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Hey, everyone. You can find the latest patch notes here. The beta is now officially live on Steam. IMPORTANT: One thing to note is that there is a change to the saved game system. This means that once you load the new beta up, your saves will be converted to use this new system. This will prevent them from being loaded up in an older version of the build. Before the saved game conversation takes place we make copies of your older saves and place them in a folder named "1.05 Save Games Backup" in your saved game directory. If you need to access your older saves, this is where they are located.

The 1.04 (540) patch is now live on Steam. It is currently going through the QA process for GOG and Origin and should be available on those sites in the next day or two. We will be posting a backer update regarding the patch later today or tomorrow. You can find the patch notes for 1.04 here.

1.04 is now live on Steam. It is currently going through the QA process on GOG and Origin so it should be posted in the next day or two for those sites.

We have just pushed the latest 1.04 beta patch live to all Steam users. 540 is the official 1.04 build. We will be sending out a backer update later today or tomorrow to announce it. Thanks for all of your help in testing. We hope to get a 1.05 beta patch live in a couple of weeks.

This change is what I had mentioned previously, the fix to the gul's attack and retroactive fix to health. It wasn't live until we posted it yesterday. Also, we have just pushed the latest 1.04 beta patch live to all Steam users. 540 is the official 1.04 build. We will be sending out a backer update later today or tomorrow to announce it.

Hey, everyone. We were just about to push the patch live and we got a report from a user about stacking health. We have not been able to reproduce the issue on our side, but we are double checking to make sure that we don't introduce this patch live if it has this serious issue. This will push the release until tomorrow, at the earliest.

Hey, everyone. We were just about to push the patch live and we got a report from a user about stacking health. We have not been able to reproduce the issue on our side, but we are double checking to make sure that we don't introduce this patch live if it has this serious issue.

Also, the latest beta is up. If it still seems good in the next few hours we will probably release it live around 4 or 5.

Hey, guys. We are aware of the issue and we are in talks with Nvidia to get it fixed. Unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do for 1.04. Hopefully, a fix will be in place for 1.05.

We think we have fixed the gul permanent health increases. They were related to the gul's "vomit blood" ability. The fix should also retroactively fix saved games with this problem. Once it drops tomorrow, can you let us know if it fixes the problem on your saved games?

We are looking into releasing it tomorrow, but it may not go out until Wednesday or Thursday.

You can find a copy of the 1.04 patch notes here.

Yup. Once you do this process you can jump between the beta patches and your normal game no problem. We actually use this same process to distribute QA builds to people around the world (and in the office).

No worries. I just wanted to make sure that I answered your question properly. The achievements should be running in these builds. It is possible that we might introduce an exploit that would allow a player to cheat achievements, but it is unlikely at this point.

I am not sure what you mean? Are you asking if the patches will change frequently?

Hey, everyone. The 1.04 patch beta is live on Steam. If you are unsure of how to join the beta, here are some instructions for you. You can find the 1.04 patch notes here. Here are some current known issues that are specific to the patch: Unable to pan the camera using arrow keys or mouse scrolling while the game is paused. This issue is fixed on our side, but the current patch will not have those changes. Patch isn't listed as 1.04. It still says 1.03. We will add to this list as more items are reported and verified. Thanks, everybody.

Patch Beta Testing From now on, we will be allowing folks to play our beta patches on Steam. This has a two-fold benefit: Players get new fixes a bit faster and can check out the new changes that will drop in the next patch. Developers get access to information about new bugs that may have slipped into the patch. This will reduce the number of hotfixes for future patches. We will make a formal announcement to the community when we are going to put the latest patch up for beta testing. We are starting this process with the 1.04 patch. Limitations Right now we are only running this beta on Steam. The reason is that Steam provides a simple way to get folks into the beta. If any players know of any games that ran betas on GOG, please let me know so I can investigate. These patches may be unstable. We will be doing work on the patches and they haven't gone through a full QA cycle so unexpected things can happen. To be safe, I would avoid using any saved games that you do not want to get corrupted. If you do want to use those saved games, it is at your own risk. These patches may stay the same over the entire testing period, but that is unlikely. There might be frequent build changes, so expect to have to download multiple builds over a testing period. Bug Reports More than likely you are going to find bugs in these patches and you will need a place to report them. You can report these bugs by going to our new forum for patch beta bugs and support. One thing I ask is that you only report bugs that are specific to the patch beta. If the bug happens in the currently patched base game you should report it in our regular tech support forum. For information on how to report bugs, please look at this post. So, how do I get started? It's actually pretty easy. Completely quit out of the Steam client. Restart the Steam client and navigate to the Library tab. Right-click on the Pillars of Eternity entry and click on Properties. Navigate to the Betas tab in the Properties menu. Enter in the code "BETAPASSWORD" (remove quotes) and click on the Check Code button. Click on the dropdown list and select the "beta" branch. Once selected, close out of the Properties menu. You should notice that your Pillars of Eternity game will now have "[beta]" after it. This means that your game is in the beta branch. Steam should queue an update for this branch. You can now play the new beta branch of the game. If you would like to switch your branch back to normal follow steps 3 and 4 to get back to the Beta tab in the Properties menu, then choose "NONE" as your branch. This should revert you back to the release version of the game. Thank you to all of the folks that decide to play the patch beta and help report issues. Your help is invaluable and we really appreciate your dedication.

