Officialish Thread of Nifty Requests

[Lurking Grue]

In place of point n' click movement allow me to hold the mouse button down and move my party in the direction of the cursor perpetually, like in the Ultima games.

Seconded. This would be a very welcome addition.

[Gribble]

Camp fires. I'd like to see more of them. It's a pain to backtrack multiple levels of a dungeon just to rest up. I realize it's to discourage the Baldur's Gate method of fighting, resting, fighting, resting. There are some spots where a fire would make sense but there isn't one. For example, take the cave to the southwest of the Knight's tower. The thri-keen enclave would be a perfect place to rest. Instead, I'm forced to go up two levels and camp at the bear cave. Bit of a pain.

How about this: after a dungeon floor has been cleared or some other parameter is met the player may build a campsite. This way we can eliminate some of that backtracking. It interrupts the flow of adventure when you find yourself running back and forth.

[Demiath]

Camp fires. I'd like to see more of them. It's a pain to backtrack multiple levels of a dungeon just to rest up. I realize it's to discourage the Baldur's Gate method of fighting, resting, fighting, resting. There are some spots where a fire would make sense but there isn't one. For example, take the cave to the southwest of the Knight's tower. The thri-keen enclave would be a perfect place to rest. Instead, I'm forced to go up two levels and camp at the bear cave. Bit of a pain.

How about this: after a dungeon floor has been cleared or some other parameter is met the player may build a campsite. This way we can eliminate some of that backtracking. It interrupts the flow of adventure when you find yourself running back and forth.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this, but after having played the Orc Stockade dungeon (which, to put things mildly, makes the cave you're talking about seem extremely generous when it comes to camp fire access), I'm beginning to strongly suspect (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that a certain colored reptile in charge here is vehemently opposed to making any concessions on that front whatsoever. You go in well-prepared and survive more or less all the way through, or you don't go in at all...

That being said, from the little I've seen so far of the game it seems that the general principle of "accomplish something first, then unlock a camp fire" is being applied in several instances, although perhaps not in the way you'd like (the bear cave you mentioned is one example, the locked house in Corinth is another).

[Lurking Grue]

...but after having played the Orc Stockade dungeon (which, to put things mildly, makes the cave you're talking about seem extremely generous when it comes to camp fire access)...

Indeed. IMO, the Orc Stockade takes this a bit too far. Especially as *spoiler*you're trapped inside it and have to make it through several pretty intense fights to get out (and couple of not so intense fights where you must know to be very conservative with your spell casting). I don't particularly like dungeons where you practically need to do a practice run first, in order to know what to do and how to conserve your powers, and then do the real run optimizing on your knowledge of how things unfold. I'm not saying the Orc Stockade is quite like that, but it's pretty darn close, IMHO.

One thing that has required me the most wrangling with the game interface is the cursor. Nearly every game (and windows itself) has the cursor's TOP edge (usually top left) be the thing with what to point and select, but in KotC it is the BOTTOM corner. This is very hard for me to remember and adjust to for some reason. Then strangely it changes to TOP left corner when you're dropping loot in your characters' inventory. Confusing.

[Demiath]

I don't particularly like dungeons where you practically need to do a practice run first, in order to know what to do and how to conserve your powers, and then do the real run optimizing on your knowledge of how things unfold. I'm not saying the Orc Stockade is quite like that, but it's pretty darn close, IMHO.

Pretty darn close indeed. For example, If it hadn't been for the Craft feat (with which I created healing spells etc. long after I had run out of MP) I would never have gotten out of that place alive. That being said, I wouldn't have had any issue at all with this dungeon if only [spoilers] the alternative underground exit had not been so bloody well-guarded; that way you would at the very least have had a quite feasible emergency escape route even if you happened to be a bit low on HP and MP (or simply didn't have the XP level to survive the entirety of the dungeon) and hadn't clairvoyantly anticipated the risk of getting trapped inside the Orc Stockade. Notice that this design would still have required you to get through quite a few of the corridor fights on the second floor alive - as well as pay attention to the various clues which informed you that the alternative exit existed at all - but it would have made the whole challenge significantly less unforgiving. I should say right away that this whole argument hinges on my presupposition that there really aren't any clever methods with which to get past those hard-hitting gnoll guards at the underground exit without having to fight them, and there might very well be such a way that I simply wasn't intelligent and perceptive enough to discover (if so it wouldn't exactly be the first time...). [/spoilers]

[Gribble]

You know, it's funny, but my experience with the Orc Stockade was just the opposite. There's a campsite on almost every floor. I've heard some people say the Stockade was too difficult, but honestly I never once got stock... well, granted I haven't cleared the alternate exit, mind you, but seeing as how that's optional I don't think it counts.

[Demiath]

There's a campsite on almost every floor.

Well, in that case I'm just a bloody fool and should have my forum license immediately revoked for failing to meet the Perception requirements. How could I possibly have missed that; especially considering that I first mistakenly believed that the alternative exit was on the first floor and thus closely examined each room (behind the blocked entry) for about 20 minutes and clicked on everything I could find?

Edit:
Ah, I see the camp fires now and understand why it's not so surprising that I missed them; they were both located in the rooms with the most challenging enemy encounters, and those were the very same rooms which I consistently stayed away from precisely because the other fights on both these floors had already drained my MP and HP while I was searching for the underground exit. Of course, I now realize that I was meant to spot the camps and focus on clearing at least one of them out, instead of being hell-bent on finding that rumored escape route before my resources were depleted.

[Gendal]

Bought the game soon after I saw the post on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Love it. For a basically one guy production it's amazing, especially considering the complexity of the OGL, simplified or not.

Of course it's not perfect, hence my wishlist below. It would be boring to say how much fun I am having with the tactical combat, crafting, exploration, etc so instead lets get down to the minor gripes:

1)Item Transfer hotkey. By this I mean while holding an item hit 1-4 to transfer it to the appropriate PC.
2)Quick sell hotkey. While in a store hit S with an item on your cursor to sell it.
3)Echoing the Masterwork Identification request. M. , C. (cold iron), A. (adamantium), etc Longsword would be great. Or even just an asterisk to denote it's special.
4)Battle cursor should remember the individual PC's last used attack, not the last one used by anyone.

Not knowing how you coded everything some of these might be easy and some next to impossible, but I can hope.

My pie in the sky request would be an expanded viewport with true type antialiased fonts, you wouldn't even need any new artwork it looks like. Just a metric ton of programming time. Maybe for the next title!

[BlueSalamander]

Thank you Gendal!

Except the true type, all these are doable. Can't say exactly when they will make it into the game but there's a good chance that they will.

[BlueSalamander]

Demiath, it's because you were lured into a very convincing trap... Be careful when dealing with the baddies!