Silent Winter

Not a beta-tester but my feeling is that this will limit my choices rather than improve my character development. If I want to play a lore-fueled fighter, then will I miss out on the combat skills I want? If I want the aforementioned athletic wizard (cause a healthy body=high might=higher damage in my understanding) then will I need to sacrifice metamagic-type talents? I'll wait to see what the beta-testers post - maybe it won't be restricting at all and everything will make sense ... but I'm not seeing it at the moment.

It says MB, not GB. Though that just makes it more unlikely. Unless graphics and sound are going to be really, really sparse. ^It's super old-school, 8-bit joy

My wife's phone was more powerful than our laptop until we just replaced it this year. I'd had the same laptop since 2005 and it was slowing down a bit, but good enough for general use. New one is shiny - still only 4GB RAM but since the last one was 0.5GB RAM, it's a lot zippier by comparison (plus dual-core + hyperthreading vs. single core and not) And Nvidia 710M vs onboard graphics - it's actually giving my (now dead) desktop a run for its money gaming wise. Still planning to buy a new desktop system (building it myself) before PoE comes out. That'll have 16GB of RAM eventually but may start with 8 - mostly for 3D-art work rather than gaming since I'm still happy playing the likes of IE games, NWN(1+2), et al. Not sure what graphics card to get but it might be a GeForce 760 or something like that - a big step up from my last 9600GT.

These are the situations that happen all the time: 1. There is a corridor full of traps. I don't need to disarm them, there's a way around it. Guess what, I find myself disarming all of them anyway. 2. There is a locked door, but the room is accessible from a different door as well (which is the non-stealthy way so there's a fight). I enter through the opened door, and after the fight I go over to the locked door and unlock it. Even though that door is useless to me now. If you say that hasn't happened to you in IE games or other similar RPGs you're simply not telling the truth. 1. I do it in case I run into a fight in a minute and want to back up / get hit by confusion/horror/runaway. That's both an RP and a gameplay reason. 2. er...no. I'll either stealth through the locked door or go the fight way (unless going out through the locked door afterwards is a shorter route back out of the dungeon). not overly bothered by lock/trap xp being present/absent either way. Would prefer the original 'objective' (as opposed to just 'quest') system I assumed there was going to be - that would cover all manner of playstyles without requiring any given one. If we're rewarding all the little actions with xp then why not just do it all like in IE games? (Kill-xp, quest-xp, lock, trap, puzzle, convo, special).

^That's game usage RAM? - the system needs RAM too (so XP-32 might need x amount of RAM but Win-7-64 might need y amount). In which case 4GB RAM might be needed. They've not optimised it yet though so hopefully that 'minimum' requirement will come down. Until they do that, they can't really give out any final system reqs.

^It's the pre-rendered background bmp/png/whatever files. In 3D games you can use repeating tiles - a small seamless brick texture and you've got every house in the village - but in PoE each pixel on each map is separate (plus the other layers of animations and depth-maps etc)

^LOL that's some amazing file compression going on there

Started on arcade pong / space-invaders, home console of pong offshoot games then onto the BBC-B. Mentioned all this in the other thread but I played most of the home computers at friends' houses. Personally had the BBC-B, Amiga 500, PS1, PS2, Modern-PC Cassette loading - unfun times Anyone else remember painstakingly typying out the BASIC code to play space-invaders on your BBC/Spectrum/Whatever? (Or just: 10 PRINT "HELLO" 20 GOTO 10 30 END RUN giggles) (hey, I was in primary school)

^^Because they're in the Underdark so romances are on hold

I beg to differ. The fact that they only allow checks against your PC's stats/skills in dialogues suggests that, at the very least, it's intended for you to have to play through the game as several different characters just to experience all the various dialogue options/quest brances, etc. ^this I think a lot of players are expecting to replay the game - as well as what Lephys said, there are multiple classes to try out and multiple factions to 'side with' (not sure how many but the reputation thing is related to that). The games they're trying to be like (IE games) are very replayable and I'd be surprised if the devs aren't taking that into account when designing the game (not saying we'll get a dozen unique storylines, just that it'll be fun to replay with different characters and different quest resolutions).

Ohhhhh. Sorry. Yeah, I was just kinda saying that plenty of words that "aren't words" are actually perfectly good words. I probably should've worded that better. Also, though, I missed the part where he was specifically wondering about that being deemed legitimate by his spellchecker. Sorry abootz that. No need for an apology - we're both just explaining where we're coming from (and he wasn't 'specifically' asking about his spellcheck, so you didn't miss anything - that was just my assumption (reading between the lines)) I use plenty of non-words myself (and I teach the language )

Welcome to the Internet, where 'off-topic' is the topic (or is this a side-quest?)

^I see - (my point about it not being in the dictionary was merely to explain why Sir Newbie's spellcheck wasn't recognising the word (I'm guessing) and why he thought it wasn't being spelt correctly when in fact it was).

Sure, but, if the outcome isn't significant, what's the point? I repeat - just the roleplaying factor The 'free stuff' you get might only be a bullet or a couple of copper pieces. There could also be significant stuff wherein pickpocketing is one alternative (with fighting and persuasion being among others) to get key-item X. I won't be distraught at its absence - but in a game where we can try to roleplay a thief archtype, it would be nice.

