Update #50: So... Project Eternity!

[Sacred_Path]

gize, an Auamaua rogue would be a thug, obviously.

[Ineth]

They had some context-sensitivity. Aerie, for example, had a specific complaint whenever you were in any sort of cave, which got pretty damn old after the fifth hour of wandering about the Underdark.

 

Yes, now that you mention it, I think Jaheira complained when in a city and expressed content when out in the wilderness.

 

But no context-sensitivity to what was currently going on - like success vs failure at battle, being hunted vs exploring at your leisure, etc.

 

 

I'd hear that awful music that presaged some Jaheira wibbling on about her dead husband.

 

I think those were part of her "romance" script, so if you had just told her to shut up when she brought it up, the "romance" would have terminated and she wouldn't have brought it up again.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Funny thing is I've played the hell out of it but not really progressed much of the romance stuff. I had once character who was a half-orc and Jaz's script was a sort of platonic romance. I remember going to the Harpers and rescuing her, whereupon she described my character as a "magnificent bastard" and was more of a gung-ho buddy than a simpering wretch.

 

So, ironically, non-romance Jaheira wasn't a bad NPC.

[Forlorn Hope]

gize, an Auamaua rogue would be a thug, obviously.

Obviously! For some reason I was only thinking about a nimble-fingered thief.

[Monte Carlo]

There should be a proper 'thug' class / build that relies on intimidation, persuasion and physical presence. Am a bit jaded when it comes to stealthy thieves all the time.

[Forlorn Hope]

There should be a proper 'thug' class / build that relies on intimidation, persuasion and physical presence. Am a bit jaded when it comes to stealthy thieves all the time.

Chances are that you can build your rogue into a thug:

Rogue is one of the playable classes in Project Eternity.

Description

"Contrary to what their name might imply, rogues come from many walks of life. They are cutpurses, thugs, and courtesans but also aristocrats, diplomats, and personal guards. Often separated by station in life, they are united by their reliance on wits, speed, and subterfuge to achieve their goals. The way of the rogue is not to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest brute in the room and exchange body blows, but to glance away in feigned confusion and slip an unseen blade between the brute's ribs as he turns his attention. When a room explodes in a storm of fire, the fighters grit their teeth, the priests pray for salvation, and the wizards fumble to find a spell to protect them, but the rogues just... disappear. They excel at being in the one place where no one's looking, at kicking people when they're down, at taunting a foe into turning its back on the rogue's ally while he or she nimbly skips away, and at being just too damned slippery to pin down.

Whether they pack a pair of daggers, a fine rapier, a slim bow, a stubby pistol, or a brutish club, rogues haul a carnival of pain with them wherever they go. If their natural tendencies weren't dangerous enough, their affinity for skullduggery allows some talented rogues to tap into their souls to perform amazing stunts: fading from view in plain sight, briefly cloaking their allies in a veil of shadow, imbuing their weapons with a soul-eating venom, or even becoming so insubstantial that blades barely hurt them.

While rogues are known for their stealthy nature both in and out of battle, many of them are quite talented with machines and contraptions of all sorts. High-born rogues are often very knowledgeable about esoteric, while many low-born rogues are well-equipped to survive in the wild.^[1]"

http://eternity.gamepedia.com/Rogue

[JFSOCC]

This thread is showing why I had misgivings about the original PE pitch:

 

The pitch was nebulous enough in it's aims that many people had different ideas about what the project would be like.

When a dev says "a spiritual successor to the IE games" to someone else it has a completely different meaning for them than it does for me because we both have different ideas about what were the most important parts of those games.

 

I never expected Baldur's Gate 2013, but obviously other people did and unfortunately the original pitch didn't exactly dissuade them from that idea.

I'm definitely hoping to see BG2 influences in P:E, I actually greatly enjoyed the quest density in Aktdyslexiakathla.

It should simply be entirely possible to play the game ignoring a large amount of them, should you so choose, without any ill effects.

 

That said, I hope P:E is a game that stands on itself, its own merits. What I like is that the Developers, including Josh Sawyer, all have their own vision for what the game will be. I'm glad that while P:E will gladly take input from fans of the IE games, the game itself is not going to be simple fanservice. Besides you can't please everybody all the time. I doubt taking out the big city quest density for something lighter is going to ruin my experience. I'm sure the energy that would have been spent on it, is now going towards another part of the game to make that enjoyable content.

[Keyrock]

I would imagine that both fighters and rogues could be built into some kind of thug/brigand/highwayman build.  An Aumaua would certainly excel in that role as their sheer size would help scare the **** out of convince travelers to hand over their belongings pay a completely fair tariff.

 

As for quest density, my stance on that is the same as my stance on companions.  Quality over quantity.  I'd rather see the time taken to make 5 interesting, well designed, and thought out quests in a town, than 20 hastily slapped together quests.  

Edited April 20, 2013 by Keyrock

[Osvir]

Rogue Aumaua hmm...

A thug in a sense, a seafarer, webbed fingers... coastal and ocean...

Pirate?

Aharr!

 

[Ffordesoon]

I think those were part of her "romance" script, so if you had just told her to shut up when she brought it up, the "romance" would have terminated and she wouldn't have brought it up again.

Why have romance scripts not progressed at all from this point, by the way? Just because I don't want to romance a character doesn't mean I want to tell them to shut the hell up, and yet "romance" and "shut up" always seem to be the only two options. That's why DA2's romance options are so reviled, I think; it's always a choice between "You look nice." ---> SEXYTIME and "You can go die in a ditch." Do they not let people down easy in Canada?

