Suburban-Fox

Does that mean "every NPC in the game world", or just those that we're supposed to fight? ;-p For this to work, every NPC in the game has to be feasibly able to learn the same moves. If I decide to take on the town militia, for example, I would expect them to be using abilities that my level 1 fighter deployed at the very least. Hey, maybe someone has a really quiet keyboard. Or maybe he was typing in an accent that's beyond our range of vision. :D

Regarding law vs chaos etc... I've seen it suggested that this isn't so much to do with whether you obey the law or not, as whether you value honour and truth, and whether you're likely to fight with honour, and keep your word, or not. A lawful good hero will fight his enemies honourably, and accept a yield when given in good grace (unless that person is a known liar and traitor - lawful good doesn't necessarily mean lawful stupid), while a chaotic good person will be quite happy to stab enemies in the back, hit below the belt, walk out on his friends once his goals are achieved, and do whatever needs to be done to achieve victory. Speaking of which, what often bugs me in RPGs is that law vs chaos is generally seen as cool and rebellious vs stubborn close-mindedness. This isn't really necessarily the case, and while I admit that I also love playing chaotic good/neutral characters, being chaotic should have its flaws...even though your intentions might be good, people should be less likely to trust you if you have a reputation for breaking your word, betraying friends, and so forth. In other words, chaotic good shouldn't mean chaotic cool, and lawful good shouldn't mean lawful stupid. Not that this matters, since there's no alignment system in this game...just thought I'd point it out. )

Just for you! ;-) Although this does actually illustrate what we were talking about, with weapons designed for a specific purpose. The idea behind the boar spear is that the guard behind the spear head helps to stop the boar running down the shaft and goring the person behind it.

QFT!! High body count games have always bothered me for that reason - don't get me wrong, I have nothing against killing my enemies, but do I have to kill quite so many of them? Surely some of them will try to flee, or simply be wounded. The problem I have with this is similar to the problem I have with most CRPG aspects...believability. When taking on criminal gangs and the like, you can pretty much expect to have to brutally murder a bunch of 5-6 people in every room. If there are 10 rooms in the building...that's 50-60 people whom you've just murdered! So, that many people die in one day, and this has no impact whatsoever on the population of the city? In a huge scale battle, then sure, I can understand having that many deaths, but if this is happening in street skirmishes with that kind of regularity, surely there's going to be a population crisis before long.

Yeah, this is one thing that fantasy RPGs almost never get right. In reality, if you're fighting a huge bug-like creature with thick chitinous armour, single-handed swords aren't going to be much use against it. You'll need long handled beaked hammers, and things like that, to break the shell. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to see the appearance of weapons designed to fight specific foes - maybe a heavy cleaver type sword would be used against treants, while they'd have fire arrows to kill trolls, and some special kind of extra-long awlspike for use against giant spiders and scorpions. Of course, the problem with that is that RPGs tend to feature the heroes fighting many different enemies, and can't really be expected to carry a golf-bag full of weapons because they never know whether they're going to face a troll, or a wyvern, or a gorgon, so while it'd be nice to have this flavour, normal weapons should still do something - they won't be as effective as weapons designed with that function in mind, but it'd be horrible if the only weapon that could hurt this particular monster just happens to be the one weapon you forgot to buy.

Don't they? ^_^ Judging by the fact that people want to be able to do things like hit multiple people with the same swing, I believe that they do. Bear in mind, to me, "crazy-powerful" means, basically, being capable of things that standard NPCs aren't ever going to be capable of. If the local town militia, for example, are built as fighters with the same rules as your fighter, then your PC fighter isn't crazy powerful, because other characters can do what you do. To me, the action RPG where you march into a cave, in response to a desperate plea for a hero to deal with a local goblin threat, and slay a thousand goblins by yourself with barely a scratch to show for it, is an example of being crazy-powerful. I would rather kill 10 goblins, but each one is a challenge to kill and I can't do it on my own, than kill 100 goblins that die as soon as I sneeze on them, and think "yeah...why are people scared of goblins again?". Also, if the town guard is so pathetically useless compared to you, and you could basically take on the entire army and win, why are you bothering to obey the laws of the land when nobody can force you to do so? To me, this destroys any sense of believability, which is why I prefer a world in which you're only slightly better than average (if that), and there are still people around who are better than you.

It's less about the level of power, and more about the fact that he has power at all. That's what I mean by the comparison. Superman is a hero not because of what he does, but because of what he is. Without his powers, he would not be able to save a single person. Aragorn, on the other hand, is a hero because of what he does, and he isn't ridiculously powerful compared to an ordinary person. In a straight-up fight with somebody like Boromir, he wouldn't necessarily have an easy victory, but if Superman was to fight anybody else (who wasn't also a superhero), he wouldn't even break a sweat. To me, any superhero who is that way because of some special power that nobody else has - Superman, Spiderman, Wolverine, etc - and that nobody who doesn't also possess similar powers can even hope to cause harm to, is less impressive than one who doesn't have powers, and is vulnerable to the same things that everybody else in the world is, but does amazing things in spite of this. It's easy to save the world when you basically can't be killed by ordinary methods (and before anybody asks, no, I'm not a fan of Marvel comics). So, to summarise (since I realise I'm just labouring the point now): I'm okay with there being "soul power" or whatever as long as it makes sense within the world, and the PCs aren't the only ones with access to it, and it doesn't make them crazy-powerful to the point where ordinary people can no longer pose a threat to them.