You've got the right spelling - but Oxford dictionary says it's not a word - must be one of those made-up terms that gamers use but the rest of the population don't. (Others use 'replay value' as a phrase). The Oxford dictionary didn't say anything was a word, until some human decided they were words and put them into a dictionary. Sure, and words get added all the time - but replayability apparently isn't there yet. We must lobby for its inclusion! Clearly Suzy Dent and friends are not playing enough games (or not replaying them )

That's fantastic for like, the first 2 times. When you just run around pickpocketing everyone in the entire game, because there's not much reason not-to, and you get caught and sent to court for the 10th time, it's not as exciting. Most likely, you're either going to stop trying to pickpocket people, or you're going to start reloading every time it fails. Which, again, why wouldn't you, since nothing's stopping you? I mean, what's the point of being able to pickpocket everyone if you can't feasibly do that? "Oh, you'll actually just lose all your money and go to jail if you get caught, and you always have a chance of getting caught." So the game's like "Hey, you can just pickpocket everyone! But also, here's a deterrent against such behavior, u_u". So... I dunno. It's kind of weird no matter what you do. And, in the long run, it's great to take money and random valuables off of people, but how is that any different from simply looting money and junk items, except now with a skill attached to it? If it doesn't really bring anything significant to the table , what's the point? And if it does, then what's the point in being allowed to do all the non-significant stuff? *shrug*. I think we've had enough games that treat systems so simplistically by now that we'd be past that, and want a fleshed out system, if there was one. The "just take things from everyone" system is essentially just making people loot containers, when you think about it. It's simulating something for no other reason than to simulate it. For me, the ability to pickpocket random citizens is the roleplay aspect of a thief - don't expect to get rich off it but it's nice to have. The consequences in BG of everyone going hostile is too severe - perhaps have the pickpocketed person go hostile and the guards called but still have the ability to run away. If the guards catch you, pay the fine. It needn't be 'worth it'. The 'pickpocket' skill, by itself, might then not be worth investing in - so make it part of the 'sleight of hand' skill which can have scripted interaction use of 'add poison/something to his drink' or 'throw a stone into the corner to distract him' or any number of other things. It could even have a combat application of 'disarming' or 'distraction' - or just tie it to dexterity and be done with it. (though that's less opportunity-cost-y from a character build standpoint)

You've got the right spelling - but Oxford dictionary says it's not a word - must be one of those made-up terms that gamers use but the rest of the population don't. (Others use 'replay value' as a phrase).

Honestly, it probably cost more to print that notepad than it would to burn a plastic disc. *Shrug* It's not like we're not getting the documentary, and it's not like it's difficult to burn a physical copy of it. You can even Lightscribe Josh's face onto it if you want. At the least, Obs should produce digital artwork for the DVD cover - that way you can print it off and insert it into a case along with your burned DVD. (Doesn't affect me as I'm not getting it - just thought it would be nice and wouldn't take much time to produce).

I'd rather have a separate screen than a scrollable section of the inventory screen - no need to cram it in. But I agree it should be easy to switch between party members (can't we click on the portrait / use their number on the keyboard?). Or even have the option of opening 2 character sheets side-by-side (though that may involve more work and not do so well on low-res monitors).

Hello and welcome to the forums You'll probably want to check out the armour and weapon designs thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65175-armour-weapon-designs-part-v/ (It's currently on part V - 4 previous threads reaching the forum limit of posts - and focuses on weapons and armour that are historically accurate or at least plausible within that frame of reference).

I don't want to be constantly tripping over encounters IWD-style, I thought BG had a good density of combat and other encounters (granted the odd outdoor area was a little empty but it was generally good and some less dense, some more dense areas is good for variety)

[Nostalgia] Ah yes, Began with pong and space invaders on arcade machines, First home computer was a BBC-Micro B with the joys of Dare Devil Denis, Joust, Chuckie Egg, Yie-Ar Kung Fu,.... Luckily friends had the ZX-spectrum and the Atari 2600 so I got to play those too. Amiga - Eye of the Beholder, Monkey Island, Supercars, Speedball 2, etc etc, good times, again a friend had the Atari-ST(e), After that I moved onto consoles for a bit with the PS and PS2 (and housemates with a SNES and later N64) before coming back to PC and discovering the joys of gog.com and the IE games etc. Somewhere in there were the handheld gaming times - original Gameboy and Tetris (falling blocks in my sleep) then gameboy colour with the Zelda games Still only 37, a mere dragonling [/nostalgia]

er...it hasn't (?) - Combat xp 70-votes, Bestiary xp 90-votes (?) It's been catching up to it but isn't over it.

^for me it's more about options - I wouldn't use all the options (so it wouldn't be pausing every second) but different folks might want different conditions for their pauses. In BG I used 'enemy sighted', 'weapon unusable', 'trap found' and 'target destroyed' - I didn't use 'spell cast' but there were a few times my mage was idle or I gave them a new command thinking they'd finished their spell but ended up interrupting it instead so I probably should have - I'd like that 'idle' auto-pause suggested in the OP.

I agree with this - I hated levelling everyone at the same time in NWN2 OC - made it a chore when we levelled up, rather than the buzz of hearing that sound and seeing the '+' in BG. I seem to recall MOTB was better for this since everyone started at different xp levels (?) so levelling up was staggered. Good idea - it would be nice to have the option of more customisation from the start (inexperienced players (or those who can't be bothered) can accept a 'default' or 'recommended' selection a la NWN2).