Uszi

Thanks for the frequent updates. Great stuff, hilarious read too.

I'm not sure I understand the point of an Iron Man mode if, as people have said in this thread, they only want to do iron man run-throughs when they've played the game a few times and already know how to get the results they want. Seems like a weird metagaming self challenge, which could easily by accomplished by using a standard save feature and choosing to not reload. Kind of like how Minecraft's new hard core mode doesn't actually add anything players couldn't have chosen for themselves.

I've always liked it, personally. I don't think there's anything specifically "cutting edge" about allowing any sort of possible character angle. For the amount of additional challenge presented to developers, I don't personally reap that much additional benefit as a player. I am, of course, only speaking for myself here. I mean, I don't really need it to be that pretty, anyway. I still boot up Diablo II and Gauntlet Legends and go on monster slashing runs. Those games are 12 and 14 years old respectively, but I am never taken out of the experience by the graphics. Not saying that Skyrim isn't more immersive, but graphics are a tool for immersion, I think.

I like the idea that any attack to a flank or behind has a greater critical chance or does more damage. Also, there are ways to design back stabbing rogues that doesn't force it and doesn't make it arbitrary. There are a lot of reasons why a stealthy, stabby character uses light armor and uses knives. Wearing chain, scale or plate armor should have a huge impact on your sneakiness. Unless it's enchanted to some how muffle the noise, there's no way in heck you should be able to sneak up behind someone in field plate. The same goes for a lot of melee weapons. The larger or heavier a weapon is, the more noise it is going to make or the more awkward it's going to be to carry. I think bows and crossbows are already pretty stealthy, but still probably not as quiet as a knife? I mean, you quickly arrive at wearing some sort of catsuit and using knives as your best option for a stealthy character when trying to maximize or metagame your character, but you're not forced to do that if you want to try to be some sort of plate wearing stealth wizard. Making a rogue specialize in this kind of combat or equipment sets them up for what's seen as their usual role by players these days, but it doesn't force anyone's hand.

I like night being more dangerous than day. I like the mechanic of playing at night to either cover more ground or doing **** more quickly having some sort of trade off like decreased stamina, increased damaged, decreased resistance to poison, scarier enemies, etc. I don't think making players wait via a wait/rest option to get to content that only occurs during certain time periods is that onerous. The only time this gets really annoying is when the clock is synced up to real time, like in the Pokemon Gold/Silver games, for instance... or Animal Crossing or something like that. I also like seasons. It would be cool to revisit an area in winter, fall, spring or summer. Especially if enemy types changed. Pretty good way to offer new content too, I think.

Yeah not green orcs. Let's go straight Tolkein. I think all Orc characters should be cannibals obsessed with violence. I think they should be intelligent, but malicious, and if playable, even well intentioned Orc characters are never trusted or loved by the general populace. The fighting Uruk-Hai are honestly my favorite part of LotR. Lurtz is the highlight of the first movie.

I think that you should have to manage arrows, bullets and gun powder. I like the idea of them taking up inventory room and carrying weight. I mean, there's a cost to carting around hundreds of arrows, I think. Infinite ammo is very video-gamey, in my opinion. Plus it gives another layer of tactical consideration, imo. As far as different arrows: Again, I like the tactical aspect of having multiple arrow types, as far as broad heads against unarmored targets or bodkins against armor, etc. As far as bullets: they pretty much just had round ball shot in the 1400s. There aren't going to be very many ammo choices in PE given what they've said about the tech level.

Er, yes. Yes and no. I think people able to take a pikeman's pike makes sense, assuming that it isn't borken or damaged in the fighting. I don't particuarlly want to be able to pick up all the brooms in the world like you can in skyrim...

Eh, rather than being a Nihilist you could also be a hedonist or an Epicurean or something. Epicurus gets lots of cred these days from atheists, but he believed in Gods himself.

I give my characters stupid names. I like naming my Fallout characters after Country singers, for instance. I guess I'll always prefer the freedom of doing whatever so that anyone can play how they want. If you don't want your character to be named xLA8ERHA8ERx, then don't name it that. Don't know why that should affect how someone else plays, though.

Well, I like thinking about historical accuracy. I guess I was kind of nerd gushing, but I'd like to see a game try to make fighting with early firearms fun. I like a lot of those ideas. I think rather than restricting mobility, priming a fire-arm mid combat should cost significant amounts of time, most likely. The combat in PE is supposed to be real time, so I guess I can't think of it in terms of the number of turns it would take to reload and rewind your wheellock, but the whole point of inventing the wheellock and doing away with the matchlock was so that you could be more mobile. I don't know how much they'd make it into the game. Like loud, smokey fire arms giving away your position in the woods... how would that work? Is there like a static chance that any wilderness encounter could have a percent chance that additional enemies pop of the bushes if you're too noisy?

