Shevek

I don't know how anyone can even nitpick this. Folks shouldn't be even asking for shadows changing across the day or different speed/anims in water. There are full on 3D games that spend millions just on advertising that do not do those things. This is phenomenal. Frankly, if the game was released with gfx exactly like this, my expectations would be totally exceeded. The high water mark for 2D isometric is ToEE. This far exceeds that. Edit:Also, the Torment folks have their work cut for them. Matching this kind of quality will be no easy task.

Amazing... That is much MUCH better than I thought possible. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.

I like the idea of those kind of images for action sequences but I would hope they are somewhat animated (like an animated storybook). It doesn't have to be hyper-fluid Dragon's Lair like animation of anything (it could work being somewhat un-fluid or stop-motion-like if you get my drift). For the released images, for example, I would have some slight animation of the background so it looks like the trees are blowing in the wind (maybe with the occasional leaf blowing by). This would probably necessitate the images be made of various independent animated layers, I would guess. The character's eyes could blink a bit or maybe his head and body could shift a bit as he tries to gauge the distance. These animations would simply loop until the player made his choice. I remember plenty of oldschool games that had those kind of images and they often had at least some minor animation to them (Star Trail comes to mind). Anywho, just a suggestion...

Well, if you can't effectively verbalize what exactly you agree with, how can you expect people to put stock in what you are saying? Hormalakh verbalizes fine as while I may not always agree with everything he says I always understand his point and where he is coming from, so maybe it's just your reading comprehension that is failing? It could be but, personally, I find the statements very convoluted and not very on point. By his own admission, he had not elucidated on his point and would do so later. His eventual response did not speak to the central thrust of our conversation. In general, he seems to back the notion of no speech skill but completely fails to point out why. Instead he very vaguely alluded to some other posts by Sawyer and those posts were only slightly related. Earlier, he suggested that speech is bad because charisma is bad and therefore speech would make it worse. The sheer weakness of this argument, that an entire skillset should be removed because a stat we don't will be implemented may be implemented poorly... man,...I dunno what to say to that.

Hormalakh: Those quotes are about two things: 1. Some strange rpg system which sounds like a collectible card game version of a speech minigame 2. The dangers of having dump stats and stat centric builds. Neither of those points speaks to why the speech skill should be relegated to a dustbin. Please offer clear points when clear points are offered to you. I would speak to your last point on LARPing but it makes no sense.

Well, if you can't effectively verbalize what exactly you agree with, how can you expect people to put stock in what you are saying?

Allow me to address your two points below 1.Your issue then is with the Charisma stat, not the speech skill? I see you have an "evolving" argument. Ok then. The Charisma attritbute is one that is often poorly implemented in non-diplomatic situations. As a result, it can be a "dump stat." However, this is not always the case. I found BOTH the Charisma stat and the Speech skill to be important in Fallout. Thanks to Charisma-based party member limits and perk requirements, I never neglected the Charisma stat when making a Diplo character. I am not saying that implementation is the only one but games have existed where Charisma stats and speech skills have existed in harmony. Pardon me a smidge - I am going to speculate just a bit here. They have focused on assuring that combat and noncombat advancement is separate. Because of this, It would seem strange for them to include a stat that would have no value in combat. If anything, I would assume all stats would be of equal value inside and outside of combat. Whatever stat they put in place of Charisma ("Drive," "Will," "Presence," etc etc) will most likely have both combat and noncmbat bonuses. As a result, you must not project your fears of the implementation of Charisma in past DnD titles to how it will function here. Until we know more about stats, we cannot presume to believe that the stat would become worthless should a speech skill or a set of speech skills be implemented. 2. I do not entirely understand your second point. Still, I will try to break it down and deal with it. If I misrepresent your position, please clarify. You make two suppositions: Your first supposition: Speech skills are roleplaying for roleplaying's sake. Your second supposition: They are not implementing things for roleplaying's sake. I disagree with both suppositions. Lemme deal with the second supposition first. They ARE implementing for "roleplaying for roleplaying's sake." If not, this would simply be making an IWD clone. Though they have listed that as an influence, it is not their sole influence. Hence, they are including low-int routes and advanced party dynamics. Now for your first supposition. You are approaching speech as "roleplaying for roleplaying's sake." I disagree. Speech is a valid play style. Much like crafting, sneaking, combat, etc, Speech should exist as a while to allow a player's character to deal with certain challenges. This is how it has generally been implemented. It could be used to circumvent or lower the difficulty of an encounter. It could open up options, allow you to gain more companions, lower prices, etc. These are tangible benefits - not roleplaying for roleplaying's sake.

