curryinahurry

Oh god, you're right. (1) No healz?! No rezzes, and possibility for maiming or permadeath?! WTF and with objective xp only, why bother with combat! (2) OMG stamina bar regens in combat and classes can spam soul powaz to heal it? NERF And this, folks, is why mechanisms shouldn't be discussed in a vacuum. You should probably take some time to think this through. It's really not complicated, there's no mystery here. Why do you think there's little healing and no resurrection? Because the intent of the system is to make sure you actively have to try to die. The auto-regenerating Health A bar is so that people don't have to "Rest spam" to regain spells, same thing as the cooldowns. Everything here is being done so people don't have to press a little "Rest" button and wait 30 seconds, because some subset of Players rest after every battle. Which means, we're now designing 3 systems (Healer class, regenerating health, spell cooldowns) around a subset of players who press the Rest button frequently and don't like pressing the Rest button. So seriously, how is this anything but bad design being dictated by a subset of Players? Remember, before you answer, this is the very same path that lead us to modern "RPGs" where everything's fully voiced, dialogue is minimal, dice rolls are replaced by player skill, level scaling, and no exploration. Because all of those things were dropped because a subset of players complained about them. I would encourage you to go and play Darklands and then come back to the forum and tell us how easy it is...because in my estimation (and pretty much anyone else who has played the game) its combat is much more punitive than in IE games.

I wouldn't mind if enemies continued to pound on the fallen in combat doing more health damage. Falling from fatigue shouldn't be something that happens more than dropping to 0 hit points in an IE game,. It should be punitive and dangerous otherwise it only serves as an inconvenience. Plus enemy behavior can be tied to difficulty setting so that at default or easy levels enemies move to another target when a character drops.

If you read the interview, Josh Sawyer says that damage will have 2 components; stamina and health. Stamina will be more effected through combat than health. Therefore priests might have spells that increase endurance or raise stamina, etc. but they won't be able to restore health.

Potions in D&D crpgs struck me as a workaround for the shortcomings of the vancian casting system (or poor resource management if you take another view). I never played or dm'd a p&p session where one could buy potions. Find them or craft them, but finding them wasn't very common. Given that PE will have its own system and also what we have learned about the damage system from that Josh Sawyer interview in Gamebanshee, that there will be 2 types of damage, stamina based and health based; stamina goes quickly but can be replenished, health must be replenished by rest, I would prefer if there were no magic potions in the game. If we can brew potions, I would prefer that they be alchemical in nature and work in potentially very different ways. Yes there would be certain similarities, but I think that it would make crafting much more interesting if the only way to create certain effects was through alchemy and vice versa.

Yes, the TOEE interface would be fine for me as well...Maybe they can have a frame toggle or Frame transparency slider as I attempted to show in the little mock-up I did for those in the crowd who like that aspect; whether aesthetic or nostalgic. And yes, the action screens in Darklands were incredible especially because they aslo had dedicated music for each one (camping, studying, learning saints, etc.)

The dual damage system sounds promising. It worked quite well in Darklands and you could still have a full party wipe if everybody dropped from fatigue in a fight. I also like the rarity of healing potions; I'm assuming that stamina can be replenished in a few different ways but that health will be only through rest or the occasional potion or possibly kits. I'll be curious how this system handles things like bleeding damage from spells and weapons and also if max stamina reduces gradually between rests as it did in Darklands.

XSI uses Mental Ray renderer so they're likely using the water shader (I would assume). Anyway, if that image is from a game in 2001 then it likely was done with a scanline renderer in 3DS MAX or something like it. I would expect much better images in the final game.

Yeah, there was an RPG that had a fairly abstract one that was nice...I'll see if I can dig up the game; pretty sure I have it somewhere

That's cool...any recommendations? I agree about the directional aspect, kind of pointless, I more like the form (shape) of the map. Doh! Alright, I see

Assisi: Siena: And Toledo in Spain: Probably fit the PE time period better than some of the more high rennaisance cities like Milan and Venice

Ha, I also dropped Icasaracht in one...It was along meeting.

