Not a lot of games meassure up to my standarts and this one is probably even going to surpass them. I am really excited. Hope you get used to the radial menus though.

Yeah, I'm not too terribly worried. I was just looking for a complaint so I wouldn't come off as too much of a drooling fan boy (which I am). Like Harvey said, it's like Christmas when this kind of game comes out.

YES. So its like Thief but we have all these abilities to apporach things from different ways!

Wait I thought he just possessed a rat to see with. Did he actually transform into a rat?

Yes, that's how he got in the building.

They have also mentioned you can possess a fish and swim into certain areas to gain access.

Has anybody managed to make that link work for his/her phone? I'm gettin antsy! Through vagaries in my living situation, this is my only Internet portal and if I can watch it before having to wait for YouTube that would be preferable to this purgatory I'm in.

Very jelly right now

Hey, it might just be me but I think the texture quality is...well not so good.

That doesn't matter when the game is as awesome as it is!

When you possess creatures your whole body actually goes with it.

Impressions:
-The HUD did look different than what i was expecting but it was great to see it wasnt distracting.
-The gameplay looked much more fluid than what i was expecting, but the controls (atleast the ones that pop up) look like theyll take some getting use to.
-Loved the art style.
-I think mana should regen fully, not just a little bit.


Overall i thought it looked good but im still worried about this game being too short (x<10 hours) because its mission structured.

Mana shouldn't regen fully. No, don't do that. There is no point to the game in that case. Imagine if all your batteries in Human Revolution regenerated to the max. That is silly and it's basically a cheat. It defeats the purpose of preservation and using your abilities at the right times and that way you don't have to store energy bars or look for them, which in turn kills another great portion of the gameplay. No, mana is fine the way they designed it. Perfect even!

New video/interview from Gamespot.
Shows some new tidbits of gameplay http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6380079/dishonored-takes-stealth-action-out-of-the-shadows

This is just what we needed as far as knowing how using abilities and user interface goes. I like it. It does make me wonder how many opportunities we will have during a mission to restore our mana, ie. potions. And do we need these potions to also restore full health or does it regenerate completely over time? Curious about that.

First its funny you mention HR since its battery system was horrible, there was no point in having more than one battery in that game. They can easily just balance it by having mana regen as is to that point then just regen much more slowly after that. They say this game is about choosing how you want to go about the mission so if i want to be using powers only then i should be able to.

It was only horrible do to bad balancing of takedowns and augmenations. Otherwise it's a very well made system. Having a regen system is just pointless. Oh, let me just wait here a while and I will be back at full mana and destroy everyone. That is bad game design. Wanna know why every good game back in the day didn't have fully regeneratable health? Because it would have been completely pointless and removed the best parts of those games. Regeneration of a rescourse and health are bad design, especially the ones that regen you to max.

I agree with this ^. If we should only use our powers at certain moments during the level and most of those moments are limited then doesn't that by design limit our choice in how we use our powers? Couldn't we buy mana viles at the hub but for balances sake have that slot replace an otherwise important ability/weapon/gadget? There is still alot to learn about how we can customize and balance our arsenal. I still remain cautiously optimistic about it though.

Yes, HR battery system was not perfect, but you are wrong. This is a game about choosing your style and how to solve a problem, it is not a game about doing whatever the heck you want (play Saints Row 3 for that). If mana would regenerate completely then this game would be all about waiting for powers and doing the same thing (using the same powers) over and over again. By introducing limited mana the players experience constantly shift based on what powers they have mana for and how desperate they are for finding more mana. Plus, with mana being something valuable to find we also have the fantastic Super Mario gold coin effect when exploring. That's much more interesting than "use power, wait and repeat"

I noticed in several of your posts now that you tend to state your own opinion as fact. It's fine to disagree with someone, but it's annoying when you do it like that.

In this case, my point of view is simply that it destroys my suspension of disbelief when I see an obvious gameplay restriction to something that's been explained to me in-game as a power that I'm having. See, this is not a gameplay argument at all, so your reasoning doesn't help me even if I agreed with it (I don't).

Let's say that with a full bar, you can cast three powers, and with a regenerated one you can only cast one. Then my question is: Why not just give the player two Mana Potions or whatever at the beginning of each mission and lower the maximum mana to that of one power? That's NOT a perfect solution, mind you, but I think it's still better than having a mana bar that fills up to only 1/3 of its length. Yes, this is partly about aesthetics, too. And this way at least we'd get a full regeneration, without unbalancing the game.

As I said earlier the problem with fully regenerating mana is that it limits variety. The game becomes about using powers, waiting and repeating. With limited mana you can have much more powerfull powers and the player is faced with an interesting question: save up for a big one, or spam the smaller ones? The game will also procedualy change pace based on how much mana you have, with regenerating mana gameplay is pretty much always the same (since you always end up waiting for regeneration anyway and use your favorite power). Also, limited mana means "super mario coin effect" or "pacman effect" when picking up mana boosters, and that is always welcome.

