JOG

As long as PE doesn't use a Vancian spell system that makes you memorize the spells before you need them and mages can run out of spells, then the main resting factor would be health anyway, and getting some miserable sleep in a damp dungeon wouldn't help too much to recover. I guess/hope the helath/stamina-system will be balanced well enough to allow us to emerge from our dungeon crawl battered but victorious, rather than having to sleep right in front of the final boss' room, to prepare for the final battle. Resting, as in taking a break, sitting down, and catch a breath for five minutes (to regain stamina and some spell energy) should always be possible, but you shouldn't be as good as new after a short break, and most areas simply shouldn't be safe for sleeping and recovering, either because they're uncomfortable, dangerous, or because the citywatch doesn't like vagrants on their streets. Finding a good place to rest (sleep) in the wilderness is a survival skill, so the amount of health regain and chance to be interupted may be directly linked to the skill, but the prefered way of resting should be a warm bed in an inn. Of course we could automize "leave the dungeon, go to next town, rest and return where we are" to the press of a button, but this "streamlining" is one of the reasons why current "RPG"s are as they are. To me exhaustion and the possibility of party members dying permanently is a good thing, as it makes an adventurer's life well... adventurous. BTW: many of the RPGs that were already old-school when BG1 was released had another resting limiter: food; you either couldn't rest with an empty belly, or the time spent resting would make you hungry and you would suffer some penalties when you hadn't thought of bringing along enough rations, a real simple solution. Also quite popular were the "safe spot" places that were the only places where you could rest (and in some cases also the only places where you could save the game).

The Arcanum system is especially cool in that it has the empty wilderness feeling of BG1 when you don't use the fast travel system. Compared to BG Arcanum is a real vast emptiness, though. While the wilderness-exploration was nice in BG1, what bothered me more in BG2 is the tight packing, there was not a single are that wasn't involved in a quest, most several of them. BG1 felt right for the setting, you could aimlessly wander around or follow the road, exploring the countryside gave a few interesting encounters, but usually there wasn't much to do. BG2 removed playing out the traveling, which was okay, as a mid-level adventurer party shouldn't find it noteworthy that they were bothered by wolves and a couple of gibberlings on the way to the next town. The problem for me was that you couldn't go two steps in town without stumbling over a quest, a NPC/creature involved in a quest or a lich.

<Sigh> Yes, it's 3D and uses models instead of sprites. Great deal. Look at ToEE and add a decade, this is what we will get. 1 inch party-member figures seen walking trough the dungeon from high above. No matter whether the party-members are pre-rendered by a mainframe or on the fly by your graphic card, I don't see any effect on atmosphere by the simple fact that a shader covers the lower bodies of your party. The atmospheric impact comes from the setting of the dungeon itself, or the fact that you *can* walk trough water as a tactical option, not the graphical presentation of actually doing it. I really would like swimming climbing and wading, as tactical options, heck I *hated* NWN2 for not letting me to simply climb over that wall to Blacklake, but I also realize what this means for level-design and story telling, especially when you want to make a game where you don't just waltz trough the dungeon and click on anything that moves until it gives XP and drops new equipment.

You cannot, but "good" and "evil" as universal concepts need to be judged by intent not action and certainly not consequences. Is killing evil? Even animals you want to eat? Animals that one day might attack you or your livestock ? Mercy killing? Self defence? Protecting another? What about the policeman? The soldier? Is the police-sniper evil when he kills the hostage-taker? What if the hostage taker had just a toy-gun and the hostage never was in imminent danger? In wartimes usually good news for one group means great harm for the other, and sometimes things done with good intentions can have very bad consequences, or good things an can be done out of evil intentions. IMO good and evil are too abstract concepts for us humans to judge objectively, usually we identify as good as what we think is good for us and ours at the moment, and if we can't be trusted to judge fairly, we shouldn't trust a computer to do so either. All you can tell is whether a decision is good for one faction or the other. That said, branching paths? Yes, but on faction reputation (good or bad) rather than the abstract concept of good and evil.

A few more thoughts on this: The power to manipulate the mind and feelings is dangerous, and needs a regulation system lest the manipulators will soon be the true rulers. In a world where priests and wizards exists, nobody depends on the services of an organisation of mindbenders, they would be locked away, or go into hiding. So the PC would either be a runaway from a Cipher-asylum, a member of an underground organisation that serves as a more subtle alternative to an assassin guild, or it would be a random guy with a random class who managed to hide his talents so far. In either case, being a Cipher would either require a lot of fixed character background or add an extra level of character development to a base class. BTW: For us non-native english speakers: "Cipher" originates from the arabic word for "zero" and found its way into the mathematic terms of all european languages, once the old roman number system turned out to be impractical for more sophisticated calculations. I know that today the term is used for: - encryption algorithms (the mathematic aspect) - dope-heads (a zero-mind) - the circle in which a joint is passed around - free-style raps (Circle? Zero preparation? Or yet another drug reference?) So what exactly is the relation to the character class? Do they need drugs for their trade? Are they "decrypting the minds of other people"?

