Zwiebelchen

Looks like the game will have a good headstart.

The mockup was just for the character creation, but this is a really fantastic idea for the inventory! Just use the portrait and use a sepia/wooden colors filter on top of it, then apply the inventory slots on top of it. Someone has to make another mockup of this idea!

Another mockup with the idea that the portrait is the second choice right after gender:

You can see it ingame at any time. Imho, the 3D preview has no real value to it, considering the only customization option you have is the two colors anyway. I think a high resolution large-scale portrait of IWD 2 feels the most immersive. Having both portrait and ingame appearance visible at the same time - at least at the current scale of the preview - really emphasizes the disconnect between portrait and ingame model. I like that mockup that was posted. Great solution! This is btw how the appearance tab in IWD looked like. I think the focus should be on the portrait and not the 3D model - because I want to design the ingame appearance after the portrait, not the other way round.

The thing with portraits in the IE games and NWN was: as you could freely import pictures as portraits (supported feature by the game), it added a totally new tabletop experience to the game: that you are able to draw your own portrait if you had the skills (or just used any picture you liked on DeviantArt and cropped it to your needs). For some people playing tabletop games, making their own character plastic and hand-coloring it is the most important aspect of the actual game. There are several startup companies on kickstarter that you can send your CAD models to that will 3d-print your character exactly after your specs. Portraits are awesome for that trait. You basicly have unlimited freedom in your character design that way ... if there wouldn't be the 3D model limiting you. That's why the barebones paperdoll of the IE games were so good - it allowed enough room for imagination to fill the gap between portrait and ingame model. The idea is to have a reduced-to-minimum 3D representation of your character ingame to leave imaginatory space to connect portrait and ingame appearance. That works great when watching the models from isometric perspective. But it doesn't work anymore as soon as an up-close 3D model comes into play. Nice examples! That's exactly what I was talking about! I also feel that IWD character creation in this comparison stands the test of time much better than the latter two. IWD2 still looks good even today, despite being 15 years old.

Combinations aren't really needed, if we take it more as a support picture to the descriptional text that appears on the right, not as an actual preview of your character. Said preview could instead just be the portrait (like in the IE games). The thing about the larger-scale 3D character display is: it kind of reveals the graphical weaknesses of the game, leaving an immediate impression on anyone playing the game for the first time (and probably reviewing it), whereas the rest of the game pretty much hides all its weaknesses through clever gameplay decisions (scripted events) and art design (semi-painted 2D backgrounds). Also, I feel that the character creation is one of the most important aspects of the appeal of classic RPGs - especially as you first impression of a game has a strong impact on your later perception of the game. So I wouldn't say it's that low priority.

Ah I thought that offtopic chatter was already ended... But just to answer your questions (I won't go further into that matter, as I think I have spoken my mind already): 1) That sidenote about her being half-asian was just to paint a picture. But yeah, I can see why that might appear to be a racist comment in retrospective. Let's just ignore it and take it for what it is: a description. 2) Not unusual for female gamers, but unusual for streamers that usually go with "whatever is popular right now". 3) Huh, game reviewers? I wasn't talking about them. ... and it was obviously an exaggeration to make a point. Don't take it literally. 4) Again, not talking about reviewers? I'm talking about female streamers. 5) Being a good entertainer, pretty much. When talking about streamers, it is mostly conversational and improvising skills. It's about catching the mood of a game and delivering it in your commentary. And the socializing of being part of a group aswell. Of course, there is a certain entertainment value in the human body itself, but it's kind of like the difference between "light entertainment" in afternoon television and a great theatre play. That analogy actually works pretty good. Surely, afternoon TV is watched by more people than a shakespearian play on a local stage, despite the obvious difference in quality. And no, that doesn't automaticly mean that a revealing outfit disqualifies for being taken serious. But there is a difference between looking sexy and being obvious about your intents. I'm going to take a look into my browser history to find that positive example channel again, if you are so interested. But chances are, it won't help you with anything since the channel was german. But yeah, back to topic. What was the topic again...?

With btw one exception: portrait in IE games comes right after the gender selection. And the IE games use the portrait as the preview image during the character selection, not the paperdoll. The paperdoll is only shown at the appearance tab. Imho, that approach works great! As the biggest optical characteristic for a character is the portrait anyway, why not just use that instead of the previewed model?

I totally understand your reasoning. That's why I suggested that they just used sketches like in the scripted choose-your-adventure events. The preview window doesn't really make sense anyway with the structure of the current character selection. You chose gender, race, subrace, class, background and then you are able to select portrait and appearance. So basicly the preview picture shows a character that isn't even an actual representation of what you will look like until you reach the appearance tab at the end of the character creation. They could basicly use sketches for all the selectable choices up until the point where you actually have control over the ingame appearance of the character. No need for a 2D paperdoll (I agree that this would probably need too much work). Just a generalized sketch that matches the selected option (i.e. when you select races, have a picture of a typical specimen of that race in its natural habitat). I mean, we already have hundreds of sketches for all the scripted events in the game. I'm pretty sure several more for the character creation won't be a big thing. It's the same reason Obsidian went for those scripted events in the first place: If we don't have the resources to do it 3D in acceptable quality, we go for stylized 2D because that never ages. You can find this reasoning all over the game. Why not incorporate it into the character creation aswell?

1) why do you get offensive over constructive criticism? 2) I criticise BECAUSE it's not a gold product. They can still do something about it. 3) so basicly criticism is invalid, if you aren't a backer? I intend to buy this game, I just don't want to pay money for an unfinished product. 4) I offered valid ideas how to fix the problem without remaking any models or textures. What exactly is your problem?

Great story about a hot "half-asian (maybe)" girl who plays unusual games like Portal and wears baggy clothes and no "stripper makeup." Hey can I have your phone number? I'd like to start texting you pictures of my makeup and clothes before I go out every day. Reply with a thumbs down if my makeup is too stripper-like and my clothes are too tight or my dress too revealing and a thumbs up if I look "real." The point? But I have a thesis: Offtopic-watchdogs nowadays have become much more of a nuisance than grammar-nazis. EDIT: and probably kill topics a lot more effective than offtopic discussions.

There will be no jokes. Period. Excuse me. I need to kill myself.

I'm confused ... 3 pages already and still no period jokes! But an 6-male party would definitely be something. I'd call it the "Village People". I bet there's a selectable background for that.

Yeah, you may be right on that. After all, they are just playing the Youtube game. Can't blame them for that. It's just sad that they get put on the same level as actual gamergirls on twitch, while it's clearly a different kind of thing: When watching a streamer, I usually watch for the commentary and the gameplay. And for the feeling of "playing with someone". I know it sounds weird, but the most attractive thing about let's plays or twitch streaming is, that you are not "playing alone" (even if you aren't playing at all!). You can talk about your favorite game, you can discuss game events, etc. ... the whole experience feels a lot more involving that way. We all know that feeling of having seen an awesome movie in a theater, but none of your friends watched it. You want to talk about it, but you can't. In Let's Plays and twitch streaming, you always have people around to communicate. And that is a great feeling. You are part of a social event. Think about Let's Players or commentators like Adam and Jeff from LagTV (http://www.youtube.com/user/LifesAGlitchTV). You watch them for their socializing. Because they are fun people and great comedians. In germany, the most popular Let's Player is Gronkh, a hearty bearded guy-next-door with an awesome voice and hilarious humor. If I compare these guys with kaceytron, then you will simply notice a huge difference in value here. All you have there is guys drooling and staring at her ****. There is no entertainment, there is no playing value, there is no discussion. There is no socializing other than her answering private questions on chat. Is she a clever business woman? Definitely. But does she have any redeeming qualities as a commentator or entertainer aside from her looks? No. Close the cam window, and nobody would watch anymore. Several weeks ago, I was browsing twitch for some interesting channels and found a channel of an half-asian (maybe ... wasn't quite sure) girl playing some pretty unusual games (like Portal or Mass Effect). She was definitely good-looking, but delivered a lot more in-style of what you would expect from a real commentator and let's player. There was no camera window (just when she selected games or talked freely she switched over to camera mode), no tight clothes or revealing dresses. She didn't have stripper make-up or told private backstories to make guys drool. She was just there, playing games, commentating and being a fun and nice person. I had several good laughs about her snarky comments. It was enjoyable! And then I looked at the view counter. She didn't even have more than 100 viewers, despite doing everything terribly right. Occasionally, someone joined the channel and posted something like "show your ****!". She never responded and those people left soon after. commentators like her go down between the masses of camgirls like kaceytron. I wish they wouldn't be put into the same category. I wish there was a search option for channels of "real" female streamers.

Is this thread for real?

Come on, the game has low poly models, the backgrounds are 2D, the visual effects so far also look pretty simple with just a few particles. What do you expect? This game will probably run fine even on a mobile phone.

I think the problem with Baldurs Gate series was the sheer amount of trash loot you gathered on your travels and the absurd amount of money you got from selling magic items. That's why I hate games where enemies drop exactly the gear they are using. It creates an absolutely ridicolous item overflow. I know it goes against realism, but it would be much better to hand-select the loot in the game and not make creatures drop their armors and weapons all the time. You could argue that armors would be broken anyway, after a battle. So less realism for the sake of balancing income. That is imho the way to go.

With the pick-your-own-adventure system, I think pickpocketing will be a lot better as in any game that used the sandbox approach to pickpocketing. There simply is no real way to make the risk vs. reward formula of sandbox-pickpocketing attractive without sacrificing the immersion. There's flaws left and right: - If you go for a system where guards or npcs attack you or arrest you, it makes no sense especially on critical paths, as story-related npcs have to be immune in order to not break the game progression - a real justice system just doesn't work, because how are you going to punish the player for their wrongdoings without totally destroying the game? Besides, it would be a lot of required content for very few people, so it's most likely not worth the production resources. - If you go for "you have to reload if you fail" approach, then why have a chance to failure at all? Just disable pickpocketing for npcs that require a too high skill level - No reaction from the NPC if you fail is equally as bad I feel that pickpocketing in scripted interactions is the most immersive and rewarding way to design a pickpocketing mechanic. This way, every encounter and every NPC you can pickpocket can have a proper scripted reaction to your attempt. Some might call guards, some might attack you, some you might convince to leave you go, etc. ... when viewing it from a roleplaying perspective, scripted interactions are the way to go. A combat mechanic to pickpocketing would be okay... but that would more be what I call "disarming" and should imho be a seperate skill.

Those are pretty old screen shots. Like really old. But they look pretty much exactly like in the video, so I don't think there have been improvements on this topic. Which was my point here. I feel that the backgrounds could be a lot sharper and crisper. I suspect it has something to do with how the backgrounds get compressed in the game. Proper filtering could help a lot.

Are you positive about that? Because ground often looks blurry even on official screenshots: http://gamona-images.de/501791/scale,960,576,outside/27bb99c9daa6682ca868de6e47b06b9e.jpg http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/5/2/4/1/1/pe_wilderness_01_1920x1080.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1920x-1

As I said, they could always go the IWD/BG route and show the preview only at the appearance tab of the character creation. Imho, it doesn't really make sense to show the appearance before that anyway, as you haven't even selected the portrait at that point.

Those are not girl gamers. Those are - as you said - just camgirls that noticed they make more cash without actually needing to undress when playing games. It's practically the evolution of porn. I wish they wouldn't call themselves gamergirls, because I feel they give a lot of legit gamergirls on twitch a bad reputation. You know, there ARE twich gamer girls where the cam window isn't as big as the screen window. This summarizes the difference (and reality) quite good:

The models were clearly made to be viewed from a high distance, so that's basicly the way to go. Make the preview window a lot smaller or change the UI structure in the character creation screen so that this issue isn't as much... obvious. Or instead of a preview window, make sketches and drawings for the options you currently pre-selected. Like for example, if you pick a race in the race menu, have a drawing/concept art of the typical man/woman of that species. Or if you select a class, have a concept art of that class. The 3D preview should imho only be visible in the appearance tab of the character creation (kind of like it was in BG2). That would also help a lot to make the style of the character creation more consistent with the UI. Basicly use that scroll/wooden kind of UI background for the character creation combined with drawings instead of that blueish 3D room. PoE has all these awesome pick-your-own-adventure animated drawings. Why not use them for the character creation aswell? Or they can just redo some of the most clunky armor and body textures. I don't know, really... It's not really the amount of polygons that is the problem here. So no need to actually remake the models. It's the resolution and detail of the textures. The textures lack ... physical structure. A proper bump/normal-map would help a lot.

After watching some of the gameplay videos, I have mixed feelings about the graphical presentation. First: The UI looks awesome! And it catches that Infinity engine vibe just fine. I also love how big the letters on the dialogue box are. The handful of tweaks (like the character select buttons in the looting window) that had been done over the IWD UI are well thought-out. Trade window is a little aged in terms of user comfort, but it catches the classic feel just fine. However, I have a lot of concerns about the general game graphics, especially the textures. The backgrounds vary from being extremely detailed (I love some of the floor tiles on the temple), to totally blurry (the earth parts in the first area). I guess the paintover job is already done on the starting area? I feel that the IWD 2 backgrounds looked a lot more crisp and sharp compared to the first videos of PoE... I hope it's just the movie resolution fooling me. And then, there's the character models. They look great in the isometric perspective, but in the inventory and character creation, they just don't match the graphical quality of the UI. I don't think the 3D models should be shown in both menues. Why not just show a sketch-like drawing of an adventurer in the background with icons of the equipments in the specific positions? In the character creation screen, I guess such a preview is unavoidable if we want to select colors, but at least a little downscaling couldn't hurt... you could possibly make the windows a bit larger (like the description window) and reduce the space for the preview picture. It's not the perfect solution, but having the character that big in the character creation menu really reveals the low texture resolution of characters in PoE.

Zwiebelchen, I thought you were out of here. Welcome back. Even books can't do it? I didn't realise you could choose what you did in a book? Or are you talking about choose your own adventure books? Never seen romances in those types of books. Faulty analogy. That's why I said discussing other mediums is just plain bad. But you keep believing I have feminist views. As always, you pick out the one statement that you like and totally ignore everything else.