True! Although there are plenty in literature (Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, even the Dragonlance trilogy had very few actual magic user characters!), and plenty of RPG systems like that (namely Warhammer FRP), this mentality doesn't often make it into a CRPG, in which the preference is generally geared towards a "everyone can do magic of some sort because we want all players to feel like badasses" mentality. Which is fine, I suppose, but it doesn't really suit my personal tastes. Again, I want to be Aragorn, not Superman, and even then, Aragorn should be what I strive to become, not what I start out as. I suppose neither approach is right or wrong, I just prefer it that way. The only game I can think of that captured this was the first Dragon Age game, although it did let itself down with the way it handled archery, and things like regenerating health (and the ridiculous armour designs!). I suppose Baldur's Gate 1 also falls into that category, because at low levels in AD&D, magic tends to be rarer, and not generally available to any but the wizard and priest classes - at least at the first few levels anyway. But again, that's just my personal preference, and I suppose games have to be made for everybody, not just me. ;-P

This guy pretty much explains why it isn't possible in real life: Of course, I realise that this is a game, but...well, I suppose it depends on how believable the game wants to be, really. I would much rather see moves like this as a rapid succession of raking attacks made against different people, than a single swing. Plus, I'm not fond of overly contrived moves in general, because they depend on a situation being perfectly set up in order for you to execute that move. Legolas might be able to stab an orc in the eye with an arrow, once in the entire trilogy, because it happens to close with him at the time when he's just about to shoot and has an arrow in his hand and an orc not defending himself, but that shouldn't mean every archer in the world should be able to stab an enemy in the eye whenever he chooses to do so. You might get it to work 1 in 1000 times, but for it to be a viable choice of tactics for you to deploy, it has to work with some degree of regularity. Again, it's probably just a personal thing, but to me, being able to contrive such a move often and easily just looks silly. Also, for the record, I don't mind shouting/taunting to make people's defence go down, or scare them a bit, or whatever. I only object to being able to actually do physical damage, or stun, or flatten, somebody using such methods. Unless you have some kind of magical ability, someone isn't going to fall over or be rendered immobile just because you shout at them. They may think twice about attacking you, or - in the case of taunting - get so angry that they want to hurt you and forget to defend themselves, but they're not going to fall over or stand still for five minutes while other people take chunks of flesh out of them. XD QFT. I'd rather they couldn't, but as long as it's consistent with the rest of the game's rules, and that other people similarly trained can do similar things (or if there's some canonical reason why your fighter is so much better than everybody else), then I can live with it.

Actually, I used that example for clarification. I apologise if it sounded like I was ridiculing the concept because that wasn't my intention. I simply wished to clarify whether it was a common thing in the world, or something exclusive to the PCs, or adventurers, and pointing out possible implications of either variant. True that I would prefer it if fighters aren't capable of magical attacks, but I guess that's just a personal preference. I prefer low magic settings, where magic is a majorly big deal (even better when abuse of it has potential consequences). I also prefer it when you're not crazy-powerful, and capable of doing things that nobody else can, because I'd much rather be Aragorn than Superman. But again, that's just my personal preference. The only thing that really bugs me about RPGs is when the world doesn't follow its own rules, and doesn't consider the wider effects of such things as magic on the rest of the world. All I really ask is that the world makes sense, so if soul power is common then it should be applicable to every day life in some way - it does depend on what it's actually capable of, but a wider use does need to be at least considered, hence my soul powered cobbler example. If it's rare than that should lead to the emergence of a special class that is able to use it, and considers themselves above those who aren't.

That pommel doesn't look much good for bashing, but I'd guess that it was so that you can push against it with your other hand. Either that, or it serves as a guard. Rondel daggers were designed to be used against armoured knights (primarily to stab through the visor slit), so there must have been a reason for that pommel shape.

So...does everybody in the world have "soul power", or just those who are adventurers? If the former, then the wider implications need to be considered...what is "soul power" capable of, and in what way would that be applied to every day life? Can, for example, a cobbler use "soul power" to create a really awesome pair of shoes (thereby negating the need for basic sewing, pattern cutting, etc)? If the latter, what is it about you and your companions that makes you special? If a select group of people have "soul power", doesn't that mean that there's likely going to be some form of class segregation? Surely those with "soul power" - members of a kind of adventurer class, so to speak - will naturally regard those without it as worthless peasants, to be either protected, or trodden on. Further, this would also mean that nobody who isn't gifted with "soul power" is able to become an adventurer, thereby making it no longer a career choice open to anybody willing to take the risks, but a specialised trade in which only a few can do. Neither variant particularly appeals to me...but then, I'm quite traditional in that I prefer my PC to come from humble backgrounds, and earn the right to be a hero by working for it, rather than have it given to him by having special powers. This is just a personal preference, though, and it seems it may not be the case in this game, which is a shame.