Speech skills, when they do not pull from the combat pool, are not a sink but a character development choice. The aforementioned Black Hound that JE worked on came up with a brilliant solution to make speech desirable to both you and your companions. The key here is not so much with a speech skill but its implementation. You would not judge it a mandatory sink if other noncombat skills were equally attractive. That is NOT the fault of speech skills. That is the result of poor game balance. The trick is to have SEVERAL speech skills, SEVERAL sneaking skills, SEVERAL crafting skills and having the player pick and choose what to excell in. All choices should be equally desirable. This way the player does not feel "forced" to pick one. The notion that skills encroach on stats is just silly. If thats the case, there should only be stats for everything. No feats, no proficiency, no nothing. Just stats. That is bad design. Two additional points to this. 1. Stats function as more than simply the success or failure of skill related tasks. They can dictate minimum wearing requirements, saves, carry weight and the like. In other words their "territory" is much much wider than the "territory" of skills. 2. Stat bonuses do not need to flat. They can give flat+%based skill bonuses or they can open up speech related feats (ala-Fallout). There are many creative solutions to this that have already been explored.

Your skill as a player is all fine and dandy but it should always be limited by character skill. This is what makes a RPG. Personally, I found it VERY satisfying to use speech as an "I win" button in Fallout 1 and 2. Most people who played it did. If they wanna make it a more involved speech puzzle, thats great, just don't divorce it from character advancement. Stats are OK. Stats + skill is even better. What if there were no weapon proficiency or feats or skill or whatever? Combat performance was only dictated by stats. That would suck in my estimation. It would be a threadbare character customization system. This is what happens to the speech side when you remove speech skills. They have already stated that combat and noncombat advancement pools will be separated. As such, speech skills would not be a sink as you describe the term.

Thanks Rostere. I do not want to seem overly negative. Overall, I like alot of what I hear from the Obsidian devs. Sawyer has a real good handle on combat mechanics and his design there, I think, seems spot on. The two health pool thing is inspired. Similarly, art design is very very good. Everything looks both plausible and fantastical. It takes some skill to do that. However, we haven't heard very much good stuff coming on the non-combat skill front. Personally, I was very excited about the possibilites here when I heard Tim Cain was focusing on this aspect of design. What they did at Troika with Bloodlines, for example, was epic. The rep system, when it was originally revealed seemed interesting and Cain, when he listed some of the skill types he was considering, mentioned speech skills. Now, what the heck happened? Divorcing character customization from speech and relagating speech skills to a "dustbin" just does not seem to be moving the cRPG forward. In many ways, this "anyone can do whatever" approach does not seem to jive very well with the notion of Project Eternity as a cRPG for the avid cRPG gamer. Moreover, the relevance of the speech system now seems highly suspect. It seems that in an effort to "balance" things, speech sounds like it is just a bit more than fluff text. The essense of what a RPG is boils down to the customization of the character. You must be able to define what your character can and can't do. The more you can define the parameters by which your character functions or fails to do so, then the more robust the RPG system is. I want to define how my character interacts with those around him in a set way. I would like to define his eloquence, his gruffness, and his cunning (or complete lack thereof). This should not simply be defined by actions. It should be defined by numbers which dictates what my character can or can't do. I should actively select a set parameter that defines my success or failure in interpersonal interactions in the same way I select parameters for combat interactions. In this way, I can play an cunning fighter, a gruff wizard, an eloquent rogue, etc etc. I would ask the devs to reconsider this. I recall that in the design for the Black Hound, for example, both the player and the NPCs were slated to have speech skills. Levelling both would be key in order to maintain party harmony. Here is a lil something from the Black Hound wiki: When I heard this game was coming out, I was partly hoping they would continue to push the envelope here and move the genre forward with regard to speech skills. Now they are just tossing them in a dustbin? Damn, what happened?

"We've seen in the past that skill checks don't always play very well with dialgoue." And we have seen it work well too. Whats your point?

By Avellone's own admission, Torment was not necessary great for its "RPG" bits. Also, I would say best dialogue of all time would be Grim Fandango - not an RPG at all. I am not arguing for or against good dialogue. I am talking about character development mechanics.

