Bobby Null

Towards the end of the project. It was a fun level to design and was truly a team effort. I'll give you a briefish rundown of how the process worked. It kinda went like this... 1. One day I walked into Josh's office and was like... "Hey Josh, I want to design a big-ass gothic castle level. What do you think?". Josh responds with a silent emphatic head nod. 2. I then go to Jorge Salgado, one of our level designers, and say something along the lines of "Yo, Jorge. I'm gonna come in this weekend and design a big ass gothic castle level. You in?" I'm paraphrasing here, but he replied something like "F%^$ yeah!". 3. So we came in on a Saturday and I explained how I wanted the level flow to work (being vague so I don't spoil it). We then started tossing out story ideas for the quest. After an hour or two, we were both happy with the idea and Jorge drew some layout ideas for the exterior on the whiteboard in our office. 4. We bantered a few times, refined a few things here and there and called it a day. I then assigned block out duties to Jorge. 5. Later, he blocked out the exterior and interior areas. The early blockouts were sick, but needed some refinement. I had Jorge make some level flow adjustments and various tweaks to the blockout. Early on it was a little easy to get lost in this place. 6. Once I approved the blockout revisions, the levels went off to level art. Sean Dunny worked the exterior, while Hector Espinoza and April Giron worked the interiors. 7. Once the first pass art was in, Jorge implemented the first pass of the level content, including quest and dialogue. 8. Once we had a playable level, I played through the level multiple times and wrote notes. 9. Next, Rob Neslor (Art Director) and I got together and reviewed the first pass art. We made dozens of notes (which included new props needed) for a second art pass. 10. At this point, Jorge needed to move on to work on Twin Elms. I assigned Olivia Veras, one of our newer area designers, to take the level home. She and I worked closely to refine the quest content, level flow, dialogue, combat pacing, loot, balance, etc. She did a fantastic job finishing the level and making it shine. She worked closely with Eric Fenstermaker and Carrie Patel, the narrative designers on the project, to make sure the narrative of the area blended well with the critical path elements of Gilded Vale. 11.Then, the finishing touches (like the lit stain glass and scripted interaction art) we're put in and polished. John Lewis handled the various visual effects in the area, while Kaz supplied the SI art. 12. Finally, Justin Bell and the audio guys worked their magic on the music and sound fx of the area. This is obviously an abbreviated rundown of how we make levels, but hopefully it gives you guys a little understanding of how a level can come together. Sometimes there is a ton of planning, writing documents, and waiting months before the work even begins. Raedric's came together quickly. It certainly helps when it is closer to the end of the production cycle and we can more accurately project how long things will take. This is because the developers are used to the workflow and tools their using, we have a library of assets to draw upon and the team is more or less working like a well-oiled machine.

Don't know. He's on Facebook. Ask him. lol Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure Avellone wrote Sand.

Joe doesn't always review console/AAA titles. I loved his reviews of the Mount and Blade series. Warband is probably my favorite game of the last 10 years or so. Last week, the leads and owners were signing collector edition copies of PoE and Joe's name came up. I think Josh was talking about his excitement about the title. Then Feargus broke into a story about meeting Joe at some other conference in the past and what nice guy he was. Nothing but positive vibes around the table. Then I see this genuinely enthusiastic preview of our game and it reminds me of when I used to get that pumped for new games. A little positivity is good for the soul.

This is on our list of polish issues/bugs. Jorge and I discussed this (I think it was last week) and I asked him to look into an existing animation mixed with an existing visual effect to handle summoned creatures despawning. He then went and talked with David S, one of our programmers and came up with a solution. I'll be honest, I haven't seen the final result but I'll follow up on Monday and see how it looks.

As far as the OP's question, we don't use an alignment system like D&D. Whether the companion's personality is good or evil will largely depend on how you define those terms. We don't generally have clear cut evil for the sake of being evil or good for the sake of being good archetypes in PoE. That said, some of our companions have a bit of a darker or more controversial outlook on life. As far as the companion vs. created character discussion, we support both. There is no wrong answer. Some people, probably the majority, prefer companions with personality to fill the ranks of the party. Others like to make their own. While still others, like me, prefer to mix and match. Whenever I play the game for any extended period of time, I always make at least one additional adventurer to join my party pretty early on in the game. Josh and I are both big fans of the old gold box games and we decided early on, we didn't want to deprive those that like making their own party members.

