Originally posted by Isane

Originally posted by skipeth

I'm sure that some of the vast amount of information stored on a player includes what amounts to your standing with a LOT of factions. Current games that reveal faction and have tasks that give you a known +/- faction and faction based rewards means that you get suckered into a faction grind. You Sadists may like faction grinding but I'd rather play to have fun.

 

It's transparent did you not understand... shame.

Um, yes I did. Did you not understand my post which supports transparency by supplying a counter-example of what you get by revealing faction information?

reposted since the html tags got screwed up somehow

I'm sure that some of the vast amount of information stored on a player includes what amounts to your standing with a LOT of factions. Current games that reveal faction and have tasks that give you a known +/- faction and faction based rewards means that you get suckered into a faction grind. You Sadists may like faction grinding but I'd rather play to have fun.

As Mater once said, "Them hirelings sure are dumb." I agree Savarage, npc allies seem to get the lowest level of AI and generally come with two modes Attk and Defend (which are indistinguishable from each other). Pets are pretty much the same way, but at least you can give them a few direct commands.

What would be really awesome is to use a player controlled AI like in FFXII. As you progress in the game and can access higher level hirelings/pets, you have access to a wider range of commands and you can set up more of them. You should be able to save multiple AI setups so you can create and load different templates based on the type of hireling. I know Jatar has mentioned that there are no immediate plans for pets and gave some examples in a previous thread. I think that giving them a robust player editable AI would resolve some issues. Such as if you decide to sneak and your pet/hireling is able to sneak then you can set them up to: Master-Sneaks -> Sneak.

Realistic ecosystem would be cool. As well as seasons and changing landscape.

There are no levels so how can there be a leveling curve?  (my bad, apparently there is some new and improved level system) The progression of difficulty in leveling is mostly an illusion of numbers as the cost and rewards as you progress continue to increase. What really matters is the time it takes to progress. Your second argument about punishing players who branch to new things at higher level is a balance issue. How do you balance the challenge of an encounter for your high level knight who decides to develop spell skills? Given more hit points and better equipment than a starting caster, your high level knight should have no problem overcoming the sewer rats that are a challenge to a beginning caster. The proper balance is achieved when takes you the same amount of time to improve your casting abilities as it does for that initiate caster. This kind of balance is not easy to attain in most games as it will completely vary by class and level.

The website and Jatar have yet to provide info on progression. Hopefully we'll have that soon :) The info so far is that there are 5 schools. So unlike multi-classing in class-based games you have a greater amount of leeway in your characters progression just within your primary school. Previous information implied that it costs to be in a guild and that cost increases as you apply to more schools. Since the game is not bound to grinding kills for xp, I think it will be easier to balance the progression of a character who has specialized for some time in a single school then tries his hand at another.

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Originally posted by noobzor

I think your kids killed your Wife in Fable.

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heh, That's what my wife(rl) said.

Hey Noobz haven't heard from you in awhile :)

I haven't played RE4, but in Fable 2, when you select an NPC it provides information on their personality. For example, both of my children were Aggressive, Childish and Evil. Oddly enough, when I returned to town one day, my wife had mysteriously died and no one had any info on cause of death...

I'd love to be able to work on the AI! it sounds amazing. Unfortunately, dropping what I'm currently doing to go intern is probably not a good choice :(

What do you mean they have lives?? Shouldn't they stand forever in the same spot with a ! over there head? :)

Sounds fantastic, a bit more in depth and realistic akin to Fable and Fallout. I like this Faceless guy already. Speaking of realism (or lack thereof)... What of townsfolk and shopkeepers? I like in Fable that your hero is far tougher than anyone in town as it should be... that's why they are in town, not out heroing (is that word??). In other games shopkeepers provide a service to all players and some townsfolk are quest givers(another service). Therefore, they ALWAYS must be available to provide service and maintain the static nature of the world. What I'd like to see in CoS (like unto Fable) is that townsfolk are squishy and dynamic.

Example:
Bob the Baker runs a bakery that provides breads, pastries and bob's special apple pie (tastiest in the kingdom). MinMax teh Dork doesn't like Bob so he smites Bob. Bob falls to his knees to surrender, but MinMax finishes him off well before guards arrive. MinMax is arrested and pays fine/does community service.
Timmy PieLover returns to town later to find that Bob's Bakery has been closed. "NOOOOOO!!!" Timmy cries, swearing vengance on MinMax. Several days later the Bakery reopens, but Bob is gone and so are his pies. Unfortunately, the new owner Mrs. Lovet's meat pies are less than satisfactory.

