Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Sensuki]

Uh oh guys

So about that skeuomorphic UI ...

Spoiler

Looks like the combat / area design testing module

 

[Sensuki]

 

[Hormalakh]

Dude, the game was supposed to be out in April and we already know they put out feelers to see if we'd spend more so they can add more areas. They did not raise -so- much money they had to take longer. The only reason they'd ask for more is if their budget is getting tight.

And now it's a vague 'Winter' release.

Yeah, a little bothered that they waste time spending a day with newegg.

The date April 2014 was set at the beginning of the kickstarter, when they didn't have 2 big cities, 15 level mega dungeon, 11 classes, all with different mechanics btw, and 4X their original budget. You seriously think they could keep the same deadline? Most of the IE games took around 2 years to develop. With the way things are going, they're on pace to make a true IE-like.

I once saw Sawyer write something about how he was shocked by the initial expectations for the game because it really wasn't going to be as big of a game as people made it out to be. With all the money that came in, they were only then able to make a much more true successor to IE.

Also, for those who aren't aware, Something Awful forums has a new thread for the PoE game. Sawyer posts there and there are the occasional interesting tidbits. This most recent quote was in replying to some 4chan discussion about JES being a SJW for the way that he created the Vailians. Have some lore.

Also, unsurprisingly, the pictured OP is wrong. Vailians aren't "the most civilized" or "advanced" "race". Most Vailians are Calbandra/Ocean Folk (black-skinned), but not all are. Vailians are the masters of seafaring and trade and have developed a number of ingenious inventions, but Defiance Bay (in the Dyrwood) is the heart of animancy study (the Vailian Republics are close allies and potential competitors). Dyrwoodans developed the Godhammer, which is the most advanced explosive ever known (though some suspect the inventors were divinely-inspired). The philosophers of Ixamitl are generally considered to be the wisest around and have the longest philosophical tradition. And despite all of those cultures' achievements, the Glanfathans still outpaced them all in astronomy. Glanfathan astronomy (which some believe was developed even earlier by their predecessors, the Engwithans) is what allowed the Vailians to develop the Iroccian calendar.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=113

 

[Jaesun]

I'm all for coverage but why spend all this time and energy talking to the press when you're already late? How about starting up the beta for your backers who paid for it?

Joined: Jan 9, 2014

Fixed.

 

[Sensuki]

Couple of quots

How much randomization we have will ultimately depend on the density of unique item placement. I think I gave an example before of two maces or morning stars of middling power that had enough overlap that they could be randomly interchanged.

Additionally, our crafting/enchantment system does allow you to modify weapons -- even unique ones. So if you have a specific group of bonuses you'd really like to have, you will probably be able to make that happen.

Expands a little further on randomization, so it looks like there will be some random interchanging with magical items.

PoE's shop is more like Fallout's in that you put items on either side of the "table" and use copper pieces to make up the difference.

Good. Better than IE !

 

[Hormalakh]

it's the tim cain influence right there.

 

[Abelian]

Speaking of trading, I hope the devs came up with an improvement to BG's simplistic supply and demand model, where an item's sell price decreased each time the player sold that item to a vendor, regardless of how many items were sold per transaction (ex. the party had a lot of long swords from bandits, so the optimal solution was to give all long swords to a single character, who would sell them all at once rather than individually; otherwise the sell price would decrease for each sword).

 

[Xeon]

Since there is a shared bottomless inventory, you can probably sell by stacks if you have that many. IIRC NWN2 had the ability to sell/buy 10,50,100,XX and ALL options if you right click them.

 

[jdinatale]

Someone needs to tell Josh E. Sawyer to fire the composer. If the game is filled with as generic, forgettable music as the latest preview, then it can really break a game for me. I know not everyone can be a Jeremy Soule or Inon Zur, but come on...

 

[Akratus]

I'm all for coverage but why spend all this time and energy talking to the press when you're already late? How about starting up the beta for your backers who paid for it?

You do realize that those people didn't pay for shit? They donated money for them to make a game. When they will make it is entirely up to them. These are just inherit dangers of kickstarter.

It's not a danger. It's a variable. I don't give a shit how long it takes, I give a shit what the end product is like. They can take two more years for all I care.

 

[Hormalakh]

I disagree - at some point, the amount of time one takes to make a game will stop improving the quality of the game. I call it the "Duke Nukem effect" or - for the Codex - the "Grimoire effect." As a game continues to be worked on for successively longer periods of time, the focus shifts away from polishing a game to adding new features. At that point, the developers continue to come up with "better ideas" and choose to rip out what they've made and replace it with that "better thing." The game loses focus and it becomes an amalgamation of barely polished shit that doesn't tie together very well. Once this is realized, the developers start all over with the "newest tools" on the "newest systems" and the "newest operating systems."

