curryinahurry

Race? No. It has already been said by the developers that many of the races have learned to co-exist in different locales within the Dyrwood. I wouldn't mind intros that were based on the choices we made regarding cultural specific backgrounds the the devs mentioned would be part of character creation. One could combine these with class specific backgrounds that could lead to starting at different points within the same general locale (or different locales) and have a few of the tutorial type quests the OP mentioned. This would keep things fairly general, avoiding the whole DA:O issue that bothered some of us, while also allowing for variety and enhancing replay-ability.

Given that PE will be driven by Factions, I think it would be odd if, at least all NPCs that are even tangentially quest related, weren't up for grabs. Now, if you start killing people in you're allied faction; well that could be a problem...that's where hired assassins come in handy. Honestly, if I were to play a ruthless character, I would really prefer to arrange for the murder of certain NPCs vs killing them myself and risking discovery. So yes, killing NPCs should be allowed, but beyond consequences for such acts, it would be also welcome to have in game mechanisms that allowed one to be a sneaky, ruthless, amoral, miscreant; and have fun doing so.

Including Paypal, we're at 14 levels creeping up on 15. I agree with the OP except that difficulty of monsters is usually not a good way to prevent players from moving forward as they will bash their collective head repeatedly and get frustrated, and we had a discussion about it in another thread in General Discussion. One of the other posters made a good point that levels could be held off in a variety ways from clue finding to monster difficulty. Other ways could be false endings (you think you've reached the end, but find a clue later that leads you back or something thematic to the dungeon leads you back), requiring knowledge to solve a puzzle to move forward requiring research, finding a level that is submerged leaving you to find a raft elsewhere. The Paths could also be discontinuous in a way like Dorn's Deep so you pop out somewhere and a plot trigger leads you away. A lot of ways to do it.

I'm guessing that it took me about 8-10 hours of real time to get through Dragon's Eye, which will supposedly have similar level sizes to the Endless Paths. So that translates to 25 - 30 hours (at least) if you'rs a fairly slow, methodical player like me.

Yes, that's why I noted that it could be annoying depending on playstyle. It is however possible to design it in a way that you're not so much blocked as unaware or some other mechanism as StromIV mentioned in his post. Just as an example, we could tromp through 3 levels of the dungeon; meet who we think is an end boss, defeat it, get loot, etc. We leave the dungeon only to find ourselves having dreams about the place, about something we might have missed...we do a little research, and pow! a clue, go back, and a door appears where there wasn't one before. Again, this is a bit risky, and its likely that Obsidian might design the endless Paths more straightforward. But at this size, we should really be haunted by the place, have it soak into our bones. I'm just thinking of ways to create that feeling.

They have 73000+ order to process, so it may take several hours or even a day or two. I'm also not sure if its being done in any particular order or just as quickly as the computers can process the transactions.

Paid. Thanks to everyone who supported this Kickstarter, and to the OP, and a big thanks to Obsidian.

I am really hoping that the leveling system for PE will allow for this dungeon to be fully explored without ruining potential to import your protaganist from PE into PE2 due to level cap, but with another huge city being implemented now as well as having one already, plus a stronghold, am I crazy in thinking that there will be too much content for a carryover into PE2!?!? honestly I would be fine with this dungeon not giving experience aside from any levels that are included in the main story. Story and loot seem like fine rewards for it. It also depends to a great deal on how the leveling system works and the relative power difference between, for example, a 12th level character and a 15th level character. I always thought that was one of the weakest parts of all D&D systems; the power curve. If in the PE system the difference between those two example levels has more to do with having more options in combat and skills while not moving towards invulnerability, I don't think that level caps and game balancing will be as much of an issue. I really would like to see Obsidian avoid level caps.

It would be interesting if to access certain levels, or tiers, you would have to bring a particular artifact from somewhere else in the game world. It could become a fun mechanism for pacing the dungeon & also potentially providing a chance to delve deeper into lore of the setting and research. It could also be tedious if done the wrong way, or for people who just want to storm through.

So we're at 13 including Paypal or 14? I thought I read in some post that they had it plotted out for 14 levels. Either way, that's a lot of critter stompin' goodness!

Does anyone have the final paypal numbers? Total must be over 4.1m, right?

Because this thread isn't about whether or not Project Eternity will be a hack and slash game or about health regen or anything else. It's a poll about the experience mechanic. Sorry about that...I'm done with him.

