I want to be a Mortal Kombat:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60674-finishing-moves/
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60674-finishing-moves/
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Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]
- Thread starter Anthony Davis
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Admiral jimbob
gay as all hell
Murk
Arcane
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The game will always shadow the books, no matter how much it tries to stand on its own -- certain things that are outside the conventions of gaming will follow in suit of this -- such as branching character views. I believe the Witcher books (only read the two English ones) have such scenes, but unfortunately I cannot recall.
kaizoku
Arcane
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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/comments
Obsidian Entertainment 28 minutes ago
hail. this is josh sawyer. i'll be checking the comments for the next hour or so if you have any system-related questions. i may not be able to answer specifics, but let me know if something's on your mind.
Obsidian Entertainment 28 minutes ago
hail. this is josh sawyer. i'll be checking the comments for the next hour or so if you have any system-related questions. i may not be able to answer specifics, but let me know if something's on your mind.
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RPG Codex is the same and you know it. All internet communities think they're better than everyone else.
tuluse
Arcane
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The difference is that we are better
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Dumbasses think they can choose the game's name http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60678-lets-name-this-game/
"What makes a villain you love to hate?" (inb4 JRPG villains) http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60599-what-makes-a-villain-you-love-to-hate/
Friendly fire thread http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60677-combat-friendly-fire/
"What makes a villain you love to hate?" (inb4 JRPG villains) http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60599-what-makes-a-villain-you-love-to-hate/
Friendly fire thread http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60677-combat-friendly-fire/
kaizoku
Arcane
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Josh, have you guys decided on an art style? Please don't make it look cartoony like World of Warcraft or Diablo III. I'm really hoping you're going for what BG2 would look like if it were built in a 2012 engine 
Hope that was a system related question ;-)
@scotty - for "ordinary" areas and characters, we reference a lot of the icewind dale art. mostly realistic, but with fantastic elements. of course, it's a fantasy world, so we will occasionally make things that are really otherworldly.
@Josh One more and last question Josh, if you will. Will we have an evolving game world? As in: Will time be a factor? Will the environments and maps change due to events in the game? Story-wise as well as random, etc?
@josef - i can't say to what extent/scale, but yes, changing the environment due to the player's actions (and others' actions in the story) is important to us and we will try to do that as much as we can.
@OE Can you give us hint what kind of skill resources you have visioned into the game?
@Eero - i don't want to commit to any specific set of skills, but we do want characters of different classes to be able to specialize in (or diversify across) different non-combat areas. i.e. we do not want fighters to be the "no non-combat skills class" or rogues to be the "tons of non-combat skills class". we also want to reward both the specialist and the generalist, so if you have two people in the party with overlapping skills, the "weaker" characters, skill-wise, can still help the stronger character out.
@Obisidian Entertainment Just a quick note to the designers and companion/dialogue creators: please ensure that there is plenty of banter between companions and also that companions make remarks about the world/situations! This really adds to the atmosphere as well and shows how companions react not just to the player, but to other companions and situations as well. This makes them more believable and not just as springboard for the player's actions and character, but also the natures and personalities of their fellow companions and the world they inhabit. Please include this! Thanks.
@willie - yep, that's very important to us and we plan to make that a focus.
@Josh: About formations, do you have plans to add extend the functionalities compared to BG2 or is it pretty much the same? (For example hold position while walking. IIRC , the characters in the infinity games didn't hold formation when clicking on a distant area)
@farudan - i'd like to experiment more with formations, but i'm not sure how much we will extend them beyond BG2 (other than allowing you to custom-configure them like ToEE).
@Josh Can you tell us what you have in mind for the sound design and audio system? My fondest memories of IE games, IWD specifically, not only come from the awesome hand painted sceneries but most of all from the incredible mood that was achieved through music and sound effects. The wind blowing, the fireplace cracking, all those little touches added up to a really immersive experience, and I hope you'll be as ambitious for sound design as for the rest of the game.
@charles - environmental audio adds a lot and our audio department puts a lot of care into setting the mood of a given scene. justin bell (who composed our trailer music) also pays a lot of attention to the emotional "flow" and themes of our games. i'm sure PE will be no different.
@Josh Player crafting especially at the upper tiers, could we not have an arbitrary limitation via fixed amount of required materials in game and instead impose a method of gathering said material so that for those who want to and are willing to spend the time to gather these materials can do so and thus fully equip thier party with the top end player crafted equipment. Also I hope that player crafted items will be on par to tge best treasure found / looted items and not be outclassed by a large margin compared to those sans "artifact" level items of course.
