Shadowmant

Yes, at least in the form that monsters won't by default give XP for every one you kill. Achieving certain objectives (another word was used here instead of objectives that was better) would award XP. There was nothing saying that if it was an important monster/group of monsters that they won't be an objective and reward XP for killing them though. It just gives them a system where they can reward you for defeating an encounter other ways as well (so perhaps you talk your way out of the fight or set off a landslide that kills a few of the monsters to soften them up) without making you sacrifice all that XP.

Yep, level 12 is the hard level cap unless that gets changed during development of course, but that seems as unlikely as anything can this early in production.

So I was wondering what peoples feeling are in terms of the pacing of character levels and how fast or slow you should gain them. We know at this point there are 12 levels (or 11 instances of levelling up) and while we do not know the lengh of the game I see a lot of people guessing in around the 20-25 hour mark. How do people feel the level pacing should go. Should it be a flat rate of roughly 1 level per 2 hours of play? Should your early levelling be accelerated and then the later levelling be slowed (say around 4 hours per level)? Should the levelling be quick but cause you to hit the level cap earlier (such as 3/4 of the way through the game)? What are peoples thoughts on this?

Bob: Hey John? John: Ya Bob? Bob: Look over there. John: What is it? Bob: Some guy with a flaming lightsaber just flew through the door and stabbed Benny in the throat. John: Dammit Bob, that's way over on the other side of the room, could you please focus and get back to work? Bob: Yah.... yah I guess so.

I really think it depends on the context of the character wearing it. If she's a hardened veteran of war leading a patrol through brigand infested forests, I would hope for realistic functional armour. If we're talking about the egotistical young mage who thinks she is invincible and relies on her spells and enchantments for defence then go for the more artistic stuff.

It's funny because there are so many articles online about kickstarter not delivering because of all these video games missing their target dates. However, it's not the industry norm to provide a release window when a project begins and with such a complex creative endeavour it's not realistic to. It becomes even more complex if you exceed your goals and expand upon the project. It's not as simple as a manufacturing kickstarter where you just order a larger run of the item from the factory. I think the current kickstarter policies on the release dates need to be revamped. Even if you could pre-set different release dates for each stretch goal achieved before the project starts I think it would be helpful. Games would still miss their initial goals (just the nature of the beast) but it would help to have them miss by a much less extreme amount of time than you currently see.

With single player games I very much prefer to wait for the actual release because the alphas/betas are going to be buggy and ruin the story/experience. Multi-player games are a different matter as it can be beneficial to learn the mechanics ahead of the crowd to get an early advantage out of the gate.

It's really nice to see these type of games making a comeback, I really enjoy them (generally). I've been really surprised that none of these "AAA" studios have noticed the trend and announced something themselves. Though, that may prove to be a good thing, as it might allow some of the smaller studios time to establish themselves and put more competition into that space.

Good thing they've spent nowhere near the price of a AAA game. Or cost the same either. SR:R is $20 and W2 is going to be $25 (I believe) on release.

I would argue that the wheel of time was ripe with religions. You had the Aes Saidi who believed in the creator and the wheel of time controlling all events. You also had the dark friends who worshiped the dark one as if he was a god. Additionally you had the Whitecloaks who seemed inspired by both the Christian crusaders and the Christian inquisition and they were heavily religious and powerful to have rule over Arcadia much in the same way as the church ruled Britain at some points of history. You also had the Maesma's Prophet of the Dragon cult who worshiped the dragon reborn as a god. Finally you had the Senchan who seemed very inspired by the old Japanese God-Emperor model.

If there are going to be pre-combat buffs you might as well give a UI where you can tell the system what buffs go on what character and it casts them automatically out of combat. It just removes the tedium from pre-buffing since your just going to have to do it all the time anyways. As for removing pre-buffing all together... that seems difficult to do without removing buffing all together. Though there have been a few neat ideas thrown around in the the thread.

I can't help but wonder where you go if you crawl through one of the smaller portal holes in that thing...

Missing the K

To have a quick save button that generates a new save as opposed to overwriting the previous quick save.

