BAdler

I will let QA speak on this, but I don't think we are able to reproduce this in the base game or Backer Beta. They are investigating now.

I am truly sorry to hear about this. We will try to do what we can to memorialize him in the game.

Right now we are on 4.5.1f3. I would have to check with Adam, but I think the upgrade will be to 4.6.1.

Mac build is now live. Linux build won't be available until we upgrade Unity and that won't happen until after January 5th.

Mac build should now be live. We aren't going to upgrade Unity until after the break (January 5th). Linux build will go up right after we upgrade.

I have the Mac build up too, but for some reason it is going to take about 6 hours for me to download the Mac build from Steam. I need to download it on one of our machines to validate that it is working. I won't be able to push it live until tomorrow morning.

If anyone else sees this, let me know. Everything worked fine for me when I downloaded it from Steam.

Hello, all. Build 392 is now live for the Backer Beta. The Windows and Mac builds are now live. Linux will not be going up until we upgrade Unity and that won't happen until after January 5th, 2015. Important Changes You will notice quite a few combat balance changes in this build. Be on the lookout and let us know what you think. You will notice many UI polish changes. Some screens may even be entirely new (loot screen, I'm looking at you). Most of the icons are now in the game. There are still a few that are missing, but those should be few and far between. Some final VO is in the game. You will also notice sound sets are in and hooked up. Skill system has changed back to a point-buy system. Talents are now organized during level up. Important Known Issues It can be difficult to loot bodies sometimes. It can help to try to loot the bodies toward their feet. One workaround is to do a save/load. The body will turn into a loot bag and you will be able to loot it properly. Saving with a modal active will cause the modal to appear to be non-functioning. If you deactivate and reactivate the modal a couple of times it will start working again. Pressing the "Take All" button in the Loot UI, if a lootable body is underneath the "Take All" button, will cause the cursor to get stuck. This can prevent you from opening doors or interacting with objects. To clear this you can do a few things: mouse over a loot container, loot anything, transition, or save/load. The "proof" mods (e.g. Pierce-proof) are not stacking correctly and will have problems after a save/load. Best to avoid those mods for the time being. Fixed Issues If an issue has "Needs Verification" after it. It means a fix has been checked in, but QA hasn't checked it yet. These issues are likely fixed, but a few may fail the verification process. Save/Load/Persistence After loading a game all party members revert to their first weapon set - Thread Link - Needs Verification Save/Load before transitioning to Dyrford Village causes 0 seconds travel time and a black screen (Workaround in Thread) - Thread Link - Needs Verification Save/Load causes the inventory paperdoll not to show weapons and shields until another character is selected - Thread Link - Needs Verification Enchanted Mods disappear after loading the game - Thread Link Area Design Korgrak's attacks are not causing recovery - Thread Link - Needs Verification Force Attacking Medreth, just after attaining the quest, A Cat and Mouse, causes you to be unable to complete the quest - Thread Link - Needs Verification Can't pick the Pilgrim's Crown plant in the southern central area of Dyrford Village - Thread Link - Needs Verification The Temple Skaen entrance is visible on the area map without first moving the statue - Thread Link - Needs Verification Boar companion is left behind when Medreth leaves - Thread Link - Needs Verification Dengler's Store cannot be accessed after returning to the Dracogen Inn - Needs Verification Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay AI does not consider Range bonus from Perception when moving into range to cast a spell - Thread Link - Needs Verification Dexterity is currently not properly affecting action speed (animation times and recovery times) - Thread Link - Partially Fixed Exiting Scouting Mode causes a loss of FPS that persists until Load or Transitions - Thread Link - Needs Verification Hired adventurers spawn inside the player character - Thread Link - Needs Verification Chanters cannot use the Cautious Attack modal while chanting - Thread Link - Needs Verification Chanter's talent Ancient Memory causes the party to twitch consistently - Thread Link - Needs Verification Trap Triggered and other similar bark texts persist for too long - Thread Link The Goldpact Paladin talent Enduring Flames is causing Flames of Devotion to apply a permanent DoT effect - Thread Link - Needs Verification Best of Weapons are not showing the proper damage type in the combat log - Thread Link - Needs Verification Talents Resilient Companion, Faithful Companion, and Painful Interdiction are not working properly - Partially Fixed Some new class abilities have been added for the druid, fighter, paladin, and wizard. These abilities have missing strings and temp icons - There were a large number of these, they should all be fixed On death load doesn't function if an entire party is knocked out while one party member is dominated Art Scouting Mode causes targeting recticles to appear at character's feet when activated/deactivated - Thread Link - Needs Verification VFX art shown during Scouting Mode does not align well with selection circles - Thread Link Male Moon Godlike head 4 is missing a model - Thread Link The Cladhaliath Spear is not visible in game, only in the paperdoll - Thread Link - Cannot Reproduce The Health bar indicators feel somewhat unpolished