Suburban-Fox

Yes, that's the idea of heraldry...two people can sketch it from the description and end up with almost identical results. Normally the dragon would face left (our left), but in this one he is "rampant sinister", meaning he faces left (the bearer's left - just to be confusing, heraldry is drawn from the point of view of the person holding the shield, so left on the shield is actually right as we would look at it). I wasn't sure about the positioning of the stars, so I could be wrong about that...I'm not totally sure how it works with division.

I know, which is why I'm not getting all heraldry-nazi about the colours/metals/furs etc. The only thing I'm really bothered about is believability, which is why they need to be relatively simple in style, so that they can be easily recreated by somebody who's never seen it, as opposed to a completely unique design that nobody could hope to reproduce without having the original in front of them. (this is actually one of the few things I don't like about HBO's Game of Thrones series - the House Stark livery is far too unique in its style) That's pretty much what I was getting at, so that's great. (I'll have a go at those shields later )

If they do have coats of arms, I hope they're done properly, because they never are in fantasy. In medieval times, they didn't have colour photocopiers, so a coat of arms was unlikely to be produced exactly the same by two people. Therefore, the patterns tended to be relatively simple, so that they could be adequately described. Someone was expected to read "Gules, three lions passant or", and immediately know that this was the livery of the King of England (up until Henry V), and be able to reproduce it fairly closely. The lions might look different from one drawing to another, but as long as there are three of them in the passant position, and they're yellow enough to be identified as "or", and the background is red enough to be "gules", then it's still identifiable as the king's livery.

I quite liked how, in Baldur's Gate, you'd sometimes come across a bear, but it would be non-hostile until you got too close to it. Because bears aren't crazy-insane psychopaths. They only attack things if they consider it to be a threat, so a bear shouldn't charge you on sight the moment it sniffs you. Also, wolves are supposed to hunt in packs, so it doesn't really make sense to wander through the forest and come across twenty lone wolves that each charge you by themselves and can be put down within seconds (because they don't try to run when they get hurt either). A wolf encounter will be much more exicting - and much scarier - if they stalk you for a while, and you occasionally just see them on the edge of your field of vision, until you get to a point where dozens of them swarm you at once. So, yeah, it would be cool to see animals behaving more realistically, working with their environment and using stealth and guile to attempt to take you down, rather than just charging like a thing possessed the moment it catches sight of you.

That first one is a high elf - White Lions of Chrace if I'm not mistaken. Some of the Warhammer stuff looks quite good, I think. Second one...17c Polish hussar?

That would be funny...a man dressed head to toe in shields! Maybe bucklers can form the elbow and knee guards. Speaking of shields, this probably won't happen, but I'd like to see a game where the disadvantages of big shields are properly represented. In the dark ages, Saxon footmen tended to prefer round shields because kite shields got in the way of your legs and hampered footwork, so they were generally used on horseback (although I don't think they generally had round shields in later periods so maybe it was superceded by the heater shield). In D&D, though, there is no reason not to use the biggest shield you can afford/use, because using a smaller shield is simply unnecessarily limiting your defence for the sake of...well, nothing. Same with armour, actually...if you're a non-stealth character, there is no reason not to wear full plate as soon as you can afford it. So I'd like to see bigger shields, and heavier armours, slow you down a bit, or make certain things more difficult. Ideally, I'd like every type of armour/defensive item to have its place, and be ideal for use by certain types of characters. Light armoured skirmishers should have speed and agility on their side, with minimal defences (hoods, arming caps or open faced helmets to allow for visibility, and maybe a buckler at most), while heavy tank types should have high protection but sacrifice mobility, and probably visibility (visored sallets/armets and the like), and medium fighter types (i.e. fighters who still want a bit of mobility) should be faster and with better visibility but with slightly less protection (smaller heater shields and lighter helmets like barbutes). Finally, those look good, but...no brigandine??

