pirate cave, you have thee options upon discovering a slave girl about to be purchased by a human trafficker: One, you tell him shes not for sale. Two, you tell the girl to take a dagger and stab him in the heart and thus learn to stand up for herself. Three, you tell him you're the one who's now selling slaves. Two different rewards are given depending on your answer that are part of exclusive quests for a martial style that's related to Open Palm or Closed Fist. What do you get for telling her to go kill him for her own freedom? The Open Palm scroll and the only one that gives the Closed Fist scroll is to sell the girl to him. Are you kidding me? Open palm dialogues are nearly as petty; asking your character, who's supposed to be an accomplished martial artist, to run around acting a Mary Sue most of the time. This goes as far sometimes as to have your character back down from someone threatening his or her life. I mean, come on now... I blame this sort of crap 100% on the publishers. Why? I never saw much of it back in the 80's & 90's. It wasn't until consoles became nearly as prevalent as DVD players that I saw dialogue like this widespread. I can almost hear the publisher's man standing in a room with the writers saying, "this really isn't working for me... I'm afraid our younger players simply won't get it." Throw in cross platform development, where we suddenly have "family types" and children playing these games, and it's all of a sudden a bad thing for you to present an idea that's not so conventional. Blah... what a bunch of bologna!

The first time this happens, and it will; you know how greedy the suits are. The backlash will make the New York Times. If a studio states in their kickstarter that they're not looking to work with publishers and then do... Well, lets just say that Amazon is going to get slammed with thousands, or even tens of thousands of charge-backs. Consumers will state the studio violated their stated goals in the crowdfunding and pulled a bait and switch. Kickstarer themselves will end up with a pile of negative publicity and will find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to litigate against a project owner for the first time; or at least in the public spotlight. Should the publisher end up involved and documents be found proving intent to defraud on the part of the publisher and studio... Well that will just be messy, unless someone shoves that stuff in a paper shredder when it all starts. This scenario is precisely the reason I am still very much on the fence about backing Star Citizen. There were 2 words I didn't like at all: microtransactions and investors. Add to that the odd behavior of how their campaign started. They completely ignored Kickstarter and setup their own campaign, only to turn around and start an actual Kickstarter project when the paypal funding appeared to slow down. I have fond memories of Chris Roberts' games and I really don't want to believe he would knowingly participate in a scheme designed to allow some publisher to shirk the development costs. I may still end up backing the project, and I really do hope that I'm just being greedy-bastards paranoid. But, something about it makes me very uneasy, especially not knowing what entities these "investors" are.