why

Oh I wish he did... what a weirdo. And I say this as a proud weirdo myself... good lord. I like Durance quite a bit, but I did laugh when I read this.

I just think we've gotten side railed into a concise opposing verbose argument. I don't have anything against side arguments, mind you, but I don't think that's a matter of taste. I'm sure sure that just about everyone in this thread has enjoyed some works (movies, books, tv shows, games, songs) that are short and concise and other works that are more flowery and verbose. The point, and others have touch on, alluded to, or even stated this argument previously, the point is whether the work touches you in some way. If you find something in it, it's good. Kind of like a lot of people say, they might prefer one genre, but a good song is a good song. In academic writing, I prefer concise, but the point is to inform and argue. Concise arguments that do the work are good. Concise arguments that lead things out for the sake confining to a standard of concise are not. In stories, I want a little more meat on the bone. Dry is fine in academic circles. Dry can be good in fiction, but so can meaty or even downright effluent. P.S. My favorite poem about Ulysses is by a 19th century poet. Now, I think of an ol' Greek feller named Odysseus when folks talk about Ulysses, and I love Odysseus and his happy (ha!) cohort of Ancient Greek mythological figures, but the relatively long poem by an less old but equally dead English dude is my fave. Go figure. P.S. and I love the epics on which Ulysses is based, and they're loooooooooo [insert a bunch of ooooooooos] nnnng.

I'm with Pink. It really was splendid. However, the first sale based on the demo is for the actual card game, which I ordered Friday night. I'll have to post a pic of Obsidian's first 'sale' when it arrives. :D

...the insistence that everything is written in the same plain style has solved some inefficiencies while destroying many good kinds of diversity. There is no reason to say anything and everything should be concise as if there was one rule for writing. Being utterly devoid of talent myself, I can't speak as to how to write something compelling, but I can speak as to what I find compelling when I read others. While I think you were a bit harsh in your assessment, I agree with the spirit of it nonetheless. I tend to believe that writing should be efficient, but not necessarily terse. That's a stylistic choice and, if you want your style to be more minimalistic, I say go for it. However, some styles are more effluent than others and those works in which the effluence of the writer compels argue against the idea that everything must be as concise as possible. A while back, I helped out at an event where a public library had a showing of The Fellowship of the Ring. Some author or another held a short symposium of sorts afterwards. There was one old feller in crowd who, as it seems to me, came for the sole purpose of complaining 'bout the younger generation. His stance, which he put forth many times, was that it was a three hour film with a story that could have been told in fifteen minutes, and then bettered by summing it up in about 30 seconds. At some point, we might want more from our literature than, as you say, "A bad guy is trying to do something bad and a good guy does something to stop him." If that's the gold standard, every story ever told can be summed up by the theme of someone bad, someone good, and a laundry list of things they did to each other. There, now I've shown that I not only lack talent, but I'm also decidedly not concise. Plus I make all manner of typos and, unless the meaning is muddled by them, I'm too damned lazy to fix 'em.

I abstract the lack of fatigue by assuming really long journeys have small resting stops built into them. However you get your head around it, I really like the fact that there really is some point to resting and then heading to remote locations. Why have such great investments at Caed Nua to improve your stronghold and reap resting benefits only to make them pointless by having your people fatigued by the time they make it out to the sticks? I like the fact that resting bonuses no longer disappear just by walking. It made me long to get a chance to return home but often just forgo doing it just because of the fatigue of going back and forth. Even now, I don't head back *just* to get a resting bonus, but if I have a lot of stuff to pawn or things I need to do, I can rest at home and be refreshed for a few fights.

I was reading somewhere that one of the lead design dudes doesn't really like long texts. He like a lot of the information to be conferred as concisely as possible, such as with floating text and shorter exchanges or something like that. I'm surprised that the game has as much text as it does, but the game, especially the NPCs, seem uneven in the amount of text. From my perspective, I don't mind a lot of text, although most of the text in Pillars isn't good enough for me to read through it over again. I loved PS:T. Still do, but a lot of games and movies could do with a stiff whack with the editor's bat to knock out a few lines here and there. Some even could use a few more words.

Putatively, Romanian is most alike to Latin of the Romance languages. I don't know, not having heard much Romanian. As far as Sagani, I get folks beef. It wasn't offputting to me that she lacked an accent because I didn't even notice it. Even now, when I recognize that she lacks an accent, it doesn't really bother me, but I can see where it would cause a disconnect for some folks. I'm not much for immersion arguments, but I suppose the voice over work for Sagani would be a stronger 'immersion' argument than most, especially in light of the fact that Pellegina clearly has an accent from the Republics. However, I don't really hear a pronounced difference between the Dyrwoodians and the Glanfathans either. Hiravias seems to sound just any other Jo Blow to me. The Adyerans apparently have a more or less British accent, which builds into the whole correlation of the Dyrwood colonies claiming independence. I just chalk it up to one of those suspension of disbelief things. The accents might be offputting for some folks, but I think the refrain of "Moar like BG" to be a kind of strange mantra at this point. Not that I mind, really. All good.

