Sacred_Path

Let's say they make it optional, one of two things could happen: 1) They make a boring dungeon. Some monsters, some puzzles, some phat lewt, but nothing that requires a building of 15 ongoing levels. With not much interesting to see and no reason to go down there story wise, it would just be a nuisance. 2) They make a great, lively dungeon with different factions, their power bases, and interconnecting quests that even branch out into the surrounding countryside. In other words, they fit the entire Temple of Elemental Evil into PE. Why on Earth should that much content be optional? It will take time and resources to do this, and then you give the player no good reason to tackle this thing. In both cases, I would expect to get some very nice gear from a 15 level dungeon, which makes it harder to balance the game for someone who just followed the story or at least didn't do this stuff - that's bad IMO.

I thought about it, leave the dungeon open for all I care, but make the main antagonist hide at the bottom of it. That way the point in time when to tackle the dungeon is clear, it's the final part. Also avoids any dilemmas of wether or not you should go down there.

I voted Arcanum, I liked that you could unlock every spell individually. Not much variety for mage characters though.

Sacred, would you avoid combat and instead sneak slowly around needing double the time? And miss out on the loot they have? You should take into account that to make sneaking fun the designers have to make it difficult as well. So since both methods give the same xp and both take time, the decision on your side is quite easy: You would sneak or fight depending on which is more fun. Or what you would see as appropriate. I'm not against sneaking (or other alternatives), I'm against combat not being rewarded in some tangible way.

- Grumpy dwarves who are shrewd traders with axes - Tree hugging elves who are given to magic and frivolous enjoyment, also bows - Empires of enterprising humans who must make up for their short... life spans (swine!) - WIzards with starry robes, because you know that's what you'd wear to a dungeon romp - Wizards in towers - Feared and respected wizards - Characters that can be hit in the head with an axe for a prolonged period of time because they're level 12 - Magic being a powerful, one-shot affair - Noble savages - Savage nobles - Sullen rangers - short folk that must always be jolly and/ or friendly - tavern wenches It's not that I really want to see those, but that's how I imagine them to turn out in the end.

Since there is no alignment in the game, simple good vs. evil quests won't do the trick for me. I expect a lot more grey area stuff.

I'll have to wait and see the final product, but it does sound a bit meh. Unless, like I said I take the approach that time doesn't matter at all (i.e. first playthrough). I just think that giving free passage between the dungeon and the outside world means sacrificing its potential atmosphere. Also why even have a mega dungeon that you're not going to conquer in one sitting? In that case, splitting it up into 5 different dungeons wouldn't make a difference.

Positioning your characters so enemies exactly face their front so they can parry would be a nightmare control-wise in any IE game. Getting a character to flank was enough of a hassle in IWD2.

I don't expect any opinion to be universally shared here TBH in a non-linear game I don't know if a megadungeon doesn't add more problems than it solves. Megadungeons are great for the "take as much time as you want" style of playing, but I'm not sure it won't be a huge hassle for Iron Man games or games against the clock.

piecemeal armor, any Darklands fan would approve of that. This ties in with another question of mine, wether there will be different sizes of armor (normal, Auamaua, Orlan) like in Arcanum. That would speak against piecemeal armor because of it would be a huge hassle.

Since this is not a sandbox game, I think the only way for Endless Paths is to lock the player in, either on level 1 or somewhere near there. It would make for a very incoherent, in fact irritating experience if you'd go back and forth between EP and the rest of the world, never sure what place you should be in at any given time.

Just give us the option to donate excess gold to temples etc., rising through the ranks of patron-ship until churches are named in our honor. Also I'm serious when I say that Teh Overlords know what's best for us.

if it happens, he should play it in realtime.

I can't come up with a favorite quest, but some quests come to mind: - Getting out of Shrouded Hills in Arcanum. There just were so many ways to accomplish it. Also, it tested the viability of your character build, especially in Hard mode. - The Planar Sphere in BG2. Again, several ways to this, and some good writing. - getting through that Dwarven mine in Realms of Arkania 2. Very atmospherically dense, and a good mix of puzzles and combat.

I disagree. Rewards are at the very heart of the ©RPG, and there's no reason why combat should be different in that aspect. Let's take an example: chess. This would seem like what you are proposing - you get no reward other than pinning down your opponent. But: 1) Not everyone's interested in chess. 2) A good number of chess players get satisfaction from playing against human opponents, which you don't get here. 3) RPGs that want to offer some realism/ immersion won't offer as many tactical choices as chess, because it's a strong abstraction. Instead, it's usually more satisfying to stick with the old "hero walks up to monster, hero swings sword, monster is damaged". In a CRPG especially, I want some form of acknowledgement of my actions also in combat. Gold, items, XP is often the only way to even tell that you just defeated a monster. They also reward solid skills, since you can use these resources to go on and do some more combat.

Stone Age figurines depict obviously clinically obese women. Sometimes they are interpreted to be godesses, and hey, if my fat priest/ chanter walks in on a covenant of malnutritioned Orlans, they should probably be awestruck/ worship him XD

I voted BG style (although it applies to some other IE games as well). The spawns could be very deadly to a low level party though, I'd appreciate the 'punishment' to be a little less in PE. Not being able to rest on city streets was a bit annoying though, it would be nice to have the option of resting in some run down slums like in Darklands, with or w/o appropriate reputation loss.

Damn you, that was a delicious read. Can't wait for the beta.

No XP for combat would take all the point out of a good tatical combat system, as you'd mostly avoid combat (except for items/ gold). Of course you could make grinding required to raise your skills (Wizardry) or even for level ups by skill training (TES), but then you might just as well give XP.

lol what

I want to see fewer villains and more antagonists. Let my characters act on motivations like greed, self-preservation or lust for adventure. Let me take a small part in a war where both factions have good reasons (excuses) for waging war. I don't always need to be on the side of good (or the other way around).

Like others said, having a full party should remedy all problems (unless they required your whole party to sneak... which is a good idea). But in principle it's almost essential for single player games.

Just replaying Daggerfall, and having a cart is good fun. But in PE we'll have a stronghold, and that should take care of those weight concerns. Now, mountable horses and mounted combat, that would be another thing altogether. But that's not going to happen.

I beg to differ, I wasn't cool before school either.

I don't mind the idea, but I personally wouldn't use it. Too much challenge is lost that way. Then you could ramp up the difficulty, but that creates other balance problems (like damage spells being almost useless, etc.)