Lephys

If it weren't for "Project," I'd say stick with the current name. But, I do like "Eternity: ...". I'm just not sure what to put after the colon.

*Nod nod*. You should simply be able to verify your purchase, and the amount of the purchase, when the backer site goes live (which should be extremely soon, we are told, as they are working on it as fast as they can). I'm sure we'll have all the details as soon as the backer site is finished, 8P

I agree that it would be nice to receive some kind of guidance on what Obsidian is actually looking for valuable input on at a given time, over other things. I mean, they're the devs, not us. They've obviously got some stuff hammered out pretty nicely, and other things they're still debating between some variations. Maybe we'll have that when the backer site goes live? I can discuss things for hours on end, and type ludicrously long novels about all facets of a given topic, so I'd love it if the devs gave us some kind of idea as to what particular things would be the most beneficial to discuss and analyze, and what things would be mostly wasted breath (either are redundant because they've already thought all about them, or are moot because they've already implemented that system/feature and aren't going to change it for whatever reason).

The concept of an influence system isn't necessarily a bad one, but the companions in NWN2 were a flock of loons. If you were honest with them, you lost influence. If we have to keep track of "influence points", I'd hope for a more rational and stable set of companions with which to work. Instead of all-purpose points on a meter, what if we had direct effects? You know, "In this particular situation, you went out of your way to stay true to your word to this person and/or have their back, specifically, so now they have increased Trust in you." That companion wouldn't necessarily disagree with you less, or sit at your table in the cafeteria every day, but when poop hits the air-relocator, they'd be more likely to stick with you and believe that you won't abandon, trick, or take advantage of them. Or, you know, if you tell someone "Don't worry... we're going to make sure the children are safe" then, later you just say "eff it... this seems way too tough of a fight to make sure the children are safe" and abandon "the children," that companion should hate you a great deal at that point. FAR more so than if you just say, up front, "Look, we don't have time to make sure everyone's safe." But, then, going back to the effect thing, maybe they trust your word less. Even though you could do everything they love from there on out, they'd be skeptical of your word regarding things and would lack trust in you. This might result in their insistence on certain groupings if your group needs to split up, or their insistence on someone else doing the talking in some situation because they believe you'll botch it (even if you're a much better talker than they are, etc.). Obviously, extreme enough versions of it would probably result in their leaving you. There should simply be several facets to how they view you, rather than "well" or "poorly" being all there is.

I think the way Fate points work would be a pretty good idea for an RPG in which Luck was a stat. In Shadowrun (the PnP version), you have what amounts to dice pools. I think there's even a Karma dice pool. Anywho... your skill at something determines how many dice you get to roll at each skill check, but, if something's a particularly difficult task (say, a sniper shot from a huge distance, or against an agile target), you can utilize extra dice from your combat (in this example) dice pool to get even more chances at success at that one task. Of course, they're also used for things like defense against particularly nasty attacks, or damage resistance, etc. They replenish every full combat turn, basically, so if you're getting attacked by 10 people in one combat turn you have to figure out how to best allocate about 7 bonus dice (between your attack and your defensive rolls against all the enemy attacks) for that entire turn before you can use them again. It's kind of a neat idea. For Luck-type things. *shrug*... I know it's not exactly what's being proposed, but it's just my thoughts on the matter.

He actually says: "If your selection circle color choices are going to make the game worse if you don't get what you want I only have three words. Get over it." Since not being able to discern between hostiles and allies in battle at a glance, purely because you happen to have a rare form of color blindness, makes the game quantifiably worse than the alternative (being able to discern between hostiles and allies in battle at a glance, just like everyone else can), I would say it's a bit silly to suggest that such people are somehow being ridiculous to wish for such a simple option that would prevent their game experience from actually being devoid of a trait inherent in other people's game experiences. I mean, would you say the same thing if the game was only going to have one resolution (640 x 480), and people said "Maybe there should be at least one more resolution."? Would you tell them "If you don't have a 640x480 display, you should just get over it. I happen to HAVE a 640x480 display, but, in a completely unrelated note, I don't care if there are any other playable resolution options or not, u_u"? Maybe we also shouldn't take the time to produce wheelchair-access ramps to restaurants and offices, because, if the lack of such things are going to make the restaurant or office visit worse for those in wheelchairs, just because they don't get what they want, they should just get over it. 'Cause, I mean, it's not like they NEED ramps. They just want them, selfishly, for no apparent reason. Just like the color-blind would want to change circle colors, sheerly because they're pretty.