I hope there aren't "low tiers" and "high tiers" of armour, in the way there traditionally are...I hope armour remains fairly constant. I wouldn't mind if there was varying quality harnesses, but I wouldn't want the whole "+X of everything each chapter" style of the NWN games. Changing armour should be rare, not something that happens frequently, so a basic set of armour should last you for a while before you find a better one. Baldur's Gate 1 didn't really have "tiers" as such...just the different types, a +1 type, some of them had +2 types, and some had other enchantments. However, their appearance was very static - the only thing that really changed is the colour. Of course, people expect to be able to upgrade kit, so newer, better armour should exist, but it should be limited to things like: A cheap, crappy type that you start with (and probably replace as soon as you can) A normal, average quality type A very good, well made, good quality type made by a master armourer A type made out of *insert exotic fantasy material* that is either lighter or tougher A type that has an enchantment added to it Of the plate armours, the biggest problem I can see with the gold filigreed harness is the armpits. There wouldn't be plates there because they need to flex and bend. Most knights would wear mail underneath to protect those parts - you could even buy special arming jacks with strips of mail sewn into where the gaps in the plates would be, to save you having to wear a hauberk as well. The hip guards should also be attached to the cuirass, and the knee guards should really be attached to the leg guards on the second harness. Also, I'd like to see a buckle on the cuirass, connecting the breastplate and backplate together, because the cuirass isn't a single garment that slips over your head like a jumper. A buckle on the arm guards would be good too, and something to hold the pauldrons on (late-medieval pauldrons were tied to the jack with pauldron points). Oh, and please add a bevoir! (unless it's part of the helmet) Other than those minor details...that's looking good! The scale coat looks good, but could do with either being bigger, or - probably better - having some kind of ties, because as it stands, you'll struggle to get into (and out of) that. Scale isn't like mail - it's not as flexible, so you can't easily lift a scale coat over your head and wriggle out of it like you can with mail, especially when it's as tight fitting as it is in that picture. Add a row of ties down the front, however, making it more like a coat, and that would work better, I think. eta: Oh yeah, the gauntlets should be 'lobstered' too...but I guess you won't really be able to see that when it's in game anyway. One more thing (I'll stop soon I promise! :D ) - scale and mail shouldn't really have shoulder guards, because...well, they're not needed. The garment itself should cover the shoulders, so adding extra protection to just the shoulders seems...well, silly. Also, what's keeping those shoulder guards attached to the first scale coat?

The issue people have isn't the fact that you can pre-buff before a fight. It's with the fact that you had to pre-buff before a fight that you aren't supposed to know is coming. Unless, of course, you reload the game, and pre-buff in preparation for a fight that you're not supposed to know is about to happen. Having a reasonable idea that you're about to fight a demon (either because you scouted the area and saw the demon or somebody said "don't go in there, there's a demon in there!"), and therefore being expected to cast Protection from Demon Fire in preparation, is fine. Having to cast Protection from Demon Fire because you "just know!", somehow, that your relaxing night in the tavern is about to be interrupted with a random demon that your characters couldn't possibly have known about, or expected, and if you don't use that spell (which lasts 5 minutes so you're hardly going to keep it on all day every day) then you'll get horribly killed to death, is what people don't like. That's the difference...pre-buffing before a fight that you know about IC is fine. Pre-buffing before a fight that you only know about OOC is not fine, because roleplayers like myself consider that metagaming.

QFT!! This is the one thing that bugged me about the IE games too (well....that and the silly base clothing that they had...seriously, who wears a short skirt and a sleeveless doublet that doesn't fit, with nothing underneath?? XD ) I'm all in favour of being able/expected to prepare for encounters that you can be reasonably expected to know are coming up, but I hate using OOC knowledge for IG situations. However, I like being able to gain the knowledge IC, and being expected to use that knowledge to prepare for what's to come. To do that, I need to have some way of gaining such knowledge, and some way to know what to expect to be facing in certain situations. That's not to say that unexpected scenarios are necessarily a bad thing - maybe the whole idea was that the random demon encounter in a tavern is meant to shock you and catch you off guard - but it should be possible to beat it without resorting to metagaming, and casting Protection from Demon Fire on the whole party when you think you're going to relax and have a few drinks. :D

