Wish List for Book II?

[realmzmaster]

My suggestion is to make Book II bigger with more thought provoking puzzles and the ability to transfer my character from Book I probably sans equipment. If you allow the transfer, then you would have to change the character generation for new characters so they would be of a sufficient level to start the game. I want to see the ability to specializes in a branch of magic to the exclusion of other branches. Have a skill with bare handed fighting (martial arts?) The ability to create your own weapons or armor if you have access to a forge and raw materials with the appropriate skill. The Quest journal should show completed and uncompleted quests. The game should show the number of game days, Some time specific quests. (Quests have to be completed within a certain time limit.) Quests that are tied to learning an ancient language to decipher old manuscripts or finding and paying ( or doing a quest) for someone who can.

[farvardin]

- for book II it'd be nice to see parties like in baldur's gate, but maybe 2-3 pple max. But we can live without it.

- Random dungeons could be interesting, and allow to have an unlimited game. If you know the game ToME, it's a bit like this, defined outdoors, and roguelike dungeons.

- a game editor so people could create their own games and mods ! (like in neverwinter night)

- auto attack enemy (or barrels ) while holding mouse button

- I don't know if it could possible, and I find the book 1 system quite perfect, but a real experienced based XP like in Dungeon Siege II add some interesting things in the game : if you rather use your bow to attack enemies, you become more efficient with ranged weapons, if you use sword you're gaining XP in sword etc.

[steelcaress]

Speed.
Have a slider for speed, from slow to insanely fast. This might take care of the performance issues (hopefully).

Difficulty.
Have a difficulty selector. For example:
Easy - Monsters 1/2 hp
Normal - Monsters full hp
Hell - Monsters x2 hp

Combat.
Alter combat. You can keep damage and such, but maybe have a sort of "twitch factor" for dodging and blocking blows? Something where your reaction time is a factor, and the level in shield/dodge/parry would determine the amount of damage averted?

You could even have a "mouse gesture" type combat, where moving side to side is swing, moving mouse forward is a thrust, and moving it back is blocking.

Thrust could be the easiest and fastest but do the least damage. Swing could do more damage but be harder and slower. Then maybe have an option for a power strike which would be enabled if you've hit so many times or some such.

Larger graphics
I'm all for better resolutions, but often smaller resolutions mean ridiculously small game objects. Baldur's Gate 2 in 800x600 is almost unplayable because I don't have a 40-inch monitor. I have to play it in 640 x 480. You should be able to have it scale without losing quality.

Keep up the neat plots
It ain't old school -- it's way better. Old school was plodding around with a stick figure or vector graphics with no real goal in mind. Eschalon isn't like that, fortunately. And I know what I'm talking about. I'm a vetaran of Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, and Might & Magic games. And more. I played 'em all when I was a teen, including Rogue and Nethack. A lot of these (Diablo, cough! cough!) were plotless and pointless. That was fine back then, but the bar has been raised. I hated Diablo II and felt a bit cheated out of my hard-earned dollar.

Modification
Include an editor to allow modification of the game. I would love to play as a female, import my own portraits into the game, etc.

Keep the system
The mechanics as they are, are fine. Except for the fact that one person can't do everything (although you could make limited use magic items that open locks and such -- like scrolls). I like the open ended character creation. If I want a combat monster who can pick locks, I can make one. Don't take that away, please. That's one of the most frustrating aspects of D&D.

More as I think of it!

[ntrop]

I was thinking (in the spirit of old-school RPGs) that giving the option for movement by the keyboard, would allow for more freedom of control. I suppose I don't like being stuck on the mouse. (My feeling is similar to when I moved from the Super Nintendo to the N64 I always found it frustrating, having to use the control stick, and not having the option of being able to use the more accurate D-Pad to control... =D)

Since it's 8 directions that are possible, it would have to be the number pad. Additionally, if you can use the keyboard for movement, the game could be programmed such that 'moving' toward an immediately adjacent enemy would cause your character to attack it.

A benefit would that it's harder to 'misclick' an enemy!

But you would then have to work something out for casting spells...

