Lephys

It's a shame they aren't just scaring your wrong-brain. I second Stun's awesome question. Seems like the base range (to which Intellect's bonus/modifier is purely additive) should be affected by weapon reach? And, of course, now I'm just imagining a Barbarian dual-wielding wands (the most ridiculous weapon I can think of).

It's a beta. You should assume your saves will be wiped. Then you'll never be disappointed. Seriously though... changes that screw up save files are one of the most common things in the beta process.

Very informative! Thank you, ^_^ That makes a lot of sense, as the player never needs to worry about variance in the thresholds when they're looking at the number they're seeing. *Thumbs up* So long as the fact that your roll is "taking a hit," so to speak, is quite readily apparent. That's the only good thing about simply adjusting the ranges. If I roll a 70, and it's a Graze, I intuitively know that my target's Defense must be at least 20 beyond my Accuracy, and that I'm going to need to roll above 70 (at least) to get anything but a Graze, even though I don't intuitively know the exact threshold value yet. That "-22" just needs to be pretty apparent every time my low-accuracy character attacks that high-defense foe, or I'm just going to think, at a glance, that I'm rolling crappily. I mean, I understand that it's there, in the log and such. I'm just emphasizing the player's tendency to focus on the final number. Or, what a lot of us are used to, rather. There were things in D&D that obviously applied penalties to our rolls, but standard To Hit versus AC (functionally the closest thing to Accuracy versus Defense) just had the goal number (what will actually produce a hit instead of a miss) change, rather than our roll. You roll a 15, and you miss, rather than always needing an 11 or above and just having all your final roll numbers take AC into account. Just a "for what it's worth." I'm not under the illusion that this isn't something you haven't considered. /endramble

I can't remember if they said there are certain people you can only capture and not kill? You can attack everyone, I suppose, either way. There's just the matter of the permanence of their state of... out-of-the-way-ness?

Well... people generally don't permanently live/settle in the midst of a ridiculously dangerous area. What I mean is, the reason there are packs of wolves out hunting in the forest, and not in the middle of town, is generally because (simplifying a lot of factors) there's not a town of people living there on a daily basis. It's hard to establish a village in the middle of a cave network swarming with giant deadly spiders. You either clear out a "safe" area where you can effectively live, or you die off to the giant deadly spiders before actually effectively establishing a populous. So, some mountain cave network could be ridiculously dangerous, and you could start there as a Dwarf, but you simply wouldn't just go venturing outside the city gate to begin your journey. You'd leave the mountain through some safe exit that's protected, and probably your "starting zone" would be some place less dangerous (those people have to have SOMEwhere they can travel to get goods, etc., without everything just being killed off instantly by horribly deadly things. Rome wasn't built in a day. ) But, I understand what you're getting at. It definitely requires some thought and effort to do something like that.

I believe there are multiple damage types, but spells and physical weapons, alike, all draw from the same pool. For example, some kind of Ice Shard spell would probably deal Piercing AND Frost/Cold damage. Meanwhile, a Frost-imbued Rapier would deal the same. I don't think it distinguishes between magical Frost and physical Frost, and/or magical Piercing and physical Piercing.

Not all of them, but the bad kind of lawyers (who know their client is guilty of murdering 17 people but get them off on technicalities anyway) are a pretty good representation of Lawful Evil. Also, I wouldn't say D&D alignment downright fails. I think they're just used wrong. (Maybe that's what you meant. If so, then sorry. Not trying to debate for debate's sake, here... just trying to clarify). If it didn't make changes to your alignment based purely on your actions, there would no longer be a failure. So, yeah, I think part of the system fails. The part that simply represents your character's behavior/motivations is okay, I think, if a bit broad in its representation. I mean, at a certain point, you're effectively not evil if you don't do anything evil. If you enjoy killing, but only ever kill people who, according to the general populous/golden rule/laws (usually) deserve it, then, even though your motivation for killing could be considered selfish/"evil," you're not really "being evil" insofar as it effects a comparison between you and another person in the eyes of humanity. It's kind of like... if someone has a HORRIBLE temper, and quite often wants to beat the crap out of people over the slightest things, but actively restrains themselves so that they don't ever do that (for whatever reason), then you can't really call them "violent." They're never actually being violent.