@steven - to be honest, i'm not sure. tim and i haven't talked about crafting at length yet. i will say that one nice advantage of crafting systems for high-end gear is that the player can (usually) choose the specific type of gear he or she wants. in some ways, that makes it easier for us if we don't have to make custom unique items for every build type.
Not system-related but any idea on the direction with music or is the project not at the stage to discuss this area yet? Any chances Mark Morgan will be involved
@randy - we've only talked briefly about music direction internally. justin bell has a lot of cool ideas, but nothing's solid yet. sorry!
@Josh Any plans yet for symbiotic combat abilities between companions? Something that would give an extra layer to picking whose in your party not just based on individual abilities.
@christopher - i think those sorts of abilities are cool. i'm not opposed to them, but we haven't made specific plans for them. i'll think about it some more and talk to tim and avellone about them
@fred - tim have talked a lot about magic. in this world, different people/groups access the power of their souls in different ways, so there's one source but different techniques for accessing it. we want there to be mechanical differences between how the classes use these abilities while still making it easy for the player to use the different characters, UI-wise.
@OE - Hi Josh, 2 questions in my mind:
1.- How do you plan to articulate the world map with the local maps? Do you think the more "open world" aproach of BGI is the right way to create an atmosphere of exploration, or it feels too much unconnected?
2.- In the battlefield, how much tactical importance are you going to give to formations? Could formations have more tactical significance than in the IE games?
@jaime - 1) personally i like the BG-style of map connectivity. i feel that the IWD type maps, while beautiful, were too linear in many cases and exploration felt limited.
2) i'm not sure yet. sorry!
@Josh: Regarding the separation of Combat / Non-Combat skills, is the player still forced to decide between them where to spend his level ups? How do you manage that characters do not become too powerful and that there is still a chance of failure? (thinking of having a group of six people)
@farudan - as with systems like D&D 3E, the player is not intended to be able to cover all possible combat and non-combat specializations through advancement. they have to choose a focus within their class' available options. i think we can cover the "spread" of skill ranges by using resource cost (e.g. lockpicks or thieving tools) to cover deficits. so if you don't have a party of master thieves, you may still be able to bypass many locks if you have enough tools -- as long as you are skilled enough to hit a reasonable threshold.
Hail Obsidian/Josh, a question regarding the system, I am interested whether parts of the system will execute autonomously from the PC. In other words will parts of the story execute seperate from where the PC is located, thereby allowing events to unfold which the PC will either interact with directly or indirectly. For example: the PC annoys a faction, which results in a army being built, drawing on resources etc the PC learns about the build indirectly, what to do: act now before it gets to large, ignore and see what happens later. This event does not necessarily have to be part of the main story thread, but it would involve the capability for NPC's in the game to be semi-autonomous engines so to speak.
@paul d-i don't think we would do anything that's fully autonomous, but we do like advancing story elements in the background based on actions the player (and other characters) take. we did this a bit in fallout: new vegas. as you hit major story points, things started to change in the world (e.g. veteran rangers and NCR heavy troopers started to show up). more reactive stuff would be even cooler if we have the resources to do it.
@OE: Have you guys decided which character stats will feature in PE? Will they be the same as typical D&D type stats, like STR, DEX, INT, CHA etc, or will they have a different flavour to them that suits your game world?
Also, will certain stats have an effect on dialogue options, like in PS:T, or will you ultimately leave it up to the individual player, & not their character's intellectual capabilities, when dialogues come into play?
@patricia- we have gone through a few lists. ability scores are tricky for a number of reasons because often many classes can dump stats without consequence. we'd like to make sure we can solve these problems before committing to a specific list. re: dialogue: i'm not sure. we need to talk more about it internally. we've recognized that stat-unlocked (and skill-unlocked) dialogue options can often produce "i win" options in conversation which isn't that great as far as supporting roleplaying agency goes.
@Josh, Cool. Will we get any clues about those 'unusual' races before the Kickstarter is over?
@bruce - some, yes. i just don't want to rush developing something prematurely
I think Peter was asking if there will be Dragons in the game?
@bruce/peter - re: dragons: we haven't discussed the great beasts if this world at length yet, so it's too early to say.
okay, i'm heading back to work! i'll try to come back tomorrow and answer more questions if you have them. ~*
Hope that was a system related question ;-)@scotty - for "ordinary" areas and characters, we reference a lot of the icewind dale art. mostly realistic, but with fantastic elements. of course, it's a fantasy world, so we will occasionally make things that are really otherworldly.
@Josh One more and last question Josh, if you will. Will we have an evolving game world? As in: Will time be a factor? Will the environments and maps change due to events in the game? Story-wise as well as random, etc?