That's what I thought. I wouldn't have called DA: O an action RPG either for the same reasons, which is why I was a little puzzled when somebody referred to it like that. In fact, I wouldn't even say DA: O was a bad game. Okay, permadeath is good. In fact, the maiming mechanic would also have been good if it wasn't so easy to fix, so maybe that's good too. However, do these differences really mean the difference between an action RPG and a not-action RPG? By my definition, an action RPG is where the player's skill and dexterity is a decisive factor in the outcome of a fight. DA: O wasn't like that. Again, that's why I was puzzled to see people declaring DA: O to be one. I can deal with cooldowns for magic related things, because *insert magic jargon that stops spellcasters from being too powerful*. However, I dislike cooldowns, and limited use abilities, for fighting. I find it hard to reason the idea that a swordsman can do a really good attack, but can only do it once a day, and must then continue using a less effective attack for the rest of the day. As for magic...well, for magic to work, it has to be rare, and a majorly big deal, not something every Tom, Dave and Harry can do. I'm okay with the 3rd edition style moves that trade damage potential for something else, but I just dislike the whole "once per encounter/day" thing being used for non-magical classes that wouldn't have a limiting factor that can be reasonably explained in this way. I know many won't agree with me, but I find this idea of "stamina reserves" which you can "dig into to do a really good attack but only once" silly. If you can do an awesome attack, you can always do it, otherwise you're doing it wrong. Robin Hood didn't have to "dig into the reserves of his stamina" to shoot an arrow that split somebody else's arrow, then declare that he can't do that again until he rests. But I should stress, however, that this is just my opinion.

But...isn't this also a 3rd person action RPG with cool-downs? At the moment, I'm not sure what the difference is, unless I missed something. Will this not have cool-downs? Or will it not have lots of action? Or will it not be 3rd person? From what I've seen, it will have special abilities in combat, which, logically, means there'll probably be cool-downs of some sort (because something has to stop you from spamming your best ability as quickly as you can mash the button). Special abilities in combat tends to mean you'll be killing lots of things (rather than killing a few things, as was the case in Baldur's Gate), which indicates action-heavy. And doesn't 3rd person mean viewing the character from somebody else's point of view, as opposed to 1st person? That's not the definition of "action" used in "action RPG" and I know you know it. As for cooldowns, if you, for instance, look at update 71 you'll see that the anti-spamming mechanism appears to be limiting abilities on a per-encounter and per-rest basis. Alright, I'll re-phrase my question. In what ways will combat be different from in DA: O? How is DA: O an action RPG where this game isn't? Because it looks similar to me. It even uses the same death mechanic (although NWN2 did that first). If DA: O is considered an action RPG, what is it about this game that makes it not? Per-encounter and per-day abilities - I'm aware of that, but what's that if not a cool-down? To me, it's the same thing, just with a longer period.

The rouge jokes will continue as long as people continue to mis-spell 'rogue'.

But...isn't this also a 3rd person action RPG with cool-downs? At the moment, I'm not sure what the difference is, unless I missed something. Will this not have cool-downs? Or will it not have lots of action? Or will it not be 3rd person? From what I've seen, it will have special abilities in combat, which, logically, means there'll probably be cool-downs of some sort (because something has to stop you from spamming your best ability as quickly as you can mash the button). Special abilities in combat tends to mean you'll be killing lots of things (rather than killing a few things, as was the case in Baldur's Gate), which indicates action-heavy. And doesn't 3rd person mean viewing the character from somebody else's point of view, as opposed to 1st person?

