[fable]

Thanks for the replies, Vince. Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by Vince D. Weller

You are never treated like a hero and you never become a demigod in terms of your own powers.

I probably didn't express myself well. I don't like munchkin powers at all--and that's one reason I find ToB a bit of a turnoff, even when you're facing enemy munchkins: two many atomic bombs spoil the broth. But I'm really thinking when I write of avoiding the hero treatment more along the lines of a character who, for some strange reason, is confided in by everybody he/she comes across. The Fallout titles and Arcanum had a lot of this: "Hello, I need a case of medicine quickly, and although there are 531 inhabitants of my town, I decided to ask you, first." Only BG2 and Ultima VI/VII really made this work, in my opinion, because in their respective game worlds you already *were* a hero. And to their credit, they also used that in a reverse ironical sense, playing the hero angle up as a trap.

But based on the sum of your reponses, I'm willing to bet this isn't a problem. It sounds like many quest systems are also closed off to you in any particular game, depending upon your choice of profession and certain actions, which greatly increases genuine game time above 30-40 hours. (Genuine in the sense of new gameplay, as opposed to playing again for the sake of trying out a different class in the exact same quests, faced with identical battles as the solution to everything.)

Reputation stats, including prestige, loyalty, honor, body count, peacemaker, etc play a large role and will open and close some doors for you. We also have dress type and dress value hidden stats that will be checked in certain situations. You can acquire (be given or steal) rings that could be shown to NPCs to grant you access to certain areas and places.

Did I read somewhere that you also had an alchemy system? Because if so, I'm curious about the game mechanics on the most superficial level--that is, how you'd get formulae and ingredients, how many there are of each, what they affect, and how you'd prepare the mix.

In one assassin quest, one of the ways to get closer to your mark is to pretend to be an Imperial Guard and know enough about the situation to play your role. You must wear the proper armor and cloak, otherwise you won't get in.

Good. So it sounds as though you can't fudge your way around matters, and choices in your game world mean exactly that: selections taken that further you along one path, while locking you out of others. With potential hazards if you fail at any point.

If it's not giving away too much ,can you change your originally chosen profession at any point?

Your intimidation attempts will be more successful if your body count (number of people you killed) is high enough. If you are a member of the thieves guild, the merchants guild won't deal with you (no quests), etc.

So what time tomorrow did you say you could have copies available? More seriously, I know you're redoing the graphics in some locations. How far in general terns are you away from gold code, at this point?