To me the Ciphers sound a bit like Jedi without lightsaber acrobatics, the problem I have with such "alternative magic" is that either it's just another (aka obsolete) school of magic, or it should be a character trait rather than a class. Someone born with such abilities may learn a mundane profession like warrior, rogue or baker before he becomes aware of his abilities, he would then use these abilities to improve his proficiency in the learned profession rather than starting from scratch in a new class.

Anyone else remembering Little Computer People? When you did nothing for too long, the guy started to knock on the screen from the inside to wake you up. Or KOTOR: at least in the Chargen screen, the character gets bored easily, starts to look around and wave his hand to get your attention. Such gimmickry is always nice, but it loses its appeal when it is a feature we requested.

Just remember the scale and perspective, in a first or third person game waist high water might be atmospheric, but in an iso game it simply means that the lower bodies of the sprites will be blurry or not visible at all, and there would be splashes instead of footprints. So it would be mainly a gameplay option and not an atmospheric addition. Since water usually serves as barrier in RPGs just like heel-high fences, the ability to swim / wade trough water and climbing fences has a considerable impact on level design. It won't be really new either, Jagged Alliance already featured wading trough water as well as climbing fences and buildings, but there it served a purpose, tactical options with pros and cons in a tactical combat game. In RPGs - especially the kind Obsidian makes - you usually have a lot of scripted events, the ability to overcome obstacles introduces a whole bunch of opportunities for bugs and oversights, where events fire out of sequence or not at all.

in addition to Alexjh's kitten example: - You might be in a country where cats are considered a pest and concluding deals and negotiations by stomping on kittens is an old custom promising luck and prosperity. Not stomping on a box of kittens offered to you may be considered a major insult, and if the person who gave you the kittens was not a peasant but the king this may even lead to a war... So if you are evil and want to provoke a war, you pet the kittens right there in the throne room where everyone can see it. - Or more seriously: Damien might want to get into Angela's pants, and wants to impress her by helping to find a good home for the kittens. - And don't forget that that psychopathic mass murderer might actually have a heart for kittens. Stranger things have happened. "Good" and "evil" must be judged by intention, not action, otherwise "cowards" would be good pacifists, and "heroes" evil murderers. But the computer can't see intentions at all, so unless we get a 100+ pages multiple-choice form for every single action we made, there will never be enough options to cover all the intents our characters might have had for an action. (And often the character simply did it that way, because the player knew there would be a better reward.) So let's skip the alignment completely. People that don't know you judge you by your actions, and that should be enough. When there is no karma-meter the player is free to make up his own reasoning, it's actually better for roleplaying to be able to slaugther ghouls in the hundreds and not become a "saint" just because a developer thought it's a good act to put them out of their misery; some of our characters may simply slaughter them for the giggles.

I still think that there should be two dual wield variants: One where dual wielding adds a considerable feint bonus to hit chance rather than an extra attack, of course the opponent must be smart and calm enough to fall for such finesse. The other a combat style that requires a lot of training, open only to the most dedicated warriors, and not to rogues who ought to be easily distracted by wine, women and song.

Neither dog nor cat person here, I like dogs and cats, but I don't like cat-sized dogs, and for some reason feel uncomfortable in the presence of dog-sized cats. I don't think an animal is a proper party member for an Obsidian game, there is only some much talkietalk you can do, and even a well done animal would have the personality of a mid 1980's NPC, because there is only so much an animal can communicate. Given the choice between a talking spirit bear fighter and a humanoid companion that has interests and problems which are, well, human, I'd chose the later. Same goes for psychopathic killer-robots, or even sillier stuff like walking trunks or jigging mushroom-men. A ranger companion, a familiar, or an inventory-only pet (like a certain megalomaniac stumpy tail rat) are okay, and why not allow permanent summons (Geneforge anyone?) If you want a carrion crawler pet, how about you summon one, and cast a permanency spell on it?