and appear to overlap the portrait - Thread Link - Needs Verification Items The Sabre will sometimes strike for 0.0 damage negating the attack entirely - Thread Link - Needs Verification User Interface Combat HUD and "Injured, Near Death" indicators do not correctly match character Endurance values - Thread Link - Needs Verification HUD effects and glowing elements (such as Level up and glowing active ability) show when inventory etc are open - Thread Link - Needs Verification "Best of" weapons do not display their change in damage type in the combat log when the alternate type is used - Thread Link - Needs Verification Accuracy shown in the Inventory and Character sheet do not reflect the bonus for single 1 Handed weapons and Enchant/Mod accuracy effects - Needs Verification Character Creation attribute allocation arrows continue to make SFX sounds if clicked after they have disappeared - Thread Link Item tooltips often appear behind the inventory and loot UI Audio Dyrford Ruins hallway plays the SFX of footsteps splashing through puddles, even though there is no water - Thread Link - Needs Verification Combat Music is no longer playing - Needs Verification Other Mac Launching the client through steam while running OSX Yosemite causes the client to crash (workaround in thread) - Thread Link - Needs Verification Known Issues These issues have been reported by the community, but have not been addressed in the current build. Save/Load/Persistence Save/Load causes character shadows to disappear on the East and West sides of Dyrford Village - Thread Link - Open Saving a paused game, closing and reopening the client, then loading that game via the Continue causes the game to load in paused - Thread Link - Open Save Files can become unreadable if PC loses power supply while the game is running - Open Area Design Critters in the wilderness do not always react to the party - Thread Link - Open Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay Some spells and abilities (Jolting Touch, Knockdown, etc...) always display a movement spell icon - Thread Link - Open Mods affecting attacks are applied multiple times if a character is knocked prone/petrified etc... before the hit frame of an attack - Thread Link - Open Dexterity is currently not properly affecting action speed (animation times and recovery times) - Thread Link - Partially Fixed Wizards in character creation are not holding Grimoires - Thread Link - Open The Bloody Slaughter talent has a blank description - Thread Link - Open Medreth's Boar Companion is following the party from scene to scene and causing combat issues - Thread Link - Open Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit Ranges are off by 1 value - Thread Link - Open Talents Resilient Companion, Faithful Companion, and Painful Interdiction are not working properly - Partially Fixed If the Ranger or their Companion are knocked out near an enemy while the other is far away, they will repeatedly fall unconscious - Open If you hire an Adventurer when you have a full party, the Adventurer will be made with no items - Open Changing difficulty level in-game doesn't scale the number of opponents correctly - Open Art Models for Doors, Weapons, Shields, etc... change texture quality/mip at improper zoom ranges - Thread Link - Open Items held by NPCs can be seen through the Fog of War - Thread Link - Open The Wizard's Grimoire is held in the offhand even when a weapon or shield are equip in that hand - Thread Link - Open Items Cape/Cloak items do not align with character's shoulders and clip through character models - Thread Link - Open User Interface Descriptions for spells and abilities presented in character creation and level up screens cannot be scrolled - Thread Link - Open When wielding a single weapon in your offhand and nothing in the main hand the UI indicates that you are dual wielding - Thread Link - Open The Area Map in Stormwall Gorge often displays lines through the Fog of War on the outer edges of the map - Thread Link - Open Feedback is not clear that clicking portraits in shop allows you to compare examined items - Thread Link - Open Combat HUD occasionally displays a "stuck pip" on the right side of the HUD even though the character is injured - Thread Link - Open Spell and ability tooltips in character creation display "Right-Click for details" when this function has no effect - Thread Link - Open UI elements and selection circles can be partially or completely obscured by spell VFX and distortion effects - Thread Link - Open Culture bonuses are always factored in character creation, even when the user hasn't reached that step in the process yet - Thread Link - Open Double-Clicking on a character while the game is paused, causes the party's shadows to jitter slightly - Thread Link - Open Resizing the Combat Log after hiding/expanding the Central HUD allows you to overlap UI elements - Thread Link - Open Assigned Action Bar Hotkeys are duplicating ability UI and not unassigning previously assigned keys - Thread Link - Open UI screen borders are shifted offscreen in higher resolutions causing quest updates etc to become clipped - Thread Link - Open The level up button in the character sheet appears available even if you cannot level up - Thread Link - Open Paladin's description is missing the word "Health" after the health multiplier - Thread Link - Open White damage values in the combat log only display whole numbers and not decimal values (Makes DoT effects misleading) - Open Time stamp font is small in when viewing saved games - Thread Link - Open Traps and Hidden Secrets change the mouse cursor when hovered over (before they are discovered) - Thread Link - Open Saved games are not ordering properly and are sometimes resetting their play time - Open Stash access in the Shop UI needs to be switched to page format - Open

