Bobby Null

Some speaking characters the player can't kill are required in story-driven games. We're not big fans of just marking them immortal like most modern RPGs do it these days. That would be the lazy solution, IMHO. Yay, for animancy! Sorry you don't like the Steward, though. Hopefully you do appreciate the freedom characters like these help provide. As always we appreciate the feedback and support. -B

He also worked on a metric ton of scripted interaction images, including the beefy Battle of Yenwood, and all sorts of other stuff on the expansion. Both he and Lindsey are cranking out a ton of arts for Deadfire.

John Lewis is doing things that will blow your mind. A typical day at Obsidian. I'm working on something in my office and I see John Lewis flashing a devilish grin at me through the glass of my closed door. He opens the door and sheepishly asks, "Do you want to see something cool?" Being the ever-eloquent linguist I reply, "****, yeah". Minutes later, sporting the same grin John was just rocking, I go by Sawyer's office and I'm like, "Dude, cruise by Lewis' office". Josh's eyes light up cuz he knows some fancy-pants, John Lewis magic is afoot. Minutes later Josh is walking passed my office with a new spring in his step and an emphatic nod, looking like he just crushed the question in Final Jeopardy.

If you did decide to do that, please consider to reserve that island slot for us. If you just open another slot on the Fig campaign it may happen that just somebody else snatches that slot away from us. So if you do decide to add another island slot, then please find some way to reserve that island slot for this community. I am fine with that, too. The most important thing about backer content is, that it fits SEAMLESSLY into the game world and does not break immersion in any way. My idea of this island is as followed: It should be a "Black Isle" reference and maybe a reference to Obsidian Entertainment. The island is supposed to be an homage to Faergus and you guys. And I think you do know best how to do that. Therefore I actually only want to give you very little information on the island. I am in favor of the name "Black Isle", however you can adjust that to a different name if that would fit better into the game world. The name should still be a "Black Isle" reference though in some way. Personally I imagine a volcano island - this is just a proposal though.The island could consist of volcanic rock, making it black. And the shore of the island could for example consist of obsidian. Where there is a volcano island, obsidian is not far away Also I am in favor of the shape of the island as you can see it on the map in the opening post. Because that shape resembles the actual Black Isle in Scotland. Concerning the weather, I would prefer a stormy weather on the island, as you can see in the video in the opening post. These are all just suggestions. If you disagree with all or some of them, then the absolute minimum is this: Make an island that is a "Black Isle" reference. I would absolutely let you do your thing. No, I understand that we do not pay the 5000$ to play designer as one of the other developers (I think it was Aarik) said. But, if possible, I would let other backer made content be placed on the island. If you agreed to that. And if you thought that that other content would fit the island. That is your decision. For example if this community also backed a pirate crew, could that pirate crew then be placed upon our island? Or could the pirate crew use our island as their base of operations? Or if a backer made an item. Could it be placed on our island? Or if someone decided they wanted to place their inn on our island, would that be possible? Or if someone would like to place their NPC on our island, etc etc... I am just asking if in theory that was possible. You will be the ones who decide if other backer content will be placed on our island. And if it fits the island in the first place. There is one matter still, which is the matter of payment. Would it be possible to pay for the island via PayPal? Because I, or someone else, would collect the crowd funding on PayPal, I assume. And it would be nice if it was possible to directly then pay for the island from PayPal. Other than that, for me it sounds all good. I think I am quite aware of the limitations. All I would like to see is an island that is a nice "Black Isle" reference . I do have some ideas about it. I bet, many others do so too. But ultimately as I said, you should know best how to make a homage to Black Isle and maybe to Obsidian Entertainment. So I would like to proceed, but first I would like to read what other people think about this, and especially if they understand the limitations. So everyone, once again, please keep in mind that my map in the opening post was just for fun and will not reflect the actual island if it comes to that, except maybe for the shape and maybe for a volcano (I hope so ) and maybe for the name (hopefully). Hey Fluffle, Everything you mentioned here sounds perfectly reasonable. I'll talk to Adam and Feargus tomorrow. I'll discuss the PayPal option as well. Like I said, I can't promise anything, but I'll poke around and see what we can do for you.

So drop a dragon into every encounter on PoTD? Got it. In all seriousness, I'll pass along the request to the system designers so you can be properly punished this time around. Many of the encounter changes we are making should vary up the tactics needed this time around as well.