FTL - Fantastic game. I have nothing bad to say Star Command - They didn't deliver everything they hoped to but the game was still pretty fun. Shadowrun Returns - They have only delivered half so far (and announced the second half). Pretty fun, good story but linear. Second half is supposed to be less linear. Banner Saga - Had fun with their PvP portion. Really great battle system. Not tried the PvE version the kickstarter was for though. Expeditions: Conquistador - I didn't even realize this was a kickstarter game when I bought it. Had a lot of fun with it. Battleworld Kronos - Just didn't click with me and I didn't enjoy the game. So far I've been happy overall with the games I've played. I haven't run into any situations of the developer just running off with my money or a game being significantly different than what was promised. I'd say I've had much more disappointment with steam sale impulse buys and "official" pre-orders than I have with the kickstarted games I've gotten, but hey, millage may vary.

Really? Because it's already been around and popular for a couple years...

I'm going to disagree with this statement. I think there are a lot of people demanding RPG's with a great story and I would point to the amount of highly funded kickstarters that promised just this as evidence. You can even look to the mainstream games such as Bioshock and Mass Effect and their success to see how popular a good story can be (or Mass Effect 3's ending for how disappointed people can get when their story expectations are not met). I do agree publishers are too focused on the next-Gen graphics and games that can bring in hundreds of millions in revenue. I think if a publisher opened a department willing to create lower budget (5-10 million dollar) rpg games that are well polished they could have a really popular (and lower risk) arm of business. It would also allow them to have a side of their business that could create new brands with minimal risk instead of always having to expand on existing brands.

Overall, I just want a good engaging story where my choices make a significant impact. Oh, that and the ability to pause at any time. If I can't pause the game it'll rarely get played.

That is a bad idea and will always be a bad idea. The Doctor is a distinct character with a distinct, well-established personality. It varies somewhat with regenerations, but the fundamental fact is that the Doctor is not an everyman, a blank slate or a character that allows for player agency. The only way to make a faithful, respectful video game adaptation of Doctor Who is to have a series of non-interactive cutscenes with gameplay that consists of running down the same corridor several dozen times to pad out episode runtimes. Or just not play as the doctor. You could be another player in the universe that has some interaction with the doctor such as a companion, another time lord or just a person who's life is set on adventure due to the doctor. I think it would be difficult to meet player expectations though.

I agree. The holiday season probably isn't a good time for launching if it's a high budget kickstarter... well, as high as a kickstarter budget can realistically expect. That said, it's never bad to drum up some hype for a couple of months prior to launch so that you have a good audience with wallets out of launch day. It's kind of neat to see them taking the same path as inXile and getting their next one going so they can get the folks coming off of this project (such as concept artists I'm sure) into a new project instead of laying them off.

I'll go out on a limb and say yes, but I think more detail is needed. Are we talinking about pushing the game back a month or a year to add in the new content if the goals are met?

I wasn't stating it had to be full plate armour, just simply a breastplate =P Some other good points were made. Other proportions such as shoulder width and waist size are pretty different and would need to be taken into account. Could changes in these proportions possibly negitvely impact the shape of the armour and need to be compensated for? Osvir made the comment "You are comparing 2000'ish insights with late 1500/early 1600'ish insights." I would say that in a world where woman have been part of the common soldiery for hundreds of years their insight may actually exceed ours since women in the soldiery is pretty new.

She would wrap bandage around her torso, and then be able to fit into male armor. Would that be financially feasable to produce bandages for half an army? Discomfort wise, would it not be risking some grumbling among that half of you're army?

@Chrząszczyrzewoszyczanin That's really good. We don't know what buttons are needed yet so it's hard to make specific comments as to the free space, but the general Idea I like.

So, historically there have not been many female armoured warriors at all. This would lead me to believe that even the few historical examples of a female breastplate would not be as functional as it's male counterpart since the armourers at the time would have much less chance to iterate on it. So the question presents itself, in a world where female soldiers are as common as male soldiers, what would a female breastplate have evolved into? It needs to be wearable for a person with breasts but at the same time functional in combat with the ability to deflect or stop a sword. How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?