WotanAnubis

So. Druids. They can change into animals apparently. But I want to know if you already know which animals. Also, can Druids theoretically change into whatever animal they want (assuming there are multiple possibilities) or are they constrained to a single animal form?

I predict that P:E will have multiple endings, New Vegas-style, and how happy or bleak they are depends on what you did throughout the game. I further predict that any hypothetical sequels will be set in some different part of the setting, far enough away so that the events of P:E doesn't really affect it much. Which, combined, means that P:E can have a satisfying ending that is only emotionally ambiguous.

It hasn't really felt like a year. Some things really do sneak up on you. I hope the release date, too, will feel like it's much sooner than it actually will be.

I'd read them if they have a catchy title. Books with titles like "History of the Region, Vol. VI" will go unread; especially if I don't have have volumes I - V yet.

P.E. is set in roughly the equivalent of the 16th Century, not the 21st Century. You're describing a modern, Euro-style Nannystate that is an anachronisim when placed in a late Medieval/early Renaissance milieu and would be soundly rejected by peoples of that feudal-c_u_m-mercantilist era. These people want expansion of trade, land, and a rising standard of living and they don't much give a crap about whom they must step on to secure these improvements to their own lives. High taxes, however well intended, would go over like a loud fart in church. Fine, fine. Building and maintaining roads combined with training and outfitting guards to expand and secure the trade network, allowing merchants to safely and easily do their thing, improving the overall wealth of the region. Also, to get more land, you're gonna need an army. And you need to pay for an army. Possibly through taxes.

Could be that "High prestige = Higher tax income" is simply because more people are drawn to your lands because you are so awesome. More inhabitants means more tax payers means more revenue. Also, I don't think people mind high taxes that much provided the government doesn't take so much that people fall below the poverty line, isn't corrupt or doesn't just keep all that tax money for itself. If a high tax rate goes together with serious investments in infrastructure, affordable education and healthcare, a sold social safety net and so on, people won't complain that much (although they will complain because people are people) simply because they obviously get something in return for the taxes they pay.

The Stronghold does sound awesome, but as it I stands I do have an observation. - Taxes periodically give you money. - Hirelings (it seems) periodically take your money. - If you don't pay hirelings they leave, implying that "paying your hirelings' salaries" is something you manually have to do yourself. It'd be nice to take some of the micromanagement out of that. Why not allow the player the option to set it up so that Hireling Salaries are automatically deducted from your Tax Income?

I wonder what would be considered "Historical" RPGs and how they're different from "Fantasy". The title that springs to my mind when I hear Historical RPG would be Expeditions: Conquistador, which allows the player to basically retrace the footsteps of Cortez but do things differently this time (or not). But even then... supernatural elements plainly exist in that game in the form of, for example, the portal to Mictlan guarded by an Aztec god and that guardian spirit (or whatever it was) in El Dorado (which is itself legendary). So does it count as historical? If it does, where you do draw the line between it and fantasy? If it doesn't, have there been any historical RPGs?

I think they called it Spiritshifting because SOULS while calling it "soulshifting" would imply the caster becoming a different person entirely. This way, the name implies more than a purely physical transformation while also being less than a completely mental one.

That's a nice way to think about it. Isn't that kind of how Life of Brian got funded? Still can't help feeling that those people still have more money than they'll ever really need.

Hmm. I suppose I wouldn't mind characters getting a small, passive boost when they're in their ideal environment, but I guess it'd be hard to balance. I mean, what if you were to play a necromancer who gets bonuses in graveyards and the only graveyard in the entire game was in a brief section in the tutorial?

What are the core themes of the game anyway? I don't really expect anyone to tell us (unless I've missed it somewhere) since they probably want us to explore said themes through playing the game, but it gets kind of silly to read about how the themes are nailed down and how stuff is designed to support or reinforce the themes without even knowing what they are.

I'm not sure if he counts as minor, but Beckett from Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines was pretty great. He was basically this neutral observer character who was willing to help you out, but not hold your hand and who constantly snarked about pretty much everything without being mean-spirited about it. I also liked Scarlet from Alpha Protocol for... well... pretty much the same reasons, actually. Except for the bit where she's willing to jump into bed with Mike just because he's sent her a bunch of info.

First time through, I play on Easy. I always do. I just want a fun, relaxed experience where I can just let it all wash over me without having to worry too much about gaming the system. Only if a game is good or enjoyable enough that I want to replay it will I look into upping the difficulty. I enjoy a challenge, but I only enjoy a challenge in games I enjoy even without the challenge.

Well, they do apparently have all the characters classes basically plotted out until level 5 or so, so I wouldn't say no to a Month of Character Classes Updates (including Druids).

Well, the difference with Original Sin is that the Kickstarter wasn't for funding the actual game. They already had the funds for the game. The Kickstarter was for getting enough money to add more features and polish to a game that would be released anyway even if the Kickstarter had failed.

