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

[Hormalakh]

I know you wre being snarky, but that shit isn't adra. That's a g-string thong made out of steel.

 

[Sensuki]

So how about that interview bro?

Functionality is important yes, but this is a slow-paced RPG, people will be pausing. You don't need everything to be "tight" when playing with mouse. Pro-players will be using the keyboard to make commands. So make your hot keys versatile and tight, and make the mouse for players who wish to take their sweet time.

I wouldn't put much stake in his views/opinions on mouse movement anyway.

 

[Hormalakh]

Still waiting tohear back from her: I'm going to email her today to remind her.

I seriously hope that isn't the final UI and it's just a troll.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

I know you wre being snarky, but that shit isn't adra. That's a g-string thong made out of steel.

Thanks for making me go back over the last ten pages looking for a picture that doesn't exist.

 

[Abelian]

Thanks for making me go back over the last ten pages looking for a picture that doesn't exist.

Just do a Google image search for "prince of persia the warrior within".

But regarding the UI, I also agree that it looks too sparse, especially on modern wide screen monitors. So much unused space...

 

[Sensuki]

There is a discrepancy between the two pictures.

Picture #1 (Dura300 - date of visit? March sometime right?)

Even gaps between Portrait side of UI and Dialogue window side. Both elements are even.

Picture #2 (End of March/Start of April)

Uneven, in fact - the Portrait section is pretty much exactly next to the menu section of the UI. Indicative of the space of about one portrait, to the left.

COULD THEY BE DOING A VERTICAL SIDEBAR FOR THE ACTION BAR ?????



(or that is simply the resolution scaling)

 

[Infinitron]

But regarding the UI, I also agree that it looks too sparse, especially on modern wide screen monitors. So much unused space...

Look at it from the other way around. Because monitors are larger today, you don't need to dedicate the same percentage of screen space to reach the same size of buttons as in 2000.

 

[Sensuki]

But regarding the UI, I also agree that it looks too sparse, especially on modern wide screen monitors. So much unused space...

The reason it looks sparse is there is no action bar - essentially the weapons, quickslot items and spells/abilities. It appears that it is hidden during exploration mode.

I think this is also possibly due to the coding of the per rest and encounter spell system. Let's say that the game code checks for the end of the current or next encounter. If the action bar was visible during exploration it would be possible to "waste" your encounter and daily spells in exploration mode - which people like Chris Avellone would surely do. JES also wants to prevent pre-buffing. And their solution to both of these problems is likely the removal of the action bar during exploration.

This is not the only solution, but it is the easiest (not the best, but the easiest) solution, and also makes the UI more appealing to minimalists and since minimalism is the current in-thing, probably more accessible to newfags.

These things have now fueled the UI design changes that we see in the youtube screencap and Steve Weatherly's photo.

The design is going to be very unpopular to a large portion of the fanbase. Perhaps not as large of a portion as the divide between solid and minimal designs.

Whatever their action bar solution is, it's going to be wonky - whether it be a vertical popout, or above the portraits, or centered above the menu. It won't be symmetrical.

 

[Infinitron]

Assumptions gonna assumpt

You are way too confident, man.

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66100-death-dying/?p=1443390

It's been a long time since we've talked about our resting system and it's changed in the past few months. It's largely the same overall, but key mechanics have changed in important ways.

* The Stamina/Health mechanics still work as they have previously. The one exception is how Maimed works on non-Expert settings. Maimed is now only a stop-gap before death. I.e., even on ordinary difficulty settings, any character can die if they are currently Maimed and lose their remaining Health. As before, Maimed characters have terrible penalties to their Accuracy and all defenses but move at full speed. Using a Maimed character in combat is asking for them to get killed. The reason for this change was to prevent the use of Maimed characters as immortal trap-sniffers or recipients of an enemy's hard first volley.

* We still restrict where you can rest (as in the IE games), but resting does not have to be performed at very specific spots in the world (there are still a few camps where you can rest anytime, for free). Instead, each time the party rests in the middle of nowhere, they consume 1 unit of Camp Supplies. Based on your difficulty settings, the party can carry a maximum number of Camp Supplies (currently ranging from 6 to 2). The supplies are a single item type and can be purchased from vendors (also rarely can be found in the world). The supplies represent a party count, like wealth, and are represented by a number in the inventory and on the rest button in the main UI. To rest, all you need to do is press the rest button. The game checks to make sure it's okay to camp in that location at that time and will give you the option to access your Stash or go directly into rest.

* You can also rest at inns and your house (once you acquire it). Based on the room you select at the inn, you will gain temporary bonuses that generally correlate to the expense of the room. I.e., more expensive rooms grant larger or more bonuses. These bonuses last for a specific number of rests following your stay at the inn. Only a single resting bonus can be active at a time, so you can't just chain-sleep for a collection of bonuses. If you sleep at your house, you select from the bonuses you've unlocked from your upgrades. These tend to be less varied than those found at inns and you have to pay for the upgrades upfront, but after that it's effectively a free bonus of one specific type that lasts for a number of rests.

Nice.

 

[Volourn]

I like the changes espicially the first two.

 

[Sensuki]

on Hard, retreat to the Stronghold to rest at every opportunity possible.

