Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Grunker]

<--- retard

 

[aeonsim]

One big advantage of 2D renders from 3D models vs a live 3D gameworld, is you can really turn up the detail, as you don't have to be able to render the resulting scene 30 times a second. In the 2D art thread in the Obs forums the devs mentioned that Dyrford village takes 8-10hrs to render and needs ~32GB of RAM.

Love to see someone with a personal computer that could render that in real time :D

It's one of the major reasons why the IE games are still reasonably pretty after 15 years, something I certainly can't say about any of the 3D games from that era.

 

[tuluse]

<--- retard

Although, I was thinking more about it and examples of things. VtmB looks pretty great and I believe Troika made that on a shoestring budget.

I'd say Boyarsky and Anderson are magicians.

 

[agris]

I'm shocked they don't have a small rack dedicated to rendering out the 2d projections, and do this on their own machines. They don't outright say it, but when they say "our computers have 32 gb of ram" in the context of rendering, it sure sounds like it.

 

[Jaesun]

Isn't Sawyer like 1/16th black?

http://archive.today/oobQm

I'm American. Most of my ancestors were German (Bavarian, Prussian, Austrian via Swabia and Hungary). They came to the United States in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. One small branch of my mother's family was English. They (the Godfreys) came to Hampton (in present-day New Hampshire) in the early 17th century.

Might be 1/16th English.

Infinitron confirmed as Roguey's alt.

 

[tuluse]

I'm shocked they don't have a small rack dedicated to rendering out the 2d projections, and do this on their own machines. They don't outright say it, but when they say "our computers have 32 gb of ram" in the context of rendering, it sure sounds like it.

While this would make render times much faster it would mean additional complexities for artists. They could just set a scenes up in Maya (or whatever they use) and hit render. Artists are generally bad at handling complexity. Since the render times are in a time frame of starting as you leave work and having it ready when you come in the morning, it's probably not worth it.

 

[Shannow]

Costs: Good 3D > good 2D > bad 3D > bad 2D.

Greater than denoting cost here.

It will be interesting to note how big the cost-difference of PoE is compared to WL2.

Also, NWN2 was all about modding. If you want people to make maps it either has to be 3D or tiled 2D so people can just put stuff together like legos or puzzle pieces.

Fixed? I assume that's what you meant?
If so, I'd suggest you edit that. If Grunker hadn't made the mistake I wouldn't have read that post thrice.

 

[tuluse]

Fixed? I assume that's what you meant?
If so, I'd suggest you edit that. If Grunker hadn't made the mistake I wouldn't have read that post thrice.

No. I mean WL2 and POE had approximately equal budgets. I'm curious who managed to make the bigger game given that.

 

[Infinitron]

I mean WL2 and POE had approximately equal budgets.

We don't know what PoE's budget actually turned out to be. I'd say chances are extremely high the Swedes pitched in some of their own cash, especially when the game was delayed from 2014.

 

[tuluse]

We don't know what PoE's budget actually turned out to be. I'd say chances are extremely high the Swedes pitched in some of their own cash, especially when the game was delayed from 2014.

Well the final budget for WL2 was about 5 million. So PoE would need more than 1 million in additional funds to surpass that.

I think they'll be roughly equal to one another when all is said and done.

 

[Infinitron]

This must be what Josh is in europe for

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153150484259575

Yay, more Twitch streams to newspost!

Umm, it looks like this ended up not happening. Instead there was just an intermission in the stream: http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/b/623748169

 

[agris]

I'm shocked they don't have a small rack dedicated to rendering out the 2d projections, and do this on their own machines. They don't outright say it, but when they say "our computers have 32 gb of ram" in the context of rendering, it sure sounds like it.

While this would make render times much faster it would mean additional complexities for artists. They could just set a scenes up in Maya (or whatever they use) and hit render. Artists are generally bad at handling complexity. Since the render times are in a time frame of starting as you leave work and having it ready when you come in the morning, it's probably not worth it.

Yea, since it's all hypothetical and we don't know the time benefit from dedicated render stations, this is plausible. If dedicated renderers improved the time by a factor of 7 to 10, I would argue the added complexity would be worth it to see multiple rendered versions of your work per-day. On the other hand, I like your diss of artists not being able to handle technical complexity (i.e. emergence of Apple..) so there's that :D

 

[Anthony Davis]

Not at all. What we’re more concerned about is the non-final build being leaked before you, the backers, are able to play it. It’s an unfortunate part of our business; many games get leaked after they leave the developers hands.