Ok, server problems over, I hope. I decided to do a mock up based on comments made on this topic (and because I was in a long meeting today and bored to death). I took the screenshot, added BG2 framing, NWN2 floating panels, and the DA:O compass: Not Bad. So adding to that, I thought it might be nice to have the frame adjustable on a transparency slider in the graphics interface/ video settings panel so that people who aren't keen on the framing can be rid of it: I think I prefer something like this to the super sparse NWN2 look and in general would be pretty happy with an overall look that was somewhat along these lines

Never mind, I'm experiencing technical difficulties

Aedelric, I travel a great deal for business, so I tend to go through a lot of Audiobooks. All of the people on the list above I've listened to as narrators and all could do a great job narrating PE; I'm just suggesting that there are alternatives. I think inappropriate is a greater danger than cheap, but I agree that the narrator is too important to not be concerned about at least a little.

There are a lot of great voice actors/ actors out there who can do terrific narration: George Guidall Simon Vance James Marsters John Glover Bronson Pinchot And of Course....Linda Hunt Many more. I have no problem with David Ogden Stiers, but its Obsidians call based on the tone they want to set

Not a matter of being scared or just wanting it or not. The majority of posters on this thread have stated similar sentiments; if it can be done without being a burden on other resources then its ok. The problem is that it will be a burden on other resources. Personally, I think its a waste of resources and would add practically nothing to gameplay or exploration in a game of this sort. do I really need to see the back of a statue? Will transparency settings vs rotating camera really hinder gameplay for dungeons where we will have to travel down corridors? For me the answer is no.

Yes, they could. And it could be a memory hog for lower end systems, look ugly depending on systems and lose details. It doesn't sound too good for a game trying reaching back to that spot we all have for beautiful 2D scenes as in IE games. Anyway, I'm just curious to know what they are planning. You said it in an earlier post, its 4x the work. That's art resources that could be used in other areas, like a day/ night cycle or better ambient lighting or animations or spot 3d objects that allow for cover; all things I would prefer to have before a rotating camera

Hopefully an amphibian race.....I was just thinking looking at the one concept art wallpaper with the Cthulhu type creature; maybe a race like the the, "deep ones"?

Alchemy was a big part of Darklands (I know, I'm starting to sound like a broken record), and you could do basically what you're describing with tossed vials, also you could brew potions, etc. It was a lot of fun. Alchemy also was part of the camping mechanic and it had its own screen as such: Its one of the things I'm hoping we get in the game as Josh sawyer is such a big fan of the game (as are others at obsidian, I'm sure).

73k for the day and it isn't quite noon. We could finish the day at around 2.9 mil, so 3.5 isn't out of reach. also, we've already topped 1000 backers for the day for those of you hungry for more mega dungeon levels

Characters are a bit large in that mock-up; maybe 20%? I just did one with a TOEE party from a screen shot at 1680x1050 and it looks like the PE screen will be similar in scale. Also, the isometric view (30 degrees is isometric, 45 degrees is axonometric, cavalier is non centered iso or axo) will give a better sense of scale for vertical objects as Josh Sawyer posted by allowing greater z axis projection.

Sticking by my prediction of 10-11, Looks like this KS is going to follow the curve of Wasteland 2 and Double Fine Adventure.

Very cool. Spirit winds, giant bombs and Hylspeak....all excellent. I'll have to read in the morning my time when the whiskey has left my system. Very nice rendering as well. Curious about ambient effects and the animated water as is everyone else, I'm sure.

Is that Telengard or the Atari game I forget?

Yeah... Sounds very intriguing, though I don't remember regional feats in IE 'classic' games (didn't play PnP). The last part is a bit confusing - does it mean that your race and culture will affect game mechanics? Will there be class restrictions or something? More likely it will give you skill bonuses. In his example, the Boreal Dwarf Ranger might have points in Climbing & Foraging/herbalism while the character from Aedyr might get points in sailing (ships), streetwise skills (city), certain combat skills (aggressive explorers), etc. That is what I'm imagining at least, sort of what is in the elder scrolls games, but possibly more fine grained. Sounds great if that is what it is.