Windows build 392 is now live. I will be posting the patch notes shortly. We are looking over the Mac build now.

Just wanted to let you guys know that the Win build passed QA. There are still a couple of issues that I normally would want to hold on, but I think it is good enough to hand off. Last step is for me to check the build on Steam to make sure that nothing breaks during the upload process. I am downloading the build pretty slowly right now, but I will keep you guys informed when I am able to put it live.

We could have put the game out this year if we had wanted, but the end of the game's development would have been pretty unpleasant for the development team. The game also wouldn't have been as strong as it could be. I feel we made the better decision to give the game additional time so we could continue fixing bugs, implementing feedback, and polishing content. We always knew that some people would be upset by this, but we feel that this is the best decision for the game and for the team. It's my opinion that if the game is good, people will forgive the delay.

Sorry, I don't think that is something that we will be able to do.

Are You a professional game journalist? Since writing that post I've already received offers from Kotaku and Polygon. He said professional, not amateur Also BAdler, have you thought of optimizing the build process before you start on the expansion, or have you found that there is no way to make it significantly faster, even if you had the time (and less pressure)? There isn't a huge amount more that can be optimized. One of the reasons that there are new bugs floating into each build is that we are not branching off the backer beta. Normally we would, but with limited resources on the project it doesn't make as much sense to branch each time we want to release a backer beta and have a programmer dedicated to integrating fixes into that branch. When we do larger demos that can't slip we normally put everyone on a check-in lockdown and review all check-ins. This helps make sure that the build stays stable while we fix key issues. That isn't something we like to do, though, because it really slows down progress until we get a viable build candidate.

I dunno. It kinda sounds like they know there may not be a new build before the X-Mas Holidays, but that it's still possible, if not probable, that there could be. Just sounds to me like they're not omniscient. Which is good. I don't trust those omniscient development teams. "Wait... you know what stretch goals to pick to get to 4 million? YOU KNEW ABOUT ALL THESE BUGS BEFORE YOU STARTED CODING?! O_O!" Maybe you're right. Hopefully. We will see. Time is running out... Would be great if BAdler would give us a new update of the progress of a new build.... We have a programmer looking into the problem right now. Seems to be related to ranged weapons and it is particularly bad with the wizard talent Blast. So how does this bug manifest itself precisely? You said "certain" NPCs won't die. Does carrying a ranged weapon make them immortal or do ranged weapons not inflict fatal damage on them? Looks like it has the potential to be any NPC. I think one of our programmers has fixed the bug. We are building a backer beta build right now and I think it should be ready for testing sometime in the next hour or so. Keep your fingers crossed that everything else is solid.