Jesus Christ Shrek, give your crusade a rest for a day, you are becoming worse then VotS, because in his case I am at least reasonably sure that he is trolling. You are deluded. I have no crusade only very valid points. Appealing to emotions or trying to humiliate others indirectly by such stupid accusations is riddiculous internet tactics. Stop being immature. Actually your points are far from valid. They are based on assumptions and jumping to the worst possible conclusions (too your mind). I can't speak to spells because I have no ideas how the system will actually work, but I can say that the stamina/health system Josh Sawyer mentioned can be absolutely brutal if they follow fairly closely to how Darklands did it. Tougher by far than any of the IE games, and only Shattered Lands was as tough among the SSI games in my opinion. You have never played Darklands. Darklands does not allow auto-regenration. After combat in Darklands, stamina regenerates, health on the other hand only regenerates with rest. Or are you thinking of a different game? Yes. I am indeed. Games like Skyrim, Dragon age and co. where Spells have cool downs, stamina regens. The onyl difference here is that stamina is ALSO health analogue. Which means, dropping all the pretense that stamina is just Health +, health also regens. That game was COD. Again, those are assumptions and I gave you a factual situation, that is the inspiration for at least the stamina portion of PE, that accomplishes the task elegantly. We have no idea of the rate of regeneration just like we don't know how quickly or in what quantity low level spells will regenerate or how this will actually effect encounters. The has yet to be designed. I'm going to leave it that; any more and we'll just be talking in circles. cheers >I gave you factual info No you did not. Darklands DOES NOT REGEN STAMINA OUTSIDE COMBAT. This requires 1 hour rest. Your constant source of misinformation indicates that you haven't played it. Also, there seems to be some confusion in your mind. It has been clearly declared that: 1) There will be CONSTANT REGEN on stamina 2) There will be very easy ways to increase it if it is lost. Probably should check your facts before arguing. This is getting sad. Stamina regenerates after combat while you are looting bodies. Did you get that from a wiki or something? Now I'm starting to think you've never played Darklands and you're just trolling. Oh and btw, constant regen is meaningless without knowing the rate.

That is exact;y how I read it. I also think that quests will be set up as a series of interrelated objectives, and as you progress along the quest path, you will be handling objectives that will reward you experience. If you do something off the main quest path, it will like be treated as an encounter based objective.

Jesus Christ Shrek, give your crusade a rest for a day, you are becoming worse then VotS, because in his case I am at least reasonably sure that he is trolling. You are deluded. I have no crusade only very valid points. Appealing to emotions or trying to humiliate others indirectly by such stupid accusations is riddiculous internet tactics. Stop being immature. Actually your points are far from valid. They are based on assumptions and jumping to the worst possible conclusions (too your mind). I can't speak to spells because I have no ideas how the system will actually work, but I can say that the stamina/health system Josh Sawyer mentioned can be absolutely brutal if they follow fairly closely to how Darklands did it. Tougher by far than any of the IE games, and only Shattered Lands was as tough among the SSI games in my opinion. You have never played Darklands. Darklands does not allow auto-regenration. After combat in Darklands, stamina regenerates, health on the other hand only regenerates with rest. Or are you thinking of a different game? Yes. I am indeed. Games like Skyrim, Dragon age and co. where Spells have cool downs, stamina regens. The onyl difference here is that stamina is ALSO health analogue. Which means, dropping all the pretense that stamina is just Health +, health also regens. That game was COD. Again, those are assumptions and I gave you a factual situation, that is the inspiration for at least the stamina portion of PE, that accomplishes the task elegantly. We have no idea of the rate of regeneration just like we don't know how quickly or in what quantity low level spells will regenerate or how this will actually effect encounters. The has yet to be designed. I'm going to leave it that; any more and we'll just be talking in circles. cheers

Jesus Christ Shrek, give your crusade a rest for a day, you are becoming worse then VotS, because in his case I am at least reasonably sure that he is trolling. You are deluded. I have no crusade only very valid points. Appealing to emotions or trying to humiliate others indirectly by such stupid accusations is riddiculous internet tactics. Stop being immature. Actually your points are far from valid. They are based on assumptions and jumping to the worst possible conclusions (too your mind). I can't speak to spells because I have no ideas how the system will actually work, but I can say that the stamina/health system Josh Sawyer mentioned can be absolutely brutal if they follow fairly closely to how Darklands did it. Tougher by far than any of the IE games, and only Shattered Lands was as tough among the SSI games in my opinion. You have never played Darklands. Darklands does not allow auto-regenration. After combat in Darklands, stamina regenerates, health on the other hand only regenerates with rest. Or are you thinking of a different game?

Jesus Christ Shrek, give your crusade a rest for a day, you are becoming worse then VotS, because in his case I am at least reasonably sure that he is trolling. You are deluded. I have no crusade only very valid points. Appealing to emotions or trying to humiliate others indirectly by such stupid accusations is riddiculous internet tactics. Stop being immature. Actually your points are far from valid. They are based on assumptions and jumping to the worst possible conclusions (too your mind). I can't speak to spells because I have no ideas how the system will actually work, but I can say that the stamina/health system Josh Sawyer mentioned can be absolutely brutal if they follow fairly closely to how Darklands did it. Tougher by far than any of the IE games, and only Shattered Lands was as tough among the SSI games in my opinion.