I remember asking Josh about whether chants would be voiced a while ago with that concern. I think they probably did an internal test with them and found them annoying so they didn't record them. I think if they effectively stylized it (like some really creative sound design), it would have probably been pretty cool. This is something we are currently looking at. There are chant vocalizations in the current internal build, but Justin, Jorge and myself have found them to be a little... overbearing. We were just discussing this today. Since these fire when combat begins (which is often), they are going to need a little tweaking and Justin is looking into it. Not sure what the final result will be and it is possible they get cut if we can't find a happy medium of audio feedback without sounding too repetitive/annoying.

There are now portraits for every race and sub-race except Wild Orlan. I mentioned in another thread, the Wild Orlan portraits are coming and they look sweet. There are also quite a few more Ocean Folk and Savannah Folk being worked on.

As mentioned the level cap is 12. Don't worry about this game being short, it is far from it. But much like the Infinity Engine games that inspired it, leveling in Pillars of Eternity is a little slower than some of the newer RPGs on the market. When you are leveling 6 party members and the choices upon leveling are numerous, the extra time between levels is actually a good thing IMHO. It also gives a stronger sense of achievement when a character does level, at least that is our goal.

Yeah, sounds good man. With optimized art pipelines, do you think there'll be more of a chance to include more village/city interiors in the future too? (such as minor houses etc) The BGs for instance re-used the same base maps for interiors to really good effect. We have some minor houses in both of the cities and in a few other areas as well. With the "load each scene" restriction we had on this title, I didn't want to go overboard with too many generic houses with sparse content in them, but they do exist. Since we have a much larger scene/map pool to draw from now, it will be easier on subsequent titles to get mileage from existing assets. Move a few props, rotate and light and you have a whole new interior. We did get a decent amount of reuse on this project, but most of our scenes are unique in some way.

This is something I wanted for this title but time and budget restrictions would not allow for it. If we do a sequel, it will be one of my priorities to push for. I'd rather get streaming working for a sequel as opposed to loading multiple scenes/maps simultaneously as was done in the IE games and both Neverwinter titles. This generally led to pretty long load times. We tend to forget how long those loads were on our old machines. Playing those older games on newer, faster machines alleviates the load times quite a bit.

Crafting and upgrading the Stronghold are optional. Just because these elements are optional doesn't mean our QA department doesn't have to test them, have no fear. We have crafting and enchanting. Crafting generally deals with consumable items, many of which don't drop in the world. The ingredients for the recipes however drop and some of them can be a challenge to find. Enchanting lets you enchant basic items to your liking, provided you have the money and proper components, or is allows you to upgrade existing items (weapons, armor, etc.) you've found throughout your time in the game.

Bigger than any game on a small budget should be . In all seriousness, their is a quite a bit of content. The 110 map count quoted earlier in the thread is a little low. I'm pretty sure it is closer to 150. It is certainly bigger than either of the Icewind Dale games, but not as big as BG2, but let's be honest, what game is? Another tidbit from our playthrough testing that lasted a full week (five 8 hour days), only 1 developer actually finished the game. That developer was Jeff Husges and he skipped most of the content in Defiance Bay (which he worked on), and I don't think he did much with stronghold or Od Nua, our mega-dungeon.

Got you covered. We have what what I call, "Mysterious Hoodie" portraits being worked on. These are Male/Female portraits with a cowl that covers most of the face so they can work for many races, but still look really cool. These are currently being worked on and are close to being complete. Bobby Hernandez, an amazing artist I worked with on South Park, has volunteered some of his free time on the weekend to do a few armored up portraits. These guys and gals will be fully helmeted so they can be used for any race. Trust me, we're working hard to try and get as many portraits into the game for your characters. Kaz looks at me with wide eyes with all my requests and I simply reply... MOAR PORTRAITS! Kaz and the art crew have been amazing on this project and their dedication will show in the final product.