[Al3xand3r]

Spice up combat by making more tactical options available (via the use of skills), not with gimmicky click-fest features. This isn't Diablo or The Witcher, it's 100% turn based bliss! I had to get this out of my chest. Now on to my own crappy ideas.

For Book II I'd like a party system but I wouldn't mind getting a single character again as I loved Book I anyway. For making the party system work without too much hassle (I think), I'd separate controls into two different (but very similar) modes:

Travel mode:
The game behaves just like it does in Book I with one exception. There are 2 (or however many) people following the main character on his exact path like a snake's body works. This should be enough to avoid having the party members separated and causing issues. The first member in line is the currently selected party "leader" which you can change at any time, perhaps by using the mouse wheel to scroll through the characters.

Battle mode:
Your turn doesn't pass as soon as you do an action, instead it passes after chosing an action for each member separately by first left clicking on it, then doing the same things you do in Book I. It would feel a bit like getting three turns in a row, except you move a different character each turn and then the enemy gets his turn (the AI does it all simultaneously as in Book I) before you repeat the process. This way it would be pretty fast paced like Book I still.

Switching between modes would be a simple matter of a hotkey or button click (middle mouse button's function maybe?). While in Combat mode you'd only exit the map area if the designated party leader reached the map border, not the other party members, to avoid accidental exits.
Travel mode would also be useful when backtracking through areas with easy low level enemies as you'd just hack & slash your way through them with the first character in line just like in Book I instead of using the more time consuming Combat mode.

The only problem I see with the above is how the game would align your characters after a map area change. That could be solved by making sure during the design process that all map areas have enough room to spawn all three characters no matter which entrance area you chose to use. The code written for the enemy loot drops seems sufficient in figuring out a free tile to place spawned objects on.

Overall, I'd have all the party characters function like the Book I character, each with their own paperdoll screen, spell hotkeys, quick item use panel etc. They could (should?) also have separate inventories, but make sure to give us the ability to open all three characters' inventories at the same time to easily trade items between them without the hassle of silly "give item to..." menus.

Other than that, I would like to see randomly generated dungeons which change and repopulate a while (a week, like the merchants?) after you complete them. The main story stuff would probably have to remain fixed to achieve the same sweet design of Book I but areas of lesser story importance could be randomly generated to have something to do after completing the main story and while waiting for Book III.
Some could be average generic stuff while others could be tough secret areas existing to provide an extra challenge for those who want to keep making their characters more and more powerful with higher levels and extra phat loot. Only bother with this thing AFTER completing an awesome story like Book I's

[Ameefmu]

I like the idea of meeting people on your travels who would join your party.
Reminds me of Cythera, or has someone already said that

For some reason, i dont like playing RPG's with just one character, even if i had a pet cat or noximander or anything.
I just dont want to imagine how lonely my character must be sometimes.

Another Idea: Realm Editor, User Made Scenarios.
Blades of Eschalon anyone?

[Horace2]

Cleaving: chance to dismember or mame, resulting in permanent reduced attack/defend ability until creature is dead?

Would be cool if it included graphical support! New tiles for each permutation of lost limb per creature!

[Horace2]

Politics and Religion content would both be great, remember what set Ultima 4 ahead of its peers at the time....was choice and consequences regarding a "sort of" religion. Could be very interesting.

Could be very annoying too.

Only if it added to the game rather than preached a message...

[Horace2]

One cool thing Wizardry 8 does is to have special skills which are unlocked when an attribute reaches a certain point (maxed out in Wiz8, but in a game without max attributes it could just be a threshold).

This sort of thing is easy to implement but potentially difficult to balance. But it adds a lot to the fun of character development, and replayability. Meaningful options in character development == replayability.

[Rune_74]

Hm have you played ultima 4? The virtue system made that game a classic.

[Horace2]

Hm have you played ultima 4? The virtue system made that game a classic.

The virtue system in U4 was interesting because of its logical structure and because of how integrated it was into the entire game. 3 principles, 8 virtues (one for each combination of 0, 1, 2, and 3 principles), each virtue with a dungeon and a town and a recruitable NPC, etc. That structure was the frame for the entire gameworld and plotline.

I don't think that would be easy to replicate and I certainly don't think it would be feasible to replicate that by trying to add it into an existing story arch.