Or Arcanum, especially Tarrant, this is always the first thing I think of when I hear city adventure, you had day-shops, night-shops, 24/7 merchants, gangs terrorizing the streets at night, slums that were terrorized 24/7, a brothel with quite a variety of "girls", murder mistery and even a worker's uprising. Despite most non-filler NPCs being glued on their place for the given time of day, this town felt more alive and real than most I ever saw, without adding gameplay-annoyances for the sake of realism. @all: Of course it shouldn't become a "Hunt for NPC" minigame like Oblivion or on a less annoying scale Ultima 6. For "getting the merchant out of bed" I imagine a simple locked door, that gives you the choice to leave, pick the lock, knock, knock more demanding or bump at the door until the whole city quarter wakes up. The more effort you put in waking the merchant the more his prices will (temporary?) increase. (And yes, some humoric adventure elements do have a place in RPGs, IMO) The racial examples I gave above were just that, examples. Whether a shop is open 24/7 or just 8/5 should depend on the NPC's personality or the nature of the clientele, but when the NPC is asked for the reasons, racial stereotypes may be one possible answer. And again: When the main reason for 24/7 merchants is getting rid of all that loot, the main reason for going back to town is that you can't carry anymore, and the main reason for wanting to sell the stuff right now is that the player wants to return to the dungeon and continue with the character's storyline, then something is wrong here. When the merchants no longer buy random stuff, (why should a smith buy a sword? he makes a living of making and selling them! Why should an apothecary buy a sword? Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy iron ingots when he needs some iron for his potions?) and we reduce item selling to gems, legendary artifacts and custom orders, then we would not only eliminate the need to have a merchant available at all times, but also help to fix the economy-problem where a high level party has enough money to actually buy the kingdom that hired them as mercenaries. Of course there could be pawn shops and fences, but even they wouldn't buy that crate of orc clubs you collected on your last adventure.

Day/Night cycles are fine, but they should serve a purpose (like being able to rob that shop, or witnessing/preventing a burglary) Also the availability of services should depend on the NPC, most merchants might get up when you knock at their door at midnight and tell them that you're willing to pay double price if they serve you now. The healer may be there for you at no extra cost, the dwarf may be in the tavern or passed out for the rest of the night after the 25th tankard of ale, and the elf may not sleep at all but spend his idle time in half-conscious reverie always ready to welcome another customer, there may be even shops for a darker clientele that are only open at night. As for the backpack, I think it would solve a lot of the common economy problems if you could not sell random junk to merchants; a weaponsmith may buy a masterfully crafted sword, but certainly not a old rusty blade let alone that smelly robe you got from that necromancer, no matter how powerful its enchantment.

The main difference between real life dual wielding and the RPG variant is that in real life it was/is a tactical advantage you get: the opponent doesn't know from which side you're going to attack, in RPG terms you get an attack bonus but no extra attacks. RPG dual wielding is the exact opposite: you get extra attacks at an attack penalty.

If the incentive is to bypass the locked door, you could A) Pick the lock B) Break the door C) Kill the owner and take his key D) Charm the owner's daughter by citing ancient poetry and have her open the door for you E) Climb trough the window. Those options should be equal in terms of short-term reward, long term consequences could include a happy carpenter, a murder inquiry and a pregnant daughter.

How about "dual wielding" as it was actually done in most cases? One extra "sneaky" (aka "dirty") attack per round with an offhand dagger, either non-parryable or auto-critical. (You feint an attack with your rapier and trust with the dagger.) Alternatively use a parrying dagger (i.e. a foldable handheld trident) for block & counterstrike maneuvers. If the common RPG dual-wielding aka double attacks with twin swords is implemented, it should be a combat style for fighters only, as it's very difficult and needs a lot of training. And there it would be balanced, as the claymore would do more damage, and the sword & shield combo protect better. The D&D rogue can't use either out of the box, is agile enough so that he doesn't need a shield, and too weak to lift the two handed sword, aside from roleplaying there is no sane reason to forego dual wielding, so some game systems even implement dual wielding as a special rogue feature. I for one am sick of all the DPS "rogues" (and I AM a dedicated rogue player); double attacks for an insignificant to-hit penalty is cheesy enough already, no need to pair it with massive sneak attacks, and it's Rogue, for Olidammara's sake, "Rogue", not "Sword dancer"

I always found it amazing that they actually had jobs for someone who just barged into their house. Mercenaries and adventurers should look for jobs at the jobboard in the townhall or tavern, visiting homes without invitation is for thieves.