I'd be very surprised if a medieval woman would cut he hair that short. If simply wearing trousers was a crime, what would people think of having man-hair? At least clothing can be changed as and when required ("Oh crap, the vicar is coming! Quick, pass me my dress!"), but if you cut hair off, you're going to have trouble explaining that one. Of course, that was a world in which women generally don't fight (there are exceptions but in medieval Europe it was generally considered wrong). Fantasy world might be different, and might not have the same rules, and might be perfectly okay with woman dressing as men and sporting a man's haircut. However, two things to bear in mind: 1) you're not going to be wearing helmets and fighting 100% of the time. Sometimes you want to look pretty - or at least presentable. One should not underestimate human vanity, and unless you want people to see you as a pure soldier and nothing else, you're not necessarily going to have a soldier's haircut. Some people might prefer to make adjustments for their military kit than to have a soldier's look 100% of the time. 2) different cultures might take different attitudes to this. Elves, for example, were traditionally pictured with long hair, so assuming PoE elves will follow the same style, it's likely that elves would regard long hair as a mark of status, and would be against cutting it, preferring to braid it up and make helmets that could be worn over it than to expect everybody to walk around with a US Marine buzzcut. Dwarves might be different (and speaking of dwarves, wouldn't long beards suffer from the same problem as long hair?). I suppose it depends on how important your non-military appearance is, within the game world. Most people generally want to be beautiful/handsome, apart from the types who want to be seen as hard-as-nails.

I also think certain NPCs should either leave, or refuse to speak to you again, if you say the wrong thing (though it should be pretty clear what the 'wrong thing' is). If you insult someone, or threaten to kill them, they're probably not going to hang around and help you out any more. :D I think journals should auto-update, though, because a problem I often have with RPGs is that sometimes I leave them for a while, then come back to them. I can never remember everything that has/hasn't happened, and digging out hand-written notes to refresh my memory would be a nightmare, so for that reason, the in-game journal should track your progress. I liked Morrowind's system, where key words had links to every piece of information you've gathered about that particular item so far.

Personally, I hate the sorcerer. I've always seen it as a wizard for people who don't want the bother of having to learn spells, and while I'm not against it as a concept, I hate the fact that it's more or less equal to the wizard in every department. If I was writing D&D, I'd make the sorcerer pay dearly for its lack of the wizard's restriction by making it less powerful. Power doesn't come for free, and if you want to throw fireballs and incinerate people with your mind, you should have to pay for it. Clerics pay for it by doing the work of the deity whom they worship, and mages pay for it by having spell books and wands.

Again, I wouldn't be opposed to that, but that's even less likely to be implemented in a CRPG. It'd be a lot of effort for something that'll only please a small minority, and will just annoy everybody else. Maybe some games have done it, and maybe it works, but I think most players will hate the fact that they can't kill an ogre, take his sword and equip it on their halfling PC. tbh, I'm not sure plate armour even can be resized, once the steel has been tempered/polished/whatever they do to it (I'm no armourer so I don't know the process). Sure, you can add longer leather buckles and arming points etc, but I don't think you can re-shape the metal parts. Mail, sure, you can always add more links, and leather and padded armour you can easily resize, but I'm not sure if the same is true of plate armour.

Lol, so that is where you draw the line? XD I'm simply being realistic. In PnP games, we take character size into consideration when finding armour/clothing on NPCs/enemies, and rule that it only fits if you're within a reasonable size range, but, while I personally wouldn't be opposed to this, I don't for one minute think that it'll happen in a CRPG.

I dunno...I think defeating particularly powerful enemies should result in you getting particularly powerful weapons, and it makes sense that the weapons they drop are the ones they used on you. After all, if you decide to kill Drizzt, who is known to carry two legendary swords, you'd expect to be able to take his swords when he dies. I don't mind there being some randomisation in loot, but it still needs to make sense, and be right for the context. If I kill a hundred giant rats, I don't expect the last one to vomit up a +2 dagger just before it dies. Similarly, if I kill a big guy with a nasty looking halberd, I'd expect his corpse to contain a nasty looking halberd, and not suddenly have a mauler instead. On a related note, however, I'd like there to be fewer armour drops - particularly with plate armour. I never liked the idea that you can kill a dwarf, take his +2 Harness of Dwarvishness, and put it on your elf (because it'll fit him perfectly of course!! :D ). At the very least, a harness worn by a dwarf should only fit dwarves.

