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

[Delterius]

Some people have yet to realize that BioWare may become the one company EA not only didn't have to terminate but tried to turn into a all encompassing logo for a major stake of their operations. Its a match made in Hell.

i still remember those screens of the bridge with an army on the ground and something that looked like a greek temple.

That was fake crap built with the NWN editor.

Any source on that?

 

[Xu Fugui]

Granted, they have to make decisions to maximize ROI, but that's not too different from post-KOTOR Bioware anyway. Jeez, the "Bioware was good until EA!!!!!!!!!" nonsense completely ignores that game, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect.

Not to mention KotOR and the fact that after Neverwinter Nights everything Bioware did was Xbox exclusive. It might just be thanks to EA's resources they were able to go multi-platform later with the success of the first ME and it's PC port.

 

[Roguey]

Any source on that?

http://www.shacknews.com/article/60743/dragon-age-devs-boast-a

An interesting note is that the BioWare dev team used the Neverwinter Nights engine to prototype Dragon Age levels before finally crafting them for the final game.

Also keep in mind that the screens on that site are from 2004 from before they even had an engine. Of course it's NWN.

 

[Semper]

Also keep in mind that the screens on that site are from 2004 from before they even had an engine. Of course it's NWN.

since nwn bioware used aurora and swapped the renderer and parts of the code as needed. btw was the presentation of dragon age at the e3 2004 ever leaked? from the articles back then it sounded as if there was a video shown to the press.

this is the screen i meant. if you look at the corners of the room or the side of the pillars there are different levels of shadow intensity, which is a strong evidence of pre-baked light maps (there was no ssao available at that time). this would correlate with the lighting engine finally used in eclipse. also the character shadows don't fit the orange light in their back. looks like the charcters were lit by different scene lights which was also used later in dao's levels.

 

[Infinitron]

Granted, they have to make decisions to maximize ROI, but that's not too different from post-KOTOR Bioware anyway. Jeez, the "Bioware was good until EA!!!!!!!!!" nonsense completely ignores that game, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect.

While I don't subscribe to such simplistic notions, I do think it's worth considering that there may have been some sort of "PC-exclusive old guard remnant" within Bioware, consisting of people such as Brent Knowles and co-existing alongside the console-centric KOTOR/Mass Effect team, that was finally shut down completely when EA took over. The fact that NWN1 continued to received patches all the way through 2007 suggests this.

 

[Roguey]

Well you can't have PC exclusives when ROI is everything. More platforms = more sales.

 

[Sensuki]

I do think it's worth considering that there may have been some sort of "PC-exclusive old guard remnant" within Bioware, consisting of people such as Brent Knowles and co-existing alongside the console-centric KOTOR/Mass Effect team, that was finally shut down completely when EA took over.

This is my belief as well.

 

[Volourn]

"They didn't. Everything Bioware does is the result of Bioware's decisions."

Bullshit. EA is BIO. Every BIo decision is a EA decision. Period. Good or bad.


"Not to mention KotOR and the fact that after Neverwinter Nights everything Bioware did was Xbox exclusive."

Flat out lie.

 

[Gozma]

What in DAO are you guys imagining is EA interference? The whole game feels like pure pre-EA Bioware aside from the endless DLC whoring. It's pretty much Bioware's redo of Neverwinter Nights 2. Getting smaller than the design docs is just normal scope deflation. So what's left? You think an EA exec was in the writer's ears telling them to make everyone sound more like a Joss Whedon sitcom?

And they break tons of AAA streamlinesplainin' rules like having significant playthrough-exclusive content.

 

[Volourn]

It's not about 'interference'. It's about EA being the bosses. EA *is* BIO and has been since they took over. Even if EA never intervered one (and I'm sure the docs were given lots of freedom since they were on the EA board) it will still be EA.

 

[Delterius]

What in DAO are you guys imagining is EA interference?

I believe that since the project was already under way being part of EA didn't change DA:O's nature all that much. The only obvious things are the business model ('fuck immersion' DLCs) and Marketing (which sometimes tried to make DA:O of all things look like an Action game). If anything, public opinion seems to be that DA:O's success is proof of EA influence, since people didn't expect such a change in direction between Origins and DA2.

 

[Infinitron]

This is sort of akin to asking how PoE will be different from NWN2 or how DA:O would be different from NWN2.

...Yeah?

They're like totally different games man.

huh.

I think you guys have gotten sidetracked here.

Gozma, do you recognize that there is a difference between the Infinity Engine games and NWN2/DA:O? No, not in terms of setting, C&C or other fluff, but in terms of gameplay complexity and "feel"?

Even if you don't, plenty of people do feel that there are significant, qualitative differences between the "oldschool RTwP" of the IE games and the "newschool RTwP" of its would-be successors from the late 2000s. Pillars of Eternity aligns itself with the former; a reimplementation of the Infinity Engine's "feels" (Sawyer's own words) is its highest priority.

 

[Roguey]

"Bullshit. EA is BIO. Every BIo decision is a EA decision. Period. Good or bad."