@josef - i can't say to what extent/scale, but yes, changing the environment due to the player's actions (and others' actions in the story) is important to us and we will try to do that as much as we can.
@OE Can you give us hint what kind of skill resources you have visioned into the game?
@Eero - i don't want to commit to any specific set of skills, but we do want characters of different classes to be able to specialize in (or diversify across) different non-combat areas. i.e. we do not want fighters to be the "no non-combat skills class" or rogues to be the "tons of non-combat skills class". we also want to reward both the specialist and the generalist, so if you have two people in the party with overlapping skills, the "weaker" characters, skill-wise, can still help the stronger character out.
@Obisidian Entertainment Just a quick note to the designers and companion/dialogue creators: please ensure that there is plenty of banter between companions and also that companions make remarks about the world/situations! This really adds to the atmosphere as well and shows how companions react not just to the player, but to other companions and situations as well. This makes them more believable and not just as springboard for the player's actions and character, but also the natures and personalities of their fellow companions and the world they inhabit. Please include this! Thanks.
@willie - yep, that's very important to us and we plan to make that a focus.
@Josh: About formations, do you have plans to add extend the functionalities compared to BG2 or is it pretty much the same? (For example hold position while walking. IIRC , the characters in the infinity games didn't hold formation when clicking on a distant area)
@farudan - i'd like to experiment more with formations, but i'm not sure how much we will extend them beyond BG2 (other than allowing you to custom-configure them like ToEE).
@Josh Can you tell us what you have in mind for the sound design and audio system? My fondest memories of IE games, IWD specifically, not only come from the awesome hand painted sceneries but most of all from the incredible mood that was achieved through music and sound effects. The wind blowing, the fireplace cracking, all those little touches added up to a really immersive experience, and I hope you'll be as ambitious for sound design as for the rest of the game.
@charles - environmental audio adds a lot and our audio department puts a lot of care into setting the mood of a given scene. justin bell (who composed our trailer music) also pays a lot of attention to the emotional "flow" and themes of our games. i'm sure PE will be no different.
@Josh Player crafting especially at the upper tiers, could we not have an arbitrary limitation via fixed amount of required materials in game and instead impose a method of gathering said material so that for those who want to and are willing to spend the time to gather these materials can do so and thus fully equip thier party with the top end player crafted equipment. Also I hope that player crafted items will be on par to tge best treasure found / looted items and not be outclassed by a large margin compared to those sans "artifact" level items of course.
@steven - to be honest, i'm not sure. tim and i haven't talked about crafting at length yet. i will say that one nice advantage of crafting systems for high-end gear is that the player can (usually) choose the specific type of gear he or she wants. in some ways, that makes it easier for us if we don't have to make custom unique items for every build type.
Not system-related but any idea on the direction with music or is the project not at the stage to discuss this area yet? Any chances Mark Morgan will be involved
@randy - we've only talked briefly about music direction internally. justin bell has a lot of cool ideas, but nothing's solid yet. sorry!
@Josh Any plans yet for symbiotic combat abilities between companions? Something that would give an extra layer to picking whose in your party not just based on individual abilities.
@christopher - i think those sorts of abilities are cool. i'm not opposed to them, but we haven't made specific plans for them. i'll think about it some more and talk to tim and avellone about them
@fred - tim have talked a lot about magic. in this world, different people/groups access the power of their souls in different ways, so there's one source but different techniques for accessing it. we want there to be mechanical differences between how the classes use these abilities while still making it easy for the player to use the different characters, UI-wise.
@OE - Hi Josh, 2 questions in my mind:
1.- How do you plan to articulate the world map with the local maps? Do you think the more "open world" aproach of BGI is the right way to create an atmosphere of exploration, or it feels too much unconnected?
2.- In the battlefield, how much tactical importance are you going to give to formations? Could formations have more tactical significance than in the IE games?
@jaime - 1) personally i like the BG-style of map connectivity. i feel that the IWD type maps, while beautiful, were too linear in many cases and exploration felt limited.
2) i'm not sure yet. sorry!
@Josh: Regarding the separation of Combat / Non-Combat skills, is the player still forced to decide between them where to spend his level ups? How do you manage that characters do not become too powerful and that there is still a chance of failure? (thinking of having a group of six people)
@farudan - as with systems like D&D 3E, the player is not intended to be able to cover all possible combat and non-combat specializations through advancement. they have to choose a focus within their class' available options. i think we can cover the "spread" of skill ranges by using resource cost (e.g. lockpicks or thieving tools) to cover deficits. so if you don't have a party of master thieves, you may still be able to bypass many locks if you have enough tools -- as long as you are skilled enough to hit a reasonable threshold.
