Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Infinitron]

derp, it's not actually a half-orc: http://eternitywiki.com/Aumaua

It just looks like the equivalent of it, that's why everybody is calling it a "half-orc". But it's not actually a "half"-race at all.

Yeah yeah. Just like Orlan are not Halflings and Godline are not planetouched . Carry on soldier.

But they're not half-human! They're their own race. You can't say there are orcs in Project Eternity because of them, the analogy doesn't go that far.

 

[Mrowak]

derp, it's not actually a half-orc: http://eternitywiki.com/Aumaua

It just looks like the equivalent of it, that's why everybody is calling it a "half-orc". But it's not actually a "half"-race at all.

Yeah yeah. Just like Orlan are not Halflings and Godline are not planetouched . Carry on soldier.

But they're not half-human! They're their own race. You can't say there are orcs in Project Eternity because of them, the analogy doesn't go that far.

Ok, so let's call them "orcs" and be done with it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

But they're not half-human! They're their own race. You can't say there are orcs in Project Eternity because of them, the analogy doesn't go that far.

Look infinitron.

If you just put aside those rose tinted goggles of yours, it would clear to you that there are 7 standard races:

Humans
Elves
Dwarves
Halflings
Planetouched
Half Orcs
Gnomes.

The first 5 are there. Aumaua are not Gnomes so just by looking at the list they are Half orcs. But I agree. They could be half orks, or half orogs or half -uruks too. WHy don't you just ask this to Sawyer and conform it eh?

 

[Infinitron]

But they're not half-human! They're their own race. You can't say there are orcs in Project Eternity because of them, the analogy doesn't go that far.

Look infinitron.

If you just put aside those rose tinted goggles of yours, it would clear to you that there are 7 standard races:

Humans
Elves
Dwarves
Halflings
Planetouched
Half Orcs
Gnomes.

The first 5 are there. Aumaua are not Gnomes so just by looking at the list they are Half orcs. But I agree. They could be half orks, or half orogs or half -uruks too. WHy don't you just ask this to Sawyer and conform it eh?

You said there are ORCS in the game. If there are "half-orcs" in Project Eternity there must also be FULL orcs. For fuck's sake, how do you think they became "half"?

But the Aumaua aren't half-anything.

 

[PlanHex]

They're water-orcs.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Shannow]

That's what you get from reading Shrek's posts. Your own fault really...
I just hope tasteful rape with Evil Lyn is in. Would been a childhood (well, more early adolescence) dream come true.

 

[imweasel]

If you make loot too scarce, the game won't pop your RPG cherry.

How so?
Just to give a recent example, Bloodlines had very little loot yet it popped many people's RPG cherry.
Incidentally, it also had an objective based xp reward system. The fact that Sawyer wants to make PE heavily combat and loot based, but apply an objective based xp reward system is pretty schizoid design. Not surprising however, coming from a schizoid dude such as he.

Yeah, it's gonna take a while until shizoid Sawyer realises that his "pacifist sneak objective xp" bullshit game design is not going to work. Maybe he won't realize that by himself though, then I can only hope that Feargus lays off the pudding and smacks Sawyer until he finally gets it.

 

[Roguey]

It's going to work just fine, and the lack of xp-bribery is going to keep them from leaving in shit content that people only play through to get xp. Think of all those rats in Fallout.

 

[imweasel]

It's going to work just fine, and the lack of xp-bribery is going to keep them from leaving in shit content that people only play through to get xp. Think of all those rats in Fallout.

Fallout is perfect the way it is which makes it ones of the best games ever made. Sawyer of course would point out how "this, and that, and this, and all of this shit, and that bullshit there in Falllout is just degenerate game design".

Btw nobody ever went out "rat grinding" in Fallout to level up, only a moron would do that.

 

[Carrion]

Interesting.
The obvious question, begging to be saked is "why?".

I don't know, nor care about DA, but in TW2 the problem was that crafting mechanics forced you to collect and carry materials in bulk. Yes, if you have limited inventory, but are forced to move around massive quantities of stuff using this limited inventory alone, then the gameplay will suffer.
It says nothing about impact of limited inventory itself, only that if mechanics and gameplay don't support each other frustration will ensue.

I've never seen any sensible person complaining about carry limit in, say, STALKER.

TW2's inventory was also quite big compared to the one you had in TW1, which only let you carry small objects and a couple of additional weapons, and which I thought was really refreshing. Looting is often the most tedious part of an RPG, a completely mechanical and repetitive process that requires no thinking whatsoever and mostly just feels like work. Maybe I'm a bit OCD about these things, but unlimited inventory space just encourages you to pick up every single object in the game world so that you can sell them for 1 gp each. When there's a hard cap on how much you can carry, things get more interesting since there's only enough space for the useful stuff and there's no point in picking up every Iron Sword, Leather Armor and Bronze Ring you find in the game world.

 

[Blaine]

What the fuck? The rats and so on in Fallout were largely just obstacles to exploration/scavenging. You didn't venture into those caves to "grind rats," you ventured in to find ammunition, weapons, armor, parts, stimpaks, quest lines of some variety, secret entrances and similar.

I think some of you are severely over-thinking this "trash mobs" issue, the intellectual equivalent of repeating a word over and over until it seems to lose its meaning.