I appreciate the effort, Fearrabbit. I mean, I know you're just saying what you feel you should, and not solely posting on my behalf. But, I appreciate it nonetheless. However, I've discovered that Hiro's never going to think anything but what Hiro already thinks, so the merits of any particular discussion with him are out the window once there's a dispute. So, that's fine. That's his prerogative, I suppose. It's just not really conducive to productive debates. Anywho, yeah, the inflation has gotten a bit out of hand, Karkarov. And I know there are some numbers that just work better than others (usually it's simply intuitiveness, like... 1/2 an XP out of 2.7 to gain a level is obviously going to be a bit less intuitive than 10 out of 100, etc.), but, beyond that, I just think that any illusion from a relatively inflated number is pretty much counter-acted by the sort of "It seems like I'm gaining an awful lot of XP before actually gaining a level" that comes with it. It's just short-term versus long term. Interestingly enough, talking about examples of games that use varying numbers, Paper Mario (the original on N64, I believe) started you at 10XP to gain a level, and you got 1XP from battles (you were slaying like... a single Goomba at a time, for what it's worth). The other advantage I can see of using something like 1,000 instead of something so small as 1 or 10 is that it's a lot easier to have various different accomplishments offer a greater variety of XP-value rewards. You can have something give you 1300, while something else gives you 75, or 350, etc. But then, at a certain point, it's just sort of arbitrary extra zeroes, as Fearrabbit pointed out.

Oh crap. He's gone and said the B word. *takes cover* Hmmmm, I'll have to think. So many things (at least in pros) to just pick 5.

Yeah... at least use a good example, like Duke Nukem Forever.

Ahh, spiffy! So the game doesn't just say "Oh, I see that roll against you was a 90. That would've been a critical hit, but since you've got Critical Defense active, only this foe's attack rolls above 95 are crits, as opposed to above 85 (example numbers...)". Good to know. I like it better applied to each roll, instead of just being applied to that foe's attack resolution table. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but the IE games had plenty of foe-only AoEs. More recently, NWN, NWN2, and ToEE all had Whirlwind Attack, Cleave, etc. which were "selective fire" as well. Yeah. Also, it seems like it's more of the Barbarian (at least in the case of Carnage) sort of wildly/violently striking at each of the targets, and not just "my blade is producing a nova of melee damage that radiates out from me, striking everything in its path." In a lot of other games (usually action RPGs, but still...), you end up with that "magical AoE damage" -- if you hit, other things around automatically just take damage as if they're standing in fire or something. However, it seems Carnage simply makes actual attack rolls against them, meaning some form of attack (albeit kind of sloppy, as is evident by its lack of extravagant Accuracy) is occurring versus those targets, meaning that you're not just blanket-striking all physical matter within a radius of you. So, it at least makes a good bit of sense that it's foe-only.

Sure you can. You can even give pause control to both players. I understand with resource constraints, etc., why they don't want to bother with multiplayer in this game, but it's a bit silly to pretend there's some inherent reason why multiplayer can't occur in a game like this. Also: While that might be true, it doesn't change the fact that "multiplayer" is literally a shortening of the phrase "multiple player," and simply means "able to accept control input by more than one player." Just because a bunch of people go around deciding it somehow only means some specific form of multiple-player scenario does not mean that it does. And, while I understand why it's called "singleplayer co-op," it's sort of an oxymoron. Unless you've got multiple personalities... I suppose. No judging.

I think there should be a family with the name "Legen", who runs a Dairy, and you should find a cache of weapons buried on their farm somewhere, if you solve the mystery of their location (it will be a rather elaborate mystery). True true. I will add that the "we'll just make it +17" approach shouldn't be used to make them worthwhile, since that just ends up still being bland, but OP. It's better when they do something really interesting/unique that ends up making them worthwhile, rather than just having exorbitant amounts of pure attack-boosting qualities (accuracy/damage upping). I'd honestly prefer to find legendary weapons that are "plus nothing", because they're so unique they can't even really be compared to other, "mundane" weapons on the same scale. It should be kind of like apples and oranges. Because, if it isn't, there's inevitably something else that's almost the same thing. "Oh, I could enchant this other sword with fire, but this legendary sword of the Fire Paladin, Rouark, does fire damage, but more damage than what you can enchant a sword to do." When the only different is quantity, that doesn't make it very legendary. It just makes it... weirdly multiplied? That said, it could still easily be a +something weapon WITH some awesome, unique attribute. Maybe the person who used it was wielding a well-crafted weapon (+something) when it became imbued with whatever makes it unique. That'd be fine. I don't think it has to have absolutely nothing in common with regular weapons. It just needs to be more than a regular weapon with shifted numbers.

