Sylvius the Mad

It's not necessary to have Vancian casting in order to have strong strategic gameplay (rather than just tactical gameplay). A mana pool that doesn't regenerate on its own would work like that. Actually, in the early discussions around Dragon Age, BioWare was planning a system very much like that, where health and mana didn't regenerate on their own and repeated use of potions reduced their efficacy, and the mana potions (Lyrium) were actually going to be addictive. I wish they'd done that. But that's an example of how to include strategic gameplay without using Vancian casting. As it happens, I like Vancian casting, but I know many people object to it on the grounds that it isn't credible within a game's setting, so I offer this as evidence that we can have the outcome you seek (strategy) without necessarily using this specific mechanic.

I think the $140 price point is perfect for this. For example, I'm seriously considering increasing my pledge so that I qualify.

It makes perfect sense. Kickstarter + digital distribution threatens to make publishers obsolete. They want to find a way to shoehorn themselves back into the industry.

As mentioned earlier, if you want hardcore you should probably look to the '80s. Wizard's Crown is an excellent example of a game with deep and challenging combat.

I have no idea what the point of achievements is.

I might always choose a realist art style over any possible option. I loathed DA2's art direction - DAO's was superior. That said, I don't think the comparison is particularly relevant given Eternity's locked isometric camera. If we look at those isometric games mentioned in the Kickstarter pitch, BG, IWD, ToEE, and Fallout all had art that tended toward the realist. Only PST leaned more toward the fantastical, and even then I wouldn't say it approached DA2 levels. Honestly, anything within that range would be fine. I would favour IWD or ToEE as targets, but they were all excellent.

Even NWN, which did have considerable voice-over, used the PC's name in conversation. The voiced lines actually differed subtly from the displayed text in these cases. I thought that was a great solution, and don't understand why modern fully-voiced games don't still do it. Nevertheless, without extensive voice-over, Project Eternity won't need this workaround, and thus can safely refer to the PC by name in dialogue. It's not difficult to drop a %CHARNAME% here and there.

I'm having flashbacks to the Anti-Oppression Federation back on the old Interplay boards in 1999. It's horrible...

You are very welcome, Bish.

I like inventory tetris because it allows me to sort my inventory as I see fit. I see it more as a usability feature - sortable inventory just makes the UI better. With a list inventory (like KotOR, or Dragon Age), if I want something from my inventory I need to browse through the list and find it every time. That's really irritating. But with sortable inventory (like the grid in Dungeon Siege or NWN, or the slots in BG), I can know where things are before I go looking for them. If I need a healing potion in NWN, I know I've sorted them along the bottom left of my first inventory screen, in ascending order of strength. Sortable inventory is a usability feature. Also, I suspect the reason we lost grid inventories (tetris) is because it's difficult to use them when playing a console game. Since Project Eternity isn't a console title, there's no reason to accommodate their limitations.

The general population of bandits is of roughly constant level. Any particular group of bandits you meet can fall within some reasonable level range, but it strains credulity to only meet the bandits at the low end of that range when you're weak, and only at the upper end of that range when you're powerful. Of course, being able to meet powerful bandits at low levels would then require some ability to run away from combat when you're outmatched. I hope Obsidian is building this in.

I can't imagine Obsidian would reproduce that specific aspect of BG. That said, I really liked BG's bows, but then I don't consider a combat encounter successfully overcome unless no one in my party took damage.

Just about the only thing I wish Obsidian had that BioWare used to have, is Georg Zoeller. He was my favourite BioDev. I believe he now works for UbiSoft Singapore.

It's that they were all together that really made the project a Must Fund. Showing me BG, IWD, PST, Fallout, and ToEE, and then saying "We're going to do that again," was just about all the pitch I needed.

PnP games are multiplayer games. When translating the multiplayer tabletop experience into a single-player CRPG, should the player fill the role occupied by a single player in the tabletop game, or the role occupied by all of the players in a tabletop game, or the role filled by the GM in the tabletop game? And perhaps most importantly, why force everyone to answer that question the same way?

That would be nice to have, but maybe as a future expansion, like it happened with Storm of Zehir (Neverwinter Nights 2 xpack). I would love this feature, but I wouldn't object to the feature being added later as DLC.

More-or-less the same would be wholly adequate, and a massive step forward from what we've seen in modern AAA titles. I think the D&D power curve worked well in CRPGs, as long as you didn't advance all the way from 1-20. Since I prefer low-level gameplay, I'd like to see a D&D power curve with characters advancing from 1-8, but players who enjoy more fantastic content might enjoy levels 10-16 instead. But either way, I don't think it was D&D's curve that was the problem - it was using all of it in a single game. A shallower power curve solves a great many problems.

Will we be able to create more than one party member, or are we limited to just the one? I get that the core design is one PC + joinable companions, but that doesn't necessarily preclude the ability to create multiple PCs. Will we be able to?

Automatically using the highest rated character's stats limits the player's ability to have his party operate suboptimally. If my PC is an egotist who thinks he's better at everything than everyone else, then he probably should be speaking, even if he's not very good at it. Similarly, if my PC lacks confidence (I played a Warden in DAO who had crippling social anxiety - it was a ton of fun) then he might never want to speak, even if he's the best choice available. Having the game mechanics decide things like this for us robs us of roleplaying opportunities.

Percentage chance to succeed. There should never be an "I win" button in the dialogue.

I don't agree that overlevelling or underlevelling makes the combat system asymmetrical. The rules still all work the same way - you're just sometimes facing opponents stronger or weaker than you. But then we've accepted that the PC can hit vastly harder (and more regularly) than his enemies. But not in a way that renders the game's setting incoherent. Why wouldn't we be looking under the hood? The numbers and calculations are how the game tells us about the details of how reality works, something our character should already understand. I'll agree that a game could achieve relevantly similar results without properly symmetrical mechanics, but I haven't seen a game do it yet. It's mostly an attempt to enforce design consistency on the developers.

There's a reason I didn't point to BG as an example of how it should be done. I referred to KotOR2 because, as you say, it used this device extensively, and because it's a well-respected game made by these same developers.

It's always possible. The gameplay is part of the story; there very idea of segregating them is nonsensical.

There was a time when I would have been embarrassed to ask for this, so obvious it would have been. Now it feels necessary.

I don't agree that overlevelling or underlevelling makes the combat system asymmetrical. The rules still all work the same way - you're just sometimes facing opponents stronger or weaker than you. The Infinity Engine games were mostly symmetrical by virtue of using a tabletop ruleset (though you had to turn up the difficulty to get the rules applied fairly), and things like BG's Xvart village still existed - a party of mid-level adventurers facing dozens of half hit dice creatures. The xvarts didn't break the rules; they were just weak. Also, since I oppose scaled encounters, I think some encounters should be too difficult while others are cakewalks.