Amentep

I hope you mean "insane" and not "inane"... Well, inane means "silly" among other things... Yeah, but its silly as in foolish not silly as in funny. It means "insubstantial, lacking significance, meaning or point" Synonyms for inane are: vacuous, empty, senseless, blank, foolish, and vacant.

About the forum badges... Our forum account here and the kickstarter account by which we made our pledge are not the same thing. So I don't think we will see the badge appear automatically. They will probably send it by mail or stuff like that. I'd think they'd use the kickstarter question ability to send a question to backers about what your obsidian account is so they can add the forum tags. So it'll probably take time.

I hope you mean "insane" and not "inane"...

I was responding to Sawyer and Cain's quotes from the first page. Ooookay, I remembered the gist of what they said but not the use of the term degredation, so I had a COMPLETELY different context for what you were saying. That said I think that the issue that they're addressing is whether its right for a game whether to encourage metagaming (you can't stop it, but I suppose you could create systems that didn't actively encourage the player to get every 1xp they can). Yes, well, unfortunately, the Forgotten Realms is not a very well articulated world in terms of its thematic drives, so at times you get contradicting signals from the designers who created it. Generally, the idea is that subvering the gods is bad / futile. But because of the need to publish new material, FR designers have a habit of having these 'times of trouble' in which all the laws go kablunk. This is not solid world design. It is, however, necessitated by D&D commercialism. Mask of the Betrayer, however, is fairly well articulated in terms of its themes, and in the context of the D&D world presented in MOTB, what I said stands. I'd agree with you on MotB at least as far as I got into it (someday I'll finish it). But the god thing in D&D never really seemed to be against humanity usurping godhood (hence why the Lady of Pain in Planescape isn't stated, so players can never take her on).

The problem with the poll is that there are four "yes" votes and one "no" with no neutral option. The large total will appear to skew towards no; however 73.72% actually voted some form of "Yes", even if they disagree to how much the unscientific forum poll favors experience for killing enemies.

hahahha, that's hilarious.

I'm not sure how not giving XP for killing the townspeople is saying its proper / degenerate gameplay. Or putting a value judgement on it at all. Cyric - who killed Myrkul - was a mortal, as was Kelemvor who took over Myrkul's worship. Not sure how a storyline involving Kelemvor could ever imply its futile to subvert the gods since pretty much Kelemvor existing as a god is a sign you can do just that (even if it isn't easy).

If game don't have ressurection, it doesn't mean we need to change health system. We don't need to look further, just look at Fallout. Healing is also going to be limited - Fallout had stimpaks and doctors you could pay. Again not saying that the choice to change is right here. And of course there's the fact that Feargus seems to have said that they were still experimenting with what works...who knows what they'll end up with.

1. Paizo used 3.5 rules to create their own RPG - Pathfinder. 2. Nobody wants to copy game mechanics - just stay true to basic concepts. Paizo used the Open Gaming License IIRC which I seem to recall reading someone at Obsidian say was trickier (if not impossible) to use for computer games. Some of those concepts though involved the things that Obsidian thought was broken about the game (sleep spamming changing magic to a system that is supposed to vaguely approximates Vancian, for example, without being Vancian). I think the health mechanic, was changed however not to change sleep spamming so much as the lore of the game doesn't really support resurrection spells. Again this is all IMO and I could be wrong.

Wasn't really trying to argue with you - I understand your concerns even if I don't share them; I think that we each saw different things in the pitches so that we expected different degrees of fidelity to the IE games. I'm not convinced here; I can't imagine that Obsidian could just replicate the AD&D 2nd Edition rules in a new computer game and not have Hasbro sue them.

No, what I'm saying is the TARDIS in Fallout isn't an ad for the BBC or Doctor Who. The nuclear waste barrels in Planescape: Torment wasn't an ad for Fallout or Fallout 2. The kids from the Dungeons and Dragons' cartoon in the form of portraits in a store in BG2 isn't an ad for the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon or the cartoon's rights holder (and BG2 is probably a bigger ad for buying D&D products than anything else in the game could possibly be). They were easter eggs. If Obsidian decides to make a kerfluffles marshmellow gag in the game, and it doesn't break the setting and it doesn't say with it "Buy Kerfluffles marshmellows NOW!!!!!!!111111one" then does it constitute an ad? Or a gag? To me its a gag.

Ok, so you haven't played it, but nevertheless think that it's a good game and good mechanic. Okay. I didn't say I thought it was a good game or good mechanic. I happen to think it to be a good mechanic since I came up with a similar idea independently when discussing possible ways to handle combat several years ago and had mentioned it again recently. You wanted examples; Darklands has been a fairly well regarded RPG since I first came back to computer gaming and joined the old BIS boards. Josh in particular has remarked on the game as being a good one, so its not surprising that it'd be looked at for some inspiration. Most people who I've talked to regard it as a good example of the kind of mechanics Obsidian is talking about. YMMV but for me they listed they wanted to pay homage to the Infinity Engine games. They don't have the D&D license (or, for that matter, a license for the actual Infinity Engine). They listed Fallout, Arcanum, TOEE, NWN2, FONV in various bits and bobs about the project early on. So for me, I never felt that this would be "IE Games part 2: The Return". I can, however, certainly understand everyone else reading their own interpretation - just as I have - into what they've said about the game.