I've been working with Kaz to organize a bunch of new portraits to get into the game before we launch, some may not make it in until the first patch. While we can't do every combo people can think up, at least not at launch, we are trying our best to get as much coverage as we can. We have a ton of WIP portraits that should really help out the overall selection when they are complete and implemented. As far as your stated ideas... Aumaua Females - There is at least one more of these coming. It has a color variant too if memory serves. Aumaua Males - Pretty sure we did another one, but I can't say for sure. Wild Orlans - We have one for each coming and they both look pretty awesome. Female Dwarves - We have one completed and two more variants scheduled. Male Dwarves - There is a new dwarf that is pretty much finished... and he is awesome. I call him pompadwarf around the office. We have two variants scheduled. Female Orlans - I already mentioned the wild orlan female and there is another orlan female that is pretty slick. Male Orlans - Can't remember if we have another orlan in the schedule other than the wild orlan male I mentioned earlier. Red-haired and/or black-haired females - There are several female portraits coming, including new red-haired and brunette humans. Earth Godlike female - I don't think we have a new one scheduled, I'll check. Maybe one more Moon Godlike Female / Death Godlike Female - While not currently on the ship schedule, these are portraits I'd like to do. I'll add them to our current (giant) list, but they would be lower priority. Maybe in the expansion. Like I said, we have a ton of portraits scheduled, and some of the ones I mentioned may not get finished in time. I am pretty confident we will get the majority of the list wrapped up. What I can say is we will have quite a bit more in the game on launch day vs. what is currently in the Backer Beta.

The icons you refer to are temp, but thank you for your input.

Good job finding them. There are more.

The stealth circles currently in the beta are temporary art. Kaz and I were discussing how these should look in the final build just the other day. There will be more discussions in the near future when Josh returns from Europe. Please discuss and share your ideas.

We won't be implementing a unicorn hunt. A ponycorn hunt though, that is possible.

Follow-up question, how within the realm of possibility is it that crafting will be able to modify the stats/appearance/whatever of existing items? I'd personally like to be able to upgrade items I like for the entire game if I'm willing to put the effort into doing so. I'm not going to hold you to doing it, I'm just curious if it's something that is being considered. I wouldn't rule it out. No promises, but there are quite a few things we'll consider when designing the crafting system. This would be one of them.

1. Crafting will not be an afterthought. I can't give you a ton of details on the system yet, as it has yet to be designed. I will tell you our goal is to give you things to craft without throwing the balance out the window. My personal preference is to have crafting be a tool to help fill in the weak spots in the party's inventory and allow the player to make some powerfull stuff with enough research and work. I do feel the best gear in the game should be aquired through adventuring. We aren't making an MMO. Again, it is really early in the development process. The design for the crafting system will not be touched for at least a few more months I'd guess, but have faith, we'll make something good. 2. We like giving the player the freedom to get his/her arse kicked if he/she ignores signs that say "Hey, you're not ready to be here yet!" and they try anyway. The trick is to communicate that information so the player knows an area, or a creature, is probably beyond his current level. 3. We will have weight in our inventory system, and with more party members (6) we can make that number much smaller than many newer games. We aren't looking to design something that is annoying however. We'll be playing with getting a bit of a "realistic" feel for the inventory without making it super annoying. Hope this helps. Lastly, you should back Project Eternity because it is going to be awesome...duh I keed, I keed. If your not comfortable donating, we completely understand and appreciate your interest to come to our boards and voice your concerns.

Talk about "Mature Themes". Yikes

Welcome to the party, Rahkir. Glad to have you on board and thanks for the support.

Adam and I discussed this a while back. Our goal is to get a large assortment of creature types in PE. There is a huge list of requested creature types ( I made the list myself) and I am sure they won't all make it into the first game, but we should be able to get quite a few of them in. Undoubtedly, Josh will want to change some creatures on the list as the lore of PE continues to get fleshed out. Here are a few things to remember. 1. Our camera angle will allow us to make faster creatures. They won't need to be in cinematic cut scenes and the textures of the models will not need to be as detailed. 2. With the camera angle, the rigs should require fewer animations to make them look good. 3. We aren't as concerned about memory as newer CRPGs since we are PC exclusive. Having too many creatures types loaded at any given time creates real memory concerns on consoles. This is a big reason why you don't see combat encounters with 5 or 6 creature types (animation rigs) in most AAA console games. It's also one of the reasons you see smaller party sizes in those games. There is always a trade off. I'm sure the large creatures in Dragon Age (that grappled party members) required a ton of animation support and testing. I'd guess this is one of the many reasons the creature variety was a little on the sparse side as the OP mentions. Lastly, as the PE world gets bigger (with expansions and sequels) our bestiary will continue to grow. For example, BG2 benefited from the entire creature library of BG1.

Yes the Endless Paths ... will end , when the Kickstarter is over. As to your second question, of course there is a chance. Spread the word, tell your friends. We can do this.

That map was the first piece of art made on this project. Josh did it himself. While I haven't asked him directly, it's a pretty safe bet there will be an artisit's rendition at some point.