Gairnulf

Can anyone answer this, or is it answered somewhere already: In my pledge it says "Digital Downloadable Copy of Pillars of Eternity, DRM free for Windows, Mac, or Linux." Which services will this use? GOG or Steam? It doesn't matter much to me, but just curious.

I just remembered something I disliked in the Backer Beta and that's sound-related. It's the clicking sound that's identical no matter what kind of interface element you're clicking. I found that to be too repetitive and too "click-y" as a sound in itself. I am also very strongly convinced that the game doesn't need a clicking sound for selecting a conversation option. I've pointed this out as feedback in the past. But since that's a thread about the theme, don't let me sidetrack the conversation.

Though not a necessity, that actually adds a nice bit of tactility to something as simple as looting. Kinda anchors you in the game world when it comes to item interaction, since you get a feel of things being hefted/bumping into other things, rather than just "I clicked a button and variable values are moving from not-in-my-inventory code to in-my-inventory code." It was especially satisfying, in the Diablo games, to hear a gemstone drop from a foe, for example. Not that I'm suggesting we get tiny-cyclone sounds for weapons falling to the ground, and treasure sounds every time we kill something and it drops so much as a coin. But just, it was pleasant to hear that sound for that item. "What's that sound? I think it's... VALUE!" I agree about the importance of sound effects. I can't think of many things more satisfying than hearing the coin sounds after a boarding in Sid Meier's Pirates. You can hear a sample of the sound here: Normally this sound loops for as long as it takes for the rolling number of looted gold to fill up from zero to however much you've plundered from the other ship.There was an option to cancel it but I almost never did :D Good idea! I guess if there's enough demand for that we might be able to accommodate I'd love to have a detailed article about the music as well! Exactly my thoughts. Listening to it made me think "this is a theme for the beginning of an epic adventure story" and I could practically feel my expectations of the game rising as I listened I'm not such an expert on fantasy game and movie soundtracks so I can't describe in much detail it or compare it to other main themes, but this made me picture LOTR or something on par with it.

Karkarov, as I did say myself, it's a matter of preference. I think it's one thing to rant about something that has been done and you don't like, but to rant about something that has merely been suggested and you don't like... maybe you are a lot more energetic than I am. Normally I'd just skip suggestions I don't agree with. The log's width allows for longer lines of text without wrapping to a second line. I find even less use for a wooden texture behind the combat log than I find for a wide combat log. Anyway. Can anyone confirm that the current solid background is a temporary solution and the game will ship with a better looking solid background? From what Grotesque said, it seemed to me he is convinced that this is the case.

That's a quick, inital mock up. It is far from representative of the final artistic style. I was reminded of that comment because it looks so funny now that the new build is out: This is a personal opinion but I like my mockups better: Of course, what we have is still better than no solid background at all.

My thoughts exactly. I was very pleased to know there is a day/night cycle. As for quests, spells, etc. that are affected by it, this was more of an exception than a rule in the Infinity Engine games as well, wasn't it. So, I don't mind if only a few quests take the time of day into account.

It's nice to see that the the team has seen the reason behind the idea of a solid UI. Let me reference my threads on the UI from a while back: UI suggestions: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69228-ui-suggestions/ Latest suggestion in UI suggestions: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69228-ui-suggestions/?p=1531651 Which HUD UI do you prefer (poll): http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69242-which-hud-ui-do-you-prefer/ What does the combat log lack: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69603-what-does-the-combat-log-lack/ I'm a bit behind current events, is the solid UI going to be a toggle, or will the game just completely switch to solid UI? I'm also ready to share my psd files with UI drafts with anyone who might need them. Pretty much my words from the first linked thread: These too:

Yeah, I keep confusing the "Backer Beta Announcements" with "Announcements and News" forums.

I just found out from Paradox' site that the release date for PoE is 26th March: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?2074-Pillars-of-Eternity-to-Release-Worldwide-on-March-26th Edit: just saw there has been an announcement. Sorry about that.

Merry Christmas to the team and the guys here. Unfortunately I won't be able to start up the new BB build until I return from my holiday trip

Hmm, that's sad. I could have spent some of the free time around Christmas to do testing...

The monk causes people to explode in bloody pieces by punching them 2-3 times max In v364 at least.

Definitely. I'm sure they are being delayed because they are working, not for some other reason.

Wow, can you read my hand too? Actually I've studied history. Any code I've written and write isn't compiled, so I've never gotten an idea of how much it usually takes to compile something of the size of PoE. Still a full day seems like too long - how would they quickly test small changes?

What I find interesting is that the whole game is being compiled just in order to publish the limited BB. But on the other hand maybe it's better that way. You can find problems during compilation which ypu wouldn't find if you were compiling a small demo.

Don't worry guys, they should be ready somewhere before early 2015.

