Gairnulf

I've made it a habit lately to post stuff only in the BB forums, but I think this question is qualified to be posed to everyone in the PoE forums. (I apologize in advance for the typos to follow, but I'm typing from mobile again.) To summarize, ever since Throne of Bhaal (mid 2001), where the highlight loot/containers/doors function was introduced, I felt that it encourages me to adopt a play style which I regret adopting, but which happens to be the fastest and most convenient and efficient. You know what I'm talking about, because you're all doing it too, come on I mean the practice of "enter an area -> hold the Tab key to scan for valuables, containers, hidden stuff -> rob the place of everything that isn't nailed to the ground -> move to the next area/dungeon level" These cycles are often accompanied by "sell the gathered junk for gp". While this is a rational tactic, I've always felt it breaks immersion, because the player starts to feel more like a high fantasy hoover than a high fantasy hero. Yet the tactic is so profitable to the player, and so addictive, and convenient, and seductive, that I've never resisted using it since Throne of Bhaal, trough my later replays of BGII which didn't initially have that function, then through NWN, all the way to Dragon Age I&II, basically everywhere where I could. Now, PoE, from what I've heared stated numerous times by Josh Sawyer (btw I can hardly stop myself from referencing him and Tim Cain by just first name ), is a game that's deliberately aiming to capture the Zeitgeist of the 1990s fantasy RPGs. Does the inclusion of this highlighting feature into PoE (it's in the backer beta) also constitute part of the efforts towards capturing the Zeitgeist? Because the feature was only added in the penultimate IE game, chronologically speaking. My answer is that apparently it was so convenient that they added it in regardless of it not being a key feature of the IE games. Memories of past periods are often idealized, like the way many people imagined the Middle Ages in the mid 1800s I guess Anyway, jokes aside, I am far from the argument that this feature shouldn't be in the game, especially with the cited chronological motive. On the contrary, please, let it be there, I am all for capturing the Zeitgeist, and I am aware that this is achieved by borrowing the best features of the period in question, with precise chronology taking a step back. But Josh Sawyer has also assured us in a few places, that the team would not hesitate to improve on aspects of the IE games which were constraining, not working well, etc. This is what I want to suggest that be done with the highlight feature. My suggestion is that doors and containers only highlight when the key is pressed while a character (currently selected or no) is whithin a reasonably small distance from the door/container. This alteration to the functionality, in my opinion, achieves multiple good effects simultaneously: 1. Prevents the cheesy tactic I described, or at least makes it more tiresome and thus less probable to be employed consistently for a long part of a playthrough. Especially with the Stash present, this feature is ready for much more efficient abuse in PoE than it ever was in the IE games. 2. Prevents the "pixel hunt" done with the mouse pointer which was the usual practice before the advent of the highlight key. Pixel hunt should also not work on containers/doors that are out of range. 3. By highlighing objects only in proximity of part characters, some very authentic role-playing scenarios become possible, such as - you've just cleaned a room in a dungeon and you spread the party around, so that with one key press you can highlight more of the room, but knowing that is way you run the risk of being ambushed while the party is not in formation, or setting of a trap. Making either choice involves a tradeoff. 4. PoE builds on IE games' functionality and makes from what was a feature suggesting abusive behavior, a feature that suggests role-playing opportunities. 5. Provides an incentive for the player to use all the party members together, for a task that isn't combat or related to combat, and this is something happening relatively rarely. I see it as an equivalent to one of the text-based interactions, where the party decides to "[search the room]". You get what I mean, right? I wonder what the developers would say about this, but I'm sure they want to see what the community thinks of it most of all, so I think if the devs' input comes it will be only after many people here have stated their opinions. With this I encourage you to say what you think about my idea - do you agree the highlighting was/is breaking immersion/potentially abusable? Do you think a solution such as what I'm proposing can make the game more interesting? Do you have your own solutions to propose?

Much of party NPCs' speech, usually things said to other party NPCs or to the player was voiced. That will do for me. Just enough to get an idea about their personalities. I can hear the rest of the dialogues in my head when reading, and it's probably even better that way. I've even found that taking away the opportunities for me to use my imagination in an RPG actually leads to a less satisfying experience. You either go all the way, when you want to draw the world and characters literally, or you make it evident to the player he has to finish the picture, but you shouldn't go halfway, I'll avoid giving examples Thinking in those lines, I'm very curious how I'll end up feeling about DAI's attempt to produce the closest thing to an interactive LOTR-scale movie where nothing is left to the audience's imagination. They have some of the best rendering technology and probably a humongous budget and I think it's a very interesting experiment in drawing a very high-res very literal picture. Let's see how that works and if the tech is ready for it.

Couldn't another action be queued after the shot, so that the character doesn't reload? I think of similar situations I've had in Mount&Blade There I could just switch weapons to avoid reloading. Here we have weapon sets.

