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

[crawlkill]

What do you mean? Almost every single Kickstarter update has been about combat-related stuff.

I guess he means the details of how it all comes together? Or just hasn't been keeping up. I wouldn't worry, though. Even Baldur's Gate buff-click-and-forget-oh-and-kite-if-you're-feeling-shitty combat is to this day kinda fun to watch (I'm a sucker for screen-shaking crits and jubilantly ludicrious cartoon gibs), and PE sounds like it's just gonna be that with every character having 10 combat options instead of mages having 60 and everyone else having one.

Yknow what weird combat-related immersion breaker I'd love not to see? Fucking eight-hour rests. Shit takes me out of the game in such a real way. Why does the evil wizard not NOTICE that I've spent four months storming his tower? =| Definitely more of a weight on a game than just having powers refresh between encounters. Or you could go all-out and have some kind of crazy consequence-per-full-restore system. "CALL ON THY GODDESS TO REFRESH THY DAILY POWERS, BUT KNOW, BRIEF MORTAL, THAT SHE KEEPETH SCORE." Could be fun, pry unnecessary.

 

[coffeetable]

Yknow what weird combat-related immersion breaker I'd love not to see? Fucking eight-hour rests. Shit takes me out of the game in such a real way. Why does the evil wizard not NOTICE that I've spent four months storming his tower? =| Definitely more of a weight on a game than just having powers refresh between encounters. Or you could go all-out and have some kind of crazy consequence-per-full-restore system. "CALL ON THY GODDESS TO REFRESH THY DAILY POWERS, BUT KNOW, BRIEF MORTAL, THAT SHE KEEPETH SCORE." Could be fun, pry unnecessary.

This is already out. Can only rest in rest areas, and only resting restores health (as opposed to stamina, which knocks you out when empty, regens after fights and can be regen'd with magic and items during fights).

 

[crawlkill]

Yknow what weird combat-related immersion breaker I'd love not to see? Fucking eight-hour rests. Shit takes me out of the game in such a real way. Why does the evil wizard not NOTICE that I've spent four months storming his tower? =| Definitely more of a weight on a game than just having powers refresh between encounters. Or you could go all-out and have some kind of crazy consequence-per-full-restore system. "CALL ON THY GODDESS TO REFRESH THY DAILY POWERS, BUT KNOW, BRIEF MORTAL, THAT SHE KEEPETH SCORE." Could be fun, pry unnecessary.

This is already out. Can only rest in rest areas, and only resting restores health (as opposed to stamina, which knocks you out when empty, regens after fights and can be regen'd with magic and items during fights).

boss. I should reread the KS updates. fetch me the vodka and orange juice

 

[hiver]

Im rather happy about the choices for political entities of the game. Seems pleasingly diverse, yet not overpopulated. New republics are themselves consisting of smaller specific locations, some slightly separated form others, or fractured. Towns, places, caves, dungeons, forests, glens and all that.
Love the complexity of relations of all those nations and parts of old ones, with remnants of other things in the wild.

if they manage to realize those ideas into gameplay itself as much as its described in updates, its might be pretty awesome stuff.

 

[Sensuki]

Update by Brandon Adler, Producer

Hello, everyone. I'm Brandon Adler - Project Eternity's newest Producer and general schedule wrangler. I'm the dude that helps make sure the game's product is on time, on budget, and totally kickass.

I worked at Obsidian previously for over six years on projects like Neverwinter Nights 2 (base game, Mask of the Betrayer, and Storm of Zehir), Alpha Protocol, Dungeon Siege 3, and South Park. I came back to help make Project Eternity (which is about as close to my dream project as you can get) and I look forward to interacting with all of Project Eternity's passionate fanbase.

Rezzed
One new development is our very own Chris Avellone presented Project Eternity at Rezzed in Birmingham, UK. He showed off the approaches we’re taking with Project Eternity for the vertical slice and pipelines, and showcasing new concepts like the animat and Defiance Bay.

