The Drunken Lizard Pub

dteowner wrote:Hopefully the merchants will have a decent amount of gold. The ridiculous attempt to control the economy used in Morrowind was nothing more than a major annoyance. It would be a shame for this game to make the same mistake.

Yes, but it was anecessary evil in a game like Morrowind where wealth could be directly translated in skills, levels, and enchantments. Players could literally buy their way to glory in Morrowind!
The flipside of this is many other RPGs (like Nwn) where the accumulation of wealth becomes meaningless.

I'd be curious to see the route that Eschalon takes: will the player be able to amass wealth and buy skill levels or stat increases by paying for training, or will wealth only be used to buy basic items and become pointless half way through the game? Or perhaps somewhere in between...

Hopefully somewhere in between...

Leej, you mention how "the accumulation of wealth becomes meaningless" in some RPGs. Isn't this a lot like real life? I mean, think of Bill Gates or Donald Trump; to someone with extreme wealth, earning another million doesn't really mean anything to them. This isn't just a problem in RPGs, it's a problem in real life too!

Eschalon plays to where money is critical for the first part of the game, but then it looses it's value as you acquire more and more assets. But you can never really "buy your way to glory" in Eschalon because the most exotic weapons can't be bought; they must be found. And you can only purchase training so far; eventually your character's advancement must be earned through sweat and blood.

dteowner: there will always be a merchant somewhere in Eschalon with pockets deep enough to purchase your exotic finds...

BasiliskWrangler wrote:Hopefully somewhere in between...

Leej, you mention how "the accumulation of wealth becomes meaningless" in some RPGs. Isn't this a lot like real life? I mean, think of Bill Gates or Donald Trump; to someone with extreme wealth, earning another million doesn't really mean anything to them. This isn't just a problem in RPGs, it's a problem in real life too!

Eschalon plays to where money is critical for the first part of the game, but then it looses it's value as you acquire more and more assets. But you can never really "buy your way to glory" in Eschalon because the most exotic weapons can't be bought; they must be found. And you can only purchase training so far; eventually your character's advancement must be earned through sweat and blood.

dteowner: there will always be a merchant somewhere in Eschalon with pockets deep enough to purchase your exotic finds...

Sounds good to me! Games where you have to search for the good stuff are always the best. Sometimes it is hard to get out of the must.accumulate.more.gold mentlity though. Like you say, that's a lot like real life as well!

I am really looking forward to this game. Nice to hear the Mac update on the news page.

ye a shame and seems that google only cached the first page of this thread

Regarding the world map, is travel going to be a moving dot between locations (like Fallout), or a bunch of defined areas, like Baldur's Gate?

If it was more Fallout-like, I would love to see (in Eschalon 2) a pirate sub-plot involving sea travel, and ship-to-ship and ship-to-sea-monster combat. Specific sea/ship tiles could be used for random encounters at sea, and dock or anchored tiles for visiting islands and ports.

Regarding travelling between locations I would much prefer a Realms of Arkania or Return to Krondor approach: pre-defined branching routes, of course which you have to discover.

The travel system of Fallout was one of my major disappointments with the game.

Actually, it's more like Ultima. Book I takes place in a province of Eschalon called Thaermore and you can walk everywhere within that province...you don't travel via a "world map". However, in some towns you can purchase passage to another part of the province for that "instant travel" effect, and in at least example that I can think of you can purchase passage to an area outside of Thaermore.

What about resolution of the game window?
Does the game run in 1280x1024?

Im asking this because of the game interface. I know its hard to create all resolution compatible graphics.

I always enjoyed games that allowed more map to be displayed by running the game on higher resolutions. Eschalon run at 2560x1600 showing a huge portion of the game world at a time would pretty cool. Allowing for the game to be run in multiple windows would be nifty as well; having the map up as one window and having inventory up as another window and such would be nice.

Yeah, I think I answered this before our infamous forum crash, but it looks like it's another casualty...

Book I runs at a lowly 800x600 full screen, or you can run it in a 800x600 window on your desktop. It would be impossible this late in development to change the game's default resolution without majorly delaying the release, so any rendering changes are going to have to wait for Book II.

From the screen shots I am guessing that the spell system is similar to Ultima/Wizardry in that spells drain a replenishing power pool in order to cast. If this is the case, can you elaborate on how the power pool replenishes?

Does it happen over time (e.g. every step replenishes a little) or do you need to sleep, pray, drink a potion... etc?

My personal preference is to have a small base amount of restoration over time that can be supplemented by other means.

Thank you,

DanS

Yep, Hit Points and Mana Points regenerate over time...something like one point every 60 turns is the base regeneration rate. You can speed this rate up by boosting certain Attributes (Constitution & Perception) and learning specialized skills (Survival & Meditation).

Of course, you can also heal yourself by drinking elixirs and potions for that "instant cure" effect.

Has anyone talked about save games?

I think that only allowing you to save a game outside a dungeon or city, or maybe even only in an inn is a good idea. I know this is probably unpopular but I always thought it added a level excitement when exploring a dungeon. If you know if you die you have to start over it makes it much more nerve racking.

How is this handled in Eschalon? Are saves allowed at any time?

Yes, saves are allowed anytime, anywhere.

I guess it does take some of the challenge away from the game, but personally I play CRPGs with my own "game-save rules", meaning I don't allow myself to save except in towns or at the entrance of a dungeon. I'd rather encourage people to play that way then to force everyone to have limited save options.

Hey I recently just joined the forums, although I have been waiting eagerly for Eschalon since about mid last year - and I personally cant wait for it, its looking mad.

Two questions that I would like to ask are, how many hours approximately will the main quest take to complete - and once we complete Book I will you make character transfers available into Book II and III?

Im sorry if these questions have been answered before