A few suggestions

[solistus]

I have a lot to say about Eschalon, since Book 1 sucked me in for quite a while. I'll try to keep it short and simple, with rationale for each suggestion

1. Some form of mob repop

It's cool that areas can be 'cleared' and remain safe, but it can be kind of annoying to sleep a couple days between each random camp encounter, since that seems to be the only repeatable random fight. Oftentimes when playing Book 1, I didn't feel like questing or completing a dungeon or whatnot, and just wanted to fight some mobs for exp and loot. One way to do this would be to have a 'cleared' flag set by certain scripted events / quests, but have zones repopulate randomly over time. If I kill a few monsters that happen along my path through a forest, it makes sense that next time I show up, there might be a few more. Some zones could be set to cleared when all mobs were killed, some by quests, some not at all. At any rate, some 'natural' feeling random encounter would be a refreshing alternative to the camp grind.

2. Some form of bank/storage

This one is pretty simple. Many players resort to finding 'safe' chests in towns that no NPCs think are theirs for extra storage. A more elegant solution, like a magic vault or bank, would be nice.

3. More info on skills, new skills

It would be nice to see some basic formulas or at least some more specifics about what, e.g., weapon skills do. Also, of course, some new or changed skills would be nice to keep things interesting.

4. Keep the engine

Tweaks and enhancements are good, but the reason we're all here is that Book I is a great game. Don't make changes for the sake of changes. The turn-based mechanic is amazing; there's no clunky 'combat mode' to switch in and out of. The skill system is great, although some rebalancing would be nice. The basics of the engine and GUI are just fine. Book II should build on Book I, not try to reinvent the wheel.

5. More non-magic abilities

Both classes of magic are extraordinarily useful to virtually any character, and add plenty of cool abilities. Combat skills just make it quicker to kill things by clicking on them repeatedly. Some more nuance to non-magic builds would be nice. The silent/hidden mechanics are a good start (although hide in shadows is way overpowered), but adding some combat abilities and such would be great. Stealth combat characters could learn backstabbing and speed-based attacks, whereas tanks and strength maxers could get powerful bashes, cleaves, etc. This would encourage characters to specialise a bit more between weapons and spells for combat, and would make a purely weapon-focused approach more appealing.

6. Less variation on loot drops

As anyone who's succumbed to the temptation to quicksave-reload to reroll chests is aware, chests can often vary from worthless bones to expensive magic items based on the luck of the roll. Randomised loot is excellent, but the degree of randomness should be toned down a lot. Good chests should have minimum values below which they will never roll. As it stands, a reroller can be very well geared and wealthy, whereas an 'honest' character will be broke with mediocre gear for much of the game absent some great luck. Having the possibility of quicksave rerolling is actually a nice game feature, but making it necessary if you want to get decent loot is not.

7. CONTENT CREATION TOOLS

This is absolutely key. Good content creation tools mean an easy time for the devs to produce lots of extra game content (who doesn't love more spells, skills, side quests, dungeons, mobs, etc.?). Even better, they mean that, if the devs are mod-friendly and provide the tools to modders, great third party content can emerge. Imagine if Book II were built as a modular scenario to a new and improved engine, and characters could move from scenario to scenario. Modders could create new high-level content for people who have finished the game, people could create alternate campaigns for new characters.... Book III could even be designed within the content creation tools and finished much quicker. Engine enhancements could be handled separately via patches over the life of the series, and if the modular content is handled properly, backwards compatibility should be a non-issue. That would be an ideal scenario, but even a more modest implementation could be a great boon to the game.

[krisklef]

I agree with #1 and #5 above. Allowing certain places to slowly repopulate will add to the realism and give the player more decisions to make when retracing steps. Not too quickly, though, so that players can't hugely alter the amount of available XP in the scenario.

I love the random loot feature, but feel like certain areas of the map deserve a minimum level of booty for the trouble. I do not reload for treasure, but have been tremendously disappointed after a reload for foolish-early-demise reasons resulted in a significant downgrade of my loot when I forgot to save after opening the chest.

Just my 2 cents

Edit:

Umm, #1 and #6 above, that is.

[MaximB]

A few more suggestions ...

1. Make the night brighter : yes I know you wanted to make it more realistic but with a torch the night still looks way too dark.
2. Make the day/night shifting longer : the day/night was too short in book1, and I mean way too short.
3. Make more non-magic attacks : if you got a sword or an axe all you could do is hit and hit and hit again, it would be better to make more different kind of attacks.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Thanks for the suggestions! I love these posts because it really makes me examine what we've done to get the Book II engine updated, and what we still need to do. Sometimes it's easy for good (but small) requests to get lost in a mountain of "ToDo" items.

[thomas]

8. Quicktravel options over cleared areas - like horse, dragon (quest? ,... which shall help you travel over long distances of empty maps - unless you camp, you won't meet anything anyway, so no deal.

Or, if not based on in-game features, then just a way to "turbo"ize game time - so it will go like 2-12x faster and when you encounter something, it will go on "normal", before continuing.

[sirchet]

I would like to hear more music of the same quality you've given us in book I. I'd also like to carry a character over to book II with all his equipment and items.

MOST importantly, I would like book II released now...or sooner.

[Dragonlady]

I would like to hear more music of the same quality you've given us in book I. I'd also like to carry a character over to book II with all his equipment and items.

MOST importantly, I would like book II released now...or sooner.

Patience grasshopper, patience! After all they just started serious work on it in mid Jan. of this year! We''ll be lucky if we get a finshed, well done game by Dec. of this year.

[sirchet]

*makes note* Dragonlady stated Dec this year. alright!

[acoustibop]

She also stated "We''ll be lucky if we get a finshed, well done game by Dec. of this year..."

[sirchet]

I choose to be hopeful, thank you very much...


ps...keep up the good work and please keep us posted.

[Dragonlady]

She also stated "We''ll be lucky if we get a finshed, well done game by Dec. of this year..."

Yeah, what he said. And..that "we'll" is not the game company, it is us, the fans 'we'.

[acoustibop]

Indeed - but, as sirchet said, we can always hope!