[Tamerlane]

Alberta is a harsh land full of harsh people.

[Sensuki]

Do you know if the revealed characters (Cadegund, Edair etc) are recruitable NPCs ?

At least some of them will probably be recruitable companions, but we haven't finalized the list yet.

http://www.formspring.me/GZiets

[khango]

I'm getting the sense that this game will heavily draw from early colonial themes, which is quite exciting. Fantasy Spain and Portugal try to carve up the secrets of the fantasy Maya. Or recover the lost secret of the fantasy Anasazi. Or something like that, though for some reason it seems a little more of a South/Central American vibe than a colonial Mexico one. Very excited. Lot's of room for great plots and should provide many sides to choose from!

Edited April 21, 2013 by khango

[Monte Carlo]

Rogue Aumaua hmm...

 

A thug in a sense, a seafarer, webbed fingers... coastal and ocean...

 

Pirate?

 

 

Aharr!

 

 

 You are teh photoshop king!!!

[Lord Lierdan Firkraag]

Loved the Aumaua work, looks fantastic. May be differences between female and male could be more noticeable.

[Odglok]

Haven't read any of the replies, but just wanted to say that I like these aumaua models much more than the earlier concept art. I find myself really wanting to know more about this race and the setting in general. Good work!

[Lasweetlife]

Haven't read any of the replies, but just wanted to say that I like these aumaua models much more than the earlier concept art. I find myself really wanting to know more about this race and the setting in general. Good work!

I have to second this. I have pretty much already created my aumaua godlike cipher PC in my imagination

[rjshae]

I'm getting the sense that this game will heavily draw from early colonial themes, which is quite exciting. Fantasy Spain and Portugal try to carve up the secrets of the fantasy Maya. Or recover the lost secret of the fantasy Anasazi. Or something like that, though for some reason it seems a little more of a South/Central American vibe than a colonial Mexico one. Very excited. Lot's of room for great plots and should provide many sides to choose from!

 

I'm not quite sure how to feel about that. Colonialism has a lot of strongly negative connotations in the modern world, so the theme may not necessarily resonate well. Plus you lose the early architectural (and part of the cultural) history of the dominant power. I guess we'll see how it works out...

[PrimeJunta]

@rjshae: The negative connotations are kind of the point. I doubt we're going to see enlightened Vailians bringing civilization, decency, and the true faith to the benighted pagan hordes, Noble Savages, or all that commotion. Nor, I think, the equally obvious counter-narrative. I think we're going to see something much more nuanced, with people and cultures acting according to their own motives, and see where that takes us. Colonialism is a really good lens to look at all that. We have high adventure, exploration, discovery, contact of cultures; we also have genocide, rapine, pillage. And I'm sure we have cooperation, trade, and all that commotion too, especially if -- as it appears -- the technology disparity between the colonizers and the colonized isn't quite as big as between the gunpowder-breastplate-and-cavalry Conquistadors and the Neolithic Aztec, Inca, and others.

[Ninjerk]

To touch on a point from a page or two back, I suspect the audience that mainstream RPG makers cater to demands a fairly simplistic view on fictional romances (to go along with binary morality/ethics system and "save the world" plot).

 

I'm hopeful there will be some aspect of the struggle between individualism vs. collectivism.  I've heard more than one man from my parents' generation (my father included) talk about the disparity between being able to relate with an individual of another race (primarily as it related to WASP v. African-descended blacks) when it was just the two of them vs. the race riots that happened in their high schools where you essentially HAD to band together with the people who looked like you.

 

I don't remember if this is present in classic "colonial fiction" (e.g. "Heart of Darkness," "Things Fall Apart(?)" whatever the name of the Chinua Achebe book.

 

In regards to the general idea expressed earlier in the thread of, "Am I getting the content I kickstarted for?"  I would be rather thrilled to be surprised by the end result of a game.  For the last couple of years, I have had problems playing a game longer than a couple of hours because as soon as they lay out their core game mechanics I feel like I can see the entire game to the end and get bored immediately.  I'm more excited about T:ToN in this regard (even though, ironically, I haven't donated anything to it because I'm broke).

[Azrayel]

Hey was waiting for this, didn't realize it'd be Wed-- oh hey it was posted 11:something P.M. on...

 

OK though seriously, it was fine then. But this week as well? Y'all, just shift this stuff to Wednesdays and get to bed sooner. All good internet things happen Wednesday anyways-- there's no use in fighting it, give in to the ebb and flow of the inter-souls...

[Sensuki]

update today rite ?

[Messier-31]

Bump!

I've been pondering...

 

Ethnicity and culture are separate characteristics in the game.  Individual meadow folk can be from the Vailian Republics just as coastal aumaua can be from Aedyr.  The common-name descriptions of ethnicities don't restrict where they can be from.  Literally every ethnicity in our race document has a bit-by-bit description of what physical characteristics they have, including facial features, skin tones, hair colors (and textures), eye colors (and shapes), etc.  E.g., only savannah folk, pale elves, and boreal dwarves have epicanthic folds.  Of those, only boreal dwarves have them consistently.

 

Does that mean it is possible to play as (or meet NPC's that are) ocean folk but do not have the dark skin complexion? Or, vice versa, savannah and meadow folk with the dark skin complexion?

[Messier-31]

Also, can you give a surname to your character?