Just so everyone knows, I am going to start a special beta branch in Steam tomorrow so people can start playing the beta build if they would like. I will post more info about it tomorrow, then link it to this post. EDIT: You can find info about the patch beta here.

Hey, everyone. We just put out another hotfix on Steam for an issue where some people were running into doors that wouldn't open after they had been manually closed. It didn't affect many areas in the game, but we wanted to make sure we fixed this in case some people got trapped. The problem had to do with a bug in the hotfix calculations. It was causing some areas to think they were still under the Fog of War when they weren't. Please let us know if you see any other problems like this. This hotfix has been submitted to GOG and Origin, so we hope they will be up in the next day or two. Thanks! Brandon

We have hotfixed the problem with adventurer hall-created companions not being able to unlock doors or chests. This should work correctly now. Without getting into too much detail, it looks like adding and removing a companion in the Stronghold can cause its voice set to be stripped. This was causing a null reference exception when they tried to unlock items.

Hey, there should be a save that gets created before the end game. You will have to reload that particular save. I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but you should see it as a save that is made right before the point of no return.

If we happened to miss content, then yes, we will change it if we feel it is necessary. Like Feargus mentioned in the update, we worked with many backers to revise their content for myriad reasons.

Update by Feargus Urquhart, CEO and Brandon Adler, Lead Producer Backer Content It's come to our attention that a piece of backer-created content has made it into Pillars of Eternity that was not vetted. Once it was brought to our attention, it followed the same vetting process as all of our other content. Prior to release, we worked with many of our backers to iterate on content they asked to be put into the game that didn't strike the right tone. In the case of this specific content, we checked with the backer who wrote it and asked them about changing it. We respect our backers greatly, and felt it was our duty to include them in the process. They gave us new content which we have used to replace what is in the game. To be clear, we followed the process we would have followed had this content been vetted prior to the release of the product. We appreciate the faith you have all given us into making Pillars of Eternity the great game that it has become, and we appreciate the strength of conviction all of you bring to every conversation we have together. Sincerely, Feargus Urquhart, CEO Obsidian Entertainment, Inc. Shipping As some of you may have seen already, the game has started shipping out. When your shipment is sent, you should get an email sent to your email on record in the Backer Portal stating that it is in transit. People in the United States should be seeing their physical items coming in very soon - if they haven't gotten them already. Our shipments going out to Europeans should be landing in the U.K. early next week. At that point the shipments will start going out to folks. The best estimate that we have currently is that people will start seeing their shipments arrive around the middle of April. For those people who only have a standard physical copy of the game and no additional physical goods, the box will ship once the discs are finished being pressed. You shouldn't be hindered from playing the game as we have made sure that all physical copies of the game were also given a digital copy. You can go to your Products tab in the Backer Portal to redeem your key if you have not done so already. One last note, if you were late in confirming your pledge and placing your order your items will be sent in a later shipment. We appreciate your patience as we try to get your rewards to you as fast as we can. Patch 1.03 Hello, Backers. The Pillars team has been hard at work collecting feedback and fixing bugs for our upcoming 1.03 patch. The focus of this patch was to quickly identify issues that were causing the biggest problems for the community and work to getting those fixes out as soon as possible. Note: We have hotfixed the problem with adventurer hall-created companions not being able to unlock doors or chests. We are going to have a list of fixes below, but some of the big ticket items that we have fixed include: Bears and Cats can now be equipped with hats. This is most likely not a joke... but might be a joke. Double-clicking to equip items was causing passive abilities to get removed from the character. This has been fixed and we were able to retroactively fix the problem for people that have already run into the issue. If you open your saved game in the latest patch, your characters will be repaired. We have fixed a problem where attributes on characters could permanently increase by equipping certain items. This will also retroactively fix the