I disagree with you about PS:T overall, but I did get a kick out of this post. One thing I can't deny is that it had a boatload of text. I liked the vast majority of it, but I think they should have decimated it. Yeah, I think cutting out 10%, although not randomly, would have made it better.

When I was overseas, I knew a girl who spoke English so well that I thought she was American at first. When she told me she wasn't, I was absolutely certain that she was HUMINT. I guess maybe she got to have such flawless and idiomatic English by hanging out with Americans so much of the time, but I'm suspicious of a local who just happens to be so fluent and is dating American officers. On the other hand, I do tend to be the suspicious type, so I was probably just reading into things. If I recall, Bioware or BIS was pretty good at getting good voice talent on the cheap. ...Or maybe the budget was better. I don't know. Mr. Dowling does voice overs at Obsidian Plays a lot. Maybe he could moonlight at his own place of employment by doing accented voice over work for the next title. Should have heard him voice over the red neck dwarf (not making this up because of your post) for the Pathfinder demo Obsidz did on Friday.

I thought so, but it's a forum. If you want to discuss other NPCs, other games, other examples, other whatever, go for it, Abel! I can recall... Lady Webb? I think it was here. I tend not to care that much about voice over work unless it's truly excellent and I find the character compelling. Anyhow, do you have examples you had in mind?

Silly. If the mill burnt down, would the town starve? The farmers have the ultimate upper hand on the miller because they can, in times of need, use their grain without the mill. It would take longer, of course, but the idea that the farmers would starve because they wouldn't have flour shows a decided lack of understanding of how things work. Look, for the purpose of the story, I understand the ideas at play. So we can assume that the whole town would starve if the miller didn't mill the grain rather than making it a lot more difficult to process the grain if you want. Fair enough. Just don't talk about the market system because the miller doesn't have that kind of power. What he might have is pull with the guards because he provides them with the finished grain. Okay, but that's not capitalism. If the authorities in the form of the guards take over, then it's actually the opposite of capitalism. The miller can't live without grain, but the farmers could, just like farmers did before wind mills, mill their own grain. In fact, they could separate the grain and simply use it with minimal milling. It wouldn't be as good, but they wouldn't starve. The miller, though...? He's f'd. By the way, when the miller no longer has any flour, and let's say her really does have a year of magical flour that won't end up eaten by rats or spoiled by any number of means, the other people who use the flour other than the farmers are going to be rightly pissed off that they're getting screwed. The farmers, meanwhile use their inferior flour to do things like eat and survive. The brewers, the bakers, and the other folks would be leaning on the miller also. Like I said, I don't mind buying into the analogy simply because it is a game and you have to suspend disbelief somewhere along the line, but this situation does not represent a free market system. In an actual free market, the miller would have to compete with other ideas and, while the farmers were withholding the grain and using their inferior home milled flour, someone would see that he could take advantage and amass enough resources to create a mill. Of course, in the pseudo-late medieval society in Pillars, they don't have a free market system and I imagine Raedric and his guards would simply continue to impose martial law and hang more folks. To steal from some comedian I heard a while back, these people don't need a more reasonable miller, they need U-Haul.

I personally don't feel the need to defend bad voice acting in Pillars because I reject the notion voice over work was bad in the first place. I liked it quite a bit. The only voice over work I remember from the Baldur's Gate series is Jaheira, and I loathed her. I despised her voice and I detested her characterization. I don't really remember much by way of the other voice over work, although I do recall she had a nervous sounding husband, and he bit it before BG 2 anyway. Sagani isn't particularly memorable to me, and I don't have a stake or a care in the accent argument, but I think the voice over work reflects her character, which is earthy and laid back. She does have some emotional lines associated with her quest, and the voice over work for that portion reflected a certain depth of feeling. However, I quite enjoy the voice over work for Aloth and Eder. Durance's voice is great. I don't remember a single spoken line from Grieving Mother, but I think she may only have only had the sound of bells. I guess I do remember her saying something when selected or going into stealth mode. Kana was splendid. Hiravias and Pellegina were ably done, if not particularly striking. Of course, while there may be objective qualities to be found, it will eventually boil down to an argument of whether blue is prettier than red. I suppose I would argue blue until I'm red in the face. However, if folks really want to compare Pillars to a game that had excellent and superior voice over work, they should use Planescape: Torment as the example. I still wouldn't have a problem with the voice over work for Pillars, but PS:T was surpassing in its sound, music, and... well.. its everything.