Pretty sure they don't have silencers yet in PE. Now, if they'll put in parts where you can assassinate people with silent bow attacks to avoid detection or not will be seen. But firearms being noisy as hell should definitely be a factor in whether or not you use them for a particular encounter. Heh, never said that. The first rifled barrels appeared in the 15th century with the first paper cartidges, the first connical bullets in the 19th century... the First silencers didn't appear until the 20th century. I mean, point taken, and anyway. I totally rescind my original quote with regards to tech level there since, having actually read what the developers have now said about fire arms, I know exactly the level of tech they're talking about: and it don't involve breach loading or connical ammunition. They could conceivably be using paper cartidges, but who knows. Secondary point taken as well. The wheellock guns they're talking about are not stealth implements. I posted a couple of videos of people firing 14th century guns, and not only are they loud and not only is there significant muzzle flash, but they produce huge clouds of smoke. If they don't hear you or see the flash of your gun, then they'd certainly spot the giant smoke cloud hovering over where you just fired them. So everyone seems to agree: your sneaky characters won't be using guns, most likely.

Eh, again, reading what's been said on the subject by the developers so far, it looks like guns are really just a limited-usage tool for busting up wizard shields. Wheellock arms are going to take forever to reload. Because we're talking 15th century tech, I think we can generally assume that they aren't using any form of cartridge ammo or load pouch. So you're talking about, between shots, pouring powder into the muzzle and the pan, loading a ball, ramming it in place, winding the spring in the wheellock, arming the hammer, aiming, and firing. So really, fighting in any sort of close-quarters melee, which will probably be 100% of the engagements in an isometric RPG, you're only real option for consistantly using a firearm throughout the fight would be to keep a number of primed guns on your character and shoot each one only once, then fall back on whatever melee weapons or secondaries you happen to be packing... like a pirate. Or to only use guns in a limited fashion, i.e. to finish off enemies or take enemies down a peg right in the beginning of a fight (Maybe a gun-shot would reduce an enemies armor or something for the rest of the fight), or to, as they specifically pointed out in the Kickstarter Update, bust up wizard shields. I don't think we'll see gun using characters so much as we will see characters who use guns to solve specific problems.

Well, having now actually looked at what's been said on this, they keep saying it's 15th century tech. http://www.pcgamer.c...we-know-so-far/ So... We're talking some pretty basic firearms. Definitely not cartridges, or Minié Balls, definitely not rifled barrels. We're, really, barely even talking about wheellock guns, but I think the developers specifically mentioned them in an interview somewhere... Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheellock I mean, look at this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8q4DicVBws @2:13s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDklcdznZ-E&NR=1#t=02m13s Bows and crosssbows are still going to be relevant... for sure. Um... Kind of sad that they're said in Project Updates on Kickstarter that a gun is basically only used for slapping wizards back in place. I think it'd be fun to be a full-time gun using character given how complicated the operation of wheellock firearms are. I mean, to fight effectively in close quarters with wheellock pistols or longarms would require about as much skill with your chosen implement as any bowman or swordsman.

If they're talking about making it so you only get XP from completing quests, objectives, story segmets, etc, then there doesn't really need to be a cap, does there? I mean, there's a maximum amount of available experience in the game, and the developers can control how much players can ultimately acquire and when/where they acquire it.

Seems like that would have some pretty interesting reprecussions, thematically within the game... given how the whole soul magic thing is supposed to work.

http://en.wikipedia....i/Rifled_musket Smooth bore firearms firing round ball sabbots were really only useful at short ranges. People are quick to criticize the old tactics of lining infantry up in rows to fire muskets at each other, but it was about the only way to fight efficiently with breech loading, smooth bore arms firing round ball sabbots. The tactic negates the long reload times by having multiple lines of soldiers firing, moving back, reloading, and then replacing the soldiers in front who have fired already, and it negates the poor accuracy of each individual gun by turning your whole squad into one giant shotgun with musket lines, basically. I think the big tactical difference should be reload time, or time between follow up shots. A bow should have the quickest reload time, maybe firing an arrow every second or two, since your character just needs to grab an arrow from a quiver and let fly. A cross bow should take a couple of seconds to rewind between shots. Your gun using characters should require at least 5-8 real time seconds between shots to reload if you've been crafting load pouches: small cloth bags with a premeasured amount of gun power. Your character dumps the contents of the cloth bag into the musket then use the bag itself as the wadding. If you're gun using characters have to use horns of gun powder, then it should take, real time, 15 seconds between each shot. It would be awesome if pirate-style tactics of pre-loading multiple flint lock guns, firing each once and reloading after the fight, and using them at only point blank range. Or if your gun using characters could pull loaded, primed guns out of their inventory to save time if you have multiple guns. Otherwise, stand their wasting a bunch of time reloading. So maybe you find a dozen guns, but you have to give them all to Alfonso your gun using dwarf so that you can keep his fire rate up by constantly de-equipping fired guns and equipping primed guns from his inventory that you reloaded between your fights. Or you could move away from muzzle loading to breach loading or auto-loading and cartridge ammunition. But once you have rifled barrels and connical, cartridge ammunition there's no reason to use a bow at all any more. Again, I think it depends on if you're firing Minié Ball style conical sabbots out of rifled barrels or not. Once you have a musket with a rifled barrel and you move away from round ball ammunition, it's effective range goes from 50-75 yards to 500. There's no way you're going to hit targets consistently at 500 yards with a bow and arrow, or if you did, the arrow wouldn't have the same penetration at all. Anyway... I guess all of that is moot. You're unlikely to engage any enemy at a range of 500 yards in an isometric RPG. :D

Hey! Please keep the frequent updates going! I love it when I get a good drip feed of art work, updates and surveys!