Kane_Severance

As has been said, I'm for realistic, self-motivated, intelligent evil, not the moustache twirling slaughter for slaughter's sake kind.

The first meth-addict in an rpg?

This. OP can play Mass Effect 3 if he wants only depressing endings. ?? The Synthesis ending was pretty happy. You still feel depressed after getting it.

This. OP can play Mass Effect 3 if he wants only depressing endings.

When used for skill checks tags have had different implementations. Originally they just indicated the skill you were trying to use to attempt to achieve different results in a conversation. They didn't garauntee the success of the use of that skill. The options usually led to a better outcome if the skill roll succeeded, but often contained penalties if you failed (such as combat or losing access to a shop or quests through the npc). This is fine, in my opinion, because there is risk involved. It's like disarming a trap. Succeeding the disarm lets you access a treasure, failing causes the trap to go off. If you're not skilled at disarming traps, the best option is to just leave it alone. Similarly, someone who's not skilled at bluffing probably shouldn't attempt it. They can still try and sometimes get lucky, but they're more likely to fail and negatively impact their relationship with the npc. This changes in games which have a static skill requirement to access the dialog. If you can only see or choose the bluff option if you have a high enough skill, then there is no risk involved so it should not be the most rewarding option 100% of the time.

Look at Walter from Breaking Bad to see a good example of a scientist using his knowledge in badass ways.

Okay, I think there are two discussions going on. People arguing for/against skill tags, and those for/against dialog tags. I'm ambivilant about skill tags. I don't think they're necessary, but they don't really bug me. I'm definitely for dialog tags if the dev's wish to use them. I want the writers to have every creative tool at their disposal. I don't want a really cool idea that can't be animated well removed from the game because people don't want anything in the dialog box but spoken text.

I would like to see more than upright chopping modelled on the characers. More dynamic animation would be appreciated. I don't need motion capture precision, but I'd like to see some lunges and backswings mixed in with the normal slash. I'd also like to see a difference in animation between cutting weapons and bludgeoning. You don't swing a mace the same way you swing a sword. With a sword you're cutting or stabbing with quickness and finesse, with a mace or hammer you're smashing your weapon with great impact. I don't want this to become a combat simulator, but I would like combat to look more visceral than the old IE games.

Dear Jesus, don't make me quote myself: Sorry thats just silly... intimidate is a skill - a skill is a game mechanic - when it's used the game performs some function with it - the game doesn't know it's a threat it just knows it's a skill that requires some function to determine if it is successful or not. bluff is a skill - a skill is a game mechanic - when it's used the game performs some function with it - the game doesn't know it's a threat it just knows it's a skill that requires some function to determine if it is successful or not. The fact that you don't think a threat should be bluffed in this context is irrelevant to all but you... Bluff is a bloody superfluous skill that should be burned, banned and forgotten. Exactly because of stuff like this, when people try to argue that it should be used instead of pretty much any other skill. Your opinion is noted. You didn't need to repeat yourself I just disagree with you. I think it adds variety in how you roleplay your character. I like lots of roleplaying options, coming from a PnP background. Stamp your feet and say it's wrong all you want. I enjoy using bluff in games.

I don't have an issue with shops and homes being closed at night. I also like when some things are only available at night. Things like gambling halls and taverns should have more people at night and every RPG with a night cycle must have a ghost that appears at night is seems.

It's not about what the other guy knows, it's about what your intention is. If your intention is to bluff about killing your hostage or setting off a bomb then you won't do it if your bluff is called. If your intention is a geniune threat then you will follow through. The dialog options contain things other than dialog to convey information that cannot be given easily in any other manner. In PS:T using this method allowed you to take many actions through dialog. Things that couldn't be animated properly were displayed in dialog text. You could rip out your own eye and replace it through dialog. You could dig through the internal organs of a body being autopsied through dialog. Your intentions and how your character thought about a situation were conveyed through the dialog box. It is a very useful storytelling tool and one I'd prefer the developers to have access to.

It depends on the kind of game. Randomness works extremely well in roguelikes or other procedurally generated game. In a more story-centric game increasing the randomness of outcomes makes it increasingly more difficult to create a cohesive storyline with continuity. That said, there is still randomness involved. You roll the digital dice constantly throughout combat. Whether dice rolling is part of skill results is a design decision, and I can see the arguments for either side.

As people have pointed out, there are times when the same line can be said two completely different ways. In PS:T many times you could say the same thing, but sometimes you were lying. If you were lying it was a chaotic act and if you told the truth you would follow through on it. If you told someone you were going to rip their arm off and you were bluffing, they may be intimidated or they may not. If you chose the lie option and they called your bluff that was the end to it, but if you told the truth then you'd rip their arm off and deal with the consequences. There's nothing wrong with using tags to distinguish a character's tone or intention.

Both Star Command's and Haunts' failures had to do with poor planning before the kickstarter even got going. In Haunts they basically set an unrealistic budget. They gave themselves zero wiggle room in terms of developing costs and when things took longer than expected because they only had one programmer trying to keep up with problems they ran out of money. Star Command was even more ridiculous in that they offered rewards without considering how much they would cost. When you're giving out T-shirts at relatively low backer levels, you're not going to get to keep a lot of that money. OE and Double Fine are much less likely to make such novice and irresponsible mistakes. I wouldn't mind seeing cost break-downs just for personal edification, but I don't feel entitled to it as I feel OE is deserving of my trust in this case.

I know I read that there will be auto-pause in the game. I hope they plan on including many options for autopause. Things like pause on enemy sighted, pause on trap spotted, pause on spell being cast, etc. are all important to me. I hate RTS games because I'm not good at quickly micromanaging units. In Project Eternity I want to be able to effectively and throrougly manage the party in tactical combat.

What makes a solo player challenge a challenge at all is that the game is designed around being played with a party. It's about using all the tricks of your trade to survive where you probably should have died. If they balance the game with solo play-throughs in mind then what's the challenge?

I like complete loot, but armor should have a chance of being damaged during combat with the possibility of repair.

I think armor should mitigate damage, while shields should mitigate chance to be hit. Heavier armor can have higher DR, but at the cost of decreasing your ability to dodge blows.

I am fine with polearms being one subset of weapons. Mainly, I'd like weapon skills to be divided in simple categories like swords, axes, hammers, polearms, daggers, thrown, firearms, bows. These skills should all do different things, but different kinds of weapons within the skillset should basically operate the same except maybe different modifiers for the weapons themselves (rapiers critting more, but doing less base damage than say a bastard sword)

No reason to have a fixed last name for people to call you by since they're not voicing most of the game. It's trivial to insert whatever name string you choose into dialog text. I prefer first and last name fields. I would also like a random name generator. I usually click through those for a while to get inspiration, then find one close to what I want and modify it.

It's hardly unrealistic. Age of Decadence has a wide variety of weapons that all play very differently. It's all in how they decide to design their game.

Bad poll. I would go for the middle option, like most people posting. Not tons of wandering through empty wilderness, but still a fair amount of exploration and discovery as opposed to a small handful of locations.

Meh, I don't mean include all of the concept art. I just meant have a sketch to go with the journal entries so you can see what you're reading about. Not even the full sketch is necessary. Just the face maybe for NPCs.

Random encounters can't remain on the map, only locations. Unless you encounter snails on an epic journey through the world. Think he's referring to the old Fallout special encounters. Some random encounters were just enemies and you could not return to that location, but sometimes you found a special location like a crashed alien ship or a gathering of cultists. These locations could occur anywhere at random times and once you discovered them you could return to that location later and it would show up on your map.

Yeah, the sepia ones are what I was referring to. That portrait actually looks pretty cool.