Gorbag

Don't forget in BG you don't reach the first major (only) city til chapter 5. Not that there wasn't a lot to do in chapter 5 onwards, just putting some perspective on it. I guess you would reach Defiance Bay earlier in PoE compared to the usual time you reach Baldur's Gate in BG. There are two big cities in PoE, so I guess Defiance Bay and Twin Elms would be spaced out evenly, not grouped together at the end. EDIT: So I guess that if it takes quite some time to reach the first city, it will take about as much to reach the second one, which would make PoE a big game indeed.

Fixed. Gollum, is that you?

Although nothing is set in stone until release, I believe the OE team has settled on an experience model they like at this point. That's not to say your post isn't useful, but I wish you voiced your opinion earlier. Don't worry, though, IE-like experience model was (and still is) a popular demand, it is something developers knew by the time they decided to go with the current model, so you might say that others defended your point for you. Personally I like the IE model, but I don't view IWD:EE as an example to follow. It also has its share of problems, coming mostly from the fact that the original game was built around a slower pace of leveling. Most notably, my gripes with that system is that it does not make much sense to have easy settings and hard settings grant the same rewards, it does not make sense from a practical standpoint to play the game on a setting that gives no reward (i.e. core rules), and faster leveling allows you to "outgrow" the game's content. Icewind Dale is a very linear straightforward game, so even when content is not level dependent, it kind of is, because normally you cannot be above a certain level at a certain point (unless you start up with higher-level characters or are the kind of person to grind rest encounters). That and, as you stated, 200% XP > 200% damage. IWD:EE kind of shows how difficult it is to accommodate for various rates of leveling within the same environment even when the game is completely linear. Edit:typo

I think it has a better reputation than it deserves. NWN2 OC story is so bad it makes DA2 and D:OS storylines look decent. Oh yeah and if releasing a game with low gfx performance were a crime NWN2 programmers would now serve lifetime terms. After my first (and only so far) playthrough of the OC and both expansions, I didn't think it was bad. OC was unspectacular but ok-ish, minus most of the companions, starting with Elanee and that goddamn paladin. MoTB was very good. SoZ was the only thing I honestly disliked. Most importantly I don't remember having any serious gripes with the mechanical aspects. So I fired it up a few months ago for a possible replay and, much to my amazement, found out that I simply cannot play this game anymore. I struggle with the UI every step of the way, the camera and I are not on speaking terms, the game looks and performs much worse than I remember, and to top that, I seem to have lost all ability to comprehend, much less control, the game's combat. I don't even know how I did it the first time around. I guess that's it for me and NWN2

@Seari's mockup

Ok, it's not better, the others are worse.

Magic Missile does scaled (more levels = more missiles) non-elemental magic damage, does not have a saving throw attached to it, has a very low casting time, high interruption value and higher level casters in IE games have a lot of level 1 slots (not to mention the existence of artifacts increasing their count), thus turning wizards into machine-gunners with AP bullets. Unless you are casting it on a fortified spellcaster (i.e. doing it wrong), the only thing able to stop it is magic resistance, which is rarely high enough in IE games. The spell may not be overpowered by itself, but it is quite overpowered in the context of BG2 for example. I know my comparison was not correct, but what I meant to do is compare its high level usefulness to that of any other damage-dealing spell of the lower level range.

Clearly you never used to combine Magic Missile, Alacrity and Time Stop in BG2. Magic Missle is one of the most overpowered spells in IE games. Try the same thing with Melf's Acid Arrow or even Fireball and you'll see what I mean. Since OE is strictly against overpowered spells, I'd agree with Gifted1. I believe the way Hold works in IE games would be considered a hard counter, so I guess that scenario is out of the question

I remember I got an Atari 2600 for finishing first (or maybe second?) grade. I don't know where my father got it, because such technology wasn't exactly easy to come by in my country at the time. Anyways this was my first game console. I only had some hand-held game before that, but I don't remember that much of it (I only remember that it was Russian). A few years later my father got himself a colour ZX Spectrum, just like the one in Osvir's post - with the little rainbow on the side (where did he get all this stuff?! Eh, engineers...) and we sometimes used to play games on it together. I remember I used to love them, because they were so much more involved and looked soooo much better than those on the Atari. But they used to take ages to load (when they did load anyway) and it used to make this awful alarm-like sound when reading from cassettes. Even later, I played the original Prince of Persia and some other games on a neighbour's computer, but I didn't get my own PC until high scool. So this is how I got started all those years ago. I guess you could say I'm a PC gamer pretty much from the start.

If I recall correctly, there was a survey in one of the earlier stages of development (memorization aka Vancian system vs. resource system - mana, stamina, you name it) and both options had their supporters and their arguments. In the end Obsidian felt the need to stay close to the feel of the Vancian system, while still allowing players to play around with some spells and abilities without forcing the rest mechanic on them. Another reason mana/stamina system was not utilized that it requires the implementation of artificial cooldowns in order to prevent you from spamming spells and abilities, which is generally not well received by fans of IE games and, quite frankly, I'd say that their implementation would make PoE closer to DA:O than to BG, which is not the intended goal.