I think it's a terrible idea and integrating a quest line would only make it seem like a requirement and strain credulity. Having a a contorted and contrived quest line arranged to support a feature I personally don't want to see included would, as wanderon says, mean less resources will go to things I do want. Aside from my personal tastes, I think it would be a bad design decision altogether. May the more compelling argument win, of course, and I say this without rancor, but I'll fight on this hill because I'm worried a misguided faction of the team might consider it. I laughed out loud at this one, especially the part about punching the gods in their stupid mouths. I actually don't mind the fighting in the game. I typically clear the levels of anyone who starts off hostile except for a few places like Raedric's hold because, while his people are hostile, they're just acting as guards, essentially doing their job by defending Raederic. So, for RP reasons, I avoided a lot of those fights. I don't mind the fighting. I just don't want to see some arena which just seems silly to me. On the other hand, I kind of see the bounties as kind of like an arena of sorts. I'm iffy on the bounties, but they have much more of a logical story basis than an arena.

Cool. The wife has... opposing views of my twitchtv viewing, so I often can't hear what the hell you folks are saying, which really sucks. That and I was also cooking dinner at the same time. I saw the dude bring the cake, and I was jealous. I know the Rooster mentioned youtube and I plan on going there somewhere alone the line. As it is, you guys have finally inspired me to buy the basic set of Rise of the Runelords, which arrive, ironically, before you release the digital game. Amazon, FTW. If it's lower price somewhere else, don't taunt me, the order is already placed. Just the base set, though. I have to see how the wife takes to it.

Yeah, I left even more excited, which is a great feat. They answered all the questions, put up with my lame jokes, and strutted their awesome goodness for everyone. It really did look great, LLaney. I know you did the artwork, but there was someone else who did the animations, right? Those were brilliant also!

Furthermore, when one person posits that feature x bothers them based on opinion y, he should expect that other folks might offer a defense of feature based on opinion z. If it's important enough for someone to be compelled to create a thread about it based on personal preference, some of might be added enough to post in that thread on the same basis. That's how these ideas battle in the forum. Immersion is no more an objective standard than other personal preferences. Looking over this, it comes across more combative than I intended, but the phone's a pain in the ass for posting, so read this as being more equable than it sounds.

I agree that it con be off-putting, but I don't think it amounts to a particularly onerous obstacle. At least that's true for me.

I think the syash was probably the hardest thing for me to get my head around. I knew why they did it, but it was always jarring. The might thing for spells also. Neither of them bother me too much now, but I still think they should have used a term other than 'might.'

I refer you to my previous response.

So exuberant I triple posted. Please delete... Or not. lol

That Cat is so awesome, I'll have to show the wife. She thinks the internet was created for Cat videos and pictures. I do hope to hear and see more of the devs chatting with us. Not a crazy amount, but every now and then. I know it's tough when you don't have and/or can't give answers. Finally, I'm looking forward to seeing the twitch channel so much I actually arranged to leave the lab early today! Hot diggity!

I know this is a bit of chumming the waters, but why would they abandon all the work they've already put into the engine they're using now? I'm not sure if the proposal is made in jest or not, but I would imagine, since there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to change it, they'll keep their current engine and expand it. I think most of the work is supposed to be backward compatible with the next Unity coming out, and that the next one will be easier to mod, but I get virtually (not completely but just about) all of my information about these things from this forum, so if you combine my aging brain and failing memory with scuttlebut from these boards, I'd take all that with a grain of salt. I'm probably not going to go in heavy for a bunch of mods, but I do use custom portraits for two characters in my current run.

You are splendid, Karkarov. I'm now using the White March pic as my background.

It's not like you came out completely trashed the xpacs. You just didn't like them. That's fair, but you didn't like the dungeon in WM1? I loved it. A bit short, but I wish they'd made the Endless Paths more like the one in the xpac to be honest. I thought the story flowed much better in the White March. I haven't gotten to the WM2 content yet, so I can't comment on that though. The Endless Paths were fun, but too bloated for my tastes. I wanted more story and less levels. More tricks and traps and less straight forward fighting.

Thanks, Messier. Perhaps a bit too convoluted for my meager brain to process right now, but intriguing nonetheless. I'll ahve to look at this tomorrow because I definitely see two sides on its face. I think, for a project of Pillars' nature, core gameplay must by necessity claim priority, now I'm intrigued by what might have been. I saw our housefly friend up above mention that it would be a text adventure and, while I love text adventures from back in the day, I can see not doing it exactly that way. ...But, assuming it's merely text heavy rather than text exclusive, I think I'd really have enjoyed a more involved version of the events. Still, I always say the best argument is success and I enjoyed Pillars greatly, so I don't want to second guess the decisions. Sometimes getting what you want doesn't lead to the best outcome.