 

[DraQ]

TW2's inventory was also quite big compared to the one you had in TW1, which only let you carry small objects and a couple of additional weapons, and which I thought was really refreshing. Looting is often the most tedious part of an RPG, a completely mechanical and repetitive process that requires no thinking whatsoever and mostly just feels like work. Maybe I'm a bit OCD about these things, but unlimited inventory space just encourages you to pick up every single object in the game world so that you can sell them for 1 gp each. When there's a hard cap on how much you can carry, things get more interesting since there's only enough space for the useful stuff and there's no point in picking up every Iron Sword, Leather Armor and Bronze Ring you find in the game world.

This. The *only* problem I've ever had with TW1 inventory is that the extra long weapon slot couldn't be used for second silver sword.

 

[Grunker]

"trash mobs" issue

There is no issue.

I think some of you are severely over-thinking

On the Codex?

Nooooooooooooo, sir

 

[Mrowak]

"trash mobs" issue

There is no issue.

Oh, there is! Thash mobs are evul!!!11111

 

[imweasel]

Who the fuck has a problem with trash mobs? A trash mob is just a term for any hostile creature/person that is not elite (like a boss or something). That's it.

A rat is just an extremely (extremely) low level trash mob.

 

[Kane]

If you make loot too scarce, the game won't pop your RPG cherry.

How so?
Just to give a recent example, Bloodlines had very little loot yet it popped many people's RPG cherry.
Incidentally, it also had an objective based xp reward system. The fact that Sawyer wants to make PE heavily combat and loot based, but apply an objective based xp reward system is pretty schizoid design. Not surprising however, coming from a schizoid dude such as he.

I was generally speaking; I am well aware that some backwater nerds that still live in the 90s and complain on forums about the terrible, terrible state of cRPGs don't need no loot. Plus, loot is a major component of advancing your character, and usually as strong as advancement via skills if not stronger. You can't really progress through a game if you always stay shit, or you have to fight the same weak enemies over and over. A major draw of cRPGs (and for some the most important thing) is the feeling of getting stronger.
Sure Bloodlines is exceptional but that's simply not an RPG Obsidian would do. More over, even if they attempted it, they would probably fail. Obsidian makes very conservative RPGs.

Since Project: Eternity is deemed a dungeon crawler - which is next to aRPGs kinda the most loot-heavy sub-genre - the whole "no loot" narrative is completely out of the question.

 

[Blaine]

I'd thought that the term "trash mob" was first coined in World of Warcraft, since its instanced dungeons feature dozens/hundreds of completely useless mobs blocking the way to the final boss, which is the only mob with anything worth looting (if you're lucky). The trash mobs serve absolutely no purpose other than to waste players' time, especially since they run those dungeons many times over.

Plenty of MMOs before WoW had some kind of equivalent to "trash mobs," but I hadn't heard the term before WoW debuted, and I'd been playing MMOs for years prior to its release.

In any case, single-player RPGs don't remotely compare to the original meaning. Talk about misappropriated terminology.

 

[Grunker]

Bloodlines actually had pretty great loot. There wasn't much of it, but what you got was extremely rewarding and improved your situations. Magic items were generally powerful considering they took up no slots, armors were a massive increase in survivability and new weapons hugely improved combat performance.

And it had enough of it. Some things were available early but out of reach, some things were found during encounters and so on.

It was a "scarce" loot game but it had decent loot.

 

[Mrowak]

I'd thought that the term "trash mob" was first coined in World of Warcraft, since its instanced dungeons feature dozens/hundreds of completely useless mobs blocking the way to the final boss, which is the only mob with anything worth looting (if you're lucky). The trash mobs serve absolutely no purpose other than to waste players' time, especially since they run those dungeons many times over.

Plenty of MMOs before WoW had some kind of equivalent to "trash mobs," but I hadn't heard the term before WoW debuted, and I'd been playing MMOs for years prior to its release.

In any case, single-player RPGs don't remotely compare to the original meaning. Talk about misappropriated terminology.

Neverwinter Nights 1, and mostly Neverwinter Nights 2 come to my mind instantly when I think of "trash mobs". These two single player games feature thousands of encounters that fit your description to the letter. Most ARPGs fit the desciption as well. Even Planescape: Torment is one huge trashmob fest.

 

[Infinitron]

Grunker
Reminds me of a post I made last year: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lootless-rpgs.68939/

 

[Grunker]

Grunker
Reminds me of a post I made last year: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lootless-rpgs.68939/

It's what I love most about Icewind Dale I think. There's sooooo muuuuuch loooot, but it's all unique and all interesting. There's not loot of Diablo-like proportions, but there's a lot, and almost every item is unique and not just with random stat boni. HobGoblin42, take heed. I expect your game to be filled with unique loot

 

[imweasel]

Well, really good loot was rather uncommen in BG. The crap loot was only there so you could sell it for cash.

The effect is similar, the approach was just different.

 

[Grunker]

Well, really good loot was rather uncommen in BG. The crap loot was only there so you could sell it for cash.

The effect is similar, the approach was just different.

BG is, in my opinion, the worst of the five IE-games when it comes to loot. It had very little and very little interesting. A boring combination.

 

[Roguey]

Fallout is perfect the way it is which makes it ones of the best games ever made.

Ah, a troll.

Btw nobody ever went out "rat grinding" in Fallout to level up, only a moron would do that.

I killed every rat I saw. It's easy xp, all it takes up is time. Would I kill the rats if I didn't get xp for them? No, I don't think anyone would. Therefore rats would not exist in the quantities they do in Fallout 1/2 if they awarded xp for quest objectives only and it would be a better game.