I think it's a great concept and I don't see why a little randomness would affect a hard core gamer.  You should be more than capable of dealing with a hit of bad luck every now and then.

If I don't get around to playing one due to time constraints I'd definitely group with one... however... Having played D&D for many years, people who play Kender or Kender-like Halflings use race as an excuse to act like an idiot.  In CoS I can see a flocking of ass-clowns to the Jenome race. 

The "luck" concept also reminds me of Ring World.

Info on crafting can be found here: http://www.citadelofsorcery.com/questions/questlist.php?Q=8

"But in CoS you can create any object you wish, as long as you obtain the correct Mundane object first, improve it through specific adventures and/or obtain any pieces you wish worked into the item."

My take on this is that presumably you could then turn water into wine(or other drink) given the Mundane object of water and the correct adventure(s). I could see doing this for producing a batch of pots, but it may be a lot of work to create consumnables one at a time.

My dislikes in crafting are repetitive process, crappy economic models and scaling of equipment produced to equipment attained through slaughter/quests.

CoS removes the repetitive process by making an adventure out of improving a mundane item. No more repetitive harvesting and mini-games to make the large quantities of crap needed to advance crafting skill. Without the need to produce large quantities of crap, the economy isn't flooded with said crap. Since CoS has made "questing" an individual story, the links between specific quests and associated uber gear vanishes. I'd guess that the best gear in the game will be the stuff you take the time to get to a status of soulbound.

A follow up question for Jatar relating to the question of NPC vendor shops being an infinite dumping grounds to sell loot. Has the team considered a dynamic economic model that takes into account supply/demand of both gear(including cost of base material) as well as monetary supply?

This leads to the question, "What is the purpose of banks in game?" In current games, a bank acts in the simple capacity of being a player's mule. That's really kinda lame, just like packing around thousands of minted coins. If you have a bank it should perform banking functions, charge for safe storage, pay interest on deposits, and make loans. A point of interest is that convertible paper notes have been used since the 600s. Therefore it would be quite conceivable to turn in quantities of metal coins to a bank which would then give the player a convertible note for the amount (or for the amount + interest convertible at a later date).

Congrats on getting picked up for Dev Team.

Great choice in guild name! I'm signing up :)

Thanks for the update. I think you all made the right decision to post early. I hope that the discussions generated on the forums last year were helpful to the team in their development.

It's also nice to see a definite lack of trolls in this forum.

I'm glad there is a lot of work going into ensuring skills are different.  When Horizons first came out, it was class based, but you could freely move between classes and pick up an assortment of skills/abilities.  Unfortunately, there was sufficient overlap of skills that made the whole system a bit blah and they had to re-write it.

"...testing phases planned later this year."  sweet!! BETA

Guilds/villages/keeps sounds like it's moving in a great direction.  I thought that instancing every guild from the same door in town kinda weak, but this sounds great.

Keep up the great work!!

I hope you all had a great vacation.

Are we going to get to see the Christmas party pics?

Heh, thanks Noobzor, and enjoy your net-free vacation!

Looking forward to next weeks update!

Any chance the loyal fans can drop by the party?

A big cheer for non-static worlds!  A day-night cycle (lighting effect only), random rain, and passing out candy canes at christmas doesn't make a static world any less static. 

Jatar, are we going to have a holiday update soon?  Kinda like an extra present for christmas.

Sounds like you've been playing some Final Fantasy.  But the truly badass 1-hit KO bosses are either immune or gain life from the damage of their 1-hit KO attack.  Your reflect FAILs.

As Reflect is a defensive spell, it would be better suited to put on armor.  Although your batter analogy is amusing, it is self limiting to directed attacks that initiate at the caster and travel to you as a projectile.  This fails the "cool" effect when you are engulfed in fire and there is nothing tangible to strike at.

As for Reflect itself, that would be pretty sweet. 

If you did that in my D&D campaign, the glyph would blow your hand off and you'd be out several days while you get your hand regen'd.

Although not available in Baldur's Gate, there is a D&D 3.5 prestige class called Spellsword that allows you to fire off a spell as part of a successful melee attack. Buy 2 swords of spell storing (3rd level). Your opening attack against boss guy is two melee attacks and three lightning bolts.

The CoS Q&A on equipment describes the process of improving items through questing.  The enchanting you are describing I think would be more like buffs(non-permanent effects).  Such as applying poison to a weapon for a single attack or adding elemental damage.

And Jatar just posted on the weapons? thread about adding single shot spell buffs. sweet