Hail Obsidian/Josh, a question regarding the system, I am interested whether parts of the system will execute autonomously from the PC. In other words will parts of the story execute seperate from where the PC is located, thereby allowing events to unfold which the PC will either interact with directly or indirectly. For example: the PC annoys a faction, which results in a army being built, drawing on resources etc the PC learns about the build indirectly, what to do: act now before it gets to large, ignore and see what happens later. This event does not necessarily have to be part of the main story thread, but it would involve the capability for NPC's in the game to be semi-autonomous engines so to speak.
@paul d-i don't think we would do anything that's fully autonomous, but we do like advancing story elements in the background based on actions the player (and other characters) take. we did this a bit in fallout: new vegas. as you hit major story points, things started to change in the world (e.g. veteran rangers and NCR heavy troopers started to show up). more reactive stuff would be even cooler if we have the resources to do it.
@OE: Have you guys decided which character stats will feature in PE? Will they be the same as typical D&D type stats, like STR, DEX, INT, CHA etc, or will they have a different flavour to them that suits your game world?
Also, will certain stats have an effect on dialogue options, like in PS:T, or will you ultimately leave it up to the individual player, & not their character's intellectual capabilities, when dialogues come into play?
@patricia- we have gone through a few lists. ability scores are tricky for a number of reasons because often many classes can dump stats without consequence. we'd like to make sure we can solve these problems before committing to a specific list. re: dialogue: i'm not sure. we need to talk more about it internally. we've recognized that stat-unlocked (and skill-unlocked) dialogue options can often produce "i win" options in conversation which isn't that great as far as supporting roleplaying agency goes.
@Josh, Cool. Will we get any clues about those 'unusual' races before the Kickstarter is over?
@bruce - some, yes. i just don't want to rush developing something prematurely
I think Peter was asking if there will be Dragons in the game?
@bruce/peter - re: dragons: we haven't discussed the great beasts if this world at length yet, so it's too early to say.
okay, i'm heading back to work! i'll try to come back tomorrow and answer more questions if you have them. ~*
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Sounds good.
Grimlorn
Arcane
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- 10,248
I'm about done with those forums.
It seems to me that Obsidian has no problem with their forums being full of retarded shit. They don't mind having the romance crowd (Biowhores) run their Obsidian Order community. And would rather answer dumbass questions on the kickstarter page. I hope after this kickstarter is over they ignore all this BS and just develop the game they want. If they listen to the community this game will be shit.
I know little is known about the game so there isn't much to talk about, but it's hard to stay excited about this game when they're talking about listening to the community and the community itself is retarded akin to what Bioware's once was.
It seems to me that Obsidian has no problem with their forums being full of retarded shit. They don't mind having the romance crowd (Biowhores) run their Obsidian Order community. And would rather answer dumbass questions on the kickstarter page. I hope after this kickstarter is over they ignore all this BS and just develop the game they want. If they listen to the community this game will be shit.
I know little is known about the game so there isn't much to talk about, but it's hard to stay excited about this game when they're talking about listening to the community and the community itself is retarded akin to what Bioware's once was.
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- 99,662
The folks in the Kickstarter comments seem to be much more retarded than those in the forums. The forum folks seem to be a bunch of kids basically, but the results of polls show that they're mostly on the right side of things. I would say that Wasteland 2's forums, at their lowest, were worse.
Anyway, Josh Sawyer is probably just as likely to listen to the feedback of his goon buddies on SomethingAwful, if not moreso. But if you really want to talk to him about stuff, I suggest his Formspring.
Anyway, Josh Sawyer is probably just as likely to listen to the feedback of his goon buddies on SomethingAwful, if not moreso. But if you really want to talk to him about stuff, I suggest his Formspring.
oldmanpaco
Master of Siestas
Souls still sound like the Awesome button.
I'll feel a lot better when the kickstarter is over and we can have comfirmation that Josh, MCA, and Tim are not planning to implement any of the Biodrone and console-kiddie game-destroying features being asked for in the forums. I don't mind them keeping quiet about stuff like romances until the Biodrone cash is safely in their account. That anyone would donate to the project and expect another Dragon Age still shocks me. To me a game with the combat as a mixture of BG2 and ToEE elements and a story like PS:T sounds too good to be true however and I'll remain skeptical. Good things like that don't usually happen in this world.
