Game News Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter Update #70: Screenshots, Stats and Stuff

[Infinitron]

Tags: Brandon Adler; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity

After taking a break for a month, the Pillars of Eternity team is back in action with a new Kickstarter update, with all the graphical eye candy and gratuitous faux-Celtic we've come to expect. Have a snippet:

Areas

As most of you know, we finished up Od Nua (our mega-dungeon) in our last milestone. I have to say, I think it looks pretty amazing. Currently, the area team is working on our second big city, Twin Elms, and it is looking just as good. Here, take a look for yourself.
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Ancient Engwithan ruins near Twin Elms.​

Without getting into too much detail, the Area Designers are fleshing out the end of the game right now and everything is really coming together. The area in the screenshot above looks like the perfect place for a big fight, huh?

UI

Most of our UI has either been implemented or mocked up to an Alpha level. The interface that we would like to show you today is the character sheet, which shows character and party information. You can find lots of useful info on the sheet including various party statistics, your reputations with Eternity factions, and character stats.
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The character sheet has many useful player and party statistics.
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"+1 Elardh Dwr", just what I always wanted! Notice, by the way, that the roles of the attribute scores appear to have changed since the last time they were described.

 

[Excidium]

Whoever is responsible for that sheet was only concerned with aesthetics.

 

[Infinitron]

Sawyer describes some of the new stats: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/#entry1407703

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

That character UI looks so nice, lovly and warm. Reputation system may be interesting. I wonder how will folks react to somebody with an eccentric status.

 

[Hormalakh]

lol Infinitron. Are you trying to take credit for the concentration idea?

When you're fighting one on one, sure, but if we're talking about some kind of "lone tank boss" that you gang up on with your entire party, then the odds are much higher.



By the way, this mechanic kinda reminds me of something I asked you about a while ago: http://new.spring.me...236323633025078



Only in the end it's hit reaction animations, not attacking or dodging animations, that prevent a character from doing stuff.

 

[Infinitron]

lol Infinitron. Are you trying to take credit for the concentration idea?

Nah.

 

[Irenaeus]

letters too small in that sheet

 

[Roguey]

Josh Sawyer once again improves on nigh-perfection.

Without getting into too much detail, the Area Designers are fleshing out the end of the game right now

Bodes well for not having a rushed-feeling endgame.

These banshee-like undead are the spirits of women who died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

I hope there are also spirits of men who have died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

We just recently moved to Unity 4.3 and, while this might not seem like a big deal, 4.3 has ushered in some long awaited features. Animation annotations, for example, were added to Unity. We can now call sound effects based on specific frames of animation. This makes things like footsteps possible.

That's weird, Shadowrun Returns has footsteps. I guess that was something they added themselves.

 

[Goegoff]

Whoever is responsible for that sheet was only concerned with aesthetics.

Kind of pointless nailing it all down, when even something as fundamental as attributes change from week to week.

 

[Excidium]

Whoever is responsible for that sheet was only concerned with aesthetics.

Kind of pointless nailing it all down, when even something as fundamental as attributes change from week to week.

True enough.

 

[Hormalakh]

Kind of pointless nailing it all down, when even something as fundamental as attributes change from week to week.

josh doesn't think attributes are fundamental. i tend to agree with him.

 

[Goegoff]

Kind of pointless nailing it all down, when even something as fundamental as attributes change from week to week.

josh doesn't think attributes are fundamental. i tend to agree with him.

Fundamental to the layout and contents of the text on the character sheet.

 

[Brother None]

That is a lot of pretty

 

[Zed]

that Oldsong screenshot

 

[serch]

These banshee-like undead are the spirits of women who died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

I hope there are also spirits of men who have died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

Yes, but they don't cry or moan or shout the player dead, they use manly things like swords, hammers or fireballs. You wouldn't understand, babe.

 

[Zed]

These banshee-like undead are the spirits of women who died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

I hope there are also spirits of men who have died under particularly tragic or traumatic circumstances.

Doubt there will be creatures based on "scorned men" or whatever tho.
Spirit women and banshee-like creatures are very common in mythology. They are scorned and betrayed women and their M.O. is to lure and attack men and steal away babies. You know, crazy bitch stuff.

We just recently moved to Unity 4.3 and, while this might not seem like a big deal, 4.3 has ushered in some long awaited features. Animation annotations, for example, were added to Unity. We can now call sound effects based on specific frames of animation. This makes things like footsteps possible.

That's weird, Shadowrun Returns has footsteps. I guess that was something they added themselves.

They probably used animation state (eg "is running") + timed cycles (eg "every x millisec") to play footsteps.
Surprising that Unity didn't have this feature already.

 

[Gondolin]

Whoever is responsible for that sheet was only concerned with aesthetics.

Looks like an upgraded BG 2 char. sheet to me.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I pledged to this game, albeit reluctantly. I'm sure I'll play it and I'm sure I'll enjoy it to at least some degree. But goddammit is there not a single thing it can do to make me excited about it.

 

[tuluse]

That's weird, Shadowrun Returns has footsteps. I guess that was something they added themselves.

They might have had an entire walking animation and sound just start playing at the same time instead of doing a fancy sync.

 

[Direwolf]

The biggest problem I have with what they showed so far is all the names/places/fantasy things just sound so fucking gay. I made up better fantasy names when I was 10.

 

[Jaesun]

I like that interface so far. Very sweet.

 

[undecaf]

At least this shows that Obsidian has a bit more eye for charactersheets than InXile.

 

[AureliusMMXII]

The biggest problem I have with what they showed so far is all the names/places/fantasy things just sound so fucking gay. I made up better fantasy names when I was 10.

I'm no linguist but it reminds me of the Celtic languages, more specifically Welsh.

I prefer it to things like Moonsea, Sword Coast etc.

But yes Welsh is often called gay, mostly because it is totally unpronounceable to anyone outside of Wales.

 

[Stompa]

So they actually moved damage to Strength (Might) to shut up autists, good show from Sawyer

 

[J_C]

The biggest problem I have with what they showed so far is all the names/places/fantasy things just sound so fucking gay. I made up better fantasy names when I was 10.

That's because the names they use are not generic like what you are used to.