Jobby

I'm in agreement with OP and most of the people in this thread that torches (and asscoiated held lighting) are a good idea, they add immersion, atmosphere and realism. In regards to those arguing against them i dont see why they would need to be any different or have any different radius from the daytime FOW, all it would add in this regard is dynamic lighting. I think their implementation must not be a royal pain in the arse though as many other posters have stated, so i'll present this in bullet point form to make it quicker. I can't be bothered with having to pause the game and swap my torch for a sword everytime i fight a badguy, either make them a non-equipable item that your character holds when their not fighting or have a light slot on the equip screen that can be used for lanterns, torches, crystals etc.. Consumable torches sounds like another annoying mechanic, i'm usually all for increasing complexity and depth but this just sounds like it would piss people off, one infinite torch will still give that feeling of immersion and atmosphere. Simple button to turn torches off is a great idea, cant remember whose it was sorry! But it would add tactical depth for hiding in the shadows (if that skill is at all light based), especially if one race or class has NV which you only see whilst having that one character selected.

That would solve the problem afor completions sake however if the fog of war suddenly dissapeared over a nicely rendered pond as you approached its banks your eye would be drawn to it at the time of approaching it which i think would give the game quite a nice immersive exploration aspect.

Yeah unremovable FOW is a pain in the arse, could they just make it so that when you stand adjacent to unwalkable areas the whole thing becomes visible? I like the idea of having abilitys that remove FOW for tactical reasons but i do think it would be a little silly to have to utilise them just to see the artists beautifully drawn background, surely they can code something in with the walkable and unwalkable tiles?

Personally i would like to see the BG1 system with wilderness tiles you had to pass through although i realise this is not to everyones tastes, for the resolution and detail Obsidian are planning i doubt a seamless world is possible although Divine Divinity is a very good example of a hand rendered 2D isometric game with a very large, detailed and seamless world http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1366&bih=620&tbm=isch&tbnid=whpSyeVDPjdKpM:&imgrefurl=http://lparchive.org/Divine-Divinity/Update%252001/&docid=Kv2eDg2Ljbk1wM&imgurl=http://lparchive.org/Divine-Divinity/Update%25252001/2-DD_partial_map.jpg&w=800&h=600&ei=MDnHUKrgBeOd0QW1roGwCQ&zoom=1

I don't see why they couldn't render some indoor backgrounds at different angles and sizes, I'm sure the player models are 3D anyway?

For me Chilloutman has pretty much got what i would expect the ranger to be, i especially like the idea of the ranger only being good at stealth in the wild, the pet idea is good aswel. In regards to making the pet useful i think you would have to give it non-combat uses in order to avoid having some ridiculously overpowered dog devouring giant orcs. Perhaps the pet could be incorporated with a tracking mechanic to give an idea of how far away and in what direction the mobs are? Scouting perhaps? monsters and other animals might not be instantly hostile towards it? Perform simple actions such as levers and doors that may be useful if for some reason the pet can access areas that you cannot? Throwing weapon retrieval?... Clutching at straws now i think lol. Monster lore also seems like a pretty good way of incorporating the favoured enemy trait.

I'm in agreement with the people who've said that ensuring that the mobs fit in with their environment and make evolutionary sense from a lore point of view is more important than having a large variety of seemingly random mobs, i would like to see a bit of variety though and please dont overdo the re-colours lol.

Can't use the quote button cuz java scripts pish on this laptop but essentially my point was along the lines of "war is horror" and sadistic charcters who perform wanton acts of voilence can be jarring, even in a cartoony game with cheesy dialogue. Admittedly yes the badguy was a touch one dimensional, there is more backstory to him but not really enough to justify that level of sadism, although in saying that for all we know about many African dictators it took nothing more than power to corrupt their minds (Idi Amin, Bokassa, Mugabe the list goes on..). It really depends on peoples definition of horror, i rarely find classicaly defined horror films with vampires or giant crocs etc.. scary or disturbing, however real life themes for me are much scarier and that is what i would like to see personally. Of course i expect there to be undead monsters and the like and if Obsidian can make crypts and graveyards genuinely scary perhaps with clever utilisation of lighting, music, atmosphere and the occasional scripted fright moment then i'm all for that aswel i just think it will be hard to implement in an isometric game.