Are you sure the link you posted is the one you meant? Somehow I don't have the feeling that people working on category theory and abstract algebra care much for a technique you learn in the first year of studying math. I may be wrong though, so feel free to write me an elaborate pm with some references if you want, i'm interested. No, I wasn't sure actually. I also wasn't sure if it was the right method to liken it to, hence my question in the post itself. I'm neither a mathematician, nor a computer scientist. A friend of mine who is both explained heaps to me once, in terms broad enough that I would understand. How about this link: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Heap.html Is it about the same thing? All I remembered was the practical application of heaps for quckly ordering elements by size, if I'm using the correct language. I think going back to one armor stat is the right thing to do. I found two armor stats to be confusing as well once I started playing the BB with various characters to try out classes. As for F:NV, there I just shot at enemies and equipped whatever armor had the higher stats, never took the time to find out how the DR/DT system works.

I've discovered it independently as a faster way to find a correct value (usually in px) than measuring :D

So this is like using heaps to find the correct value in the least amount of tests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_(mathematics) ? Basically, assign extreme values, then cut each new value in half, or double it, as the shortest route to reaching a satisfactory value.

Josh Sawyer also said that they will be making a pass through all npcs to assure they are dropping their equipped items. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69428-what-you-see-is-what-you-get-loot-system/page-9?do=findComment&comment=1542975

After I reported it as a bug, although they probably knew about it anyway, the loading screen tips are being shown in the messages tab of the combat log in v364. The IE games were showing the "paused" message in their log, but I wonder if it's really the kind of information that the player may need to consult in retrospect. PoE shows a message on the screen, and I find it enough for me.

I'm getting more and more confused about what's a guidebook, what's a collector's book and what's a strategy guide, and which of these have I boight when making the pledge. This one says "guidebook" on the cover.

Little experience as I had had with the v278 BB, it was immediately visible to me that the game was impossible to ship in December anyway, so the delay which they announced as their decision, was more like something they had little choice but to do. Development is obviously not going by schedule. This in itself isn't a big threat to the quality of the final product, as long as we don't run into a situation where they have to release because they are out of budget, but there are still serious shortcomings which affect the gameplay [anyone can substitute with his most serious issue here ]. The perceptions vary between players, about which should be Obsidian's first priority when it comes to improving the BB. I think they are using the BB discussion forums as a poll group and trying to prioritize between problems perceived by the poll group (with various levels of severity) vs problems they know exist but the poll group doesn't recognize/hasn't discovered. I think they are listening to feedback, but they have to take feedback collectively. One person's feedback is something they will register, but they make decisions based on the sum of all feedback. You can't make a decision about a game everyone will be playing based on just one person's views, you have to see what the majority thinks about one suggestion or another. The more unanimous the poll group, the more probable it is that a change will be implemented. In other words, when any player offers feedback, he should think he is offering it to the rest of the BB players first, and then to Obsidian, because if the community disagrees, or is split about someone's suggestion, Obsidian probably won't give it much attention. Hm, well, first, it no longer hangs on loading an area for me, which basically allows me to do testing in the first place. They slowed down combat a bit, although imo, not enough. Those are the two things I can really feel as serious changes. I'm not counting stuff like adding icons or fixing models/portraits, because they would have had to do this anyway. Of course this whole question wouldn't have been asked if Obsidian just gave us a normal changelog after every BB update, in which case we could have just looked at it to see what have been the important changes implemented. I really don't want to think this is because they don't keep a changelog outside of their version control system's log of commits.

Personally I'd prefer if they hold on for another week but add more to the update, because the next one will probably not be up until mid-January anyway. Of course they know better than me about that. Also, a really complete list of changes would be really helpful. I avoid bringing up other companies' names but look at how Paradox do it.

I wanted to reply to your post yesterday but I was on mobile. My main arguments against mousing over objects in the combat log remain: 1. mousing over requires you to move the mouse, not just your eyes from one point on the screen to another, which doesn't seem like much work when I describe it, but when you have to do it very often, chances are that you'll find yourself avoiding it ("Nevermind, it's not that important what roll I hit him/missed with"), and 2. Mousing over something means tooltips, and tooltips cover other contents of the combat log. I find color coding enemies' vs party mebers' actions useful in PoE, but having two lines per action plus color coded names was still enough color coding for me in the IE games (although that's just me of course). I wouldn't mind color coding the whole lines, as long as the colors' saturation is balanced between character names and content, so that sight is directed towards the important information in the order in which it should be - scan the feed to find the name of the character and then look to the right of the character's name. The main problem with icons I can imagine (the developers will probably come up with others) is how they would scale with text. I hope they've found the time to implement some changes to the combat log for the next update of the BB so we can get a feel of the difference with its version so far.