BAdler

Class-based Tetris. You could choose one of three classes - Summoner, Warrior, and Scamp. Warriors were good at clearing out blocks (specifically locked blocks that were tough to clear). One of my favorite builds revolved around taking the "Stun" skill which allowed a chance for temporary slowing of falling blocks on crits. If you paired it with two Blockade daggers, your line clears would crit pretty often. It allowed for lots of falling block stoppage which allowed you to set up huge line clearing combos. Summoners were really good at block manipulation. Moving blocks from one row to another or one column to another. At higher levels you could do some really sick stuff. I remember the "Fireblast" spell was great for clearing out future blocks that hadn't dropped yet. It allowed you great choice in selecting a good block for maximum clearing. Scamps were my favorite. They were strange, though. A lot of their abilities would get much better as more of the screen was filled with blocks. They were also the best at clearing locked blocks... in fact, they would get a pretty good XP bonus for clearing them. Normally you would avoid locked blocks, but they were your friend if you were a Scamp. You gained experience by clearing lines and it would scale your experience gain proportional to your speed. The faster that you cleared lines, the higher the XP gain. You could also chain line clears (clearing a line every time a new block would drop) for some insane XP gains. I was really sad when it was cancelled, but it was probably for the best.

Yup. You can collect and trade until your heart's content.

All retail discs are Steam only. The game won't be playable until we release the game on Steam on the 26th.

This is an important part of the process. The majority of hype nowadays is generated by folks streaming games right before they are released. This is just the reality of the situation. You shouldn't view streamers in any different light than reviewers. They serve much of the same function - informing users of the game (and giving them a glimpse before they purchase) and generating hype for the release. They also work off of the same principles. In the same way that reviewers won't publish reviews on games if they don't get exclusive access, streamers won't stream new games if they don't have exclusive access. Obviously that isn't universal, but it is a good rule to follow. This isn't to denigrate the backers or what they mean to this project. We love you guys and what you do for this project more than you can know. But, this is the game that has to be played for us to be as successful as we can be.

All streamers are required to post that there are going to be spoilers before they can stream. It is possible that some may not listen, though. I will say this, if you are sensitive to spoilers you should not be watching any streams before launch. There is no getting around the fact that the game and story will be spoiled if you watch these streams. Just fair warning.

Since many are asking: The embargo for streaming the game is up on March 23rd. I don't remember the specific time, but I think it is 6 AM PDT. The embargo for reviews and critiques is up when the game launches. This is so all press have a chance to write up and release their reviews at the same time. The press are getting press versions of the game. These are not final versions, but they are pretty close. Whether or not you feel that press reviews and Twitch/YouTube streams are important, they are. They will make an enormous difference in the reception of the game. We are hoping that official press and good word of mouth from our backers will create the best launch we could possibly have. This will ensure that we are able to make sequels and more expansions for everyone. I understand that some of the backers may be upset that others get to review the game before you get to play, but it is necessary if we want day one reviews to be live. If we opened up the review build to backers the majority of the game would be leaked before launch day and the press would (rightfully) break their embargos so that their reviews are relevant. Also, the backers are going to be getting a day one patch that has many additional fixes that the review build isn't getting. The biggest change is to the Enchanting UI. Trust me when I say you will want some of these fixes/changes for your full playthrough. One again, I apologize to any backers that feel slighted. That is not our intention. Our intention is to have the best launch possible. We (Obsidian and backers) have spent over two years on this journey together and we can't thank you enough. We just ask that you understand what we are doing is for maximum exposure and the good of the game. Thanks.

Hey, guys. Since we have figured out what was happening with the crashes we are going to lock this thread. If you would like to discuss the autosave issue please start a new thread. Thanks.

We only provided Windows code for the review. We wanted to have more focused testing on one platform for the reviewers.

I will post those mappings when I get back into the office this morning.

We were seeing crashes on some 32-bit machines, but I think that may be eliminated with recent optimizations.

I'd guess not because the strategy guide would spoil the story. We may hold off on allowing downloads of the Strategy Guide until launch day.

So, if it was bought off a site like Green Man Gaming, would those steam keys only be released on the day or release? I am not sure about this. Paradox is handling all of the distribution through most other retailers. I would guess that those keys would be released on launch day. We are only handing out keys to our backers on the backer portal.

We will likely release all of the available rewards at the same time we release game keys.

We have not talked about them, no. Just that it is an item and a pet.

Will you guys look into using the Unity 4.6 UI system for a sequel because it's a lot faster to develop with than NGUI and it's WaAaAAAAy better at scaling 2D assets. We will have to evaluate it at that point. It may be very easy for us to convert everything over... or it might be a nightmare. Hopefully the former.

It is very unlikely that we will ever do a console port for Pillars. The gameplay doesn't map very well to a controller. Then again, who knows what the future holds.vague statement>

It is around 14 GB for Steam too. Just outdated info. We will get it all fixed up before launch.

We just put in a few performance changes today that will hopefully help people out. One of them had to do with disabling certain types of AI that didn't need to be calculated all the time when a character is in the fog of war. I didn't play today's build, but I expect it helped out in the larger areas like the Temple of Skaen.

I am not sure. Paradox is handling all of that stuff. I gave them 1,000 Steam keys to the reviewer build, though. I doubt they will hand out that many (or anywhere close), but you never know. I can ask David tomorrow.

Nope. The editions (hero, champion, royal) were created for those folks that weren't backers. They emulate some of the tiers, but at an increased price compared to a backer tier. Nothing special about the game itself... other than the extras that come with it. Originally, backers were not going to get these special editions because they were going to download their rewards from the Backer Portal. A few backers really wanted to get associated special editions on Steam and GOG, though. We decided to make special editions for backers because, internally, enough people thought it would be a cool thing to do. I was against it at first (because it has the possibility to confuse backers), but I think this will work out well.

I completely understand wanting the game to be released as soon as possible, but trust me when I say that the extra cleanup and polish goes a long way. It can take a game from good to great in my opinion.

Technically I backed the product before I came back to Obsidian. So, yeah! I may be biased.

I was personally very worried about allowing streaming before launch, but only because I didn't want the story to get spoiled for folks. The team has taken a lot of steps to reduce the number of spoilers that get out. But, times are a changin' and streaming before launch is where it's at now. We do have an embargo on streaming anything past getting your stronghold so that should preserve a good amount of the story.

I am not sure what you are referencing, but Chris didn't write the manual. All digital copies of the game will come with a digital copy of the manual.

Now, we all understand that a Kickstarter project is something that has never come in on time, but the reasons for those delays aside, they originally listed a date, although speculative, which they have passed by a year, in my understanding. Honestly, they should give us an early copy. However, it is understandable why they don't. The logistics of it must be a nightmare and giving people a choice between gog and steam and keeping those who just preordered the game on steam vs those who backed it seperate, from my understanding simply isn't possible. That said, I think it's quite inexcusable to delay backer rewards one second after they can deliver it to us. Surely, gratitude would merit having access to the game we helped fund a little in advance to everyone else, wouldn't it? Alas, it doesn't matter much. Policy at this point, I assume, is rather set in stone. Just because we are Gold Master doesn't mean we are finished working on the game. For reference, we are locking down our day one patch very shortly. As to the Kickstarter date, it is impossible to change it once the Kickstarter is active. Once Obsidian gained more money (and stretch goals) it naturally ballooned the schedule out. If we were to deliver it on the original date in the Kickstarter it would have only had five classes, no mega dungeon, fewer companions, etc..