Sorry all, been busy the last few days. My thoughts in no particular order. 1. I'll admit I didn't realize all the backer islands were filled when I posted. 2. As far as I know, none of the filled backer islands will currently be called The Black Isle. Talked to Adam about this today. 3. It is not out of the question that we open up a new island slot for this request. That said, we limited this to 2 for a reason. 4. Backer content is tricky. Some of our high end backers are fine with a little input on naming a couple things and giving us a little paragraph of the flavor they are looking for and then letting us do our thing, making cool content for them. 5. Other backers, somewhat understandably, think spending large sums of cash on "content" means they should get to design quests, additional scenarios, NPCs, and generally hope for content that is out of scope of what 5,000 dollars actually buys. I read the whole thread (this time) and understand Fluffy's map was for fun, so please don't think I am accusing anyone of anything, just wanted to be clear on how we go about scoping this type of content. 6. Of course we want our backer(s) to be happy, within reason, for contributing such a sizeable chunk of change to our project, but the reality is that money pays to keep a couple devs employed for a few weeks or so. The input we can realistically implement is of the cosmetic/flavor variety. It is POSSIBLE we add more real estate to a backer island. If it makes sense to add locations, dungeons, quests, points of interest or any other type normal content we create, we will. This would be a developer decision and would be made as the entire game becomes more fleshed out and the full scope of the budget is reevaluated closer to Alpha. 7. The biggest takeaway here is that IF we open another slot, whomever the spokesperson for this group is will need to understand that they will be working directly with me and I will need them to understand the limitations, especially since this would be a new slot our current schedule does not account for. 8. If all of that sounds good, and you would like to proceed, I can talk to Feargus and Adam about opening up a slot when you're ready. I can't promise, but I'm fairly certain I can make that happen. The ball is in your court. Thanks for all the support! Hope this helps.

No need, that's a feature. Is that a spoiler? Hmm.

You would be correct. However, we designers scrap ideas almost as fast as we think them up. I would be more than happy to do so if the community wants to back a "Black Isle". You have my word that your Black Isle, will be the only Black Isle. -B

So I pushed pretty hard for these. Of course being a crazy designer, I wanted full painted portraits for every NPC in the game (one can dream, right?). For giggles Adam and I projected out some costs for something like that and it was beefy to say the least and well out of scope. The water color portraits were a compromise (Josh's idea if I recall correctly) and I'll admit, I felt a little iffy about them when I looked at them individually. This isn't a knock on the art, it's just a reflection of how long Matt Hansen spent on each one. When we saw the cost (time) vs. quality the decision was a no brainer. It was either have a few fully painted portraits for main NPCs or have a metric ton of water color portraits for dozens of NPCs. When you see them in game, they make the conversation far more engrossing IMO.

Hey Everyone, Figured I'd chime in here for a second as this is a bit of a hot topic. I've been so swamped recently I've not been very good at being a good spokesman for the game. I'm just so used to being the dude designing in the shadows of my little office that I sometimes forget my responsibility to you, our awesome fans/backers- my apologies. So I figured I needed to poke my head out of my dungeon and join the conversation. Let me address some points in no particular order. 1. As the community seems to be dubbing me the Obsidian Grognard, it won't surprise anyone I am a fan of vancian casting. I do feel it works much better in PnP than it does in a CRPG, but I am still a big fan. 2. I expressed my fears to Josh when we spoke about the current per rest changes and we had a semi-lengthy discussion about it. I was immediately on board with the supercharge idea, though. 3. I am not such a grog that I am afraid to try new approaches regarding design mechanics or to try to move the genre forward. Josh feels strongly about this direction and he has more than earned the right to try new things. I've worked with Josh for years and he is right far more often than he is wrong. Far more than any other designer I've ever worked with, and I've worked with some REALLY talented people. When designs don't work out, we will continue to tweak, improve, or in some cases scrap them. I think this is evident with the amount of post release support we did with the first title and well into the expansions. 4. There are other factors that we are working into combat. Josh and I were just talking about the importance of longer cast times for certain abilities. This is something we are going to be working on. It will help to vary abilities and will allow for some really hard hitters. It also increases the usefulness of interrupting and magnifies risk vs reward in what ability you choose in moment to moment gameplay. 5. We are working hard on creatures and encounters being more unique and a fair amount less frequent. You can see some of that work in the White March expansions and we are pushing to do more of that on both the system and level design front. 6. There are some new gameplay elements mixed into certain environments that can change the tactical thinking for many of our encounters. Not sure if Josh has talked about any of these so I'll keep quiet on these for the moment. 7. If something sucks or isn't fun, we will iterate and/or change what needs to be changed. 8. I hope this helps somewhat. In the end, we are trying to make a game we think you all will fall in love with. There are still a ton of cool announcements on the horizon that we're pretty excited about. Hope you all have a great night. -B

I'm curious what area(s) you are having problems with and what your current party level is?

Little known fact. Clothing can hold more enchantments than heavier armors. Helps make up for the lack of DR.

Are you sure he didn't die? The companion portrait is removed from the UI when a character dies.

QA and design are looking into the issue. Thanks for bringing it up, but in the future, it will be easier for us to find these issues if you post them in the Technical Support section of the message board. The Q/A dept checks that board regularly for issues and problems players may find while playing the game. Thanks!