Well, me and you have a very different definition about what a RPG is. Stat checks are OK. Reputation checks are OK too. But skill checks are best, IMHO. By your logic, all skills can get removed and I do not think that would improve the game at all. Also, what are you talking about? 2E had skills. Plenty of other systems have had skills too LONG before 3E.

Of course you are limited by level ups. Welcome to rpgs. Thats certainly better than crappy Bethesda like level up as you use systems. I had enough of those since they tried that with Final Fantasy II on the NES.

The mechanic is a reputation system. I LIKE reputation systems. However, they should not be the only mode of determining your speech choices. A rep system used in TANDEM with a skill system would be far more effective. For example, lets say a game has 3 dialogue skills - sweet talk, mean talk and sly talk (for simplicity's sake). Lets use that in TANDEM with a rep system. There are 2 factions - A and B. So, you go and slaughter 2 groups of Faction A mercs. That gives you a bonus to your mean talk skill with them but the other two skills take a hit. Its easier to intimidate them but trying to reason with them is much harder now. Also, you have a bonus to all dialogue skill/choices in Faction B since they dislike Faction A. In this way, character development and game choice can both impact dialogue choice. By just saying, ok, you have made these choices with this faction, therefore you have these dialogue choices - you are making the supposition that the character COULD use mean talk, sweet talk or sly talk if he was in good with said faction. Maybe Faction A LOVES you but you are a blithering idiot and should have no idea how to sweet talk them. Etc, etc, etc..

So then basically, what you're saying is that all gaming consequences should boil down to two things: what your character starts out as (the beginning stats, etc) and what you invest in during level-ups? What about everything in between? What about consequences mattering in what sort of quests you choose and how you complete them? You're saying that it shouldn't matter what you choose as a dialogue option, you only want the skill checks for dialogue to let you "win" the dialogue problem at hand. Even idiot dialogue shouldn't just be a joke. If your idiot dialogue has actual consequences to what you choose to say, then it should matter in the long run. OF COURSE, there should be choice. BUT that choice must be limited by the character development choices you have taken. This game will not be fully voiced. Can you imagine the possibility to make truly involved dialogue trees based on skills, faction rep, game choices, race, class, etc? You should ALWAYS have many choices but these should be constrained.

I disagree. Skill check mechanics should be used for everything possible (within reason). The more skill checks, the more the value of the character development. Every game has "choice" nowadays. Without limiting those choices, the player may "own" certain actions but his character does not. Obsidian understands this which is why they are putting in "idiot" dialogue for stupid PCs. Why go half-ass on this? Put in real dialogue skills and advancement.

Diplomacy is a skill. Intimidation is a skill. Haggling is a skill. These are things people learn to do better over time. I have to disagree with Sawyer that these should be removed. If anything, I would like it to be expanded upon. It would be neat if there was a separate interpersonal skill pool which dictated what options one would have in dialogue. As part of defining their ROLE, players should decide what kind of character they are playing (gruff, reasonable, etc) and that should be tied to a stat (not just a rep counter). By removing the stat component, that is not helping to truly (in a numbers way) define your character. Sure, the choices are there, but that is not numerically changing your character. For example, one can make all kinds of choices in that Walking Dead game but its not tied at all to a stat or skill. Thats just fine and dandy for an Adventure title but this is a Role Playing Game. In a RPG, there are things you CAN do and things you CANT. In order to be a true RPG you need LIMITATIONS not just ABILITIES. What determines your limitations? Your skills and stats. I would further stipulate, that the party should have similar development options and that the entire party should be able to contribute to convos. Again, those contributions should be tied to their stats and skills. I will say having just one or two convo skills is bad since they become must haves. However, if there are half a dozen skills that share a "speech tree" pool of points, that would be better I think. Instead of just diplo, there should be streetwise, sense motive, ettiquette, haggling, bluff, intimidation, etc etc which determine how well you interact with assorted segments of the population in varied circumstances. I also disagree that conversation should not be a right/wrong puzzle. Of course it is. When you want information, access, assistance, etc - one must convince, threaten, probe, sweet talk, etc to get these things. One should be able to succeed or fail in varying degrees. This is just like combat. Obviously, one succeeds (kill) or fails (be killed). Crafting, sneaking, and any other aspect of the game should work that way as well. There are winners and losers.