Let me put it like this: Do you think Starcraft 2 would be just as popular as it is today if minerals slowly regenerated instead of you having to mine them? No, of course not. That would make the game much less strategic and kill the joy of watching your fully operational mining base!

This is not MY OWN OPINION. This is an objective opinion brought on by facts. If you want to play a game that restricts you so much tha go ahead and do so, it's your own time and you decide how to waste it. Maybe they will even add New Game Plus or some sort of cheats menu so we can toy around with the game. Having a full regenerative anything is restricting the player in gameplay choice and variety. It just comes down to patience and not a lot of it in fact.

That is their option to do it. Bad game design is forcing someone to explore just to find health/mana packs since that can break the flow of gameplay.

It's not about using them at certain points but using them wisely and not being able to spam them. Otherwise the gameplay would be dumbed down to the ultimate strategy (which is most certainly some combination of the powers). That's why balancing is so important in a game that gives you so many options and varieations. If Deus Ex was designed in a way that you could use your augmentations all the time, then it would be a bad balancing decision and it would hinder the gaming experience.

Yes that is in fact bad game design. Too bad almost no one has made that mistake. The games I had in mind never forced you to do anything. It always comes down to your decision. If the level itself is designed in the way that it would require a certain amount of health at a certain moment of time then that is bad game design. However, if the game gives you the option to explore and find sources to renew your health or ammunition or whatever rescourse the game offers and doesn't limit you to doing so all the time and doesn't deem it necessary, then that's good game design.

It's like you people haven't played the first ever shooters like Half-Life or System Shock. Or are you just used to the new hold-your-hand/stand-behind-cover while you heal up shooters of the modern day that completely break the context of the game itself? And yes, you're right. It's the developer's choice. Fortunately, the developers and head designers are inspired by one of the best designed video games ever and so I have faith in them that they will deliver a top quality product, as they have shown us to this point.

Haha, oh wow. Okay important lesson: An "objective opinion" is a paradox, i.e. such a thing can not exist.
You've stated your opinion on what's best for the balancing of this game, and you have used arguments to convince us of that opinion. Me and some other people have disagreed though - not necessarily by saying that your arguments are incorrect, but that there are other points of view in which your arguments are not as important as they are in your point of view.

Furthermore, I have given you a system that is essentially equal in terms of balancing to the solution your perceive as the perfect one. With the benefit that it improves other aspects of the experience. You say that a partially regenerating mana bar is better than a fully regenerating one. I say, let's just remove the part that does not regenerate and give the player some mana potions at the beginning of a mission to balance this newly introduced handicap of less mana at the beginning.
And that's just one example (and like I said, surely not the perfect one) how you could counteract the psychological fact that for some people, a mana bar that only partially regenerates feels unsatisfying.
You could argue that it has flaws of its own, but that's just the point: Every system has flaws depending on your point of view.

So basically, don't tell people what opinion they should have. It's not cool and you're wrong when you do it.

@GepardenK: My argument was aimed at strifecross, so it doesn't work for your point of view. I actually agree with you that a bar that does not regenerate at all is better than one that does (partially or fully). But it's just opinions, and many people don't agree with us on that one.

I see. So you think thre is no such thing as an objective opinion. I am not going to start a philosophical debate because there is no point. Saying there is no such thing as an objective opinion gives you the ability to lower my reasoning to a level where both of our arguments hold equal ground. I, however, am not certain that this is what you're aiming for so I can say it's a speculation but it certainly works.

There are merrits upon which one thing is judged. I do agree there are no absolutes and that two things can apply to the same thing but giving an option that serves a lesser/similar purpose to the one I pointed out, is in redundant. And I do appologise if there was any confusion. What I mean was that the system they are using is perfect for the game itself. I can say this almost completely for certain because I have read almost every article abotu the game, heard every interview and now saw live gameplay coverage. So now I can say without a doubt that this system works for the game. If you don't think that is enough then you can spec into being a spellcasting assassin. That is totally plausible and it will most definitely enrich your experience with the game.

There is no need to ruin an already well functioning system because you want to zap around more or have more 'interesting' gameplay elements. Like I mentioned earlier, you can just spec into a spellcaster type of an assassin and you won't have any trouble with the mana. There are also consumables that help rejuvinate lost mana, as you can clearly see from the gameplay video. I don't see what the problem is when you have anything you need. Oh, it's most probably because you don't feel omnipotent enough. I suggest you look at other games that did that sort of balancing well and their approach of doing things and then argue about Dishonored's design philosophy.

Ive played their (the devs) dark messiah game on the 360 and the player had to use magic potions for the non regen mana and i can tell you now that they didnt balance that cause they gave you so many that it might as well been regen. So im just basing my opinion on their past work, if they manage to balance this then fine yeah no regen will be fine but if they dont i see it as a waste.

I agree powers should not be spammed but i should be able to play the game using mainly powers only.

Also just because i want regen doesnt mean i want my hand hold... just because a game has regen doesnt mean its for the casuals its simply the game mech that the devs chose to use for their pacing of the game (its the gamers who chose to sit and wait).