Why would it need to be self-regulated? You cannot self-regulate a static increase in power for enemies. No-level-scaling variant: Enemy A is Level 12, and Enemy B is Level 15, always. Whether you can only achieve level 13 or you can achieve Level 99 by the time you gain access to Enemy B is irrelevant. The level of that enemy is never, ever going to change. So, the game can present ONLY Enemy A to the player at level 11ish or so, OR it can present both Enemies A and B to the player, even when the player isn't near Level 15. The player can ATTEMPT to take on Enemy B first, and maybe it's even possible. But, if it's not challenging enough, then you've got a problem with your challenge level in your game. In other words, what does it really matter which order you can or cannot do things? Your skill/challenge obstacles are a joke. And if they AREN'T a joke, then you've got an actual ceiling at which it is literally impossible to overcome a high-enough-level obstacle (you couldn't present a Level 11 player with a level 28 enemy, for example, again, without simply inflating all the level values of subsequent enemies throughout the game -- level 16 players could take on level 35 enemies, and so on...). So, you're forced, by reality, to incorporate linearity with that. The only way to set static levels AND incorporate choice is to restrict all the levels to a feasible cap (which is essentially downward level-"scaling"). Level-scaling variant: Enemies A and B are both only a certain level, but it's dependent upon the progress the character has made thus far, out of the pool of available progress to be had before taking on either enemy. This is already regulated by that "what level you're allowed to reach" bit. Take a game with infinite experience opportunities, and plug in static levels, then plug in level-scaling. Either way, the player can always just grind up to whatever level he wants, so the level of encountered challenges is almost pointlessly regulated by the actual level determination for foes, either way. If it has finite experience opportunities, then then you can only progress so far in level before taking on a given threat, no matter what (which is a much better idea than infinite experience opportunities, honestly). So, with level-scaling, you can, for instance, have the first Enemy encountered be level 12 (when the player is level 11ish, for example), and the second Enemy encountered be level 15 (when the player has completed the first encounter, and you know exactly how much experience/progress-opportunity was available before the second encounter). The ONLY difference is that the order no longer matters, between those two encounters, and those two encounters only. Every legitimate argument so far made against level-scaling has been directly regarding the extent of the scaling, and not about the act of scaling, itself. If you drink scalding hot coffee, and it burns you, do you deduce that drinking is bad, or that coffee is bad, or even that heating coffee is bad? No. The problem has absolutely nothing to do with the specifics of the nature of the beverage, or the method of ingestion, or the act of altering its temperature, and everything to do with the extent to which the temperature was altered. So, unless you're suggesting that any time a game developer of an RPG would ever want to offer a pool of multiple progression choices to the player, he wants there to always be an arbitrarily easy order to the choice pool and an arbitrarily difficult order to the choice pool, I don't comprehend at all how you can say that level-scaling has no use. I wouldn't even call it level-scaling, since Enemies A and B (in the example above) are only ever one level. You either fight Enemy A at level 12, or you fight him at level 15 (depending on the order). Either way, he's always a moderated, appropriate level of challenge when you face him, and is never arbitrarily easier. Do you claim that that very effect is self-regulatable? In a game with static levels, can I face enemy B (level 15), level up from that, THEN face Enemy A (level 12) and simply will him to be as challenging as he would have been had I not progressed by already facing Enemy B? I don't think so. A static level setting contradicts the very choice offered to the player, in this particular situation. The only way to render the choice unnecessary is to make the game purely linear. If you cannot face Enemy B until you've faced Enemy A because it's literally impossible, then all's well. But, there are times when it would be silly to restrict things so. "You cannot go out the west gate and deal with these bandits until you go out the east gate, first, and explore this cave, simply so that the pre-determined challenge levels for these things will be appropriate. I mean, how do you think static levels are determined in the first place? "Oh, this person's gonna fight this stuff in Chapter 1? Then we can't make it level 90... it'll need to be appropriate-level content." Yet, suddenly, someone wants to have a wider array of challenges presented simultaneously, and it's preposterous to account for the completely unintentional side-effect of challenge-skew because of the potential order in which the array is tackled? That does not compute. o_o

I don't see how you expect to reside within your enemy, much less summon anything once there.

What if you could manipulate them, as objects, with any telekinetic (or similar) abilities, and use them as barricades (by moving them telekinetically or simply physically), or to slow the advance of incoming foes (because they'd have to pass trip checks if moving at a run)? *Chin stroke of pondrance* I don't think you should ever have to worry about tripping over them or anything of that nature outside of combat, though. And, even then, it should probably only be while moving quickly, and/or performing combat maneuvers.

Okay, now I want a helmet with a gilded battle sloth atop its crest. u_u (Seriously, though, the elaborate helmets are awesome.)

AKA laid off. I dunno... a little Photoshop goes a long way.

I wouldn't say that. All "3D" images displayed on a monitor are, in fact, only 2D images. So, unless the image you're displaying isn't even trying to HINT at the idea of 3-dimensional space, whatsoever, it could easily be effectively portrayed in trick-your-eyes 3D. The 2.5D just means that the background/environment images aren't being rendered according to 3-dimensional logical space. Not that 3-dimensional space isn't being virtually represented at all.