I dunno. It kinda sounds like they know there may not be a new build before the X-Mas Holidays, but that it's still possible, if not probable, that there could be. Just sounds to me like they're not omniscient. Which is good. I don't trust those omniscient development teams. "Wait... you know what stretch goals to pick to get to 4 million? YOU KNEW ABOUT ALL THESE BUGS BEFORE YOU STARTED CODING?! O_O!" Maybe you're right. Hopefully. We will see. Time is running out... Would be great if BAdler would give us a new update of the progress of a new build.... We have a programmer looking into the problem right now. Seems to be related to ranged weapons and it is particularly bad with the wizard talent Blast.

just out of curiosity, I'm assuming when thing's like this get's pushed back due to a major bug like you're discussing, that the other departments are also still chugging along the way and by the time the major bug is fixed there may also be dozens of other changes that get pushed into that fix too? At this point, is everything pretty much in game and locked down and you guys are just bug fixing, or are you still creating quests or other assets for the game? I'm glad to hear that a lot of the vo work is getting into the game. I hope there's enough variety since you have your party of six, it may get old using male thief #2 4 times cause the rest just don't cut the mustard There are still some assets like audio, vfx, portraits, icons that are going in, but new features are not going in. Most of those are pretty low danger and low impact. Sometimes the line blurs between a feature and a bug fix, but we won't put in anything new if we can avoid it.

We will still try to get something out on Monday or Tuesday, but it may not be doable.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news everyone. We can't push the build out. We are noticing that some NPCs are not being killed. Unfortunately, next week is pretty dodgy since many people will be on break in and around Christmas. I wouldn't expect that a new backer beta build will come out until the week after Christmas. Apologies, guys. I know how excited you are for a new build, but I want to make sure that we don't put out a backer beta with a major bug if we can avoid it.

so... any new info on the linux build? There is a Unity update that fixes our Linux problems. Normally, we wouldn't update our engine this late in development, but we don't have much of a choice (without completely rewriting large portions of code). We typically have the programmers run on any new updates for a few weeks to make sure there aren't major issues. Adam is currently doing this. If everything checks out we might be able to upgrade the team soon.

Do I sense a challenge for someone to post their playthrough on twitch or youtube under stated conditions after the game releases? Oh, I am sure someone will do it. I just don't think anyone on our team can do it. (That's right... I am calling them out publically)

A week ago I made a bet with the team that nobody on the team could play through the entire game under all of the following conditions: solo (no companions), Trial of Iron, Expert Mode, and Path of the Damned. I told the team I would buy the winner a dinner of their choosing. I am almost certain that I will not have to make good on that bet.

There was a problem with the build that was built last night, but there is a fix in for it. I have fired off a build and in a couple of hours we will know if it passes QA.