problem in saved games that have characters with this issue. The crash in Raedric's Hold has been fixed. We fixed the looping audio sounds that can occur if you play with minimized tooltips. Previously Wizard summoned items could persist after the spell's duration. This has been fixed and it will also retroactively fix the problem in saved games that have characters with this issue. The items Drinking Horn of Moderation and Talisman of the Unconquerable were causing Ciphers to permanently lower their amount of focus gain. We've included a fix to retroactively resolve the issue on Ciphers but the effect is still on the items. Unfortunately the fix will not fix the broken effect on those items, so you'll need to keep those items unequipped until the next patch. If you do equip them, perform a Save/Load to fix your Cipher. We released this patch earlier today on Steam. You can start downloading it by quiting out of your Steam client and starting Steam up again. The patch should download at that point. For those of you that have Origin and GOG, we are working with them to patch their platforms as soon as possible. We are hoping for all platforms to be up-to-date within a few days. Comprehensive Patch Notes Features Added pro tips to the Glossary. Many new icons for items. Added graphics setting to toggle antialiasing levels. Added new voice set reactivity for lockpick, poison, enemy spotted in stealth, spell failure, death, immobilized, and completed task. Added indicators on the loot screen when looting crafting and quest items. Party can now use lockpicks that are in the Stash. You can now cast AoEs on party member portraits and the spell will be targeted at the companion's location. Digital soundtrack now includes track names, track order, metadata/tags, and album art. Balance Monk unarmed attack buffed by 1 point at the top end. Arbalest damage has been lowered. Fast melee weapons do slightly more damage. Slight bump to sabre damage. Tuned down Mind Blades. Tuned ranges of many Wizard spells to be higher. Slicken spell is now a single hit AoE. Chill Fog is now a friend or foe spell. Curse of Blackened Sight is now foe only. Changed reload speed multiplier from 2 to 1.2 for Sure-Handed Ila. Fixed the price on Seal of Faith. Adjusted price on figurines. Adjusted price on rings. Tuned up the Goldrot Chew. Reduced the penalties for Bonded Grief. Tuned up Bulwark of the Elements. Modified attributes of companions and Itumaak. Raised the bonus for having fewer than six party members from 5% per character under the limit to 10% per character under the limit. Added cooldown to NPC Rogue's Escape ability usage so they won't use it back to back. Rebalanced fight difficulty and spell selection for the Old Watcher. Lowered the scale of the Defiance Bay reputation by 15%. Beloved Spirits adds 0.4 Endurance to Ancient Memory instead of 2. Changed duration of the Flagellant's Path defense penalty. Adjustments to the Mantle of the Dying Boar. Reduced the price of the Brighthollow Hearth and Courtyard Pool. Heart of Fury will now apply to all damage types. Tuned damage on Brilliant Radiance down. Systems Changed one of the fatigue status effects to not end with combat. Fixed save game issues with spells and abilities that place down traps. Fixed issue to prevent Ciphers from casting abilities without the required Focus. Restored modal flag for Reckless Assault. Set Transcendent Suffering to not be combat only. Fixed duration issue with Plague of Insects. Fixed companion audio triggers for some status effects. Fixed issue with Wizard's summoned magical items getting stuck after save and load. Wizards will be restored to a proper state after loading a game. Hunting Bows had the wrong speed descriptor. They are now listed as Fast. Character Hit Autopause option should be working as intended. You can now close the Grimoire and Chant UI with a hotkey. Fixed issue with summoning magic items while unarmed. Fixed delay issue on Knockdown. Fixed a few issues with Dominate and Charm spells. Fixed a bad item mod on the Ring of Protection. Fixed issue with the Terrible weapon mod. Changed bad data in ranger summons. Made Takedown to be consistent with Knockdown. Fixed multiplier on Blooded. Summoned weapons will be removed when Spiritshifting. Fixed issue with bouncing reflected melee attacks. Party members will no longer switch to different weapons after being Charmed or Dominated. Ancient Memory is now Ally only. A summoned weapon will not unequip the grimoire. Fixed Spellstriking mod. Fixed trigger count issue with the Prone reduction mod. DOT spells should clean up properly when combat ends. Fixed Deflection +10 mod. All Exhortations are now combat only. Only play weapon ineffective VO if the attack is hostile. Aggrandizing Radiance will now last until combat ends. Holy Radiance is now combat only. Carnage now works better. Quests Fixed issues with factions and super friend quests with Lady Webb's dialogue. Adjusted trigger in front of the Salty Mast to fix a possible way to skip a required cutscene. Fixed issue with the Winds of Steel quest line. Fixed