mcmanusaur

If players truly find one path more rewarding than the other, I don't see why Project Eternity should go out of its way in such a manner to "correct" that. Whether people feel bad about themselves for playing an evil character isn't really the developers' problem in my opinion. When it comes to either path equally feasible in concrete IG respects, sure.

Meh. The point of "evil" is that it's a narrative construct, and not something that actually motivates real people in any direct way. In other words, how many people realistically set out to be evil? But of course, you can be "doing the right thing for the wrong reasons" and equally "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons", so where does that leave us? Well, there aren't many interesting characters that are "doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons", so in most games it's a question of whether you are "doing the right thing for the right reasons", such as love or courage, or "doing the right thing for the wrong reasons", like money and power. And that as you mention is how most games go. The untapped potential for me however is not in the one-dimensional "evil" characters, but rather the characters that are "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons". In my opinion the latter of those two groups is much more interesting and relate-able. As far as someone who just seeks to increase their own power and influence, a game with a linear storyline isn't really the most conducive to that, since that kind of interferes with the idea that the trajectory of the main plot is greater and more important than the progression of one's character.

I'm thinking something a bit more like this:

When backyard economics meet magic history!

I'm in the process of designing an entire pantheon for an RP setting, but I'm not convinced I should share it.

And thank the gods there is no technology today as unbalanced and catch-all as magic. My issue is that in these games the magical upgrades are invariably many times more important than the actual weapon itself. The value of the weapon itself is reduced to its mere potential as a vessel of magical enchantments. Furthermore, it's just an excuse for the abilities of melee fighters to catch up with the otherwise unbalanced abilities of mages, although the warriors are usually either unable to enchant their own weapons, or they can when it doesn't really make sense. A warrior should be defined by which weapon he chooses, his style of wielding that weapon, and perhaps a little in the way of hardware upgrades, not mostly by the three different magical enchantments that the weapon dropped with. Not to mention the fact that actually well-made and non-magical weapons are decently hard to come by and therefore valuable in realistic societies (but imagine making gamers work to obtain not just their last weapon but also their first weapon- of course that would never fly), rather than non-magical weapons being the kind of loot that players won't even bother carrying to sell because they're worth so little. TL;DR magic sucks.

I don't really see astrology or other magical events affecting some political situation as particularly original. I can't count how many fantasy games and stories usually revolve around some great supernatural evil and not simply humans in conflict. There are only so many things a person can do, or imagine doing, and "novel" ideas are really just twisting old ideas into different forms. Hell, look at Skyrim, for instance. Terrible writing, but plotted just like you suggested. Initial story presented as human civil wa, then it gets interrupted by ZOMG DRAGONS HAVE RETURNED NOW THAT THE THOUSAND YEAR SEAL HAS BEEN BRO- see? They did the same thing in Dragon Age: Origins. All you do in this formula is put faction "X" and faction "Y" in conflict, then throw supernatural threat "Z" in and SHOCK OF SHOCKS, only Protagonist "A" and his/her plucky band of adventurers can defeat the great evil! Maybe "A" is the godhead. Maybe "A" is the Legendary Hero Reborn. Maybe "A" is just some schlub who likes to grind for XP. It doesn't matter, it all boils down to a few basic scenarios: Hero defeats evil in spite of human conflicts, or Hero resolves conflict in some way, allowing humanity (and the peripheral lesser races that sided with Hero first,) to fight the Great Evil together (while still allowing/forcing Hero to slay the Great Evil personally.) In games that are trying to be "DEEP" or different sometimes "A" is the Great Evil, or gets to fill the Great Evil's shoes instead of throwing the ring into Mt. Doom. In the end, the end doesn't matter as much as the process of getting there. Underlined emphasis on the parts that imply I'm suggesting some sort of magical or supernatural event, and my actual suggestions for comparison: So yeah. Not so magical after all, broski.

I don't get your point? Clearly Obsidian is making the game on certain criteria, but as has been mentioned on numerous occasions they like and value the feedback from the community so this post is relevant. Nice post TRX850 l like the following below and the political intrigue that could follow. The party needs to chose sides and there are consequences. It reminds me of Witcher 2 which I loved. Cultural/Political - Outbreak of War - With the War in full swing, a Third Faction joins the War, against both sides - King/Queen or local ruler dies (or is assassinated). Who is next in line? Are they a shady character? Or have they gone missing? - Party is implicated in unlawful activities/espionage Political struggles such as this appear in just about every RPG. What would set Project Eternity apart in my opinion would be to broaden the scope by incorporating some of the other kinds of trigger events mentioned in this thread.

I find that potions tend to be either able to be completely ignored, a constant annoying nuisance, or a tiresome deus ex machina in the odd combat situation.

You know what they say... "the concern of replayability is always secondary to the concern of playability".

