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

[tuluse]

I think most of the extra money they got was from exclusivity deals selling the game.

 

[Infinitron]

Considering how DFA's run into money issues already

What issues are you referring to?

If you're a backer, watch the December update. Summary: they don't think they've got enough money to complete the game to the standard they wanted, so they're looking for extra funding elsewhere (probably from internal sources) and they're cutting stuff the extra funding won't cover. Nothing that doesn't happen in every other development cycle, but in every other development cycle there's a publisher you can run to if needed.

e: If you're not a backer, the $30 is probably worth it just for the documentary.

Okay, yes, I read about this. Issues? Well, they managed to solve their issues, so good for them.

inXile is getting some extra spending cash from mobile sales as well as post-Kickstarter Wasteland 2 pre-orders, so they have some flexibility here as well.

 

[coffeetable]

If anyone's interested in the details of the budget derail, here's the relevant screenshot:

http://i.imgur.com/LkuOSWC.jpg

Kickstarter Income: $3.1m
Paypal Income: $100k
Total: $3.2m

Staff costs (I think?): $2.6m
Some kind of tax: $200k
Operating Expenses: $450k
Docu & Rewards: $900k
Total: $4.1m

Other stuff: 18 man-years to make the game, and a man-year in SF costs $150k on average. Guessing that's benefits and shit as well as salaries. For comparison, the BG2 post-mortem claimed 90 man-years of work had gone into it, which would mean at current prices its staff costs would be ~$14 million.

(This is a bad estimate for a whole pile of reasons, not least of which is that the same post-mortem said bug tracking was done on whiteboards in the hallway. I like to think development methodology has come a fair way since then. Still, it's a decent figure to have in mind if you want to scale your expectations)

 

[Hormalakh]

Well, roughly said, what they had in common of course. One had more combat, the other had more text, but essentially they all had the same fundamental design. And as we know PE will be quite different with it's sneak mechanic, etc.

Now I am not saying that the game will be horrible, maybe it will actually be so good that you play it every morning while taking a shit or something, but there is of course always room for doubt like Maiandros said.

Roughly said?! What are you talking about? You give no specifics as to what the three games I mentioned have in common and then you give some sort of vague statement about a singular mechanic and then conclude that Project Eternity is different. Don't be dishonest, at least to yourself. These three games all used different game mechanics. PS:T wasn't even really a D&D based game (the mechanics aren't anything like a regular D&D). IWD used 3e. BG used 2e. What are you going on about? Be specific. Don't say roughly and then conclude with an unsupported claim. You haven't passed high school or something? They tach you how to make a convincing argument in middle school, but usually by high school most people know how to do this well. Or are you being lazy or intellectually dishonest?

Lame. Don't talk if you can't back it up. Come back when you've thought through an argument. You're wasting everyone's time.

Jeez...i ask you to detail what they had in common, and the response I get is : Well, they have in common, what they have in common. What ?!

 

[Hormalakh]

Also, what does DFA's budget issues have to do with PE? One of the biggest reasons that I funded this game and not any of the other ones was that Feargus has made these games before and specifically said that they knew how the numbers broke down. I haven't heard that as a reason (or as clearly stated) from any of the other developers.

 

[imweasel]

lol, you moron, I see you are just looking to pick a fight. What do you want me to do, write a thesis because you can't see that the IE games are fundamentally the same fucking thing? Not to mention that you seriously need to calm down you stupid fucktard.

And what are you trying to prove, that the IE games are all different or something? What the fuck is that for an argument? You stupid fuck. I just basically told you the differences and then you throw a fucking fit.

And yes, PE will be different than the IE games, Josh said so himself it will be "modernized", with stealth for all classes, no combat xp, regenerating health bars, no healing, etc. Now fuck off and stop wasting my time you moron. I don't need any of this hissy fit bullshit.

