Preview Pillars of Eternity played by Josh Sawyer, live on Twitch!

[Kem0sabe]

Why do you try so hard

What else is there to do on the interwebs?

Also Cd Projekt is not exactly an example of financial stability and good management, not the smartest Potatoes in the yard.

 

[Tigranes]

Again, publishers decide to greenlight, or prohibit, patches. We know this for example cockblocked post release bugfixing obs wanted to do on alpha protocol.

They may not do an enhanced edition, sure. But its ridiculous if we now say that shoyld be a standard. I expect from any ks project dedicated balance and bugs patching and then some content addons if things (I.e.sales) pan out.

You basically sit there throwing out a patently false point, defending it by saying everything is conjecture, and now raise another irrelevant point - obs is a multi team company making Russian shit as wrll as kickstarter as well as AAA.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Again, publishers decide to greenlight, or prohibit, patches. We know this for example cockblocked post release bugfixing obs wanted to do on alpha protocol.

They may not do an enhanced edition, sure. But its ridiculous if we now say that shoyld be a standard. I expect from any ks project dedicated balance and bugs patching and then some content addons if things (I.e.sales) pan out.

You basically sit there throwing out a patently false point, defending it by saying everything is conjecture, and now raise another irrelevant point - obs is a multi team company making Russian shit as wrll as kickstarter as well as AAA.

Bug fixing was the least of alpha protocols problems, i doubt any amount of patching by obsidian was going to fix it.

That being said, I'm just speaking my mind with no particular info to base it on beyond my own belief that obsidian won't significantly change the game post release with some kind of enhanced edition.

They will patch it of course and tweak and fiddle, but major changes? After seeing how Josh was approaching development as a simple contract job...

 

[set]

That's not true. AP had a pretty solid base. What you needed to do was:

1. Fix the bugs/glitches
2. Rebalance pistol, tweak some numbers on some skills

If you play AP today you'll note the story is interestingly adaptive to choice - little details change for reasons you sometimes can't even be sure! It's a neat little game. And the tasks you need to complete in each mission aren't so bad. I've played the game twice, though I will admit there are some weak spots... It left me wanting more, too. The ending wasn't satisfying at all.

 

[Tigranes]

Bug fixing was the least of alpha protocols problems, i doubt any amount of patching by obsidian was going to fix it.

Another pointless comment.

"Man it's Obsidian they don't patch their games"
"Um, publishers decide that."
"Man look at Obsidian its a big company it aint indie it wont patch games"
"For example, in AP, they couldn't patch bugs because of the publisher."
"Man AP was so shit bugs were the least of its problems"

That being said, I'm just speaking my mind with no particular info to base it on beyond my own belief that obsidian won't significantly change the game post release with some kind of enhanced edition.

People usually form beliefs, and change their beliefs, depending on what they know, what they hear, what they experience. You, you stellar specimen, seem to have achieved a kind of minor godhood. I suppose it is I who is the fool to challenge this.

 

[Roguey]

They will patch it of course and tweak and fiddle, but major changes? After seeing how Josh was approaching development as a simple contract job...

New Vegas was a contract job and Josh did all the official and unofficial balance changes on his own time, outside of studio hours. He may be distanced emotionally but that doesn't mean he's not going to try to do the best possible job he can.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Another pointless comment.

"Man it's Obsidian they don't patch their games"
"Um, publishers decide that."
"Man look at Obsidian its a big company it aint indie it wont patch games"
"For example, in AP, they couldn't patch bugs because of the publisher."
"Man AP was so shit bugs were the least of its problems"



People usually form beliefs, and change their beliefs, depending on what they know, what they hear, what they experience. You, you stellar specimen, seem to have achieved a kind of minor godhood. I suppose it is I who is the fool to challenge this.

I have no problem owning to by own opinions and changing them. If you read up on my post history on D:OS, I was very reluctant to give it a chance but after seeing what larian was doing with the beta I ended up buying it... And despite the later acts letting down, I very much enjoyed the start of the game.

Neither am I blinded by pure belief that certain developers own the truth of all their design decisions, I still very much criticise games I enjoy like underrail, AoD or PoE.

If obsidian truly does end up giving great post release support for this game, then I'll be the first to praise them. You on the other hand, seem to think that publishers are the only reason obsidian hasn't released a great game on launch day or failed to support it later.

 

[set]

It's not black and white, but you cannot deny the role a publisher plays. They determine the budget, not Obsidian, they determine when to give handouts. They authorize stuff like patches. They look strictly for RoI. Publishers think strictly in the narrow term, they have little interest in the long term for the company beneath them. Obsidian might be incompentent in some ways, but publishers contribute significantly to post-release support as well as in general the quantity of bugs in a game.

Obsidian can too choose to look in the short term, but I don't think they will. They know that providing patches and support is important to maintaining a fan base and long term revenue.