I hope not! I hate things like that, and they put me off most modern RPGs. Non-magic user classes shouldn't be able to replicate the effects of magic users, and the idea that somebody can hit multiple opponents with the same swing is ridiculous. So is being able to hurt, stun, or knock people down by stomping the ground, or shouting at them. I know, fantasy, and all that, but there are limits. I quite like most of the ones listed on page linked earlier in this thread, except for the "knock down groups of enemies" one. As long as I can get by without using it, I won't mind too much, but I really hope the game isn't designed in such a way that playing without that ability will be impossible. Honestly, I don't understand the need for all classes to have a resource management aspect, and to be able to basically do the same thing but with a different graphical representation, but I guess I'm in a minority here.

What's interesting about this picture is that the guy in the harness looks like he's left handed (he's holding the shield in his right hand and what looks like a mace/hammer/pick in his left). Compare that with the other picture of characters facing the same direction who are clearly right-handed...does this mean that there could be left-handed characters in the game?

You know, I actually preferred RPGs when there wasn't this whole "tank, healer, damage dealer" hard segregation of roles. The characters simply were who they were, and while it's true that some classes more naturally fitted certain roles, it was by no means a requirement - it certainly wasn't hard-coded into the system. I really don't like terms like "ranged DPS", "melee DPS" and "crowd control". Declaring a wizard to be "crowd control", and building the game accordingly, means he can't do anything other than...well, control crowds. No utility spells like Light, Knock, Detect Magic, etc. Rogues now have one function, and it isn't the function that rogues were originally designed for - they're not scouts, locksmiths or trapsmiths anymore, they're "melee DPS". Fighters are now required to run with only one build: heavy armour, and either a big weapon or weapon and shield. You can't build a fighter as a duellist, a skirmisher or a bowman anymore, because they're meant to be "tanks". I hope Obsidian aren't going to force these roles upon characters, because an RPG character is supposed to be about so much more than a specialised role designed for optimum combat effectiveness.

Any mechanic that makes the actual roleplaying part of the game more complicated, including things that people consider "micromanagement" (food/resting etc), I would like the option to turn on.

Question: does anybody know it the frog helm was ever actually used in combat, or was it just for jousting? Seems to me like it'd severely restrict peripheral vision, and the protection isn't likely to be that much improved over a sallet or an armet...making it ideal for jousting but less so for actual field use. Just an aside. I don't mind it being in the game either way.

Yeah, for climbing ladders and fighting in close quarters or cramped conditions, you'd probably want a sidearm (this is something many RPGs have failed to take into account, making it possible to navigate a 10 foot wide corridor while wielding a 16 foot long pike! :D ). Also rRemember that in the film of The Two Towers, the uruk hai who actually climbed the ladders didn't use their pikes. As a side note, however, I'm loving the helmets in that picture! Sallets (both visored and open), barbutes, armets...this is how I picture fantasy RPGs, only with magic and monsters (i.e. how it used to look before the influences of WoW and anime).

It's likely. We know, from this thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66165-the-world-realms-places-coats-of-arms/ that heraldry will feature in the game.

That looks like brigandine to me. I think it's been confirmed on the wiki that brigandine will be in the game. Whether it'll look like that is another matter, but seeing the attention to historic detail that they seem to be shooting for, I think it stands a reasonable chance that it'll look fairly close.

Yep, again, that's the nice thing about heraldry. The charges can be as simple, or as detailed, as you desire, as long as it's identifiable as that particular charge (i.e. it's clearly a dragon and not, say, a griffon), is in the correct posture, and is coloured appropriately. Same with colours...as long as it's clearly red and not orange or pink, it doesn't matter how deep, or how light, the shade of red used is. Although in this case, if there are 'celeste' variations, then the colour has to be dark enough to distinguish it from its colour celeste.

Sssh! EA might be reading this, don't give them ideas!

So, Junta and Kaz, you had it right first time! It'd be cool if the game's manual contained a section on heraldry...if not how to read it, at least a list of each coat of arms and to whom they belonged. Now THAT would be really cool!! :D Although we don't yet know if the protagonist does get ennobled during the campaign, but if he did, it'd be awesome if their actual contents depended on certain IG factors...that way, we could all start a thread posting pictures of the coat of arms that we were granted!

I generally figured that if the charges were all in one field, the description would read something like "party per fess embattled, verte two estoiles or, argent", so it's got to be either like that, or both along the fess itself (though I don't think I've ever seen charges placed like that). I used Gimp, with images found via Google, which wasn't ideal...it took ages to get them looking close to how I wanted them, and your version looks a lot neater than mine!

Well your art skills are better than mine...either that or you have a far better command of graphic manipulation software than I do! Also, there probably shouldn't be a black border between the sections...yeah, I kind of suck at drawing stuff. :D Oh, and...aye, this is fun!!