Horror will most certainly be a theme i think, i dont however expect to be constantly jumping from my seat shouting "where the **** did that come from!?!?!" occassionaly yes but all the time would be game breaking, i think it comes down to atmosphere, music etc.. Perhaps a bit irellevant as its a jRPG and after watching it again not quite as jarring as i remember as a 10 year old (though that could by the cheesy japanese diaglogue) but none the less Suikoden II had a great cutscene where one of the badguys forces someone to act like a pig before killing them anyway, That kind of horror would fit in very well i feel and also makes for a deeper more engaging storyline, i'm also all for having some dark torchlit dungeons with a nice creepy feel to them, but a geniuinely jump out of seat scary moment would probabally be quite difficult to implement in anything other than a first person game, then again we'll see what the guys at Obsidian can do

Wouldn't "multiple solutions to the same problem" have summed it up? But i see what your getting at in regards to the linear level design, and i have to say for "the spiritual successor to BG" DA is a guide on how not to make a cRPG lol.

I think making too many features optional would cause a lot of balancing issues, the three game modes theyve suggested seem fair enough, personally i say let the save scummers save scum, those who want to fix the odds to make the game easier can do so and those who don't don't have to, I would never have gotten anywhere in cRPGs without the trial and error approach initally. The Health/Stamina system seems to be a bit of a strange comprimise between the old school hardcore approach, i.e. BG2 core rules, and the imo wishy washy DA / NWN2 approach of health regeneration. Despite this i think it will work very well, it allows for quite a deep level of tactical resource management, i'm assuming that non magical skills will require stamina, combine that with the possibility of armour weight reducing maximum stamina and then you have a lot of pros/cons to evaluate. On top of that there is a level of realism to it that the DA / NWN2 system didnt have and to me felt very immersion breaking and "gamey", from what i've read on the Health/Stamina system it doesn't sound too "arcade like". In regards to the resting mechanic i'm in agreement that resting almost anywhere should be allowed but with extra risk for more dangerous locations, save scummers will save scum theres no point in trying to prevent it, especially if preventing it limits what we as the player can choose to do, be it scuicidal or not. They could flesh out the resting system and make it a bit deeper, for example select a char to stand guard, he won't recover health but he could prevent the party from being ambushed and possibly avoid combat altogther etc.. In fact as resting sounds like such an important mechanic i would kind of hope they have a slightly deeper system perhaps akin to realms of arkania but we shall see, either way i'm just delighted that havent opted for the sell out health regeneration approach that really ruined those games for me.

From what i remember i thought watchers keep was actually one of the better aspects of TOB, i do think that the dungeon needs to be well designed and a linear 15 levels with a big fight at the end of each would be incredibly boring. In regards to the Ironman situation as long as the dungeon gets progressively harder you should be able to scrape through a tough battle and decide to go no further for now. Tough fights that are outwith the general difficulty progression could be easily announced with loads of corpses, giant spider webs. etc.. Also throwing in the ability to flee as described in another thread would fit this quite well. Personally i would like the dungeon to feel like it was part of the world and not just a random 15 levels of tough fights, this could be done by making it notorious thorughout the world, with the best "adventurers" heading down there to test their mettle, other partys you can either help or hinder etc.. Would also like to see a town/stronghold of sorts outside the dungeon which would make sense if it was a notoriously dangerous but profitable location, with taverns full of hardened adventurers, shops with decent gear, perhaps the occassional attack which the town has to defend etc.. Lore found throughout the world could tell tales of great warriors who left for the dungeon to never return, you could then find them (and their awesome gear) dead on a high level. Things like that i think would make it a more enjoyable experience for those who dont enjoy the dungeon crawling aspect of RPGs as much as the story experience.