Concepting process for one of our creatures, the bronze-armored animats

Animats are animated by the souls of ancient warriors that were extracted, purified, and bound into the armor. Copper is an especially strong binder for soul energy, which is why bronze is used for the animats. Copper is also often used in Engwythan (ancient residents of Eir Glanfath) architecture and magical items, including "skein steel", a fantastic alloy created with sinister soul magic.





If you are interested in watching Chris' full presentation at Rezzed you can see it here (some language mildly NSFW).

Vine
For those of you that are Obsidian fanatics, or Project Eternity fanatics, or just developer fanatics, some of our staff will be creating Vines (you know, those short looping videos that you can make with the Vine app?) and posting them on their personal Twitter accounts. Take a look.

Here are some examples:

What's in a name? - https://vine.co/v/hzmXvdr57VA

Office 360 - https://vine.co/v/hzmabYV2mlP

Around the Office - https://vine.co/v/hzA9pUt97de

Stronghold Fun - https://vine.co/v/hznBYZi37dV

WARNING: IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY POTENTIALLY RIDICULOUS VIDEOS DO NOT VISIT THESE TWITTER ACCOUNTS.

Josh Sawyer: https://twitter.com/jesawyer

Adam Brennecke: https://twitter.com/adam_brennecke

Brandon Adler: https://twitter.com/badler07

Avellone's Arcanum Playthrough
Chris has been prepping (and presenting) Eternity at Rezzed, once he’s back, you’ll get a new playthrough video in a future update.

Well, that's it for now. Over the next few weeks we will be talking about the vertical slice, the fulfillment system, and other goodies. So, stay tuned. As always, we love your feedback on our updates and game direction, so head over to the Project Eternity forums and let us know what you are thinking. Thanks for reading.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, that's a whole lot of nothing.

 

[Comrade Goby]

He's setting up Dyrwood to be a pretty blatant colonial North America analogue. I just hope they don't get into Dances With Wolves / Avatar territory of evil white colonists vs. noble savages.

Sawyer is a gay liberal

of course it's gonna go that route

 

[Sensuki]

Had a feeling it would be a filler update.

What do people know about this Brandon Adler ?

from what I can find

Obsidian
QA 2006-2008
QA Lead 2008-2009
Assistant Producer 2009-2012
Junior Designer 2012 (South Park)
Left Company (probably laid off)

Designer/Producer at MEDL Mobile

Hired again in June

No statement of an update break this time, so we will probably get a meaty update next week.

 

[Sensuki]

Josh Sawyer, brief bit about enchanting metals.

Enchantments take a number of different forms, but steel is by far the most common metal used for making armor and weapons. Skein steel doesn't actually bind the soul to the metal, but uses copper as a temporary element of the forging process to slowly draw a burning soul over the weapon. By the time the process is complete, there's very little copper left in the weapon, but there are trace amounts that can reveal the macabre process used to create it.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64005-update-57-hello-again-for-the-first-time/#entry1344336

from SA

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3506352&userid=17931

Paladins buff anyone near them, melee or otherwise. Chants affect a larger area and tend to me more powerful because they're chanters' main "thing" and the effects are cyclical.

A chanter probably will have the range to cover a Wild Sprinting barbarian. A paladin's aura likely would not, even with Zealous March (Wild Sprint has a short duration but the speed boost is HUGE). A paladin's commands are reasonably long-range.

Yes. Chants are made up of phrases. Each phrase has a specific effect that lasts for the duration of the phrase plus an additional "linger" into the next phrase. Players build their own chants out of the phrases they know.

Some are in English and some are in *~ conlangs ~*. E.g. Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr is an Aedyran chant. And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon the Shield is plain English (but based on an Aedyran legend).

They do, but their chants/phrases move on a cycle. It's more difficult for a chanter to flip one chant off and another on than it is for a paladin to switch Zealous auras or use a command. Commands, specifically, are intended to be very fast.

We will be having class-specific dialogue options, but we haven't talked much about order-specific dialogue yet.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Vine? Is this a real thing? I must be getting old because it sounds like a parody of a hot new app.

Short looping videos? They're called gifs, Ed.

 

[Sensuki]

Screenshot of the updated Prototype village from one of the vine movies.
3 new buildings to the top there.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Short looping videos? They're called gifs, Ed.