It is also fair to say they are more or less feature locked at this point. You probably cannot fix significant problems with feature changes at this point - only number tweaks and other small changes. You generally do not reengineer things in balance patches, game mechanics tend to stay fixed in stone on release. Be mindful that creating or redoing a mechanic probably involves a designer, a programmer, and maybe even an artist. If they spend a week on it, that's like $10k of the company's time, at the very least.

 

[Tigranes]

I have no problem owning to by own opinions and changing them. If you read up on my post history on D:OS, I was very reluctant to give it a chance but after seeing what larian was doing with the beta I ended up buying it... And despite the later acts letting down, I very much enjoyed the start of the game.

Neither am I blinded by pure belief that certain developers own the truth of all their design decisions, I still very much criticise games I enjoy like underrail, AoD or PoE.

If obsidian truly does end up giving great post release support for this game, then I'll be the first to praise them. You on the other hand, seem to think that publishers are the only reason obsidian hasn't released a great game on launch day or failed to support it later.

Sure, that's reasonable. I just don't know how you developed the impression in the first place.

For instance, Obsidian had a justified reputation for buggy unpolished games early on. Even if you blame the publisher, that was still a reality (and for, say, the general wonkiness of NWN2 compared to NWN1, you can't just blame the publisher). Then Obsidian shaped up and released some games that are buggy but no more than most RPGs, and now, even games that are very unbuggy.

My point is that Obsidian never really gave anyone any reason to think that they were particularly bad at post-release support, patching, or liked to abandon games after release. Sometimes some of that happened, but quite clearly due to publisher restraints; at other times they supported reasonably.

And then, looking to the future, it would take an extraordinarily stupid person to say, hey, look at Larian and inXile making all these post-release patches, we won't do any of that shit! It would only happen if POE tanked, and at the same time Obsidian's other projects tanked, and the whole company starts keeling over.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Sure, that's reasonable. I just don't know how you developed the impression in the first place.

For instance, Obsidian had a justified reputation for buggy unpolished games early on. Even if you blame the publisher, that was still a reality (and for, say, the general wonkiness of NWN2 compared to NWN1, you can't just blame the publisher). Then Obsidian shaped up and released some games that are buggy but no more than most RPGs, and now, even games that are very unbuggy.

My point is that Obsidian never really gave anyone any reason to think that they were particularly bad at post-release support, patching, or liked to abandon games after release. Sometimes some of that happened, but quite clearly due to publisher restraints; at other times they supported reasonably.

And then, looking to the future, it would take an extraordinarily stupid person to say, hey, look at Larian and inXile making all these post-release patches, we won't do any of that shit! It would only happen if POE tanked, and at the same time Obsidian's other projects tanked, and the whole company starts keeling over.

Wait and see, im actually very psyched for the PoE release.

It is also fair to say they are more or less feature locked at this point. You probably cannot fix significant problems with feature changes at this point - only number tweaks and other small changes. You generally do not reengineer things in balance patches, game mechanics tend to stay fixed in stone on release. Be mindful that creating or redoing a mechanic probably involves a designer, a programmer, and maybe even an artist. If they spend a week on it, that's like $10k of the company's time, at the very least.

I think Roguey quoted something the other day about Josh disliking adding features to a game based around non core gameplay elements? paraphrasing here.

I think that the core features we are seeing is the features we will get unless they add an expansion that revolves around a very specific new gameplay element, like MotB.

 

[Copper]

Was there ever a statement to say that animated trees / grass was too time consuming and got dropped, or is that just something that wasn't switched on during the beta for memory issues, for instance? Good to see that bodies are more permanent now though.

I'm also pretty unimpressed with the 3D loading screens - the concept art-style main menu is far more attractive, and presumably, they also have concept renders of the various locations. They look like a HD mod for NWN2

Liked what I saw of the gameplay, pacing seemed fine and movement not as static as has been made out, although some stuff was weird - the front line fighters took hardly any damage from melee (notable exception aside), it was all the priest/wizard getting hammered due to rushing. Purple prose seems to have been reigned in a bit too, which is nice.

 

[set]

Really? Too time consuming? That's a shame. If they're using 3d models couldn't they just do a sheer transformation to make them wiggle just a little? Couldn't be too hard, but I dunno if they're using hand drawn sprites or actual models.

 

[Shevek]

I was hoping for some minor tree swaying like in ToEE.

 

[aeonsim]

Was there ever a statement to say that animated trees / grass was too time consuming and got dropped, or is that just something that wasn't switched on during the beta for memory issues, for instance?
...

There was a brief comment by one of the developers some where around October? last year commenting that the animated trees hadn't worked out as well as they'rd liked and were thus dropped, I think the implication was it would have required more work than they wanted to get it working in manner they liked.

 

[Duraframe300]

There was a brief comment by one of the developers some where around October? last year commenting that the animated trees hadn't worked out as well as they'rd liked and were thus dropped, I think the implication was it would have required more work than they wanted to get it working in manner they liked.