a trigger outside the First Fires Keep that could have been avoided. Many fixes to music, audio, and VFX to a scene near the end of the game. The prybar should now display the correct image in the Raedric's Hold moat scripted interaction. Changed faction on the Hall of Warrior's containers. Fixed scripted music for the forge knight combats in the keep. Visual effects in the introduction cutscene should now be triggered properly. Fixed conversation of the guards in Raedric's Hold to not repeat. Added cape and armor to the loot for the Fampyr boss. Fix to Osrya's starting timer not being attached to the trigger in the area. UI Fixed sound issue when collapsing the tutorial UI. Fixed issue with double clicking items to equip. This is a retroactive fix and will restore characters with proper stats. Fixed issue where camping supplies were disappearing when added to Stash. Cage Cursor setting should not turn off after loading a scene or cutscene and is now on by default. Fixed cropping on a few portraits. Fixed issue with highlighting dead bodies and containers in the fog of war. Fixed item stacking issue that was stacking items inappropriately. Reduced the intensity of the explored fog of war on the area map, and fixed an issue where the shadow layer was causing the area map to be darker than it should be. Small UI updates to the journal screen. Reworked the enchanting UI to work better with multiple lines. Fixed UI sorting issue in store. Fixed UI sorting in crafting menu. Fixes to Capitular glyphs in end game slides. Fixed issue with stronghold alert widgets not hiding properly. Fixed an issue with weapon mods were incorrectly being displayed in some cases. Drag select should work properly when starting the drag over an enemy. Fixed a few issues with drag select and formation rotation causing issues when the mouse goes over UI elements. Fixed some control issues with holding down keys. Shot on the Run recovery value should be now displayed correctly. Fixed issues to how the HUD fades out during conversations. When the party receives or loses items, those log messages now go to both logs. Cleaned up the character sheet formatting and made more items clickable. Store item names can now take up two lines. Spells now show DT bypass in the description. Consumables now show per-Rest and per-Encounter usage limitations. Other Fixes Fixed stats issue with saving and loading on the same map where a companion is found. This is a retroactive fix and will restore companions and characters to the proper state. Fixed issues with save games in Raedric's Hold, causing the game to not function correctly or freeze. Ranger Animal Companions should not disappear anymore and broken animals will be restored after loading and saving the game. Fixed possible issues with disappearing items and weapons. Minor fixes to a few select voice over lines. Fixed size issues with equipped capes on Godlike characters. Changed Explorer achievement to check for 152 maps rather than 160. Fixed many issues where combat would not end properly. Updated credits with more backer names. Updated paperdoll level up lighting. Scripted music should now be restored properly after loading a game. Updated Temple of Eothas render. Fixed some rendering issues with Fog of War on some areas. Fixed sounds on movie that plays near end of game. Reduced antelope feet sliding. Fixed issue with weapon caching causing issues when weapons are swapped. Interstitial music no longer loops. Fixed issue where party members could take damage in cutscenes. Fixed voice cues during looting for full inventory. Fixed transparency on ghost characters. Fixed issues with cutscene pathfinding if the game's process is halted. Fixed issue with Expert mode settings getting saved improperly. Fixed issue where characters were not properly stopping at the last waypoint of their path. Adjusted Skuldr scream vocals. We now handle some edge cases in resolution management on some hardware configurations. Fixed issue with the party member Knockout achievement not reporting the correct numbers. Crowfall Our friends at ArtCraft Entertainment just finished up their Kickstarter for Crowfall, a really cool MMO being made by some serious industry vets. In Crowfall, players each get their own personal Kingdoms that they own and that other players can visit. Kingdom owners have full control over who can enter, trade rules, and taxes. It has the potential to be really amazing. Mix in the Campaign Worlds, limited time campaigns that players can play through, and you have a recipe for a great time. If you missed out on the Kickstarter campaign, you can still pledge now. Just head over to their website for more details.

We will be addressing this in a backer update. We did not remove the backer's memorial. It is now in Woodend Plains (adding and removing entries can cause the memorials to change locations). We worked in concert with the backer on the issue. Again, when the update goes out you will have a full explanation of the situation.

We will be addressing this in a Backer Update later today (hopefully, later today).