Intent and setting. First off advertising has to have a financial incentive from the advertiser. The likelihood that Pepsi is going to spring $500 to put something like "Ogbart Born 321 Died 340 due to lack of Pepsi" that is going to be seen at best (atm) by ~70,000 people worldwide is pretty low (compare that to putting Pepsiman in SEGA's Saturn version of Fighting Vipers which was presumed to reach the Japanese installed userbase for the Saturn (the character was not used in US and UK markets). Add that that many players may never find the tombstone...unlikely there would be any appeal for the company to spend advertising dollars this way. Second I think Easter Eggs are built in ways that fit the setting. This may be a unique monster, but it may also be the D&D Cartoon kids portraits in BG2 or some of the Fallout 2 easter eggs like the TARDIS appearing (which fits in with the sci-fi setting of FO2 at least, as opposed to the TARDIS appearing in IWD).

I'm sure, that you can provide some examples. I've not played it, but DARKLANDS (MicroProse 1992) is cited by Josh as the inspiration for the health/stamina combo (there's some debate as to whether the mechanic to restore stamina is similar to, or faster, than Darklands).

I think the "problem" they're trying to address with this change is that XP as you suggested favors killing monsters giving little reward for the player who would rather sneak around the monsters because they're super-stealth-dude(tte)s; essentially they're trying to expand past the "combat is the only viable route" or "combat is the optimal route" method of many games (including BG and IWD). *thinks about it* Perhaps the problem is they're trying to think through the problem for all player scenarios? If you're creating a well balanced party then should the game be balanced toward a balanced party? Your fighter kills the monster, your wizard solves the riddle and the rogue disarms the trap. The group gets all the XP. But a single player soloing might be able to kill the monster but not solve the riddle or disarm the trap (fighter) or solve the riddle, disarm the trap but not kill the monster (rogue). A specialist party might be able to do two of the three (like the wizard party solving the riddle and killing the monster, but not being able to disarm the trap). However if the XP is assigned to the goal and not the individual actions the player is rewarded regardless of play style or party make up? Of course the counter argument could be that in party based games the assumption is a balanced party and the player who chooses otherwise is opting for greater difficulty (because they have less utility and more possibility to not earn xp). EDIT: Really? Censoring part of a username? lewl.

As much as I'd like to see grappling in the game (having suggested a grappling model for unarmed combat before the monk was confirmed), I'd see little point in it if there wasn't an animation to it. Having two combatants just...stand at one another with a grappled icon floating over their head just wouldn't work for me in a video game.

No interest in a multi-player aspects of the game. I'm not going to be upset if they were to include it and could make it work without effecting the single player game....but I don't think they can. This project wasn't designed from the beginning to feature multi-player and trying to add it on at this point would be courting disaster, IMO.

They were organizing the Obsidian Order of Eternity backers group, so had high visability

Part of the reason that (AFAIK) publisher use the current model is, like film, they'd rather pay $50 million for $200 million profit than $2 million for a $10 million profit. I don't really see that changing with the PE Kickstarter. Unless PE becomes the video game equivalent of Friday the Thirteenth, Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity - low budget films that earned big budget profits. In which case I'd imagine the publishers would be thinking about how to tap that market (just like each of the above films generated copycats from other movie companies trying to cash in on their low-budget success).

They didn't like the directional information that has come out on Project Eternity and have decided no longer to back it. I don't see why its an issue; their money and their right to change their mind. Obsidian's been pretty good about throwing hints and discussion to the community during their game development based on past evidence. I don't expect it to be any different with PE.

Which should be dependent on whether the game is hack and slash or not. What would be the point of creating a hack & slash game where the primary resolution for quests isn't combat? In other words, why would you have an experience system generated on quests so that players are rewarded however they play but make the game only resolvable through combat? Or am I missing something?

I really liked character creation and how the character I created was reacted to. Yeah all the background may not have worked out as well as others, but I enjoyed this aspect of the game. Also did like going through windows (except when I was trying to go through a door and my character decided to leap through the window instead. Not so bad when playing a barbarian, but a bit embarrassing when one is playing a talky character with the utmost decorum). :D Didn't like the bug that caused my first game's inventory items to be eaten taking out a quest item and making the game unfinishable about 8/10 of the way through the game.

... Are you sure they weren't non-poisonous beetles? It's been a while, but I'm almost willing to bet that's what they were. Bards Tale: The Mostly Terrible Remake ARPG had a cool take on the "go killy mah ratsies" quest: a puny-sized, fire-breathing rat that you had to run away from like a good little hero-wannabe. I'd love to see the traditional rat killing get a similar treatment in PE. yes you are right. My memory lied to me. There were spiders somewhere early in IWD. I think. Maybe I should go play it again...

No, there isn't. But to me BG and IWD pretty much assume the game to be solvable by group combat. You couldn't just have a group of rogues sneak past a bunch of monsters, lock pick their vault and get the quest item and sneak out. Because the minute you triggered a quest plot point you were railroaded into a fight. Lionheart did this as well. It was an action game built with the SPECIAL system. And pretty much there was no reason to not concentrate everything you had in combat because the non-combat skills were worthless (since, really, they only mattered in a few situations). That said, designing a game around combat as the primary conflict resolution is okay, not saying it isn't. But I think that Obsidian has looked at wanting to make class skills more...vital to a player so they're not wanting to railroad the player into having to fight in to resolve all quests.

So you get better at killing certain monsters because you've killed a lot of monsters? Then I suppose the successful pickpocket could get perks to be a better pickpocket, or the wizard a better spell caster or something. Could work, I suppose. Ultimately on this issue I really don't feel strongly about there is wonkyness inherent in most systems, whether it be jumping off buildings to improve your jump skill in Morrowind, learning how to better disarm a trap by stabbing a kobold or unlocking level 5 spells because you negotiated a compromise in a family feud. Seems a bit strange to argue about the abstraction to make the game work and be "unreal".