 

[tuluse]

on Hard, retreat to the Stronghold to rest at every opportunity possible.

Why? The effect lasts for multiple additional rests.

 

[Infinitron]

Most RPGs are not roguelikes or survival games. It's not really supposed to be possible to run out of resources and be unable to progress. Retreating to town and resting up, as a final "escape hatch" from a dungeon run gone bad, has always been an option.

The argument has always been about how to make resting less exploitable under that assumption. So going "nyah nyah, your system doesn't work, because you can still go back to town and rest!" is missing the point.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Is maimed supposed to be the next-gen "unconscious"?

Stash sounded dumb before. Now that you basically carry it with you is even dumber.

House and upgrades to it for bonuses.. really dumb.

 

[Sensuki]

on Hard, retreat to the Stronghold to rest at every opportunity possible.

Why? The effect lasts for multiple additional rests.

So you don't chew through camp supplies.

It only makes a difference in areas where you need to pass a checkpoint in order to be able to "get back to town".

Mechanically it's no different than campsites, except that you can now "rest anywhere", rather than having to go to the specific campsite.

 

[agris]

What are the chances that that UI is the 'minimal' option, akin to having tapped PG-DN several times in the IE games to reduce the chat log height?

 

[Abelian]

The design is going to be very unpopular to a large portion of the fanbase. Perhaps not as large of a portion as the divide between solid and minimal designs.

I prefer solid design

 

[Roguey]

Is there anything in games such as Mask of the Betrayer or Fallout: New Vegas that would suggest that Eric Fenstermaker (the man actually responsible for this game's narrative and themes), Josh Sawyer or anybody else at Obsidian are interested in creating a game "about racism"?

Icewind Dale 2's whole deal was racism.

lollin @ that guy who thinks racism is an American-only thing.

Why aren't there more women in gaming?

compared to when i started there are more overall in the industry and a lot more on my teams. two of our four environment artists are women, three of our five animators are women, one of our two producers is a woman, and four of our thirteen designers are women. our VFX artists, audio engineers, and programmers are all men. women programming applicants are extremely rare and i've only worked with one female programmer in 15 years.

Looks like they make up about a third of the team. Ideally they'll one day make up half. wftw

 

[Infinitron]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66095-possible-alpha-ish-poe-ui-screencap/?p=1443489

Action bars are now character-specific. In the IE games, group and individual actions tended to share the same "line" of space, so regardless of who was selected or how many characters were selected, a decent chunk of the UI was always taken up by space reserved for those icons. In PoE, all actions that can be performed concurrently by any number of characters have been moved to the center cluster (e.g. attack, cancel, scout, etc.). So when you have multiple characters selected (typically while mass moving/exploring), you don't see an action bar. As soon as you select an individual character, you will see their specific list of abilities, spells, etc.

Revisions to the UI were done with independent clusters of elements because it was way faster and easier to iterate in that way instead of always going back to modify backing panels. The portrait borders are thin but they aren't "wireframes" unless "wireframe" just means narrow. They're all textured and have decorative elements that overlap into the portrait space. That said, now that we're happy with the general layout of elements, Kaz will be building (optional) solid backing panels to frame all of the components. The backing panels will form a solid block across the bottom of the screen. You also have the option of collapsing the central button cluster and the dialogue/combat log window so you're just left with portraits (ToEE-style). In that mode, you can still activate/access all of the hidden actions with hotkeys.

All portraits have health bars. Monks, ciphers, and chanters have an extra bottom element to their portrait frames to show their class-specific resources (wounds, focus, and phrases). Stamina loss is displayed as red fill. We will likely also include numbers for Stamina/Health display (it's pretty straightforward to implement that). It's not awkward at all to click on the portrait and move up to select an ability (since you're often going to be moving up to target the ability you just selected anyway).

The abilities pop up above the portrait row, so you select the character, move up to select the ability, and then target it (if it needs to be targeted).

 

[Abelian]

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66095-possible-alpha-ish-poe-ui-screencap/?p=1443489

In PoE, all actions that can be performed concurrently by any number of characters have been moved to the center cluster (e.g. attack, cancel, scout, etc.). So when you have multiple characters selected (typically while mass moving/exploring), you don't see an action bar. As soon as you select an individual character, you will see their specific list of abilities, spells, etc.

That makes sense: it sounds like the Warcraft way of using abilities. Also, Commandos did this: if multiple characters were selected, only the pistol was displayed in the backpack, since it was the only action/ability all characters shared.

 

[Hormalakh]

Roguey's back! I missed you buddy.



BTW I finally heard back from Carrie Patel regarding the interview. Now I've just gotta email this to one of the moderators here at RPGCodex and we'll have our interview.

 

[jdinatale]

I've never seen a thread more full of acoustic acting people. If psychologists wanted 1200 pages of Asperger's research, they could start here.

 

[Hormalakh]

I've never seen a thread more full of acoustic acting people. If psychologists wanted 1200 pages of Asperger's research, they could start here.

Joined: Sep 28, 2013

 

[tuluse]

I've never seen a thread more full of acoustic acting people. If psychologists wanted 1200 pages of Asperger's research, they could start here.

I don't think we're very musical, but if you say so bro.