If it’s leaked early, it hurts everyone, both in the short and long term. It hurts you, the backers, who have waited with immense patience for the game, and you should be the first folks to get to play it. It hurts those who play an incomplete version of the game

I love how they try to convince everyone that a leaked game version hurts YOU. Lol, I can take this hurt, give it to me.

i don't care really, because I'm a digital backer, but this is just PR bullshit. What this really means: we want to work on the game until the last minute, and since the physical disc has no Steam with automatic update, we will ship the discs late.

Yeah Anthony Davis Not cool. Sure, there will be people bitching if it gets leaked first. But thats about it. This just pisses people off.

Getting to work on release as long as possible however is something thats very much understandable and sympathetic. Just say that.

*We're doing whats best for you* in this case is at best patronizing.

Edit: Or just leave the "We're doing it for YOU* out of it. Because thats the main problem.

Point was used to sell the concept of DRM

What, seriously? You have got be trolling me.

There is no "if", the game WILL be leaked. You will still have the game on launch day - every physical backer has at least one digital copy as well.

You don't think a version of the game getting out WITHOUT ~2 months of bug fixing and polishing leaking out early is okay?
It seems clear to me that a leaked version of an early build will diminish the game experience for those who play it, and will diminish the value of the backers patience and support. It will also diminish, the developer. This seems to be a simple concept.

Also, we were honest, we did say that we want to work on the game till the last minute:

The realities of manufacturing require us to have a final game disc *now* in order to get it into the box with everything else. The game today isn’t the final game you’d play on March 26th. We’re continuing to fix bugs, make improvements, and polish the game.

 

[agris]

Anthony Davis Personally, I'm just disappointed that this issue is raised so close to release. This has to be a logistics problem that was identified a long time ago, regardless of release date. Manufacturing lead-time is essentially constant, why are we hearing about this now and not a long time ago?

 

[J_C]

Not at all. What we’re more concerned about is the non-final build being leaked before you, the backers, are able to play it. It’s an unfortunate part of our business; many games get leaked after they leave the developers hands.

If it’s leaked early, it hurts everyone, both in the short and long term. It hurts you, the backers, who have waited with immense patience for the game, and you should be the first folks to get to play it. It hurts those who play an incomplete version of the game

I love how they try to convince everyone that a leaked game version hurts YOU. Lol, I can take this hurt, give it to me.

i don't care really, because I'm a digital backer, but this is just PR bullshit. What this really means: we want to work on the game until the last minute, and since the physical disc has no Steam with automatic update, we will ship the discs late.

Yeah Anthony Davis Not cool. Sure, there will be people bitching if it gets leaked first. But thats about it. This just pisses people off.

Getting to work on release as long as possible however is something thats very much understandable and sympathetic. Just say that.

*We're doing whats best for you* in this case is at best patronizing.

Edit: Or just leave the "We're doing it for YOU* out of it. Because thats the main problem.

Point was used to sell the concept of DRM

What, seriously? You have got be trolling me.

There is no "if", the game WILL be leaked. You will still have the game on launch day - every physical backer has at least one digital copy as well.

You don't think a version of the game getting out WITHOUT ~2 months of bug fixing and polishing leaking out early is okay?
It seems clear to me that a leaked version of an early build will diminish the game experience for those who play it, and will diminish the value of the backers patience and support. It will also diminish, the developer. This seems to be a simple concept.

Also, we were honest, we did say that we want to work on the game till the last minute:

The realities of manufacturing require us to have a final game disc *now* in order to get it into the box with everything else. The game today isn’t the final game you’d play on March 26th. We’re continuing to fix bugs, make improvements, and polish the game.

Oh we are sure that the game will leak out. I just think that the main reason for this step is to give you guys another month to work with. Which is totally understandable and I'm glad you have one more month to work with.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis Personally, I'm just disappointed that this issue is raised so close to release. This has to be a logistics problem that was identified a long time ago, regardless of release date. Manufacturing lead-time is essentially constant, why are we hearing about this now and not a long time ago?

In the "normal" model of manufacturing, developers aren't involved. This is a "new" model where we are now in charge of it.