I am extremely impressed by that character model. That is phenomenal. The level of detail is just right. Much more and one would get little benefit from added polys since the cam is so panned out. If all player and creature models have that level of detail, the battlefield should look absolutely gorgeous. As a side note: I understand that flail is probably oversized for anim testing purposes. Still, oversized blunt weapons are a pet peeve of mine - so I wanted to share an observation. I absolutely hate the ways flails, maces, etc are typically done in games. The ends of these weapons should be small but they usually end up the size of a melon. I remember for NWN1, I actually made replacement mace heads because the stock ones bothered me so much. Anywho, I just hope weapons (especially blunt ones) are not dramatically oversized just so players can see the details from a panned out perspective.

I do think some effort should be put in to avoid going overboard with effects. The battle is more visually impressive when you can actually see whats going rather than being bombarded by a bunch of bright lights and smoke. That being said, effects are fine so long as they are toned down. For example, I would like if effects like stoneskin, barkskin, etc just made the character skin look like stone/bark/etc and not his armor or clothing.

Well, we do not know for sure how robust the skill/feat system will be. We certainly do not know enough to guess at how much wiggle room we will have with our characters. Also, while there are many new classes, all archetypes are most certainly not covered. I happen to really enjoy playing 2E-style fighter-mages. While we know that mages can apparently wear plate and there is an art image of a mage wielding a rapier, we do not know what the mage's "to-hit," damage modifiers, attack speed, attack abilities, etc are compared to martial classes. If the mage sucks at melee, I would like the option to make a hybridized character which sacrifices top-end arcane power for a significant boost to melee capability.

Well, I am not against multiclassing. I enjoy the 2E multiclassing a great deal. Frankly, I think an ideal system would have multiclassing akin to 2E with a feat/trait system akin to Fallout and a skill system like in 3E. I just don't particularly like the crap you get with 3E multiclasses. In 3E, people just focus on how to synergize certain front loaded class benefits when creating a munchkinized toon. The classic example of the sheer stupidness of 3E multiclassinf is, of course, the 2 Paladin/ X Sorceror but there are many more examples. Here is an example from a random NWN2 build faq I googled (note: no, I haven't tried this specific build - I am just using it as an example of the kind of thing that you can do): 1bard/4fighter/10RDD/5FB I mean, the sheer amount of unintuitive munchkinosity of this build is ridiculous. I mean, Bard/Fighter/Red Dragon Disciple/Frenzied Beserker? Wtf? How does that make ANY sense at all? 3E is truly the worst multiclassing ever. Give me 2E multiclasses any day.

I think it makes sense for rogues to have more of a bonus to sneak attack. They are more cunning fighters and should excel when not fighting toe to toe. The bonus does not necessarily have to be damage, however. All classes should get a bonus to hit from flanking but perhaps rogue sneak attacks could result in status afflictions or the like. The rogue might get a slightly higher bonus to hit when flanking certain foes. They could also give the rogue an array of positional abilities. Similary, rogues should be more adept at damage avoidance than other classes (save perhaps the monk). In the same sense, the rogue could be adept at the applying of poisons and laying of traps. These could be class specific combat skills for the rogue. Their use could better define the rogue class as a cunning combatant who disables his foes. The trick comes with skills like pickpocket, lockpicking, open lock and detect/disable device. I am against these being "rogue skills." When these are "rogue only" then a rogue is basically necessary (especially for a first time playthrough). Instead, these are the kinds of skills all classes should be able to use.

All rehashes of this topic should have the Avellone quote.

i HATE 3E multiclasses. It is the most munchkinized system I have ever played. Players choose a class simply from frontloaded benefits (WotC has admitted this is an issue they will address in DND Next). Moreover, the d20 mix and match system was absolutely TERRIBLE for martial/magic multiclasses. See, the levelling system of 3E made 3E multiclasses crappy. In 2E, you could reach 14/14 fighter/mage. In 3E, you were stuck at 10/10. Folks had to take "fix it" feats like practiced spellcaster or take crappy PRCs (like Eldritch Knight) to make martial/magic multiclasses be worth a damn. It is MUCH better to have static multiclasses. The devs could better balance it that way and players would still be able to custimize the character via skills and feats. Frankly, I would prefer no multiclassing (with an expanded feat/skill system) to 3E multiclassing. Also, PRCs suck. Their only reason to exist is to fix the problems inherent in 3E multiclassing. If you avoid d20 multiclassing, then you just don't need PRCs. You can get all the special powahs you need via feats and skills.