The Drunken Lizard Pub

Kreador Freeaxe wrote:Shhhhh. Don't tell CrazyBernie you liked his work. It'll just go to his head.

Who?!... Never heard of him!!

AXS wrote:If i´m not mistaken (please feel free to correct me if i am) i recall that someone in the forums did the texts in the skillboks (can´t remember his/hers nickname) , it was a superb job!! i look forward seeing more in the next book , and more than the skillbooks if possible .

Yeah, those books were pretty good. I liked 'em a lot.

I think one way of making the book more useful is to make the information in it applicable or even necessary to your in-game progress. I really don't recall, in B2, needing to know anything I've read in any of the books in order to talk to somebody, trigger any dialogue or solve a puzzle . . . even the one written by the brother of... was it Wendy? Poor girl.

You know... I liked that part of the game, in the beginning, with the mind-controlled people. That really sort of disappeared.

some kind of multiplayer O.o

I dream to play a dwarf character.

Party based combat, possibly with an action point system.
A more densely populated world (even if it has to be smaller).
More unique, special locations. Medieval villages and such get old.
Much bigger focus on characters, events, choices and consequences.

IJBall wrote:

Kreador Freeaxe wrote:Shhhhh. Don't tell CrazyBernie you liked his work. It'll just go to his head.

Who?!... Never heard of him!!

**snnkkg* Huh, what?? Who? Oh.... hmm... zzzzZzzZzZZZzzzz

nigmashumma wrote:I dream to play a dwarf character.

Playing other "races/species" is a perennial of other CRPGs. I have mixed feelings about it in Eschalon - I also think playing a Dwarf would be cool, but having not gotten the option in Books I/II I almost think it shouldn't be an option in Book III either.

But I definitely would like that option in later Basilisk Games... games.

Maybe, but the problem I think, here, is that this requires extra writing, and it seems to me that usually RPG developers mess up on this (referring to your female character as a male, only mentioning your heritage in passing, with no consequences, etc.). I'd prefer limiting the options if it means strong writing and strong character development. (And that is -- development of the NPCs as much as the protagonist.)

I would personally like to see more characters that have nothing to do with quests/storyline. I want background characters to expand the world info a bit, make the world feel more alive. Less cold.

I would also like to expand the religion in the game to make it more organic, less structured formulaic.

Just two ideas to warm the world up so to say.

Maybe this has already been mentioned, but:

Have a way to unlearn spells. As your character develops it is natural to learn new spells as soon as they are encountered (read, learned, etc.). Lower level characters may need the help as soon as they can get it. Eventually a limit is reached on how many spells a character can "hold" (you don't know how many this will be either). Towards the end of the game you can generally read and understand more powerful spells. In my experience at later stages of the game I find I can now read the spells, but my mind is "too full" with lower level spells to actually be able to use any new ones.

An option to this might be to weight the spells so that a character of given intelligence/wisdom/whatever can hold a certain number of spell points, low level spells use fewer spell points than higher level spells. Thus a character could have a lot of lower level spells or a few high level spells (or a combination). The player would still need some indication of the spell load a character can have and a way to rebalance the load as the game progresses.

As already mentioned the game needs to better distinguish the character classes. For instance a Rogue might not be able to throw spells or a Mage cannot use certain weapon classes.

I would REALLY REALLY like to see some of the merchant available item imbues (ie: Strongman's Belt, Burglar's Gloves, Cloak of Shadows) appear on all tiers of items, not ONLY the lowest tier. It's incredibly aggravating to visit a merchant at level 20-ish and have him offer you a light armor glove with 5 armor value, and another one with +2 lock picking and 1 armor value.. EVERY DAMN TIME.

Get rid of the book 2 gear swapping mechanic and go back to the book 1 version. If you want to make the alternate weapon swap take 1 round, that's fine. Alternately, keep the book 2 version, but make it take only one round regardless of the number of items swapped. If it takes more than one round, it's not worth keeping.

Also, remove the limitation of 3 imbues per item. A cap of 5 imbues would be better, in my books. Balance it with alchemy skill requirements. Something like (Alchemy ranks/10)+1 rounded down = max imbues you can place on an item. This would allow someone with alchemy 10 to imbue an item twice, 20 allows three imbues, etc. This way you could allow 5 imbue items, but it would require a HEAVY skill investment to get it.

Bob: I've said it before and I'll say it again: weapon & armor restrictions on spellcasters are nonsensical. Even if spellcasting somehow makes the body extraordinarily frail: there's no reason why you can't cast a spell while encased in 60 pounds of metal, nor any reason that I can see why a mage shouldn't be able to cast a spell while holding a sword and shield (but somehow holding a staff or mace or wearing gloves is no problem at all).

Otherwise, I agree with your post.

And actually, I think it'd be more realistic to create movement and combat penalties for people wearing heavy armor. (I think somebody else suggested this recently.) You can cast a spell, since that doesn't require strength or dexterity, only a keen mind... but warriors and especially rogues should have to pay particular attention to how much restriction they want to suffer.

Nothing to do with on going discussions but I have a little wish for Book III. I'd like to see more treasure or herbs/food stuffs hidden in tree stumps. Like the one in Book I. Could be something dropped from a previous camper, someone sat on the trunk and stuff fell out of pocket, whatever. Give a reason to check them all while walking around.

How about being able to recover a thrown weapon?

I mean as your skill in thrown weapon increases, your chances of recovering any of your thrown weapon used in killing an opponent also increases to balance out a little about "Thrown weapons" being the most expensive weapons. If your really an expert with the skill then you should be able to hit your enemies on the right spots and avoid breaking your weapon, right?

onlynoly wrote:How about being able to recover a thrown weapon?

With a varied chance of recoverability -- it could be broken or damaged, or difficult to disengage from the enemy or wherever, or could simply get lost in some brush, bog, water etc. -- yes, I agree.