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

[Infinitron]

Your Payment to Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. has succeeded

 

[oldmanpaco]

Any word on what the PP total is? Or are they all getting drunk.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Man I feel suddenly guilty that I never donated they seem so happy.

No, I am poor, and less glamorous campaigns need my hard-earned support. Iron within, iron without

 

[commie]

Any word on what the PP total is? Or are they all getting drunk.

whatever it is, it's recently gone up by $250.....butcheredbywife.gif

 

[Blaine]

Any word on what the PP total is? Or are they all getting drunk.

Over $200,000, last I heard. There are probably close to 3,000 PayPal donors, which should push the mega-dungeon down to 14 levels total.

 

[Jaesun]

The single thing Obsidian get's a HUGE BRO first for, was they didn't try to be all fucking PC, and not swear etc.... They fucking turned on the camera, dished out alcohol, and let it all happen. It was fucking hilarious. <3 Hell they even made codex like jokes haha

 

[Blaine]

The single thing Obsidian get's a HUGE BRO first for, was they didn't try to be all fucking PC, and not swear etc.... They fucking turned on the camera, dished out alcohol, and let it all happen. It was fucking hilarious. <3 Hell they even made codex like jokes haha

Yeah, I appreciated that. I didn't mind that they brought their kids either, although frankly I don't think it was a good idea with the entire Internet watching.

I tend to follow Reddit, 4chan and various social media sites and forums (like this one) simultaneously whenever there's a gaming hubbub going around, and the perverts were out in noticeable numbers. Not so much on the stream chat thankfully, but shit could easily have slipped through. Just one comment seen by a handful of the developers could ruin their entire evening (and might have, who knows what scrolled up there).

 

[villain of the story]

People criticizing no XP for killing are retards, BTW.

There are two approaches to rewarding player with character growth - goal focused and process focused.

Goal focused works best with quest heavy games with tighter, leaner world and usually involved storytelling. In such game you can assume that the main activity of player will be completing quests and achieving set goals. This approach neglects the process, in fact it doesn't track it at all, it just assumes that if the player achieved the set goal, then player has tackled the challenges barring his way somehow (regardless if it's by killing them, or sneaking, past, or diplomacy or whatever) and should be awarded generic XP (since the system has no clue how player has achieved their goal). It's simple and efficient as long as quests are the meat of the game.
Awarding additional XP for stuff like kills, lockpicking or anything else in such system is shit design, because it rewards some approaches doubly, some (creative lateral thinking using mechanics rather than pre-scripted solutions) only once (creativity is bad for you, stick to swinging your way through), while convoluted "pathological" "solutions" are rewarded great multitude of times - the more the less linear the game in question is in terms of quest solutions.
Such systems work poorly in expansive, open-ended games focused on exploration or otherwise allowing player to define their goals.

Process focused is best exemplified by use based and it works best when any goals game logic may know about are at best sparse. Replicating it with XP system, by adding XP for combat, lockpicking, diplomacy, etc. does a perfect job copying its problems, but fails to duplicate any of its advantages, like being able to track what fucking skills is your character developing. It's much heavier and more involved system, and it might be spurious for lean, goal-driven games.

Whatever your approach is, combat XP is a humongous, kludge and giant clusterfuck of derp. The only legitimate uses I can see for it are H&S games (twitchy genocide simulators) and traditional crawlers (tactical genocide simulators) due to their extremely narrow focus (killing stuff followed by killing more stuff).

If you ask yourself "what would mondblut do?" and come up with some retarded scheme involving saving and killing the same party, possibly repeatedly, or whatever, to maximize in-game gains, then the system is badly designed and DOESN'T. FUCKING. WORK.

Besides, just see what effect on Deus Ex gameplay had addition of XP for hacking and enemy kills/KOs in Human Revolution. It resulted in player grinding hacking minigame on terminals they knew passwords for and compulsively knocking out all the enemies stealthily (in pairs if possible) using awesome button to maximize XP, when ghosting by would be both sufficient and more satisfactory solution in terms of gameplay.

Where is your combat XP god now?