"You took the day off of work to play your new game? How cute... I went on MATERNITY LEAVE to play Project: Eternity, and I'm not even female!"

I'd like to start a petition for a new physical rewards tier. o_o Heretic!!! Blasphemer! Shun the non-believer! SHUUUUUHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnnnnn...!

That's it. I no longer feel the game will be acceptable without plume-based talents and abilities. u_u

I'm confused... is he "ribs-masher," or "rib-smasher"? Smashing ribs and mashing ribs are two completely different things. u_u

They just don't wanna strain the forums with too many possibilities lying around. That's all.

I dunno... so long as they move around and try to ravenously kill things once in a while, I don't mind. In all seriousness, though, I don't think corpses "disappearing" is a problem. But, corpses literally disappearing is a slight problem. Even if the whole corpses actually go missing, it'd be awesome if some remnants of things remained (things the wolves didn't eat, damaged stuff that no salvagers/bandits/main-road-cleaner-uppers wanted, etc.), such as rusted/broken swords, pieces of helmets or leather, strips of broken mail, perhaps a boot stuck in the mud, etc. Just SOMETHING to say "there were actually dead things here recently, even though you see no dead things here now." Of course, even that stuff could "fade out" eventually, getting washed away by rains, or enveloped by dirt/foliage, etc. It would just be a pleasing touch, more than anything. But, I'm not a fan of things like a corpse simply vanishing the instant the last object has been looted from it.

Well... my thoughts on that are that I'd rather not see a %chance of being identified as the culprit, because that would instantly result in 90% of people just retrying the pickpocket from a save until the chance lands in the right spot. So, the two simplest factors that make the most sense to deal with are (1) the amount of time it takes for people to start looking for you and (2) your distance from the target when they try to find you. Both of which are quite flexibly variable. With that much variation (you could have anywhere from 1 second of time to 30 seconds of time, and anywhere from a 30-foot radius to a 3-foot radius), I'd much rather see a "you either managed to get far enough away in the appropriate amount of time or you didn't" check, over some kind of 17-factor check on your chances of being spotted or picked out of the crowd. It's a situation where I think a bit of abstracted simplification outweighs the minimal benefits (even though they'd be awesome in many ways) of extra verisimilitude/complexity. Granted, it's not as if it's impossible to go beyond a simple timer/radius without drastically overcomplicating things. But, as it's a party-based game, I would avoid any kind of generally-repeatable "they found me out but now I need to lose them in the streets" scenario. That Assassin's Creed style chase just seems a little out of place in P:E, at least as a basic game mechanic rather than a specific story situation or event. Not implying that you're arguing the opposite. Just my thoughts on what was mentioned.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to mock you or make a point or anything. Just spreadin' the humor. 8P

Good point. I shall once again reference Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. In it, all magical people used the same magical Source (simply called "The One Source"), and were simply called "channelers." BUT, they could detect channeling. So, they kind of acted as sentries in camps and cities and such. They could then "shield" other channelers (if they were strong enough, or if they outnumbered the other channeler, or caught him/her off-guard). So, anywho... It could be possible that there are what amounts to guards and sentries of various classes throughout cities. Granted, they can't make you check your magic, or your soul powers, at the gate. But, that's pretty much true of all classes. Also, there are ways to deal with that. Like I said, your physical weapons could simply be required to be peace-tied, rather than removed from your person. But, another thing to consider is, in real life, you can have people check weapons at security checkpoints, but what do you do about people who are lethally skilled in martial arts? Sure, they don't have range (unless they've concealed some kunai or shurikens or something), but, in a crowd or an interior locale, they could easily take plenty of people down before anyone stopped them. Life just isn't fair, I suppose. Heh. There's only so much you can do.

8D! Awesome update! It's exciting to hear about the things you guys are working on, and about your progress with said things. Also, that little bridge-jumping text-scription is one of the best things in this update! I totally made a topic about the use of skills (such as jump) for scenarios just like that! Hopefully that kind of stuff is in the game. As to how the rest of your companions get across? That was in my topic. You can throw some rope back across, and tie it off at your (the character's who jumped across) end, and have your party tie it off at the other end, and form a sort of makeshift bridge. And/or help catch the people who can't quite make the jump. And/or some very strong member of your party can kneel at the edge and provide a launch foothold for the running person (their final step before jumping will be upon the strong character's hands folded together, which then launch the person as they jump). Etc. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE... well, they're finite, but fun and exciting nonetheless, 8D Also, I second (or third... or fourth?) the acknowledgement of the splendor that is those miniature avatar concepts. ^___________________^

Ah-HAH! See! You're talking about seeing the intended victim's inventory! u_u... I WIN AT FORUMS! /jest...

Before that, they were going with a reanimated orchestra, with the conductor being a Necromancer.

I propose a Project: Eternity arcade console, requiring 50 cents every time you die, to continue. Complete with joystick and 6 ultra-responsive buttons! 8D