Update by Josh Sawyer, Project Director Hello, all. The Pillars of Eternity team has been putting a lot of time into playing and fixing the game. In addition to the feedback that beta testers have given on our boards, we also conducted an internal play week so the developers could get a good feeling for how the game felt from start to finish (or at least as far as they could get). We learned a lot from the play week. Most notably: Pillars of Eternity is a big game. Only two of our developers managed to finish. One was a designer who developed a lot of the crit path and sprinted straight for the end. The other found an early ending and decided to wrap his story up there. About half of the developers had not yet made it to Defiance Bay (the first big city). Most of the devs had a lot of fun playing the game. The players ranged from hardened IE veterans to fresh newcomers. There was enough challenge for the old guard but none of the new players were so overwhelmed that they couldn't learn as they went along. Even so, tutorial tips and the Glossary can go a long way. While some of the players picked things up quickly, most found the learning curve to be difficult. We're addressing the major points with tutorial messages, clearer and more descriptive Glossary entries, and refinements to the UI. Despite our bug fixes to animation and Recovery times, combat was still too fast. We increased the Recovery of most creatures and tuned the global Recovery factor to slow down combat overall. Movement speed was also tuned down for a large number of creatures (specifically, spiders, beetles, many spirits, and other creatures). Melee Engagement needs to be communicated more clearly. The arrows we currently use are really a secondary piece of information, who is Engaging whom. We will be modifying the selection circle itself when someone is Engaged to make the state very obvious at a glance. Additionally, we still need a visual effect to indicate when a Disengagement Attack is occurring. We also found that the standard casting and Recovery times were too long. People felt that they could not respond to threats quickly enough. The standard casting time was adjusted down to make casting feel less sluggish. Hiring adventurers, buying items, crafting, and enchanting were all much too expensive. These have all been made more affordable, especially crafting and enchanting. All classes need a per encounter ability to use at 1st level. Early in the game, it's easy to run completely out of per rest abilities and you may have few or no companions. Per encounter abilities ensure that every class has something to do other than auto-attack at low levels. In addition to all of this testing and bugfixing, we've also been recording and integrating all of our voice overs for dialogue and character voice sets. The recording process is complete and we're now hooking them all up into the game. The audio folks have also been hard at work creating more varied combat sounds to better communicate what's going on in battle. Here's a sample of some of our companion VO: Companion voice over sample. Performance optimizations are ongoing, but we've already made great progress in the past few weeks. Adam and Roby were able to reduce memory overhead and loads times by a huge margin. Many of these optimizations were achieved by how data is packaged in our builds and loaded in when the game loads. Today, backers who are in the Backer Beta will notice that we have a Mac build available for download and testing. We are continuing work on the Linux build, but are still trying to resolve some resource management issues. There are a lot of items in Pillars of Eternity and the artists have been working their way through the list. Here is a sampling of the new icons that have been going in for various treasure and quest items: We also have some new portraits for Ocean Folk and Pale Elf characters. More are still coming! That's all for this week. Let us know your thoughts on our forums. As always, thank you for your continued support.