"Heya, It's me, Cadegund!"

lol Vol was quoting something I said, but you and I obviously share a real love for the Microprose title. I remember when Microprose was da bomb. Anyhow, Darklands was a superb game, but far from perfect. For one thing, it was buggy as hell. For another, the party spent a lot of time recovering from royal ass stompings, which is why I get frustrated by the 'it will be dumbed down or easy' arguments. The innovation of banking houses was great, but I can see it becoming confusing for some players. Still, it was a great game. I haven't played it in... fifteen, twenty years? I can't even remember when it came out. ...But I do wish that I could play it again. I really liked that, while you recovered, party members could earn money or improve skills. Yes agreed; there were great and tedious things about the game; not including the demon bug I had that foiled 10 straight attempts at crashing a black sabbath after wandering around aimlessly til I got the correct clues! Honestly, I'm just really excited that we're getting a game that is pulling inspriation from Darklands but I certainly expect Obsidian to only to take what makes sense within their new system. Btw, I really enjoyed the resting and recuperation mechanic, but I think many gamers would find it tedious.

I haven't read through the whole thread so I don't know if anybody has really addressed this, but there is more than just a semantic difference between quest based and objective based rewards. Objectives can be pretty fine grained and even more a matter of scripting encounter design; e.g., getting through a wandering monster encounter can be treated as an objective or getting past a room of hobgoblins (killing, sneaking, sleeping with a spell, etc.). It seems to me the only difference in this from the traditional system is that the game must take into account how one navigated the encounter and how to trigger the xp rewards. The trick of doing something like this is how to keep people from running through the encounter more than once in order to exploit the system.

Not sure if you were paraphrasing me or not in the D&D quote, but I was specifically talking about IE games...Darklands had much tougher combat than IE games and you never had a trash mob problem because even rabble could be dangerous in numbers. Other than that, your points are fine...I'm actually trying to remember if I played any other old RPGs that had similar mechanics. I'm thinking that I did but can't quite recollect.

Exactly. Sawyer is referencing a 20 year old game that has some of the toughest combat mechanics in any RPG, and everyone is reacting as if he's talking about DA2 or some MMO. I understand people being fearful of dumbing down who want tough combat, but jumping on utterances like "rapid" without context or understanding reference is pretty pointless.

Nitpicking at definitions doesn't change the substantive issue that you are making massive assumptions of a system you don't understand and applying arbitrary definitions of mechanics without a suitable frame of reference. Even using the definition you provide, the key too which is, "short interval of time," there is little meaning without begging the question, "in reference to what?" A short interval of time can be 3 seconds or an hour depending on what you're trying to accomplish. The assertions you are making remain arbitrary because they are based on your personal narrative and related to a worst case scenario that may or may not exist. thus the cries of, "made up numbers." Does that make sense? Either way, I'm done...I've encouraged you to understand the reference within which the comment was made, if you elect not to do so, that is your problem.

There won't be rounds, you could have learned that by now. "Most damage taken in combat would Endurance*, which is relatively easy to restore (through abilities and magic) and regenerates rapidly on its own, both in and out of combat." *now stamina http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer I mean, if rapidly isn't at least 5% per second then I think he's heavily misusing the word. That's a mighty big assumption. The worst assumption is that rapid means 3/5th the DPS of an Ogre. Oh yeah, I'm probably assuming way too much when saying that rapid regeneration could mean that you replenish your stamina in 20 seconds if you're not taking any damage. Pretty much. Your also making a massive assumption about how much damage an Ogre might do. It might be possible that an Ogre, which might be 4x stronger than your PC, could easily drop you to 10% of your stamina; or knock you out completely if you're not armed with full plate and a shield. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure combat will be at least as balanced as Arnanum's combat was... How stupid of me, this must make your made up numbers so much better than my made up numbers... I haven't made up anything. I reported a quote about automatic rapid regeneration of stamina in combat. And when I read the word "rapid", well... I read "rapid" and not "at a snail's pace". http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rapid Making a dismissive post about an unrelated game doesn't change the facts that your assumptions follow a narrative that frames your fear of the unknown. Like I told Gatt9, go play Darklands, educate your self on the system that is influential to the Project leader (and likely to others at Obsidian as well), and then comment on whether combat with such a mechanic is too easy or whatever other point you're trying to make.

There won't be rounds, you could have learned that by now. "Most damage taken in combat would Endurance*, which is relatively easy to restore (through abilities and magic) and regenerates rapidly on its own, both in and out of combat." *now stamina http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer I mean, if rapidly isn't at least 5% per second then I think he's heavily misusing the word. That's a mighty big assumption. The worst assumption is that rapid means 3/5th the DPS of an Ogre. Oh yeah, I'm probably assuming way too much when saying that rapid regeneration could mean that you replenish your stamina in 20 seconds if you're not taking any damage. Pretty much. Your also making a massive assumption about how much damage an Ogre might do. It might be possible that an Ogre, which might be 4x stronger than your PC, could easily drop you to 10% of your stamina; or knock you out completely if you're not armed with full plate and a shield.