Archmage Silver

New Game+ is a complete waste of time and development resources in my opinion. It's basically just an artificial limit defining what you can achieve level-wise in one playthrough - I don't know why anybody would want it. To put it bluntly, if I want to play through the game again, I'll create a new character.

I'm pretty sure we'll see another "big" RPG project from one developer or another before the year is out.

BG series - we've already got lil' something like Torment coming up from a certain developer...

Yeah, that was too much. I think the Circle of Eight fixpack offers some optional component to change that, although I haven't played with it for a while.

+1, the ring menu isn't practical to use for me.

Nice update, thanks Adam. The dungeon art is looking like classic IE right now, I like it. Hopefully E3 will be good for those of you at team Obsidian who are attending it this year.

Heh, for once Finland actually has warmth... 27°C (80.6°F) in the shade right now.

I'm with a clusterbomb approach as well as a more structured, spread-out one. I've gotten used to both and everything in between over the years spent playing a multitude of games, including MMOs, which basically just throw everything at you. Which one would I ultimately prefer? I think a variation of BG2's system would be the best one for me - cut down on the number of quests by removing trivial and fedex quests, and use the resources freed up from those to add more depth, story and personality to the remaining quests.

Take George Ziets and run.

Maybe it's my irrational love of AD&D 2E, but I liked how you could run into trouble if your mages hadn't been "keeping up with their studies" - i.e. hadn't focused enough on acquiring new spell scrolls to learn. Mages should be thinking about magic almost all the time and look for ways to improve their own repertoire of spells, that's their passion, not the gold your run-of-the-mill dwarven rogue likes to accumulate. I don't want to have everything handed to me, I want to make it on my own instead, and if I'm really, really good at the game, end up with a massive library of spells that I can choose from.

The summer's here... I'm on a break from Kickstarter as well.

It is somewhat aesthetically pleasing because of the lesser amount of right angles. And if one is gazing at a still picture and wants such a framework around something, that's cool. But the big portraits with the huge arcing "line" of little and big gold circles etc. would distract me to no end in-game. My eyes would always be drawn to it, driving me crazy. Thus I'd have to say for gameplay, I wouldn't like it at all. But then, I don't like photos/art framed in those gaudy, frilly, gold-painted or whatever art/photo frames either - I've never seen the point in those, since they seem to take attention away from the art image itself - and I apply that same perspective to game UI's. Which is not to say the original mockup Obsidian gave is as minimal as I'd personally like it, either, but it's a bit more so than some of the user mockups in the thread. I definitely prefer function over form for UI's, since it's not, to me, so much a matter of having to look at it as much as having to use it dozens of times or more per hour ... I have to agree with LadyCrimson here, the usability should come before any other aspect (we are talking about PE's user interface here after all). I think the mockup done by Obsidian is a good starting point - just develop the most functional UI possible based on internal, alpha and beta feedback, and THEN focus on its final appearance.

I only buy 16:10 aspect ratio monitors, which are increasingly rare these days (currently using a 24" 1920x1200 Dell UltraSharp U2412M). It's definitely good to know that the resolution support for PE will be extensive.

I like the UI style - with some additional work put into it, I think this would be a good starting point for the UI development. I'd reverse the character stuff and combat log positions though, or add an option for players to move parts of the UI around with settings.

+1 for including classic monsters. What's a fantasy RPG without ogres or trolls anyway?

Good update, lots of new information. I'm hoping we'll get these kind of updates for the other classes as well.

Athkathla-sized cities would be alright by me, if feasible. That's for the major cities obviously, so you could easily have very small settlements around the map without disrupting the flow of the game.

...And now I'm also a member of the Exiles in Torment (Torment: ToN) and Weresheep of Original Sin (Divinity: Original Sin) in addition to being a member of the Obsidian Order. I'm starting to think I have too many memberships!

Nice update - hoping to see more art and graphics related info in the future.

Nice update, now I can refer to this update when people ask me what Project Eternity is about. I also like the new Arcanum playthrough video release schedule.

+1, the default volume on YouTube is way too high. Combine that with autoplay and you're toast unless you hit mute quickly...

The fulfilment site is still under construction - there will be an update here and on Kickstarter when it goes online (you can also follow Feargus, MCA, Josh and others on Twitter).

I heard MCA will be a stretch goal for Arcanum: The Spiritiual Sequel™.

True - you can still get quality audio from phones, but you're looking at flagship models at that point, and only a few of them have good amps.

I'm using a Sony Xperia S 32GB as my main mobile device, everything else has been retired. No tablets, I don't find them useful enough. Still in storage... Phones: Nokia 3310, Nokia 6670, Samsung GT-S8500 Wave MP3 Players: Creative Zen Stone Plus 2GB, Cowon iAUDIO 4 128MB Handheld Consoles: Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance