Gairnulf

I honestly can't imagine how anyone who has played one Infinity Engine game would put the combat log anywhere else than in the center. And the contents could be much better organized.

Every day is a new adventure in Obsidian's office.

I consider it immersion-breaking to be the only person in the world who can't walk, and runs around in inns.

Yeah, I don't argue with that, but the initial should be the first letter, otherwise why have an initial? "Muh intial... "

Someone at Obsidian is now thinking "Damn, why didn't this guy keep quiet" , j/k. It's fun to try to gauge the kind of bugs they are rushing to fix before release, based on the small details like this, for which there doesn't seem to be time. Yet I still hope this is something that can be easily changed globally and affect all item descriptions at once.

I play a lot of Europa Universalis and I've never liked the music they use, or at least I like original period music better. I am a historian and I'm crazy that way. As a result, I've researched period music for most of the periods into which the game's timeline can be broken down, and have playlists that suit the major powers, named like "France Renaissance", "English Early Baroque", etc. So, if you are looking for Renaissance music, what I use in my playlist for Spain for example is most of the following youtube playlist. I'll admit I download and extract the mp3 files from the videos with a Firefox plugin, because making the playlist in Foobar2000 is more convenient, and you are also insured against videos being deleted/hidden from the public. Unfortunately that's what's happened with most videos that used to be posted of the Spanish Cancionero de Palacio, one of the two big contemporary compendiums of Spanish music of the 15th/early 16th centuries. This was a much better playlist, but most videos have been hidden by now. This one is in better shape, here is something that could serve as a Spanish theme, a song devoted to a nobleman from Leon who was very successful against the Moors: For Italian: One of my favorite Italian songs: "I don't buy hope any more, for it's a false bargain" Justin, please do a variation of this and have it played in Vaillian inns! Some English themes: There's a lot more on youtube. My methodology is to look in wikipedia for names of composers and song books which I can then google for, listen to a few things to get a feeling of the style.

Didn't they do this in the IE games? I thought it would be annoying but it never was. At least in the IE games you had options to hear selection/command sounds never/seldom/always. It was even separate options for selection and command sounds. If you want no command sounds in PoE you have to turn "Effects volume" all the way down, which mutes all other sounds except the music. It's really dull.

Pillars of Eternity: Dragon Turd Mystery expansion confirmed.

I'll let the people who know about modding say if this is so, but I think it shouldn't be difficult to implement a toggle in the IE mod that shuts off all party command sounds, if the references to them are hunted down within the code.

But he's also temporary. If you build something, it doesn't go away after three days, does it? :V You can even get rid of him for free if you have a goon available. If they'd had the prison built, maybe that would be an option as well? It makes sense that it's cheaper to pay off some lout than to restore a building—and awful guests can ruin very nice locations. Your expensive rugs won't look as nice with barf all over them. Sure, it may play differently than I imagine, but I doubt he would return right the next day if I pay him off. On the other hand if he returns too often and costs very little, it will just become a nuisance.

Sure, it's not the end of the world. I hope they are placeholder values, but by now it really seems too late for them to be just placeholders. I know that people can return. So, the stronghold's stats are 17/23, and this is supposed to be at least mid-game, otherwise he would have a stronghold. I won't use the amount of gold he has as a reference point, because it could have been altered with console commands, and this is probably not a savegame from a campaign started from the beginning. Still, I'd say that a malus that costs you a bit over 10% of your prestige should be more costly to remove than 75cp which in any case will be less than 0.5% of your money around the middle of the campaign. Let's say I counter a malus by building a bonus - instead paying off the drunk I construct a building that adds some prestige. On the other hand, maybe the malus and the price for its removal are scaled progressively - the more you pay him off, the more it costs next time. We don't know if that's not the case. I just hope these are a bit more complicated decisions than open, scroll, and do the arithmetic before you click, or not even do the arithmetic because everything costs an insignificant fraction of your treasure. BTW, I'm ok with the kind of stronghold interface they are showing. Navigating through the same dialogue trees and moving the party around from one type of "butler" NPC to the other quickly becomes repetitive. It's easy to remember NWN2 for those who haven't played DAI where you can see the same problems with stronghold upgrades/maintenance. Strange, I never seem to pay attention to the synchronized movement. Regarding movement, I wish it was walking, but apparently we aren't getting that for now. I stopped on a couple of occasions just to admire the music btw. I think Justin Bell has done some amazing work.

I was sorry to hear was the good old annoying clicking sound which was audible when clicking each active interface element. - The Warchief's head didn't have its own icon...