Lovely semantics as usual Volly but I mean that in the sense that EA people from San Francisco don't actually tell the people working in Canada how to make or market their games.

 

[Abelian]

plenty of people do feel that there are significant, qualitative differences between the "oldschool RTwP" of the IE games and the "newschool RTwP" of its would-be successors from the late 2000s.

It's the 3D engine, man. We all know that first person perspective has much more imershun than isometric, and third person view is just another type of first person view anyway, so the newschool RTwP is obviously better.

Spoiler

 

[Hormalakh]

btw the guy who said that fo:nv isn't a great example of balance, i'd have to agree with. fo:nv does a better job of balance than its predecessors but it's still got a long way to go to be considered balanced and quite imperfect and has several issues that really make that game irksome to play. then there's the UI....oh and the shitty engine.

all in all, josh has made a great effort with what he had to work with, but i wouldn't say that FO:NV is the epitome of balance and wouldn't necessarily agree that his efforts with FO:NV mean that PoE will be balanced.

 

[Gozma]

It's balanced in that you have a reason to use most of the guns to fill some little play niche somewhere. Which is generally because of Sawyer's DT boner and the interaction of that with good enemy design.

Beyond that it's a quasi-game like Minecraft or something littered with money engines and skill magazines/skill hats and a worthless hardcore setting and dozens of perks no one would ever pick and AI that breaks if you stand on a rock and blah blah. I thought the jesawyer's balance mod changes, aside from correctly chopping off the last useless 20 character levels that were used to sell DLC to spergs, was basically a guy pissing in the ocean to warm it up. You can say it's the thought that counts I guess.

I don't particularly hold all that against Obsidian because the basic Bethesda model they couldn't significantly deviate from - certainly not in a year of mad production - is close to being completely alienated from criticism as a game.

 

[Roguey]

a few months ago i read a review of ars magica on amazon where the reviewer said he was going to convert all of the content/rules into a d20/d&d framework. people do weird things with systems. my response to any rule/subsystem/system that seems odd is to try to figure out what sorts of choices/gameplay the designer is trying to promote. if i believe i understand what they are trying to accomplish and can see where the system is and is not working toward that goal, i look for ways to re-write the elements that are unnecessary or actively working against that goal. i can't think of any systems where i've encountered a rule/system and decided to summarily ignore it based on personal preferences about complexity or style.

i guess that's not entirely true. i will re-write any content i find where, either through oversight or intention, the game contains trap options.

 

[Roguey]

Larian Vault system requirements say 20 gigs.

We'll see. The game currently takes up 9901 megabytes. Twice that would be about 20 gigs, but, unlike WL2, I don't believe the current D:OS beta contains half the game.

And now it's out and seemingly not that much bigger than the beta. Another win for Larian, another failure for inXile.

 

[Infinitron]

Larian Vault system requirements say 20 gigs.

We'll see. The game currently takes up 9901 megabytes. Twice that would be about 20 gigs, but, unlike WL2, I don't believe the current D:OS beta contains half the game.

And now it's out and seemingly not that much bigger than the beta. Another win for Larian, another failure for inXile.

Uh, okay. There is this, though:

Optimization has been forging ahead by leaps and bounds: the install size on the disc has already been cut by at least 20%, we've done a texture pass that both improves the look and tones down unnecessarily large textures. And we’re significantly cutting into the game's memory usage. Good things across the board!

But whatever

 

[Roguey]

Uh, okay. There is this, though:

Optimization has been forging ahead by leaps and bounds: the install size on the disc has already been cut by at least 20%, we've done a texture pass that both improves the look and tones down unnecessarily large textures. And we’re significantly cutting into the game's memory usage. Good things across the board!

But whatever

24 gigs instead of 30 isn't all that big of a deal.

 

[Duraframe300]

Russian Sawyer

http://www.playground.ru/video/pill...ternity_intervyu_s_e3_ot_playground_ru-24875/

Must watch to the end.

 

[Snozgobler]

Uh, okay. There is this, though:

Optimization has been forging ahead by leaps and bounds: the install size on the disc has already been cut by at least 20%, we've done a texture pass that both improves the look and tones down unnecessarily large textures. And we’re significantly cutting into the game's memory usage. Good things across the board!

But whatever

24 gigs instead of 30 isn't all that big of a deal.

It is for people with monthly internet caps. I don't, but I've been in contact with many people who do through my work, and 30GB is a common limit that gets mentioned.

 

[Sensuki]

StaticSpine wanna do us a favor bro and translate that

 

[Spockrock]

some of what Josh said got lost in translation, fucking amateurs. it's times like these I wish they had left the original sound with subtitles.

at least they had the brains to leave the interviewer out of the frame

 

[Grotesque]

"James Herbert came by for his 10K Pillars of Eternity backer reward day and GM'd a session of Dungeon Bastard's World's Worst Dungeon Crawl (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/epiclevel/the-worlds-worst-dungeon-crawl ) to "pay us back" for all the hours he's spent playing our games. It was one of the most... "D&D" sessions I've ever played." - Chris Avellone