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

[Grunker]

*yawn*

 

[Sensuki]

No update for another two weeks, gotta find something to do *shrug*

 

[BobtheTree]

They're working on the game. I trust they'll update when there's something worth talking about.

 

[Jaesun]

George Ziets ‏@gziets
So uh, Formspring. Give it to me straight. Are you sticking around, or should I settle down with someone else? #Formspring

Are they thinking of closing again??

 

[Infinitron]

George Ziets ‏@gziets
So uh, Formspring. Give it to me straight. Are you sticking around, or should I settle down with someone else? #Formspring

Are they thinking of closing again??

Nothing new here: http://formspring.wordpress.com/

 

[Hormalakh]

i've given up raging at Sawyer.

What was your problem with the language thing the other day? That seemed a bit unreasonable to me

I guess I don't really know any Scandanavian languages, European languages outside of some French. The "skuldr" word didn't really seem to fit in with where I thought the language originated from. I guess I was set straight by the rest of the people. It's similar to how some people here don't like the word "Eir Glanfath." Certain languages sound better to certain ears.

I still do have an issue with the ogre's physiology. I'm of a science/biology background and it seems that Josh's fantasy world is still somewhat based on reality. At least, it seems that he tries to incorporate realism whenever he can. While the tusks can look cool where they currently are, I can't really think of a decent reason for them to be where they are. Oh God.....i've just realized I've become a nerd.

 

[Delterius]

Oh God.....i've just realized I've become a nerd.

This tipped you off? I mean, does this guy:

obsess over RPG systems?

As for languages... I hate the 'ITS FANTASY' argument but I've got to bring it up here. Things should be strange to us, and P:E already looks more generic than most people here would like it to be. Besides, that you can't pronounce something is a retarded thing to bring up. I don't have to bring up syntax hells from eastern europe to be sure that most people can't pronounce most other languages well.

 

[Arkeus]

I was hoping for an even higher target resolution to be included with the game, or at least as an optional download (as I'll be getting a 4k monitor once they drop down to sub $1000, presumably next year). When I asked, Josh replied with incredulity at the sheer madness of the idea of rendering all the areas out at those sizes :D.​

Just to give a frame of reference, the map you saw in the visual demo has 1.3 gigs (uncompressed) of 2D data. That's not a particularly large area. While compression will significantly reduce that, you can pretty easily extrapolate what the size on disk will be for a full-sized area and, from that, for an IE-sized game.

Now, if you want to double the length and width of those screens for even higher resolutions, you're looking at roughly 4x the pixel density and roughly 4x the size on disk. So, for the visual demo area, that's 5.2 gigs of uncompressed 2D data. It really does not make sense for us to render out at those resolutions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 years is a long time in terms of game development and PC hardware. At 5.2GB uncompressed for a small area, 100GB is probably far shy of the data for a game of this size. It would probably be pushing a terabyte. And remember, we're not talking about just clicking a button to render out at a higher resolution. The textures on the objects in the environment actually have to support that density. I.e., we would need to build every texture at double the size (4x pixel data) to maintain the appropriate density.

It's true that Max Payne 3 and RAGE push huge amounts of data. They're also huge budget games that primarily sell through physical retail channels. PE is a ~$4 million budget game built primarily for digital distribution with a small team of environment artists. Instead of pushing enormous amounts of detail for ultra-high resolutions that few players use (or will be using in the immediate future), I'd rather target the most common resolutions at the low and high ends, which Steam overwhelmingly shows are 1366x768 and 1920x1080 -- and get as many high quality areas done as we can.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

 

[Kirtai]

I'd rather target the most common resolutions at the low and high ends, which Steam overwhelmingly shows are 1366x768 and 1920x1080 -- and get as many high quality areas done as we can.

Both 16:9 aspect ratios I note. I hope they're not forgetting the 16:10 users or we'll have to crowdfund an artillery strike with 16:10 shells.

 

[Infinitron]

I'd rather target the most common resolutions at the low and high ends, which Steam overwhelmingly shows are 1366x768 and 1920x1080 -- and get as many high quality areas done as we can.

Both 16:9 aspect ratios I note. I hope they're not forgetting the 16:10 users or we'll have to crowdfund an artillery strike with 16:10 shells.

The aspect ratio doesn't matter. He's mentioning those resolutions as shorthand for sheer screen size. There's no difference between rendering 1920x1080 and rendering 1920x1200, you just show a bit more of the world map in the latter case.

 

[Infinitron]

This might make things more clear:

 

[Kirtai]

The aspect ratio doesn't matter. He's mentioning those resolutions as shorthand for sheer screen size. There's no difference between rendering 1920x1080 and rendering 1920x1200, you just show a bit more of the world map in the latter case.

Yeah I know, I'm just annoyed at how many times devs have dropped the ball on this and am a bit touchy about it.

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

Just to give a frame of reference, the map you saw in the visual demo has 1.3 gigs (uncompressed) of 2D data. That's not a particularly large area. While compression will significantly reduce that, you can pretty easily extrapolate what the size on disk will be for a full-sized area and, from that, for an IE-sized game.

Checking Baldur's Gate files it had 129 areas. 129*1,3= 169 Gigabytes. I know that going from BMP to PNG can shrink file size up to few hundred times, but anyone have idea how much place on HDD compression would save on average?