The presentation in youtube, so you don't have to deal with twitch: Yeah, that's really unfortunate about the separated volume sliders. It appears that there are only three categories of sounds right now and to put more sliders in they have to break the sounds into more categories. Regarding the stronghold, I hope these were just some "Tier I" upgrades because they all looked pretty cheap to build in terms of cp value. I was able to gather around 10000 cp just from the BB areas/dungeons and that was before going to Ile a Rhemen I think. I'd be sorry to see that most of the upgrades are a wheeze and can be built relatively quickly. Maybe not quickly, because you can only build one at a time, but that doesn't change anything, only means that before each next upgrade I'll be even richer than I was before and it will matter less and less... The Stronghold visitors seemed fun, but again, I'm not sure the prices aren't too low and turning decisions into no-brainers. For example Gafol the Drunkard (at 25:24) gives you -2 prestige, as much as some of the upgrades that cost in the hundreds of cp, but in only costs 75cp to pay him off and remove the malus. That's too easy.

Funny thing is that one of the Stronghold minigames I saw on the PAX stream yesterday was exactly the "expensive shop" option, where the player gets an expensive item he can buy or skip, but it's only going to be available for one day.

As I suggested in the mod thread: You can add my voice to that. Referencing my thread about the combat log: What does the Combat Log lack?

Adding my own first comment I posted a bit earlier in its own thread:

I watched the latest stream from the game's presentation on PAX. I think that was the best presentation so far in terms of what was shown and live commentary by the devs. I'll rewatch it later and probably post more impressions, but something that struck me was that in the item description windows, the item stats were shown before that description text. I can see the functional reasons for the stats being above, but I think if you are going to have a decorated initial, like the description text does, it simply has to be the first letter in this window, otherwise the whole window content looks weird and asymmetrical. The indentation and colored text add further noise to the typography. I won't bring up the "it was the same in the IE games" argument, because it's not as important as the one about the initials. Please revise this, Obsidian!

You are wrong here, the crit path doesn't need to be balanced for the crit path player at all The crit path being a known quantity is also not necessarily true for every game. You can easily make the crit path require the completion of a certain amount of side content. For example, when you put a condition that progresses the crit path only if you've collected 20 000 gold, this is indirectly requiring the player to pass a certain amount of side content. This makes the "crit path" intertwine with the "side content" and it becomes impossible to tell how much and which part of the content is "crit path". I actually really like it that way, it adds replayability for the sake of exploring more quests, unless the player really aims to complete every sidequest there is. And even if he does, there's no problem locking certain quests to be available only for certain classes of player character, or for certain character builds, or for certain party composition, etc. IMO, in a good RPG it should be impossible to describe a "crit path player" in terms of the quests he has taken and completed, because of C&C with which the player has been presented. You can describe him in terms of XP and in terms of approximated character build, but you don't have to, or need to balance the crit path around the player who plays as little of the content as he can manage.

And here I am - had the doubtful privilege to buy DAI for 70 EUR. That's interesting, I made my pledge a couple of days after the Kickstarter campaign ended, it's $120 and my badge is bronze... hmmm

So, the problem comes down to what type of player should the game's difficulty be balanced around - a completionist or a crit path-only player. I understand your point, but in my experience - you don't even need to be much of a completionist in order to have more money than you know what to do with by the middle of the crit path. It's only a question of when money will become irrelevant, regardless of your playing style.

Damn! Just reading this made me consider taking the Steam key! I'm still divided between the two optionsm steam or gog.

Then at least I know I've understood your point. I don't agree though, or rather, I think some discretion can be used - allowing the player to buy himself a quest's outcome (could be just one of many outcomes) isn't the same as allowing him to buy a temporary boost (like in the potion of thievery example) in order to pass a check which will give him a completed quest. It can be an inappropriate approach, or could be one of many options, depends on the quest's specifics. I can imagine cases where it would look out of place, and places where it would be fine.

Sorry, but this made absolutely no sense to me. I really tried to understand. Being able to pay, as a workaround to having a particular skill, is a bad option to have for completing a quest? Is that what you mean?

you weren't unclear. we would be against the potions precisely because it were "really expensive." if is something the critical path player is not envisioned as being able to afford, then we don't want such stuff in the game. BUYING success is the opposite o' the goal o' a gold sink, and making the game functional easier for the player who has acquired lots of 1007 (i.e. done the side quests) is resulting in the game being made less challenging for the folks who most likely already have the best gear and more experience. HA! Good Fun! The assumption that I mean for such a solution to be used on a critical path quest is wrong. I was thinking about any quest that can have multiple solutions. I thought it's common sense that a solution to a quest which involves the player compensating for his lacking in some skill by buying a buff should only be one of at least two solutions. Sure, there may be such players. I was thinking about gold in its most direct use though, for trade.

Whenever I present opinions, hypotheses, and facts I aim to make it clear which is which. I think they teach that in school too. Opinions can't be wrong, but they may be founded on misinterpreted or completely made-up facts. And I don't think I've ever claimed anyone is wrong about his opinion if it differs than mine.