 

[Arkeus]

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=411736437#post411736437

Personal Nirvana:

Maybe this was already brought to the table, but how they're going to manage the tricky relashionship between nostalgia X modern mechanics?​

I think in some level Avellone and co. are shackled in how much they can veer into new ground with this, since the massive portion of backers want basically a prettier carbon-copy of Baldu'rs Gate 2/PS: Torment. Reading this interview (http://www.cybergamer.com.au/articl...-Entertainment/), combat-wise, they're planning to go with something somewhere between 3.5E or 4E, and adding cooldowns to replace(?) d20.​

Personally i would love to see them being bold with the project. Keeping true to the IE roots, while bringing new mechanics/concept. And at the same time, i can't see the playerbase receptive to changes.​

We are bringing new combat mechanics and concepts to the project (though many can be found in non-IE games), but the entirely underlying premise was/us to make something that has an IE game feeling. I've been playing A/D&D pretty much continuously since 1985, so it's not like this was something where I rolled my eyes at the thought of doing it. I liked making IWD, IWD:HoW, and IWD2 and I enjoyed all of the time I spent working on The Black Hound. Making a CRPG using a real-time with pause combat system allows us to make much cleaner mechanics than a straight tabletop port, but it's still important to me (and the backers, I'd say) that the fundamental feeling of the game is very similar to the IE games.

Individuals may become really mad at us leaving in or taking out some thing that they hate/love, but unless the logic of their argument leads me to believe that a significant portion of the backers and future players are going to have a negative experience because of it, the complaint doesn't go very far. That has much less to do with what people say and much more to do with how they play.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=411736437#post411736437

Sea Otter posted:

As for "reach" concept, is that only me who thinks "touch attacks" unnatural. I mean, if you try to touch your opponent with sword in his hand, you are putting your arm in danger.​

As for monks, if they are not allowed to use any other weapons except fist, does it mean they only have bludgeoning damages? Also, is their "Wounds" a unique resource pool for the class? You explained a way to store the pool but how are they actually "spent"?​

About stamina/health, we know that stamina can be healed through magic in action but how to heal health? Does it only need resting or does it also require resources? You once mentioned under-usage of potions and I wonder what their roles will be in recovering mechanism in PE (hopefully for both non-expert mode and expert mode).​

When I start designing a weapon (or anything related to player choice) that has a real-world counterpart, my first thought is not, "How can I realistically model this?" but "How can I make a player want to use this?" I try to answer that question with the reality of the weapon in mind, but if that's not helpful, I think about the fantasy of the weapon. When that's done, I try to answer the question, "Why will a player not want to use this?" Both of these questions will start out with one clear answer each. I will not start layering on additional advantages or disadvantages until I believe it is necessary to make the process of choosing more compelling. Right now, I'm at the stage where I'm adding additional advantages to weapons, one for each type. All melee weapons started out with the same range because they were not part of the advantage/disadvantage criteria. The additional advantage of the pike is that it has additional range over other weapons. It is unlikely that I will reduce the range of shorter melee weapons because those weapons already have their built-in drawback (usually a weakness against high DT).

Monks can use any weapon, but their unarmed weapons have monk-only special stats. Wounds are spent via activating abilities that use them. I'm making this up, but let's say monks had a Stunning Fist and Quivering Palm attack. The Stunning Fist requires one Wound, the Quivering Palm requires three. When you start combat, both of them are greyed out in the UI. When you gain a Wound, the Stunning Fist lights up. When you gain two more, the Quivering Palm lights up. Once an ability is lit up, you can activate it immediately and spend the associated Wounds, though many of the abilities are modal, meaning you can't activate another until the first one's duration has ended.

You regain Health by resting at camps/camp-like locations only. We have not discussed resource consumption much, but Health potions in the field are not part of the design.

 

[coffeetable]

Also, what does DFA's budget issues have to do with PE? One of the biggest reasons that I funded this game and not any of the other ones was that Feargus has made these games before and specifically said that they knew how the numbers broke down. I haven't heard that as a reason (or as clearly stated) from any of the other developers.