A new Windows Backer Beta update has been distributed through Steam. We have made a lot of fixes and some changes since the last update. In addition to general fixes, the team has been hard at work making some changes based on a play week that we did a couple of weeks back. You may even see a few new Abilities for classes based on the team's feedback. You will also notice that many of the icons are now in place and we have even started to get some VO in place. We have not been able to get an updated Mac build, but we are hoping to put one out sometime in the next couple of weeks. One good bit of news for Mac users, though, is that the build should be able to run directly from Steam now. Here are some of the issues that have been fixed and some that are still on the list for fixes. Fixed Save/Load/Persistence Fog of War does now persists on Save/Load and transitions. - Thread Link BB Fighter will no longer become invisible after Save/Load. - Thread Link Uninstalling the game should now remove all files that the game created. - Thread Link Area Design Hendyna no longer wanders off to the forest at times. - Thread Link Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay Medreth's Boar Companion no longer follows the party from scene to scene, causing combat issues. - Thread Link Hazard spells (Slicken, Web, Chill Fog, etc...) are no longer attaching themselves to affected targets. - Thread Link Creatures should now properly play death animations and drop loot. - Thread Link Fighter Passive Armored Grace has had its description updated to reflect its recovery modification. - Thread Link Paladin Auras, Zealous Focus, Zealous Charge, and Zealous Endurance no longer deactivate immediately when clicked. - Thread Link Fan of Flames level 1 Wizard spell, no longer plays a VFX with improper textures. - Thread Link Charmed/Dominated creatures no longer attack themselves. - Thread Link Crystal Eater Spiders, Crystal Eater Spiderlings, and Widowmaker Spiders are no longer bypassing 10 DT. Missed attacks in combat are still causing hit reactions and hit SFX. - Thread Link Art Hendyna's home has a visual shaking effect when entered and zoomed in. - Thread Link Morning Stars (of the non-Fine Quality) are transparent in game and character creation. - Thread Link User Interface Targeting reticles persist after death if the creature is killed while moused over. - Thread Link Winfrith and Tenfrith's shops do not have name and values listed for items in the shop UI. - Thread Link Savage Endurance tooltip is showing too many decimals. - Thread Link Character Creation buttons can have a significant delay when clicked. Opening and closing the Area Map shifts 2D UI elements (Including character circles). - Thread Link Temp Status icons are sometimes appearing during combat (White Squares with Green Circles). Known Issues Save/Load/Persistence Save/Load causes the inventory paperdoll not to show weapons and shields until another character is selected. - Thread Link Save/Load causes character shadows to disappear on the East and West sides of Dyrford Village. - Thread Link Saving a paused game, closing and reopening the client, then loading that game via the Continue causes the game to load in paused. - Thread Link Memory usage increases after loading the game (closing the client and opening it resets this). - Thread Link Memory usage increases after transitions (closing the client and opening it resets this). - Thread Link Enchanted mods disappear after loading the game. Memory usage increases by 300-800MB after 1-2 Save/Loads or Transitions, this does not appear to worsen further. Save files can become unreadable if PC loses power supply while the game is running. Area Design The Water Wheel in Dyrford Village seems to be rotating in the wrong direction. - Thread Link The Temple Skaen entrance is visible on the area map without first moving the statue. - Thread Link Boar companion is left behind when Medreth leaves. - Thread Link Dengler's Store cannot be accessed after returning to the Dracogen Inn. Spells/Abilities/Classes/Gameplay Trap Triggered and other similar bark texts persist for too long. - Thread Link Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit Ranges are off by 1 value. - Thread Link The Goldpact Paladin talent Enduring Flames is causing Flames of Devotion to apply a permanent DoT effect. - Thread Link Best of Weapons are not showing the proper damage type in the combat log. - Thread Link Talents Resilient Companion, Faithful Companion, and Painful Interdiction are not working properly. Some new class abilities have been added for the druid, fighter, paladin, and wizard. These abilities have missing strings and temp icons. If the Ranger or their Companion are knocked out near an enemy while the other is far away, they will repeatedly fall unconscious. If you hire an adventurer when you have a full party, the adventurer will be made with no items. On death load doesn't function if a entire party is knocked out while one party member is dominated. Changing difficulty level in-game doesn't scale the number of opponents correctly. Art The Health bar indicators feel somewhat unpolished and appear to overlap the portrait. - Thread Link Items Cape/Cloak items do not align with character's shoulders and clip through character models. - Thread Link The Sabre will sometimes strike for 0.0 damage negating the attack entirely. - Thread Link User Interface Assigned Action Bar Hotkeys are duplicating ability UI and not unassigning previously assigned keys. - Thread Link UI screen borders are shifted offscreen in higher resolutions causing quest updates etc to become clipped. - Thread Link The level up button in the character sheet appears available even if you cannot level up. - Thread Link "Best of" weapons do not display their change in damage type in the combat log when the alternate type is used. - Thread Link Paladin's description is missing the word "Health" after the health multiplier. - Thread Link Accuracy shown in the Inventory and Character sheet do not reflect the bonus for single 1 Handed weapons and Enchant/Mod accuracy effects. Character Creation attribute allocation arrows continue to make SFX sounds if clicked after they have disappeared. - Thread Link White damage values in the combat log only display whole numbers and not decimal values (Makes DoT effects misleading). Time stamp font is small in when viewing saved games. - Thread Link Traps and Hidden Secrets change the mouse cursor when hovered over (before they are discovered). - Thread Link Saved games are not ordering properly and are sometimes resetting their play time. Stash access in the Shop UI needs to be switched to page format. Item tooltips often appear behind the inventory and loot UI. Audio Combat Music is no longer playing.

The Windows backer beta update is now live. I will be putting up an announcement shortly.