What would you have them do exactly? Ban the idiot biodrone kiddies? They can't do that until the kickstarter is over for obvious reasons. After that they can give the Biodrones the finger and just tell them that this is not going to be that kind of game. I also agree that the kickstarter comments seem like they are written by 5 year olds with Down's syndrome and are even worse than the idiots in the forum. If the Biodrones want to post all that shit and hope to make the game resemble Dragon Age as much as possible so what? So long as Obsidian doesn't listen to them. I'm not too worried about that. I think this is Obsidian's fun project. Just so that they can make a decent game for once after leaving Interplay/Black Isle. And it's fucking about time too. I remember talk of spiritual successors to PS:T and how much Chris would love to do one back on the Interplay forums. I know that that is not this game exactly, but they are definitely talking the talk. We already know the ex-bioware (and Troika) guys can walk the walk. It just remains to be seen if they will.
Grimlorn
Arcane
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If they had balls they'd come out and say it before the kickstarter ended and let them (Biodrones) go off and fuck themselves. They could cancel their donations and whine about no romances and how Bioware always listens.
I'm starting to lose my confidence they'll do this. I guess all the retarded shit is starting to wear down on my nerves. And that Sawyer stuff that Roguey quoted didn't sound too good.
The moderators there are peope who volounteer thier time, also Obsidian likes to have an Open Policy (similar to the Codex). The content of the forums are what is going to happen when your forums are open to all. Are you really surprised?
If you think Obsidian are as fucking Stupid as Bioware and will implement EVERYTHING all these retards are asking, that's not going to happen. The folks at Obsidian were on the BIS forums for years, and listened and took the suggestions of well done feedback and suggestions.
There is a POINT of listening to your fans. The WRONG way is Bioware. The RIGHT way is Obsidian (and old BIS).
Pegultagol
Erudite
Obsidian mentioning souls seems that they will somehow go for something similar to MOTB, and other ways of maintaining this all universal resource. I don't mind the concept of a soul devourer, and I'm getting myself too ahead with this but souls could be manifest in cute animal forms that you could catch and store in small 'soul spheres' and recall them to fight alongside you when convenient. These feral souls would have lost some their faculties to do anything but repeat the given name of their host creatures. Or you could imbue one of soul fragments and jam it into your forehead that would result in not only permanent physical transformation taking after the form that originated the soul, but its various abilities.
Flacracker
Educated
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2011
- Messages
- 77
Uhh... Its not like they would be totally game breaking or be any sort of detriment to the game. They could only be cool if done right. Most were totally overblown in DAO.
Surf Solar
cannot into womynz
- Joined
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- 8,837
Tigranes
Arcane
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- Jan 8, 2009
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It's interesting how you have people that are so excited about the kickstarter, they want to make every single suggestion possible and have their say in every single design decision.
Then, you have the people who mock/criticise the first group for their naivety and silliness, but then allow their proliferation to discourage them about how the game will turn out.
Logically speaking, if you believe the first to be naive, shouldn't you also believe that the developers would not actually listen to all that? Seems an interesting contradiction where people effectively say "dude WTF they aren't going to ask you for every single thing BUT I MUST ARGUE WITH YOU TO MAKE SURE NOBODY TAKES UP YOUR SUGGESTION."
I don't really have a problem with it anymore, it's just different stages/forms of excitement for everyone. But it is interesting.
Then, you have the people who mock/criticise the first group for their naivety and silliness, but then allow their proliferation to discourage them about how the game will turn out.
Logically speaking, if you believe the first to be naive, shouldn't you also believe that the developers would not actually listen to all that? Seems an interesting contradiction where people effectively say "dude WTF they aren't going to ask you for every single thing BUT I MUST ARGUE WITH YOU TO MAKE SURE NOBODY TAKES UP YOUR SUGGESTION."
I don't really have a problem with it anymore, it's just different stages/forms of excitement for everyone. But it is interesting.
Grimlorn
Arcane
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- 10,248
I was just in a bad mood earlier. I guess in the back of my mind I was starting to think that if they weren't speaking out against some of this retarded shit and were just allowing it to fester in the forums that it meant they were not against it and also condoning/considering it. Seems like the forums favor those people.
About the arguing with those people, maybe it was unnecessary. I don't know. I don't know the Obsidian guys and what their thoughts on the forums and how easily they are swayed by that stuff. What I do know is if we had done nothing there would be 50-100 page threads on romance, same with a 50-100 page LGBT thread. Safe havens for Biotards to come invade and set up shop in the Obsidian forums. Because we chastised and rebuked them, a lot of those posters don't even post there anymore. So it's a small victory for us I suppose.
On the other side of the coin, is what Infinitron doing a waste of time? If the devs don't pay attention to the forums, is he wasting his time by posting threads about interesting topics to get us to vote on them and post in them our
thoughts?
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