The final outcome? 0 games made instead of 2 well-made ones which are good for what they are.

Time only gets you so far. Talent, creativity, and experience should have already made a decent product by then.

The better thing is to get the game to a finalized state and then to ship it. Because it's a computer game, and if you've noticed their production schedules, this game is already slated for post-shipment updates that put those
"finishing touches" by updating the game, as every computer game did that came before it. Modders and mods will allow further "improvements" at that point.

 

[Infinitron]

Uh oh guys

So about that skeuomorphic UI ...

Spoiler

Looks like the combat / area design testing module

I know what you're referring to, but that's actually not what "skeuomorphic" means.

 

[Sensuki]

The portrait area is not skeuomorphic.

This might be worth posting on the official forums

Here is a larger cap.

Looks like we have a gauntlet cursor a la BG1.

Looks like "Aloth" has a new portrait too?

 

[Athelas]

I suggest you start a thread on the Obsidian forums expressing your shock and disgust at the UI.

 

[Sensuki]

Did it about a minute after I posted it here, although I didn't put in as much vitriol as previous Eternity forum posts on UI.

 

[veryalien]

This game is either going to be the most amazing game since Baldur's Gate or a complete flop. I can't wait for people here to react to its release.

 

[Athelas]

It could just be mediocre. Though I'm sure it will do at least some things better than the BG's (writing, role-playing, etc.).

 

[Hassat Hunter]

I sure hope that's a placeholder, since it looks horrible.

I'll miss my U (or well, I wouldn't miss it if replaced by L... but _... no likey)

 

[Merlkir]

Wasn't the UI supposed to have several skins from heavy wooden/stoney like in BG/IWD to lighter modern bullshit (like in ToEE), for the players to choose from?

 

[Hassat Hunter]

But it was a WIP.
But they said they would improve it on players feedback... what we see above... is definitely not an improvement at all. So I hope it's older than this preview we got on Kickstarter...

 

[Sensuki]

It might just be a temp one for their testing module. Worth posting to get an official response though.

 

[Sensuki]

Some SomethingAwfuls

BTW, I don't disagree with the desire of what the last poster wrote. A game that relied heavily on real African traditions and history would be very cool. It's also entirely outside of my knowledge base and experience. I try to incorporate elements from outside of my knowledge base when I can (e.g. in early versions of Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, we had two Greco-African characters who spoke Yoruba and in Honest Hearts the Dead Horses spoke a mix of English, German, and Navajo) but it is completely unfamiliar territory for me and extremely slow-going. I have a degree in history focusing on early modern Europe -- specifically, witch-hunting. In school I studied Spanish, German, Latin, French, and Arabic because they all had either immediate or tangential connections to the subjects and phenomena I was learning about. On my own I've superficially studied a bunch of other Indo-European languages for familiarity, but my knowledge base is pretty heavily rooted in central/western Europe from about 1200-1800.

We've only done the coastal aumaua portraits so far (the ones typically from near Rauatai) and they don't have much/any Polynesian flavor. The island aumaua are supposed to have more Polynesian and Japanese elements to their clothing but we haven't done their portraits yet. I have a little bit of familiarity with various Pacific Islander cultures and Kaz (our artist who made the Sagani, Eder, and Pallegina concepts) grew up in Japan, so hopefully they will have a nice blend of elements.

It's pretty common to categorize Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia as Pacific Islander culture groups and there are a lot of linguistic and cultural links between the individual islands and people due to migration. Saying people from Samoa and the Marquesas are Pacific Islanders is less bold than saying Swedes and Italians are European.

 

[Lhynn]

Speaking of trading, I hope the devs came up with an improvement to BG's simplistic supply and demand model, where an item's sell price decreased each time the player sold that item to a vendor, regardless of how many items were sold per transaction (ex. the party had a lot of long swords from bandits, so the optimal solution was to give all long swords to a single character, who would sell them all at once rather than individually; otherwise the sell price would decrease for each sword).

At least there was one tho, plus i feel it was more of a glitch than anything, like it was meant to refresh the price with every sale.

 

[Delterius]

I once saw Sawyer write something about how he was shocked by the initial expectations for the game because it really wasn't going to be as big of a game as people made it out to be. With all the money that came in, they were only then able to make a much more true successor to IE.

This speaks volumes about all those pitches that only got a little bit more than what they asked for.

 

[Arkeus]

But it was a WIP.
But they said they would improve it on players feedback... what we see above... is definitely not an improvement at all. So I hope it's older than this preview we got on Kickstarter...

They have repeatedly said they wanted a non-floaty UI as the IE games all had UI that were fixed like above, so i doubt the UI from that screenshot is anything true to what they are planning to do.