Yes (mostly)

The base reason was that it took too long to get to an acceptable standard before reaching the point in development (full area production? I think) where that stuff was locked.

IIRC. Might be confusing some things here.

 

[Abu Antar]

You guys heard right. I also think they were interested in exploring this for the expansion or sequel.

 

[Havoc]

Well... I'm gonna say "Fuck you, Josh". I don't follow KS development. I throw money and hope it will be good (it worked with Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun (in the long run)). I recently only read some threads (like certain dev being butthurt), and now this. "It can't hurt to... just see some footage, right? ... *10min in* ... I want to play it now."

Fuck you. I'll hate February.

Spoiler

Can't wait!

 

[Athelas]

I was hoping for some minor tree swaying like in ToEE.

The trees in ToEE were 3d models.

It's possible they'll add in moving trees/grass with the expansion.

 

[Copper]

The trees in ToEE were 3d models.

So were these. I'm not a technical artist, so I've no idea about the increase in memory/procesing grunt needed, but from one angle, there's not that much difference between flattening the static 3d scene down, and flattening an animated loop from the 3d scene. (Haven't really noticed any big 'paintover' touches, to be honest, which perhaps comes from comparing Eternity unfavorably to Stasis. Mind you, Pyke is a fan of their work, while I'm more bitter/jaded/edgy).

EDIT: I do approve of them not fixating on minor animation details, unlike certain other Kickstarter games...

...although that's possibly because the animators at a slamdunk dev house aren't likely to be top-tier talent.

 

[Athelas]

So were these.

'Were' as in past tense. They're pre-rendered now, like the rest of the environment. PoE also has 3d models that can move, like the waterwheel. It's very obvious to tell what is 2d and what is 3d. The goal was to have some animation for certain 2d elements (grass and trees), but it apparently proved too difficult to get them to a respectable looking state.
Here's what ToEE's trees look like, in case you forgot:

Spoiler

 

[Copper]

Not quite what I said, which was that there's nothing* to stop them from recording a short loop of 3D animation and pre-rendering that. Ultimately I'm not sure that the results (for nature scenes) really justify them not using sprites for details like trees and grass - maybe it's more efficient this way, I guess, since everything else on top of the scene is another chunk of memory.

*except animation time, memory footprint and doing cool handpainted details on trees.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah so far I haven't really been able to tell what's been handpainted or not. I *think* the floors in the Dracogen Inn etc have been painted over because the Wood texturing/detail work on the floorboards is shit, but other than that I'm not really sure.

 

[crawlkill]

If you play AP today you'll note the story is interestingly adaptive to choice - little details change for reasons you sometimes can't even be sure! It's a neat little game. And the tasks you need to complete in each mission aren't so bad. I've played the game twice, though I will admit there are some weak spots... It left me wanting more, too. The ending wasn't satisfying at all.

I think AP got a bad rap. I can't get through it because I'm a nonlethal elitist stealth douche and that kind of play is incredibly frustrating with a checkpoint save system, but it did a lot of stuff right.

Seems like a silly argument, though. Few games get patches that substantially change content. Sometimes rereleases with significant changes come around, à la Dragonfall. Depending on reception and sales, Obsidian might do either or both. Historically, they've tended not to, but yes, there are non-them-related reasons for that, since they're usually working for a publisher, who holds the project's pursestrings. They either will or they won't.

 

[Diablo169]

Saw some posts about post release support in this thread so I thought I'd ask Josh.

diablo169uk asked: Hi Josh, how much post release support do you expect we'll see for Pillars? With no publishers to worry about, is providing post release balance patches and additional features going to be easier for Obsidian?

I don’t know if the presence or absence of a publisher necessarily complicates or simplifies patching. Patching is like any other work in that it costs time/money. Thankfully on PC platforms, those costs are primarily limited to the labor required to implement and test fixes then deploy a patch.

We’re doing our best to make our release stable and balanced, but we do plan to continue providing support (including nice features) for PoE past release.

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/108585039431/hi-josh-how-much-post-release-support-do-you

 

[Bleed the Man]

vesselrebellion asked: Do you actually pay attention to the Obsidian forums, or do you prefer the company of yes-sayers that will not question your infinite wisdom or challenge your logic as you explain design decisions?

I pay attention to certain things on the OEI forums, but not everything. Whether or not we use opinions and ideas from the OEI forums depends largely on the impact it will have for players as a whole.

No one on the PoE team is a yes-sayer. Whenever I’m considering a significant change to mechanics, I pull in Tim, Kaz, Bobby, Matt Sheets, Nick, other QA folks, Brandon, or Olivia and run the ideas by them. Most frequently, I’m talking to Tim, Bobby, Matt, and Nick. None of them are yes-sayers and none of them hesitate to criticize ideas or bring up ideas of their own.

Jesus christ this guy is butthurt.