Gear, gear mods and decorations. Whenever I get to a new town, I always head to the local store to upgrade all my armour and weapons. Unless I can loot all my armour and weapons off of enemies. Then I don't. I mean, why buy if I can get it for free? Trouble is, in games with a lot of loot, most of the time the loot is just plain better than what the shops sell so I don't have any reason to buy gear. Mods and upgrades. Aesthetics are very important to me, so if I find some gear I simply like the looks of, I'll want to keep it around for as long as possible. Now, most of the time, it's the end-game stuff that looks the most awesome, so I got no problem ditching my old stuff for the shiny new thing. But sometimes that's not the case - for example, I really like the Laser Pistol in New Vegas. Because it's an ugly, bulky piece of crap and more or less exactly what I imagine early laser weapons will actually look like. I like having it around, so I am more than willing to spend a bunch of cash on mods to enhance its viability as a weapon. As another example, Skyrim allows you to use crafting materials to upgrade your existing stuff to give it better stats. I like this too, because it simply means that the gear I like will be statistically useful for longer as well. So yeah. I will happily spend money on stuff that will allow me to use my favourite weapons and armour for longer without the game punishing me for it. And finally, we have customization. Because of the way the game looks, I doubt there'll be much point in customizing the looks of the characters, but I would still appreciating being able to buy dyes or something to colour cloaks and non-metal armour. Maybe emblazon shields with various symbols or whatever. But more importantly, we get a Stronghold, right? I want to buy paintings and statues and furniture and maybe some rose bushes and a decorative oak tree and carpets and drapes and chandeliers and oh my word I will spend so much money on interior decorating and landscaping if the game will let me. Provided the interface doesn't suck like Fable's. When it comes to things I don't spend my money on, it's consumables and unique gear. Unless I'm playing Skies of Arcadia, I'm likely to rob enough health potions from the enemy that I simply won't need to buy any. The exception to this is ammo, of course, but only in games where melee either isn't viable or doesn't quite fit the tone of the setting. I also don't tend to buy unique stuff because it wouldn't feel earned. Acquiring the Legendary Blade Of Awesome Myth by tossing a few coppers at some random merchant just feels so anticlimactic.

Yeah, like Gaia/Terra. The spirit/soul of the entire planet (well, Earth, at least.) Sounds like a bad move to give the planet a soul. You might as well give rocks a soul. Possibly having a god (or gods) around to basically be Mother Nature might be a better idea.

Crafting, eh? Yeah, great, whatever. Neat, I guess. I only care about crafting in Monster Hunter because new armours and weapons look new and different and neat and I'm all about the dressing up. But gathering herbs to make potions? Most of the time I have enough money to just buy them and not waste my time. So I'm rather indifferent towards crafting. Now this, on the other hand, is interesting. Hopefully we'll get more info on the classes in future updates now that the basics have apparently been hammered out for all of them.

When it comes to endings, I think it's important to have a general sense of where the story is going to end up, but it should not be set in stone. Mass Effect clearly had no idea how it was going to resolve everything, so the writers came up with a literal Deus ex Machina. Obviously, that's bad. On the other hand, an inflexibly set ending forces the writer(s) to fit everything else around it and the writing process is usually a bit too messy for such rigidity. So that's how I would approach it: have a certain ending in mind, but leave enough wriggle room for unexpected bursts of inspiration during the writing process of everything else. I don't know how Obsidian does it, but considering their finished games all have pretty good endings, I feel reasonably confident they're not going to screw it up.

That way the player can do almost nothing in human form and can do nothing in animal form. That doesn't really sound very much like fun. I don't buy RPGs to watch the computer play them for me.

"How does the demi-human soul interact with animals and/or nature spirits?" is a fine question. It also brings to mind the related question of whether or not animals have a soul/spirit analog. Do souls have a species in the first place? If soul reincarnates from a human into a spider, is it still a human soul? Has it turned into a spider soul? And was it a bear soul before becoming a human soul? Or was is just 'a soul' moving from body to body and mind to mind? I guess this all depends on how reincarnation works in PE - if it exists at all.

The what now? Well... anyway... in general terms I don't mind equipment restricted to certain classes. Generic equipment should be open to anyone (even though it may be impractical), but say, some Sacred Bow bestowed upon some legendary archer by some God of the Hunt should not be able to be used by some tower-dwelling wizards to whom nature is something that happens on the other side of his walls. 'Course that sort of thing might be tricky to implement. Especially if PE turns out to be open-ended enough that it's entirely possible for a wizard to be a master huntsman. But in that case the bow becomes generic and quest-related rather than class-based. So I guess I don't really have an opinion here. Not a coherent one, anyway.

I suppose not. But druids more or less vanished after the conquests of the city of Rome and especially the rise of Christianity and its many churches. As such, Druids have more or less become symbolic of the "natural old world" that was forced to make way for "modern urbanization and civilization." Forests, too, tend to symbolise wild nature since they get cut down a lot to make way for farmland and because they're way prettier than, say, swamplands. Put the two together and, well, Magic Forest Protectors. This may not be particularly historically justified, but it kind of makes metaphorical sense.

I've always wondered how a Western developer would tackle the Shin Megami Tensei series. While not particularly deep, it does create potentially deep worlds and potentially interesting questions that are, unfortunately, only treated on the surface level. I mean, take Strange Journey. The basic premise of that game is that humanity has screwed the planet up so badly that the primal forces of nature have decided to wipe the slate clean and start over. On top of that, the forces of Heaven see the chaos as an opportunity to create a universal and eternal YHVH-worshipping theocracy. Yes, you start out the game trying to save mankind, but in the end you're allowed to side with the demons or angels over humanity if you prefer. Possibly interesting questions are either raised or hinted at, but never fully explored or developed and that's a shame.