Indeed, we are nitpicking about a concept we have only heard of theoretically yet. Beyond D&D there are various systems with a more sophisticated damage/health system, and even P&P D&D is more complex than the computer games make it seem. I for one have played RPGs with a shock / injury system, ones with a health / stamina system, ones without magical healing, ones with fixed resting points, and even ones with fixed saving points. I have no reason to think that Obsidian isn't capable of building a good game system that goes beyond the complexity of today's "RPGs". That no publisher dares to invest in something the masses may find too newfangled or even challenging, is the reason why PE had to be crowdfunded in the first place.

No, what "we" love is to actually stay in the dungeon. Always being fullly prepared and ready for anything is just a test of skills; adventure and heroism - tales to remember - begin in a situation where you carry on despite being exhausted and in a desperate condition. And no I'm not against resting in a hostile environment, but there should be consequences for doing so, like time passing and a chance to be attacked while you sleep, and maybe even killed if one of you didn't stay up as a guard. This hasn't much to do with health and stamina though, it's a about whether there should be a D&Dish overkill of healing magic or a "realistic" approach. Health and stamina just allow Obsidian to add exhaustion to the acute combat dangers, and balancing a variety of weapon-(damage)-types with a low-healing setting.

I think Jagged Alliance is a prime example of how a shock / wound system might work. There is acute damage that heals pretty fast and there are wounds that heal slowly AND make your character less effective. That 1-2 HP fighter with full stamina should require his whole stamina to stand upright and stumble to the next healer, if he participates in the next fight he might very well die, but if he doesn't help his buddies he may die as well, along with the whole party. A example for a bad health system is NWN2-OC: just kneel down for 6 real life seconds and be up to full health and have all spells restored, no consequences for resting in an hostile environment, no need for a guard, not even a proper amount of ingame-time passes let alone any impact on quests that should be time critical.

1: Options, Daggerfall and a couple of strategy/RPG games I played gave you the option to arrive at the destination quickly or well rested. 2: Yes, but empty cities at night is a common standard by now. IMO a day/night schedulle is enough though, the smith can have his noon break when I'm done shopping, and that quest-giver shouldn't appear in the tavern only at tea-time. And I most certainly don't want to track down NPCs that visiit their mother every other sunday. Also, stop the day night cycle during conversations, it's just silly when you talk to someone for half an hour in real time, and a couple of days pass in the game world. 3: As was said, here on Earth, day and night still have almost constantly the same length on the equator, and close to the poles "Night" is just a brief period of dim light in summer and "Day" just a brief period of less gloomy darkness in winter. But not every planet has a tilted rotation axis. 4. Yep.

For spell research that happens within the mage's mind such an abstract minigame would be quite fitting. For alchemy research which is more trial and error I think Skyrim did it quite well. For mundane crafts like smithing or trapmaking, I think a minigame would be boring. Either your character knows how to make a sword or he doesn't.

To be fair, though Watchers Keep was intended to make Throne of Bhaal a bit longer, the final dungeon crawl before you go and fulfill the prophecy. Most of BG2 didn't make much sense, story-wise. After the first stronghold-quest you have the 15000 and should follow Imoen. And when you return to Athkatla you have more pressing matters in mind, than caring about the remaining 80% of the game, and once that pressing matter is settled, the game is over resp. TOB starts.

Watcher's Keep only has 5 levels, (7 if you count the exterior area and the final room) but yes it's a bit tedious and randomly thrown together. The problem with NPCs ignoring your achievements is a common one, though. Watcher's Keep is a bit different, because unless you tell them so, nobody will know that you either freed big D (one way or the other) or tricked a couple of chosen of the god of duty into actually doing their duty, but there are many quests that should give you a certain reputation, and nobody that wasn't involved in these quests will ever take note. There's also the issue with your gear, all those expensive and powerful armors and weapons, and nobody is impressed let alone intimidated by your appearance.

Just finished a playtrough of BGT (BG1 modded into BG2) a couple of weeks ago. Played it at 960 x 600 (because there is no scaling involved when I play it on my 1920x1200 monitor and in the monitor's native resolution the game is too tiny for my taste) There was plenty of NPC interaction in the BG1 part thanks to a mod, there were a couple of new NPCs in both parts thanks to mods, thieving was especially enjoyable this time thanks to a mod, there were new quests and areas thanks to mods, and that even was a low modded playtrough without the really big quest mods. So why buy the game again, bother with DRM for an Arena mod that isn't linked to the main game, and two new NPCs? This isn't about checking for interest whether such games still find an audience, it's just about squeezing a bit of extra money out of those strange guys that still want to play such games. IMO investing that money into the PE Kickstarter was a better choice. Right now I'm playing a couple of NWN mods, and plan to finally play KOTOR2 + TSLRCM 1.8 during the christmas holidays.