I'm pretty sure the DFA guys thought that as they'd made these games before, they knew how the numbers broke down. Thing is, technology and methodologies have come along way since the 1990s, and I imagine that when they were budgeting there was a lot of guessing as to just how much more efficient modern techniques will be. If Urquhart nailed those guesses then it'll be plain sailing, but DFA messed them up. That said, I'm perfectly willing to believe that Schafer is more of a budgetary optimist than Sawyer is.

The other reason the DFA budget is important is because it's a reality check as to just how little $3-4m is. It's just enough to get something like Monkey Island or Full Throttle out the door, and in terms of volume MI's content falls a long way short of IWD, BG2 or PS:T.

 

[tuluse]

Also, what does DFA's budget issues have to do with PE? One of the biggest reasons that I funded this game and not any of the other ones was that Feargus has made these games before and specifically said that they knew how the numbers broke down. I haven't heard that as a reason (or as clearly stated) from any of the other developers.

Brian Fargo ran Interplay and his current company has released multiple games which while boring and mediocre were solid products mostly free of bugs and done on time.

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

But sure Feargus knows what he's doing and Fargo doesn't.

 

[Lord Andre]

Well, roughly said, what they had in common of course. One had more combat, the other had more text, but essentially they all had the same fundamental design. And as we know PE will be quite different with it's sneak mechanic, etc.

Now I am not saying that the game will be horrible, maybe it will actually be so good that you play it every morning while taking a shit or something, but there is of course always room for doubt like Maiandros said.

Roughly said?! What are you talking about? You give no specifics as to what the three games I mentioned have in common and then you give some sort of vague statement about a singular mechanic and then conclude that Project Eternity is different. Don't be dishonest, at least to yourself. These three games all used different game mechanics. PS:T wasn't even really a D&D based game (the mechanics aren't anything like a regular D&D). IWD used 3e. BG used 2e. What are you going on about? Be specific. Don't say roughly and then conclude with an unsupported claim. You haven't passed high school or something? They tach you how to make a convincing argument in middle school, but usually by high school most people know how to do this well. Or are you being lazy or intellectually dishonest?

Lame. Don't talk if you can't back it up. Come back when you've thought through an argument. You're wasting everyone's time.

Jeez...i ask you to detail what they had in common, and the response I get is : Well, they have in common, what they have in common. What ?!

IWD is 2nd edition, you must be thinking of IWD2. IE games had in common the d&d license(combat rules, setting, some NPCs). DAO did not have that, they changed some things and it was shitty. Changing stuff is not the same as innovation.

Of course one would have much higher hopes for PE since it isn't developed by the present day dumb fucks at Bioware. Sawyer might be an arrogant douche bag, but at least he's not a full on retard.

 

[coffeetable]

Also, what does DFA's budget issues have to do with PE? One of the biggest reasons that I funded this game and not any of the other ones was that Feargus has made these games before and specifically said that they knew how the numbers broke down. I haven't heard that as a reason (or as clearly stated) from any of the other developers.

Brian Fargo ran Interplay and his current company has released multiple games which while boring and mediocre were solid products mostly free of bugs and done on time.

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

But sure Feargus knows what he's doing and Fargo doesn't.

When working to formula, inXile has done great. When you're working to formula, solid, bug free product is not hard to ship. But the times inXile has tried to do anything ambitious, it's delivered shit in a box.

And anyway, give me ambitious messes of games over pristine copycats any day.

 

[Hormalakh]

-snip-

I'm the one who's angry? I just asked you for specifics. You didn't provide any and when I called you out on it, you shat yourself. If you don't have anything worthwhile to say, shut up and let the big boys talk.

Brian Fargo ran Interplay and his current company has released multiple games which while boring and mediocre were solid products mostly free of bugs and done on time.

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

But sure Feargus knows what he's doing and Fargo doesn't.

I didn't say Fargo doesn't know what he's doing. I'm just saying that comparing DFA to OEI isn't really fair. OEI made it a point to say that one of the benefits of investing in them is that they aren't going to try to add too many new variables. They aren't making their own engine, etc. I

Just because DFA had problems doesn't mean OEI will.

 

[Infinitron]

One would assume that in theory, an adventure game is less likely to suffer from budget-busting "scope creep" than an RPG.