QFT

 

[Sam Ecorners]

I asked Feargus to steal ChrisT from Herve and he said that he went to school with Chris and that he will see. Fingers fucking crossed for glorious

 

[Phelot]

Yeah but they didn't respond about Elzair

Fuck MCA!!!!!!!! YEAH THATS RIGHT.

GRIMOIRE FOREVER

 

[jewboy]

It's lucky that the little girl wasn't hot. Even I might have commented on that.

 

[suejak]

I don't get why, when we manage to get a sweet-ass 14-level-deep dungeon, some of you guys want to "split it up into two dungeons!!" That completely destroys the epic novelty of it. The whole point is that it's a 14-level-deep dungeon.

Two more levels and it'd be Diablo in its entirety. Good luck with that.

Pfff. You want a real dungeon, I give you a real dungeon right here: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mystery_dungeon#Floors

Floors

Floors consist of multiple rooms that are interconnected by hallways. Using a One-Room Orb turns the whole floor into one room.
Each time a player visits a dungeon, its floor layout and the items inside it are randomized. Dungeons consist of multiple floors and waypoints, which can be traversed between by using stairs. Tiny Woods has the fewest floors with 3 (discounting the Explorer Maze of the Marowak Dojo which has one). The dungeons with the most floors have 99; they are Joyous Tower, Buried Relic, Purity Forest, Wish Cave, Silver Trench, Western Cave, Zero Isle South, Zero Isle Center, and Destiny Tower.
To advance in the dungeon, players must find the stairs which take them to the next level. Wild Pokémon's levels increase as the player progresses through the dungeon's floors. Dungeons can also contain sleeping Pokémon, which do not move until attacked or a member of the player's party steps on a directly adjacent tile. Some Pokémon can only be found on specific floors, making it key to know which floors these Pokémon are on if one wants to recruit them.

 

[Kos_Koa]

Damn, that mega dungeon is gonna be nice.

You guys got to get the codex adventuring party to be on level 11, swimming between the crotch of the statue, giggling and splashing water at each other. The true representation of the codex.

 

[Cynic]

The single thing Obsidian get's a HUGE BRO first for, was they didn't try to be all fucking PC, and not swear etc.... They fucking turned on the camera, dished out alcohol, and let it all happen. It was fucking hilarious. <3 Hell they even made codex like jokes haha

They did this but Sawyer was being all emofag on them and cramping Avellone's brostyle

 

[Blaine]

 

[villain of the story]

Sawyer has a "bunch of bicycles and three motorcycles"

He's my kind of man.

 

[Aeschylus]

It's a conspiracy maaaaaan...

 

[Jaesun]

That is fucking bizarre.

 

[Menckenstein]

Sawyer has a "bunch of bicycles and three motorcycles"

He's my kind of man.

An AIDS-ridden hipster faggot? VOTS nooooooo!

 

[villain of the story]

Listening to them sing takes me back.

We used to go to Karaoke every week at McClure's. I met my wife at Karaoke.

Is that why you stopped going to Karaoke, assuming you stopped before leaving Obsidian?

 

[Blaine]

Whatever else people may say about VOTS, he has one of the most aesthetically pleasing, color-coordinated and yet information-dense signatures you're likely to find anywhere.

You make for a shitty prophet, my friend (PayPal cop-out aside), but I respect you.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Clearly, he's a functioning alcoholic.

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[villain of the story]

An AIDS-ridden hipster faggot? VOTS nooooooo!

He made it pretty clear during the celebration that he is no goddamned cocksucking hipster punk.

Plus the bikes and the motorbikes. You can't go wrong with bikes and motorbikes.

 

[Menckenstein]

An AIDS-ridden hipster faggot? VOTS nooooooo!

He made it pretty clear during the celebration that he is goddamned cocksucking hipster punk.

Plus the bikes and the motorbikes. You can't go wrong with bikes and motorbikes.

Depends on what they are. From what I recall on his SA posts he owned a couple Triumphs. No bueno.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

btw, here's the recording of the drunkage: http://www.twitch.tv/obsidian/b/335806140