I think, and I may be wrong here, this didn't become an issue till it became clear that the disc we were going to send to manufacturing would conflict with our promise of a DRM free disc. That's why we talked about what we did for South Park, as an example. South Park is not DRM free,

I don't have all the details - and at this point the WHY the problem occurred is secondary to the solution,yes?

 

[Anthony Davis]

Oh we are sure that the game will leak out. I just think that the main reason for this step is to give you guys another month to work with. Which is totally understandable and I'm glad you have one more month to work with.

A day one patch was always the plan, long before this issue came to light. Everyone does it, even if we were bug free, there is always polish.

I want to be clear on that. We aren't doing this as an excuse for more time, the plan was already for a day one patch. That's sort of (unfortunately I guess) the default plan in the industry.

 

[Duraframe300]

Ignore

(I still stay by my opinion that the use of *We're doing it for YOU* was bad)

 

[agris]

In the "normal" model of manufacturing, developers aren't involved. This is a "new" model where we are now in charge of it.

I think, and I may be wrong here, this didn't become an issue till it became clear that the disc we were going to send to manufacturing would conflict with our promise of a DRM free disc. That's why we talked about what we did for South Park, as an example. South Park is not DRM free,

I don't have all the details - and at this point the WHY the problem occurred is secondary to the solution,yes?

Don't misunderstand me- I'm ok with solution 1. I've got a digital download, as does everyone else. Your studio will get some backlash, and it's important you (or rather, OE as a whole) understand where it comes from in an effort to avoid repeating mistakes in the future. I'm not crusading against you guys or anything, but the timing of this upsets me for the reasons I previously outlined. The why is the issue, for me, not the solution. The timing of this announcement ~*--feels--*~ like PR, not a genuine discussion with backers (i.e. when OE first identified this as an issue).

 

[Duraframe300]

Anthony Davis didn't read your post right as well. Sry. Ignore the last one.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I feel like it should be obvious that if you are playing version A of the game, which lacks ~2 months of bug fixing and polish, and I am playing verison B of the game, and it HAS two months of bug fixing and polishing, that I will have the better experience.

Also, we are not putting DRM on the game. We aren't doing this to protect us from piracy, that's impossible.

 

[Duraframe300]

I feel like it should be obvious that if you are playing version A of the game, which lacks ~2 months of bug fixing and polish, and I am playing verison B of the game, and it HAS two months of bug fixing and polishing, that I will have the better experience.

Also, we are not putting DRM on the game. We aren't doing this to protect us from piracy, that's impossible.

As said I misunderstood that part. Thought first you meant that the guy who plays version B has a diminished experience.

 

[Anthony Davis]

In the "normal" model of manufacturing, developers aren't involved. This is a "new" model where we are now in charge of it.

I think, and I may be wrong here, this didn't become an issue till it became clear that the disc we were going to send to manufacturing would conflict with our promise of a DRM free disc. That's why we talked about what we did for South Park, as an example. South Park is not DRM free,

I don't have all the details - and at this point the WHY the problem occurred is secondary to the solution,yes?

Don't misunderstand me- I'm ok with solution 1. I've got a digital download, as does everyone else. Your studio will get some backlash, and it's important you (or rather, OE as a whole) understand where it comes from in an effort to avoid repeating mistakes in the future. I'm not crusading against you guys or anything, but the timing of this upsets me for the reasons I previously outlined. The why is the issue, for me, not the solution. The timing of this announcement ~*--feels--*~ like PR, not a genuine discussion with backers (i.e. when OE first identified this as an issue).

The issue is the conflict between manufacturing and promises we made to the backers. I'm not sure when the issue or conflict was discovered, but I think it was recently.

It's the kind thing that from the outside or in hindsight seems obvious, but it isn't.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I feel like it should be obvious that if you are playing version A of the game, which lacks ~2 months of bug fixing and polish, and I am playing verison B of the game, and it HAS two months of bug fixing and polishing, that I will have the better experience.

Also, we are not putting DRM on the game. We aren't doing this to protect us from piracy, that's impossible.

As said I misunderstood that part. Thought first you meant that the guy who plays version B has a diminished experience.

Yeah, the conversation is moving quickly - no bigs.

 

[Gozma]

MMOs generally employ an aggro generation metagame to achieve stickiness.

At one point, Josh implied that since backers strongly rejected aggro, melee engagement was the only alternative. But I'll ask him about the slowing. Been meaning to for a while: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ta-release-thread.93694/page-240#post-3592942

Did you ever ask about this?