But they have sound, so they're incalculably more annoying.

 

[Sensuki]

https://vine.co/v/hzA9pUt97de

Video showing some staff members of P:E

Steve Weatherly and Tim Cain in a room together. Jorge Salgado. Polina Hristova. Kazunori Aruga, Sean Dunny and a shot of Hector Espinoza's head.

 

[Rhalle]

He's setting up Dyrwood to be a pretty blatant colonial North America analogue. I just hope they don't get into Dances With Wolves / Avatar territory of evil white colonists vs. noble savages.

Let the inevitable Bioware-styled PC-moralizing commence.

 

[crawlkill]

the first thing I dislike about PE since they decided to use mostly-conventional fantasy races with dumbfuck conlang names: man, animats look lame even in concept art. you could even work in a reference to old IE/Forgotten Realms/D&D shit by having empty suits of armor, and the Legacy of Kain fans would nod approval.

ugh am I turning into a codexian I don't care if a few of your monsters look dumb PE my problems with your conlang dwarves go deeper--

question: is it better to rename or to redefine a fantasy race? personally, I prefer redefinition. it requires a lot less paging space in my mind to remember "In Dark Sun, dwarves have no beards" than it does to remember "In Dark Sun, find'hargg are short, stout humanoids without beards." I'm all about a minimization of imaginary words. all hack fantasy settings use them and are worse for them. it's one of the few places Dragon Age fiction definitely goes right, in avoiding rebranding recognizable fantasy concepts.

 

[tuluse]

Let the inevitable Bioware-styled PC-moralizing commence.

Just like that other game Sawyer was head designer on, Fallout: New Vegas. Totally Biowarized man.

 

[crawlkill]

Let the inevitable Bioware-styled PC-moralizing commence.

Just like that other game Sawyer was head designer on, Fallout: New Vegas. Totally Biowarized man.

The one lesson Sawyer could take from Bioware is "your party NPCs need to be very present." The one thing he won't lead his game into is clear moral choices. You know that TVTropes entry on the Golden Ending? No Obsidian game should have an entry, unless it's subverted.

 

[SCO]

He's setting up Dyrwood to be a pretty blatant colonial North America analogue. I just hope they don't get into Dances With Wolves / Avatar territory of evil white colonists vs. noble savages.

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Can i still withdraw my pledge

edit: oh wait, i thought you wrote confederate america, had flashbacks to all the shitty civil war themed books i've read.

 

[crawlkill]

see this is the fantasy bullshit

 

[Sensuki]

I admit that I do not like the name "Animat" but I will wait and see the in-game model and fight the creature before I decide whether it is shit or good.

I do however trust in George Ziets to bring the incline, and his conceptual and area design should be good.

 

[Duraframe300]

What do people know about this Brandon Adler ?

Nice dude, posted on the forums from time to time IIRC. I think he had to go into design to keep his job (as they were full on producers), but even that didn't work out, when the layoffs came.

 

[Duraframe300]

I do like Animats. Malekith puts it in the Obsidian forums well

Why? I mean, when we know that people souls have power and are the source of magic, doesn't make sense to use captured souls as batteries? It makes sense, i would do it if i was a wizard in that world.
Even in other settings like Dragon Age and Forgotten Realms binding a soul to an item or a golem or whatever gave special results, but in those cases is nonsensical .
In PE makes sense.

If you had access to souls as an actual thing, and you experimented with them, trying to bind or capture it in objects would be a logical step somewhere down the line. If you could produce a supply of soldiers with it even better.

That said, this would have to be done in secret and be a major moral issue in the world.

 

[villain of the story]

Animats remind me of:



Damn, that game was classy from beginning to the end.

 

[villain of the story]

Is that the Codex Brennecke is browsing?

https://vine.co/v/hzmabYV2mlP

I hope the locations in the game will be as good as the source material they got:

https://vine.co/v/hznBYZi37dV

 

[Infinitron]

Is that the Codex Brennecke is browsing?

https://vine.co/v/hzmabYV2mlP

If you mean the computer behind him, then to me it looks more like some kind of IDE.