I'm sort of against having much "generic easily-cured disease that you have a 25% chance of contracting due to a trait/item of your adversary" and more for the idea of diseases that take effort to cure and are quests in and of themselves (though some good hinting that there is a risk of disease in upcoming areas wouldn't be bad).

I don't even know where to start with this poll...

Cultural (festivals), Social (peasant revolts), Economic (trade fluctuations), Technological (inventions), Environmental (natural disasters).

Ugh. The less of this we get in the game, the happier I'll be. I don't know who ever decided that inflated, enchantment-stacked magical weapons were fun, but it always bothers me in a game that a perfectly good non-magical sword is worth chump change. Because you know, there's an infinite supply of those.

How so? Perhaps we might not be able to select the exact dimensions of our house/tower/fortress or the color of every stone or floor, but I feel we'll be given a reasonable amount of control over the aesthetic choices and layouts. I think that even when it comes to offering multiple preset configurations for strongholds, there may be justifiable concern that the investment of time and effort would be better suited to some other aspect of the game.

I love this kind of thing, but I can't really see this happening in an old-school, isometric-view game.

The Generic Shady Badasses This once powerful and respected guild of criminals has fallen upon hard times, and has been forced to retreat into the shadows. Inevitably however, rumor of their existence survives but naturally all authority figures simply laugh off such preposterous propositions. Don't let yourself be fooled; these guys definitely have a secret hideout somewhere. Maybe if you happen to run around committing random acts of violence or crime they may take notice of you, or perhaps they have you marked as a potential initiate from the beginning. The hideout has some intricate mechanism allowing only those that possess a certain mark or code to enter, and is probably located in the sewers or some other dark location where property value is low. Whether they claim to feed the appetite of some kind of evil deity, or to be contract killers, freelance pickpockets, or quasi-Robin Hood figures, rest assured that the one real reason that anyone would bother to join this organization is simply to bolster their dark and/or evil persona and to try to look badass. Let's not forget: evil people are just as capable of friendship and brotherhood as good people, but they are a bit less trusting and more exclusive, which likely means a set of trials for anyone aspiring to join their ranks. The most important indicator of such a group is some sort of dark-colored costume resembling Batman, or a hooded cloak (which may be referred to as a shroud), although there are some cases that they instead to wear normal clothing so that they can blend into the crowd. Even though this organization will usually offer some nice rewards and entertaining quests, the only real reason you should consider having your character join is if you conceived the character as a generic shady badass in some kind of transparent effort to make a glorified self-insert character that matches your own lack of strength and book smarts.

I see where you're coming from, but I'm afraid that- as the poll demonstrates- a Project Eternity MMO would not just be the will of the wisp, but the will of the wider playerbase.

Inb4somesortofmovementdemandingthatProjectEternitybecomesamilsim

While I can agree with this sentiment, this isn't what Luridis is talking about. He's not talking about uber loot. He's talking about character abilities/powers that are part of the game system. Using an ability your character has (i.e an immunity to acid spell to avoid acid damage) in order to get through a situation isn't slipping through loopholes. It's assessing the challenge and looking at your resources to find a solution, which should be rewarded, not thwarted in a completely illogical way. I realize he's not intending to make a point about loot, but... you have to wonder- if loot can be so game-breaking that the developers have to resort to illogical methods of restricting players- maybe saturation with unbalanced loot is part of the problem. If the improvement of magical equipment through game progression wasn't such an integral part of every RPG then we'd probably run into this situation a lot less. Yes, I'm against railroading and all that, but I don't think that's the root of the problem here.

I don't mean to be the contrarian, but honestly I'd like to see designers more concerned with restricting loot (so that you simply can't acquire that uber game-breaking gas mask so easily), rather than allowing players ways to slip through loopholes ("I SO CLEVAH, LEMME THRU!"). I sort of understand the frustration, but for me the source of the problem is that many games these days are saturated with unbalancing gear and equipment.

Oh look, this topic again.

Sounds like an excellent way to produce a split/chilling effect. Frankly, that the mods decided to split the Project Eternity forum into four separate subfora has already produced certain chilling effects, IMO (e.g. where more technical/mechanical discussions would have gotten a lot more attention in the main/general forum, they're now shoved into a subforum that always has less traffic, and humans are by nature lazy). It's an understandable decision and better to organize categorical information by exclusion, but there's a distinct downside. A backer-private forum is not a good idea. All of that leads to various chilling effects. The only truly private forum structure that makes any sense is a beta testing venue. Yes, the current forum divisions are already terrible, as they ensure that the only issues that get any attention are dreadfully pointless trivialities ("ARe You gonna buy this game?!1", "DID obsidian release too much in Kickstarterz???", "What's your fave classs??!!!!!", etc.) that fall under the label "general discussion", rather than anything that actually pertains to the game's mechanics, lore, or technical aspects.

Wow, I'm sure the developers never realized the connection between "eternity" and "infinity"...

Honestly I'm looking for something much more ideologically relevant than a simple Latin translation.