[Description of the issue] If you enter stealth, then open the inventory, after you exit stealth your character is still in stealth stance, but his 3d model is no longer semi transparent. I can't say if he is effectively in stealth from game rules perspective. I also forgot to check if this happens only with the character whose inventory was opened, or with every character in the party. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] 1) Enter stealth 2) Open any character's inventory screen 3) Close the inventory screen 4) Take a look at the character whose inventory you just saw. [Expected behaviour] The character's model should remain semi-transparent after closing the inventory screen.

I'd like to chime in that although you might think that set of buttons is redundant, others such as myself vehemently disagree. I use them and I would rather not want to see them gone. When I wrote that I was imagining something like Arcanum's center bottom part of the HUD, a place to display information about the hovered character regardless of whether or not you are in combat, but I changed my mind about that pretty soon afterwards. What would you say about a HUD where the message log is on the bottom left, then the portraits in the center, and the buttons in the bottom right corner (but minus the clock)?

Welcome to the BB forum :D

I value screen space too much for this last layout, but it looks fun to see a BG version

I think merging the clock and Battle/Message Log is a genious idea and looks absolutely great I'm worried about the gain in overall height though. What do you think about merged Clock and message log on the left side, then portraits in the center and buttons on the right side? I think this satisfies lots of requirements at once, including Obsidian's (and all this with a solid background preferrably)

That's an option too, as long as there are UI borders.

The flaps are easier to spot on a background that's colorful and often changes (you have no guarantee what background the user will have behind the gems), that's what justifies their being bigger, at least in my opinion, while on a solid dark background it's easier to get away with smaller ui elements.

I got the idea to use the scrollbar's gem as a button to toggle interface parts, and once I did that I thought it wouldn't make sense without solid backgrounds of all the interface, and that was how I edned up with option 3. In the worst case, they could make hiding/showing of interface happen directly through the options screens, without the ability to do it from the HUD itself.

This looks great, although I'd hide the central buttons immediately and stretch the combat log all the way BTW, have you increased the portraits' size? Sorry for the question, no time to compare them for myself.

Damn, I found I cant't edit the poll any more. I guess it's tied to a specific timeafter it has been started. Ok, anyone who has a preference that isn't listed, write it in a comment.

I went through such an option too, but I didn't submit it, because I thought the buttons were too disconnected from the rest of the elements in that corner. I'll update the options for the voting with your variants.

I'm getting the feeling that in a separate poll: "solid backgrounds, yes or no", the overwhelming majority would prefer solid backgrounds.

I just hope we get fully voiced party NPCs and plot characters. "I have made something mine and none are the wiser."

actual insects? Bettles, bugs... especially bugs Seriously speaking, there are domestic animals, chickens, pigs etc., in the wild areas you can see wildlife, for now in the form of deers. I don't count wolves because they are for killing When in town you can speak to every NPC, but random unimportant ones have a set of casual responses, like in BG when you speak to random people in the tavern. NPC sometimes have their own conversations when you pass them by and you can read their dialogues, usually commenting on stuff happening. If you've played DAO, that's the same as the "gossip" npcs, with the exception that here the dialogues aren't voiced.

No need for something as fancy as dragging . Just a selection portraits position 1, log position 2, etc, really simple for the non-solid UI, not too difficult for the solid either. I think dragging might be easier than using preset positions, but I can't say.

Ah, I understand Well, if their restrictions contradict basic logic, then we all lose out, but I doubt they would refuse to reconsider the central buttons bar's position. The argument that people need these buttons there because they are close to character portraits is ridiculous in my opinion, and I can easily prove this to the person who brought it up. After all, the point of a poll is to see what people prefer, sans anyone's restrictions. That's why I have included the present layout among the options. If the majority thinks it's very important to have their buttons near the portraits, they will say so

That's a weird argument on their behalf, but I don't want to use this thread for arguments. Oh, yes, I am well aware, and I think we all are :D

Knowing you, I guess you have source for where they said that, so I don't doubt that is so, and you also mentioned it before, but I included this just to see how many people would vote for it.

I never thought of that. I suppose they would still appear in a horizontal row next to the portrait.

Lots of other cool stuff on his blog: http://hormalakh.blogspot.de/

Yep, and I expect the Combat log to make room

I've been toying around with different layouts for the UI HUD, as the default one struck me as kind of impractical. I'm curious to hear what the BB community thinks and I've prepared a few propositions. What's left for you is to cast your vote Extra long combat log, buttons on top (although they look like tabs in my mockup): http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img673/4474/7Bkz79.jpg Buttons on the right side instead of the center: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img661/5145/N2yilu.jpg Buttons on the right side, solid backgrounds to conserve horizontal space, green gems supposed to be used to toggle panels: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img913/3223/5mESW7.jpg I decided to call this "IE games nostalgic": http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img538/1479/mflbM8.jpg Sensuki offered another layout today, thread here with the combat log on the left side. I made a mockup of the same idea, so it's easier to compare to the others visually: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img674/2636/vETHWV.jpg The current HUD UI is fine.