That said, Wasteland 2 is doing well so far, as far as I can tell.

 

[imweasel]

-snip-

I'm the one who's angry? I just asked you for specifics. You didn't provide any and when I called you out on it, you shat yourself. If you don't have anything worthwhile to say, shut up and let the big boys talk.

Naw, you're the butthurt moron that likes to pick fights for no reason.

Anyway, I would like to talk this out with the stupid arguments you like to use. Tell me why PE and the IE games aren't different and use the same "formula", even though Josh himself said they will be different. You just said I have no idea what I am talking about, so tell me why they are the same thing.

And don't be a pussy and back out. You wanted a ridiculous bullshit discussion, you got it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

At this point anyone claiming that IE games are similar to PE is kidding themselves.

 

[Hormalakh]

IWD is 2nd edition, you must be thinking of IWD2. IE games had in common the d&d license(combat rules, setting, some NPCs). DAO did not have that, they changed some things and it was shitty. Changing stuff is not the same as innovation.

Of course one would have much higher hopes for PE since it isn't developed by the present day dumb fucks at Bioware. Sawyer might be an arrogant douche bag, but at least he's not a full on retard.

OK so now we have something to work with: the commonalities are D&D license, setting, repeated NPCs.

1) I would argue that between IWD1/BG, IWD2, and PS:T, these games did not use the same combat mechanics at all. Not only that, the first group strayed a little (not too much, but a little) from PnP 2e. Not only that, different table-top games could very well play differently. As an example, you might have DMs giving out XP after every kill, but it was much more common for DMs to give XP at the end of each session. PS:T's combat was completely off-kilter. A lot of people argued that the combat sucked in that game (and I would agree) but that doesn't change the fact that the mechanics were not regular D&D. It was, still, a fun game and enjoyable to many. IWD2 went closer to 3e and was a much more complex game ( from what I understand, I haven't played it - I'll do that as soon as I can) but there were still changes made to it that differed from the table-top. The developers have said as much. They've adjusted these PnP games to play slightly differently on a computer, because it would play better.

2) As for setting and NPC, we know nothing about this, and nobody is really arguing that the setting here is what they aren't being true to. So I'm not really going to talk about this.

All of this to say that Sawyer is using 3e and 4e as his starting point and deviating from that where he sees fit. They've deviated in the past and we didn't say much because we weren't there during development. Yet, when they deviated from D&D nobody shit their pants like this dumbfuck who joined in January 2013 is doing. Yes, we can argue specific mechanics might not work because we can argue that they haven't worked in the past and we can anticipate that they won't work.

But to say that because Project Eternity isn't exactly in every shape and form (or the shapes and forms that you pick and choose) the same as the older cRPGs is stupid. We expect our game developers to spend time to develop new games and find mechanics that they believe will be fun. Not "awesome button" fun (and those of us who argue specific mechanics usually do so not because of nostalgia, but because we've seen it fail in the past) but "classic feel" fun.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

 

[tuluse]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

And all of which are worse than most BIS games.

 

[Hormalakh]

Naw, you're the butthurt moron that likes to pick fights for no reason.

Anyway, I would like to talk this out with the stupid arguments you like to use. Tell me why PE and the IE games aren't different and use the same "formula", even though Josh himself said they will be different. You just said I have no idea what I am talking about, so tell me why they are the same thing.

And don't be a pussy and back out. You wanted a ridiculous bullshit discussion, you got it.

IE and PE are similar in the following ways.

1- You control a party of characters in every thing they do. This differs from Fallout because you didn't control your party members - you only controlled the Vault Dweller. This differs from DA/ME because you have a larger party and can control everything that they have. This differs from Arcanum in the same way. etc etc

2- Your map is set to an isometric perspective. This allows you to play the game from a more strategic and tactical perspective as you can see the groups of enemies and your party members all on the field at the same time. This differs from the shitty DA/ME perspective that makes controlling several party members concurrently fairly difficult.

3- You are given extensive dialogue options and choices just like you were in all the IE games. You can choose to accept or not accept quests.