As fascinating as that is, I'm gonna hafta go ahead and point out that, unless Josh specifically used the term "noob" in anything he said, you're still arbitrarily applying your own context to his sentiments on the matter. Also, I'm gonna go ahead and declare that the spelling "nube" means a 3-legged cat. There, now it means that, because someone (me) deemed it so, just as with the mispelling/1337spelling of "newbie" meaning something completely different (yet very specific) just because some random person decided it does, and everyone rolled with it. I wasn't really aware there were two different meanings like that, and I honestly feel like that's pretty ridiculous. But, whatever. People will be people.

Lovely update! ^_^ That human portrait is quite splendid. I think Sensuki pointed out that it's different from most of the others (at least from Kaz and Polina) but it looks the exact same style as the Eder portrait. And I don't know why people are always talking about the proportions being off ("lips are too wide" or something like that), since humans have WILDLY different facial proportions (whoever thinks those lips are too wide, look at Steven Tyler's youngest daughter's mouth, or Sandra Bernhard's mouth, ). I noticed the Fighter gets three skill bonuses, as compared to most other classes getting only two. I take it that's counter-balanced by the fact that they are more minor than the other classes' two. Interesting. @Karkarov, the Barbarian gets "effectively double HP," true, but he can still be taken out of the fight if his Stamina hits 0, no matter how much HP he has left, AND he gets by far the most Deflection detriments (while being specialized in wading into the fray -- a.k.a. into the most dangerous areas, as opposed to, say, a Wizard or something, who might not have very good Deflection, but also isn't really designed specifically to leap at a group of enemies). The Fighter's abilities that convert 20% of grazes to hits and incoming crits to hits, respectively... do those simply shift the Attack Resolution thresholds for the duration, or do they re-roll every graze/crit to see if it remains what it is or becomes a hit? Just curious. The classes are all lookin' good! I look forward to the next update, and to getting a taste of some gameplay action as soon as we get the chance, ^_^

I didn't say anything about "good." I just said that lying isn't unlawful. Meaning, you can be lawful and still lie. I agree that it's the second half of the alignment that would differ. As you point out below, you would most likely be lawful neutral. Lawful EVIL would intentionally seek out loopholes in the law in order to achieve self-satisfaction/benefit, whether it be causing people's demise, confiscating things just so you can have them, etc. You'd adhere to the law, and twist it as you see fit... IF you were a law enforcer. You could obviously adhere to plenty of various types of "law," such as religion, etc. Anywho... I just wanted to clarify, because you seemed to be responding as if I had insisted that people who lie would still be lawful "good," specifically, when I only meant that they could still be lawful.

I don't think you realize that noobs are just people who are new to the game. Not people who don't read manuals, or people who want to put no thought into playing a game but still win anyway. Every single one of us is actually going to be a noob when the game comes out. Although, I suppose we (the backers/people following the game) do have the advantage of at least knowing about some of the systems and such before the game even releases, much less before we play it. I don't think Josh Sawyer ever expressed his desire for people who don't give a crap about learning how the game works and such to still rock at the game and/or be rewarded for their laziness. This is the guy who said "If you don't like reading, don't play this game." Not "Don't worry, we're making sure you can HATE reading and still enjoy it, ^_^!" Yeah! My simplest thought is basically that, instead of just "If X > SomeNumber, you get to do something! Else, you fail!", there could be several different opportunities in a given situation. For example, if some book checks your INT or something, so that you can discern specific/useful information from it, maybe at 8, you discern one thing. At 10, you discern two things. At 14, you discern 3 things. Heck, maybe there's a Lore check in there, too, for one piece of information you could possibly get from that book. Regardless of your Intellect, you'd have to be learned enough in lore to know what contextual stuff you need to know in order to make some specific connection. OR, a simpler example would simply be jumping onto a rooftop (scripted interaction). Maybe it checks Athletics AND Stealth. Athletics is for making the jump, and Stealth is for not making a lot of noise (or being seen) while doing it, etc. You end up with a multi-layered outcome. But, yeah. I just wanted to emphasize the fact that it's possible to have multi-faceted results, rather than just "this AND this AND this are good enough, or FAIL!" Although, you could have that, too, which would also make for interesting character effects. When you happen to replay someone with enough Resolve AND Might AND Mechanics, you get to do/see something spiffy in your playthrough,

Not always, since the only point I was presenting would exist whether or nor BG1 ever did. For what it's worth, it's always best to evaluate an example based on the context in which the example is made, rather than attributing your own to it. "10,000XP" is only relevant in the context of the example, which is simply it's comparison to the lesser value in the example, and the effective difference between the two. If my example fails to deliver my point, then please, by all means, tell me so, and I'll gladly clarify what the point is. Otherwise, maybe just PM me your tips and tricks guide on how to craft more popular examples, so we can keep this on-topic. I think I've finally learned my lesson, and I'm not about to spend several posts defending an example just because it doesn't suit the tastes of one individual (who still comprehends what the example was meant to convey, which was the only thing relevant to the actual thread topic).