[cadrash]

After completing whole game and exploring all areas in 16h.. i loved the game! It gave me good addicted feeling to explore and complete the game.

After this glorytalk some suggestions:

Gamma correction to adjust game lights
Mute options for sounds/music
More quests/areas/skills/spells/player levels/
Some random stuff to happen in game

Eschalon book I was and is the best game, that i have ever bought !

[zengrey]

I believe Rune_74 brought up a good point: larger cities/towns. Why is there only one of each type of vendor? Understandable in a village (Aridell, Bordertown) but what about Blackwater? Why not have a few of each type of vendor, have some of them be unscrupulous or shady, and then mercantile would be a better skill point to invest in, because you would have a more accurate depiction of small businesses and competition in cities. Or, perhaps have the vendors/merchants have a Mercantile skill level as well, and 'roll' against each other during interactions? That way, you 'dicker' instead of just getting a fixed rate. Maybe a dumb idea, but...

Cheers, zengrey

[Leej]

I am sure it has been mentioned but:
Side quests based upon Origin, Race, Sex, Axiom, Class, Whatever. Sure it would be a bunch more work but it would add replay value to Book 2.
In Book 1 you can accomplish quests in different ways depending on your skill set, but they're all the same quest whether you are a Rogue or a Priest, a Barrean or a Rifter.
Branched dialog that varies based upon Origin, Race, Sex, Axiom, Class, Whatever would be nice as well. Have shop keepers treat you with respect if you are a priest, fear if you are a fighter, distrust if you are a rogue. Perhaps the local blacksmith hates Nor'landers because one killed his dog when he was a child and the local priest gives his fellow Kessians a discount.

[Grue]

Well, as everyone has already said, Book II needs to be bigger with larger towns, more land to explore, more NPCs, more dialog, more side quests, etc. etc.

In addition, I'd like to see the combat system developed a bit further than "click until one of you is dead". Okay, I admit, that was an unfair exaggeration. However, discounting luring enemies into traps and throwing demon oil flasks, if you're a pure fighter not using magic, Book I's combat basically boils down to that, IMHO. *ducks for cover*

I don't think Eschalon should go the Action Point way. Even if there is nothing wrong with an AP system, per se, I think such a system fits better to games with multiple characters in party. As Book II is going to be a solo adventure, the "one action per turn" way of Book I suits it well. Just add more depth to that.

For example, allow characters learn "advanced combat moves" (or feats) as their combat skills get higher. These moves would be the fighter's spells, so to speak, he could e.g. choose to execute a "mighty blow" to do more damage at the expence of accuracy or he could do a "hamstring cut" and halve the enemy's movement rate (to flee from him, for example). In order to limit these moves, either have their good and bad effects evenly balanced, so it's always a trade-off (not a win-win situation) or include Stamina Points in the game and all special moves use up Stamina. However, a MMO-style refresh counter, is not the right way to implement this, IMO. I hate those - combat will degenerate to a game of "watch my refresh counters" really quick.

Bow/missile combat could benefit from the above system as well. It would also be nice to have an aiming action in the game. If you e.g. right-click on a target (when holding a bow) you aim at him and if you fire at him on the next round (by left-clicking), you get a bonus to your accuracy (to-hit roll). Or something. (And as a player who went through Book I as a ranger, pretty please, lower the cost of arrows!!)

While the graphics of Book I are great, especially the terrain, buildings and items, the characters (PC/NPC) are a bit bland. It would be great to see some improvement in them come Book II. Maybe a bit more vibrant colors or more detail and variation, I dunno. Something to liven them up. Now they sort shrink next to the great backgrounds. But other than that, I have no qualms with the graphics.

I also would like to say a hearty "aye" to droppable lanterns (makes archery feasible in dungeons), herbs found in the wild (not just as loot) and a longer day cycle (and would like the cycle to be 2/3 day and 1/3 night).

P.S. BW, please do not go overboard with traps and puzzles in Book II. Book I had the right trap/puzzle density, anything more would be a detriment, IMO. (I mean, why would Joe the Peasant have a magical fire trap guarding his chest with just an apple inside it...)