Not so much about 'desire for ph@t lewt and levelling', more about pandering to the player's power fantasy of being the super awesome hero for whom the entire world stops, and everybody needs to solve even the simplest of problems. Although I think the reason is more of making it easier for the writers, I agree with the OP in that it does make the world feel very contrived when every quest is designed for you, and you alone, to solve at your convenience. Consider the classic 'fed-ex' style quests - you know, where you meet the person who needs an urgent delivery across town, and is willing to pay an arm and a leg to get it done asap (and can't do it himself for some reason) - in fact it's so urgent that, if you decide to do it, you'll have an indefinite amount of time to do it in, and if you decide not to do it, it will not get done until you change your mind. In fact, you can come back next month and the urgent delivery will still need to be done there and then...this man won't be in the job very long if he constantly relies on passing adventurers to do his job for him! I understand the need to conveniently have these quests become available when you reach it. After all, the game won't be much fun if you can only get this quest (which you don't even know about yet) if you arrive in town between 10 and 11 am on the 7th day of this month, otherwise you don't get the chance to do it. But, I don't think it'll hurt the game if, once you've encountered the quest and rejected it, you only have a relatively small timescale in which to change your mind before either somebody else takes care of it, or the consequences of it not being done are realised.

Why does it matter if players savescum anyway? In the nicest possible way, why does it matter what other players do in a single player game? Actually, why is it even considered 'savescum' to reload the game if the battle goes horribly wrong, and ends with you losing a character whom you've no chance of getting back? Where is the line between normal saving/reloading and savescum? I must confess, I like to save a lot, and reload when a battle goes horribly wrong, so does that make me a savescum? I would rather have petrification be harsh (but recoverable with a bit of effort or forethought), and face the possibility of having to reload, than have it nerfed for the sake of preventing people who want to quicksave a lot from doing so.

I agree with this. I don't like fights where the only way I can win is to pre-empt the encounter. Disintegrate was particularly bad for that, because you can't even get the person back afterwards! I'm not opposed to having that spell, but there does need to at least be a way to restore a disintegrated character, otherwise the only defence is to cast whatever protection spell on one person and pre-empt the enemy to make sure he attacks that one person instead of everybody else who isn't protected. Also, the nice thing about Web and Entangle was that you can get caught in it too, unlike Hold Person which only targets enemies. That made it more interesting from a tactical point of view. Hold Person might be better if it only targetted a single person, rather than the whole group. That way, a character being held would still give you some chance to counter it.

Entangle, and Web, would have been useless if they only lasted a few seconds. It wouldn't take long to lose any advantage you had gained from it. Also, these status effects are worthless when they only affect you for a moment, and you can swiftly recover from them. What made Fear so scary (pun intended ) is that it would take people out of the fight for a long time, forcing you to find some way to counter it. If you just have to wait a few seconds, there's no need for spells like Dispel Magic or Protection from Fear. Besides, I prefer it when spells improve as you level up. It makes low level spells still worth using at higher levels. Logic dictates that a Fear spell cast by a more powerful wizard is going to be more effective than one cast by a lesser wizard, and since it's not doing damage, it needs to reflect this by lasting longer.

Well, when a character is petrified in Baldur's Gate, you can still get them out of it with a Stone to Flesh scroll (as long as it's not your main character - I never really liked that either; the fact that the game ended as soon as your main guy 'died', even though everybody else could be raised). But yeah, I agree. I'd love to have the more nasty, grittier things able to happen to you, but there does need to be a way of countering or reversing them. Imprisonment needs to have a thing that can free people from the imprisonment, even if it does involve going to a high level cleric and paying a shed-load of money. Petrification needs to have a "unstatuify person" spell that can reverse the effect. Poison needs to have an antidote. Level/ability drain needs restoration. Etc. That's actually another thing I don't like about modern RPGs...the fact that none of this stuff happens anymore, and you're all basically immortal - or might as well be, because you can never die, or suffer any kind of long term effect beyond "oh no, I've lost a few more hitpoints than I would have lost normally! TEH HORORZ!!". If such effects exist, they are very short term, and can be easily waited out. Give me a brutal, gritty, nasty world where people can die, suffer horrible injuries, and generally have nasty things happen to them that last forever if not countered, but make it possible to reverse the effects.