I think my extreme examples do exactly what they're supposed to do. Did you not comprehend the inherent relationship I was expressing between the size of the awarded experience value and the long-term "feeling" of leveling pace? If not, then why didn't you say that? You're the one arbitrarily deciding that my example fails if ExampleNumber != BG1-feasibility. You might as well tell me my hammer's useless simply because it's no good for sawing boards in half. Also, what you've pointed out with this whole "illusion" of progress is our inherent perception of the relativistic value of numbers. Thus, subtlety has nothing to do with it. The value we place on a number is diretly proportionate to the size of the number. If we could gain 1XP for everything, and level up every 10XP, or we could gain 2 XP for everything and gain a level every 20 XP, that's 2 versus that 1 is perceived as twice the progress, in the moment. Thus, the higher the number, the greater the effect. The illusion of the immediate viewing of a single number and the feeling of progress associated with that is all about the size of that number, not "subtlety." If you're in a car that goes 10 miles per hour, and you have to go 100 miles, versus being in a car traveling 100 miles per hour and having to go 1,000 miles... which speed do you think feels like you're making more progress than you are? You think it should be 20mph, instead of 100? Because it's more subtle, it has a greater effect on human perception than actually moving even faster does?

That effect is rather short-term. When you complete a quest and receive 10,000XP instead of 100XP, yeah, it seems like you've made more progress than you have. But, when you still have to complete 15 quests to gain a level, that bigger number is just going to make it feel like you should've gained about 3 levels already, in the long, while that smaller number will make you say "Oh, wow, but I haven't even gotten that much XP yet!"

The Listener, obviously. u_u... The Sniffer keeps the listener in check, and he is governed by the Taster, who's in turn tended by the Feeler, who is the direct charge of the Watcher. It's just one big circle.

I wouldn't even say it isn't lawful. If it looks like some rampant serial killer's on the loose, what do law enforcement personnel do? Lie about it so as not to cause a panic. Or, if they're undercover, they lie about not being law enforcement. Etc. They are literally employed by "the law," and yet they utilize lies in their jobs. Just makes your point about it being sort of inherently devoid of alignment that much more powerfully.

^ I think it's more that he doesn't want noobs who are actually trying to make a good character to inadvertently make a bad character. An RPG asks "What do you want your character to do?", then presents you with shiny skill/ability/stat choices, and you see one and go "Oooooh! Survival! That'd be cool if my dude was all Survivaly, right?!", only to find out 17 hours into the game that 10 points in Survival helps you murder things 10% more effectively, but those same 10 points in Survival only affects how well you find clumps of mushrooms when walking about in nature-ish areas. When you make all the skills actually matter in the game, there's a lot more man-hours put into each one, so fewer on a relatively tight budget makes sense. You can still easily make a bad character. Roll with 3 Dex and 20 Might, then use nothing but a dagger and a buckler the whole game. Boom... you kind of suck. He just wants to eliminate that "Aww crap, I didn't know that, halfway through the game, this was going to be SO ineffective!" It's 2 problems, really: 1) Something not telling you exactly what will be mechanically affected by it (like Survival just being all "Be really good at aspects of survival!", but then really only significantly affecting mushroom-procurement) 2) Something like Survival only affecting something like mushroom procurement, despite taking the exact same currency (skill points) as some other skill that makes you attack faster and more accurately, and/or allows you to accomplish any number of other tasks. Also, I'd just like to point out that they still can check multiple things at once, be it two skills, a skill and a stat, two stats, etc.

I kind of hope they invite a whole school up to their studio for some sort of career day visit, and show all those school kids a bunch of stuff before we get to see it, just so people can feel that much more wronged. I actually demand that the developers blindfold and earmuff themselves while they work, so that no one gets to know anything about the project before we do.

As long as they come up with plenty of spiffy other factors with which to produce combo-applications, I'm all for it. For example, "You have 80 Mechanics, but you have no knowledge of this certain culture's machines, so you still don't ace this skill check and/or you only have so many options for what you can actually accomplish with your Mechanics skill in this situation," versus "You have 80 Mechanics, so you now just magically know all things about all machines and accomplish anything in the game that ever has anything to do with mechanical things."