4- The quests you finish/not finish will have consequences for you further in the game. This is different than Skyrim.

5- Quests, dungeons, items are not procedurally generated. This is different than TES.

These are examples. I can name more. The mechanics on these are planned to be the same. Do you understand now? These are all the specific things that were cited by the developers when discussing what they were planning on creating. They didn't say "we will have combat XP" during kickstarter. In fact, during the kickstarter they said the opposite. They didn't talk about stealth or specific combat mechanics. They said it would robust like it was in IWD. If they went against what they were saying in Kickstarter, you'd have to show me.

Got it Mr. January 2013?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

And all of which are worse than most BIS games.

But some of which actually get close, unlike, say, anything produced by inXile (or Biowhore for that matter).

 

[coffeetable]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

And all of which are worse than most BIS games.

On this forum of all forums, do you really think anyone's going to debate this?

Not that it matters, because ol' B. FarGee had less to do with the BIS games than Ur. Q. Heart, and as such has little relevance to your original point.

At this point anyone claiming that IE games are similar to PE is kidding themselves.

Isometric party-based RTwP dialogue-heavy fantasy RPG. The only way most players will be able to distinguish it from Baldur's Gate is if the UI occupies less than half the screen.

Of course whether that means they're similar depends on the granularity you assign to the term "similar". Personally, I reckon PE could consist of my directing a party of walking penises and as long as it fit the above constraints I'd still consider it similar to the IE games.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Anyway, I would like to talk this out with the stupid arguments you like to use. Tell me why PE and the IE games aren't different and use the same "formula", even though Josh himself said they will be different. You just said I have no idea what I am talking about, so tell me why they are the same thing.

And don't be a pussy and back out. You wanted a ridiculous bullshit discussion, you got it.

Well, defining the "IE game formula" as "what the IE games had in common" pretty circular. I think fleshing it out a bit more would be helpful, since everyone has their own ideas about what exactly similar to IE games means. Obviously there will be differences; if there weren't differences, the right word wouldn't be "similar," it would be "identical". The real question is what differences will there be and will those differences eliminate something that any given person considers vital to their enjoyment of the game.

 

[aris]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

Yep. Looking at Inexile's track record

• The Bard's Tale (2004) (PC, Xbox, PS2) (2004)
• Line Rider (2008) (Flash, Silverlight, DS, Wii, iOS)
• Fantastic Contraption (2008) (Flash, iPhone/iPodTouch)
• Super Stacker (2009) (iPhone/iPodTouch)
• Super Stacker 2 (2009) (iPhone/iPodTouch)
• Shape Shape (2009) (iPhone/iPodTouch)
• HEI$T (cancelled in 2010)
• Super Stacker Party (2010) (PlayStation Network)
• Hunted: The Demon's Forge (2011) (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
• Choplifter HD (2012) (PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, PC)[5]

Doesn't exactly inspire much hope. Note the numbers of games on every codexers favourite platform too, the Ipad! And before you go "but, but... PUBLISHERS! THEY MADE THEM DO IT!" -Yeah, well, even if that were true, they could have gone and made good games in the genres they were making in, they didn't. Not by a long shot. Here's hoping for Wasteland 2 though.

 

[Sannom]

And yes, PE will be different than the IE games, Josh said so himself it will be "modernized", with stealth for all classes, no combat xp, regenerating health bars, no healing, etc. Now fuck off and stop wasting my time you moron. I don't need any of this hissy fit bullshit.

Where did you hear that there wouldn't be any healing? Two classes have stamina-regenerating powers from the get go!

 

[Rake]

Obsidian has released multiple unfinished and buggy messes.

All of whom are greater then anything inXile has ever produced. Yeah, Fargo sure knows what he's doing.

And all of which are worse than most BIS games.

The same can be said for Troika. And quess what? Their games were buggy messes too!
That doesn't mean that they didn't know what they were doing.
With DS3 Obsidian proved that they can make boring and mediocre, solid products mostly free of bugs and done on time too. Does that make them the better company?