 

[Jaesun]

Josh Sawyer ‏@jesawyer4m
designing cipher abilities. watching scanners and dreamscape clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRYp3LPL0bc …

 

[Infinitron]

Josh Sawyer ‏@jesawyer4m
designing cipher abilities. watching scanners and dreamscape clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRYp3LPL0bc …

Head exploding!

 

[Roguey]

Reminder that Sawyer still hates old D&D:

i met a girl today who kept saying that you couldnt roleplay in 4e, and loved pathfinder

if you can't roleplay in a game either your DM/GM sucks or the content sucks or you suck or all of the above.

uurrrrgdurrrrr these rules!!! i can't!! roleplay!!!! *fart*

I tend to agree, but then again if somebody tells me they can roleplay a Heroic Fighter in a level 20 3e game well, no, they're going to run away in battle.

or they'll be horribly maimed/die, which is fine with some players from a RP perspective. 3.x presents an implied suggestion that the classes are balanced at high levels. this is bad, but those mechanics don't prevent you from RPing your character. they prevent you from accomplishing things. a high-level 3.x fighter is like an ordinary ars magica shield grog. you can roleplay both of them as brave, heroic warriors. the difference is that in ars magica, the books flat out tell you that shield grogs are inferior to magi and you should probably expect to die.

it can be fun to RP a mechanically shitty character, but those margins of shit get shittier as levels rise in A/D&D. this is why our groups almost never run at high levels.
I don't think it matters that much a lot of the time, and good dms will saw those rough edges right off.

But i'm not gonna buy simcity 5 just because i can, in theory, ignore all the dumb shit, or mod it, and i'm not sure we should be treating ttrpg gamedev any different.

if we don't like the ruleset at hand, we have about three options: 1) use another ruleset 2) modify a ruleset 3) make our own ruleset. but the players are also a factor in this, which is why almost everyone winds up doing 1) or 2). if i have time and my players are open to it, i'll always do 3). i usually don't, or they're usually not, so it's typically 2 (some variant of D&D) or occasionally 1.

compared to the tastes of a specific group of players and DM, every designer's choices are at worst, dogshit, and at best, not quite what we'd like. i've never played in/ran an off-the-shelf system where we didn't have major problems with it. the happiest groups have been the ones where we developed the rules together ourselves.

i've played plenty of games raw. sure, we have huge house rules for elfgame, but still. i think that's letting the fraidy cat fighter, and the dumb ability score rules off the hook a lil easy, if we don't expect developers to do better than they were a decade ago.

i'd like it if they did better than a decade ago but i don't expect them to do better.

well, i'd like it if people expected them to do better *folds arms* what now

i'd like the people who expect them to do better to stop wishing on a star and make their own systems.

"I hated every RPG ruleset so I created my own"--something Josh would say.

 

[Lancehead]

Reminder that Sawyer still hates old D&D:

I think you should consider posting those quotes in this thread. :D

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

Reminder that Sawyer still hates old D&D:

Weren't you supposed to post good things about Sawyer? Because you know, BG of which PE is supposed to be a spiritual succesor ran on DnD.

 

[Grunker]

Reminder that Sawyer still hates old D&D:

Weren't you supposed to post good things about Sawyer? Because you know, BG of which PE is supposed to be a spiritual succesor ran on DnD.

Nono. PE is totally IE. Party + RTwP = IE. Ask Infinitron

 

[Roguey]

Reminder that Sawyer still hates old D&D:

Weren't you supposed to post good things about Sawyer? Because you know, BG of which PE is supposed to be a spiritual succesor ran on DnD.

See the third quote in my sig. The same thread I got that from also gave us

Planescape: Torment does a pretty good job of avoiding and sublimating 2nd Ed. rules to the point of near-irrelevance. I can take a ride through paradise in a crappy Chevy Cavalier. My environment does not diminish the crappy nature of the Cavalier.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

Curious to see what he comes up with for Cipher as it seems to be the most out of place class of the bunch(sounds like something more fitting in Numenera)...and my most anticipated.

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

See the third quote in my sig. The same thread I got that from also gave us

I liked Baldur's Gate series battles. I would say wizard duels were really good and dragon battles were quite good as well even if they could be better if they made something akin to heart of winter mode with not nerfed dragons for experienced players,(yes I know there are mods for that)

 

[Roguey]

I liked Baldur's Gate series battles. I would say wizard duels were really good and dragon battles were quite good as well even if they could be better if they made something akin to heart of winter mode with not nerfed dragons for experienced players,(yes I know there are mods for that)

Josh doesn't like the wizard duels in BG2 because there aren't enough non-spellcaster options to defeat them. The big battles of IWDs will likely be the point of reference of what they're trying to evoke.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

I don't know about that...in IWD2 he was limited by his perception of a flawed system.

This time he can create his own flawed system.

 

[Delterius]

I liked Baldur's Gate series battles. I would say wizard duels were really good and dragon battles were quite good as well even if they could be better if they made something akin to heart of winter mode with not nerfed dragons for experienced players,(yes I know there are mods for that)

Josh doesn't like the wizard duels in BG2 because there aren't enough non-spellcaster options to defeat them. The big battles of IWDs will likely be the point of reference of what they're trying to evoke.

Didn't he also dislike the tight structure of the duels because they were 'too much like puzzles'?