On a more serious note this time, you would probably be pleased to know (sorry if you know that already) that PoE is taking a more liberal approach regarding spells as opposed to the per-rest approach in BG2. Only some of your spells (the more powerful/high level ones) are per-rest. Other spells and abilities are per-encounter, which means that you only run out of them for the current battle and get them again for the next one without having to rest. This is supposed to reduce the need to rest-spam and increase the overall viability of wizards. Furthermore, when you grow more experienced, you not only gain more higher level per-rest spells, but also some spells that were previously cast on a per-rest basis, become per-encounter. While Obsidian is not going for a mana/stamina system as in Dragon Age (remember, spiritual successor to IE games), this is supposed to soften the edges of the oldschool spell system a bit and bridge the gap between Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age players.

What Karkarov said. Long story even shorter: fighters need all night, wizards know how to make it magical.

When we talk about the possible exploits of lock and trap XP, I cannot help but feel the presence of the "combat XP" elephant in the room. Being a minor source and involving a lot of busy-work, grinding locks and traps is usually neglected in favour of the more lucrative combat and quests, unless the player is hellbent on obtaining every single point of XP in the game. When a major conventional source is removed, XP becomes a somewhat rare resource and "degenerative gameplay" transfers to all minor sources, out of fear of losing out. Therefore I believe that we are trading one form of degeneration for another here.

The way I see it, Obsidian is not going to live off of Kickstarter projects from now on. Acquiring publisher deals is still as important to them as ever. The success of this project is measured not only in income, own IP and possible IE rennaissance, but also means that: a) Obsidian will get a bunch of "street credit" and pave the way for other crowd-funded projects; b) Obsidian would make a pretty good argument for themselves, being able to produce quality content under a relatively tight budget and within a reasonable timeframe. (After all, if you cannot make it on your own and for you, why would anyone trust you to make it for them?) That said, the outcome of this Kickstarter project is quite a bit of a test for Obsidian. So will they make every effort to get the game out the door on release date, once the date is official? Yes. Will they do every humanly possible thing to produce a clean and polished release? Yes. Can they allow themselves push it to late Q1 or Q2 2015, even if they can afford the expense? No. Can they allow themselves to say "**** it" release the game in beta, held together by strings and duct tape? No. Is there a reason to worry about whether they will make it and how much of the game (like quests, features, npcs and areas) will be cut in the process? Yes. Is the OP a troll? No. In any case, I can't see anyone on the PoE team catching their breath until the end of the year.

I haven't heard anything about the low-intelligence dialogue options in a long while, but since I haven't heard anything to the contrary after they were confirmed by Tim Cain here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/327839 I am assuming Obsidian are still rolling with them. As for the prerequisites, tying them to intelligence isn't mandatory - they can also be implemented as an effect of one or more character traits/feats. That way your character could be an average Joe with 7-8 INT *and* the "mouth breather" trait, making him a person, who is physically and mentally capable of logical thought, but has willingly - or rather apathetically- developed as a complete idiot. If minimums get lowered or altogether removed, prerequisites could be low INT or trait. If the dialogue options exist, the rest could imo get worked out easily.

^ Well, that's pretty much the deal with all story-driven RPGs that support evil choices but have no alternative endings - you can play the assdouche all you want during the game, but in the end you still have to conform with the storyline. On the other hand, if you want to have alternative endings, you've got to have at least some form of alternative routes to these endings (otherwise you get the endings to Arcanum), which is resource-heavy and may cause problems with story coherence. That's why I'm somewhat inclined to cut such games some slack. Now, if devs were to advertise their games with the "your choices shape the world and your own destiny" slogan...

Hey, an honest thief! Now where can I find a tart with a heart...

"In the name of the Council, I am here to keep order, m'kay"

When in doubt, remember the nursery rhyme: Thirty days have September, April, June and November. All the rest have thirty-one, Except for February alone, Which has twenty-eight days clear And twenty-nine in each leap year. It works every time. Checking the calendar is also worth it, that way you'd know that November 30th is a Sunday.

I think you picked the wrong game to go looking for this kind of thing. IWDs don't really care about your alignment, they are above all action-based games, so you get exactly this - IE combat fun. I know it's a poor analogy, but you cannot really play evil in Diablo 2 or Titan Quest either. Not because you cannot possibly do it, but because the game does not really care. That said, I'd also like to see some repercussions for being evil (both lucrative and penalizing) other than characters turning red and attacking you if your reputation reaches 2. I would not expect too much though - evil actions will likely be supported, but whatever storyline PoE has, it's not likely that it would be drastically altered by your character being evil.

I guess so too, but that would make the two big cities rather... small, or rather filled exclusively with places of importance.

I wonder if these 150 areas include building interiors, floors and the like, because that would make the game considerably smaller than BG2. On the same tangent: I don't think anyone's said anything about interior areas. Are they going to create fewer unique ones or are they going to reuse some interiors like in BG/BG2 for stuff like non-mandatory houses, shops and inns?

Ok, fair enough. I don't want to screw up the game. January 28th it is then.

The point is participating in the game (and whatever reward fund is accumulated) but not wanting a reward if I happen to win. In such case, the reward could go to another person who picked my date (if any), or something else you find appropriate, or it would lead to no fund accumulation (if it is to be accumulated afterwards).

Into the QA you go. Headfirst.