Zack Fair

Come on seriously? Just get a dictionary and search for the word and the definition of it. Sorry its not "liking" its "longing or yerning" which is actually alot stronger. Also thanks for the insult. Its kinda interesting, how aggressive, defensive and personal people get here about that topic even if my post were neutral and only talked about the topic in general and its a opinion and you cant force it on everyone. But this has nothing to do with nostalgia. I'm longing for prerendered backgrounds and solid UIs because I like them. I like how they look. The solid UI is a great addition for the visuals, and prerendered backgrounds is a cheap, hardware efficient way of doing great looking enviroments. Unfortunately somewhere around the late 2000s, some people just said that "ok, That's it, gamers don't want these anymore, lets start making expensive 3D enviroments". 3D has its place, almost all genre benefitted from it. You cannot have FPS or racing games without good 3D. But prerendered games should have a place in strategy and roleplaying games. I think the reason for that is people were longing for these type of games for a long time, and the things you say are similar to those that were said by publishers and developers who decided that gamers don't want these kind of games anymore, and the switch to full 3D happeend. When in fact there was always an audiance for these types of games, yet it was just taken away from them.

I actually tried to use the word nostalgic in a neutral form. Its for some people the selling point for a product like old timer cars. The problem is its a emotional quality so everyone has another opinion on it. For me a problem with nostalgica for nostalgicas sake is that our modern computers dont suffer the restrictions that forced developers back than into doing certain things. Nowadays its more or less a budged restriction. Like for example games dont need pretty icons for items anymore because we can render 3D objects in the same quality, it only costs time and money and thats why its not in a game like PoE. The second restriction today is your audience, to be specific the gpu build in their pc's. The target audience of PoE isnt the most cutting edge gameing pc crowd. We dont need prerendered backgrounds anymore, modern pc's can handle the same quality in realtime 3D but you need a very fast gpu for it. What I personaly dont like is the mentality of some people that do not accept the embrace of anything that has advanced in the last 10 years after those games got released. Those things did advance for a reason and its imo just stuborn and ignorant to ignore things because of a backward looking mindest. Its like refusing to put a catalytic converter in a old timer car. Actually prerendered versus real time 3D is a good example. I bet some people would call for the torches and pitchforks if they would have went the real time rendering route. It doesn't matter that nowadays the quallity is at the same level (even better because you would have dynamic lighting etc) as PoE prerenderet background its just because they dont want it that way. Let me call you out on some of your BS. Solid UI didn't exist in the IE games because the computres couldn't handle the rendering of the whole screen. That is bull****, you could disable the UI whenever you wanted, and the game performance didn't suffer. Second, liking solid UIs, prerendered backgrounds over glorious 3D is not because of nostalgia for many of us. We like it better because they look better in our opinion. Prerendered backgrounds are sharper, cheaper to make and take less manpower than doing the same quality in 3D. And are you gonna argue that 3D looks better than quality prerendered backgrounds? Please, the washed out textures of Skyrim and Dragon Age look awful, and lets not compare how much more money it takes to make those. If you want to make quality 3D, you need an enourmous budget, a budget which is better spent of content creation. Solid UIs add to the atmosphere, add to the visuals. Come on, just look at the UI of Dragon Age: Inquisition. it sticks out of the visual style of the game. Sure, you can barely see it, but their icons and bars are like from a mobile game, they don't fit into the visual representation of the game world. Solid UIs are like an extension of the visible game world. We have ****in 1080p monitors, the solid UI won't obscure much of the viewing space. I hate the argument of "oh, you just like these old stuff because of nostalgia". NO! We liked it back then, and we like it now, because we think that it looks better.

I myself don't use the left bar often, but I know of people with disabilites who can only play with the mouse. For those people, it is important to be able to control the game with mouse alone. So I say, keep the left bar, just make it a little narrower.

In vain? Pillars of Eternity 2? If they wanted an UI like this, they would have made an UI like this. I think they won't use this neither in PoE1 nor in PoE2. Which is a shame.

It Obsidian don't want to implement this UI (or a similar to this), they could make 2 UIs, and let people choose between them. I think if we have the final look of the UI, it would be easy to implement it into the game. If a modder can make it, a professional dev would have no problem doing it in a day.

This is true, but people have to decide what they want. If they want a totally space efficient UI, which contains every icon, and using it will need the least mouse movement, you get a general UI like PoE or if worse, neverwinter nights. I specifically want a good looking UI, which is like a painting in itself. The UI mockup above is perfect in this regard. It looks great, and although not perfect, it has every function we need.

Here is a mockup made by Grotesque. I think it looks very good:

Fair enough, and I do agree actually. There's something that will be in the final game that will balance that concern out quit nicely I think! Can't wait for you guys to experience it. Great. Can't wait to hear the final version in the game. I disagree. I really like the idea of starting up the game and going through character creation with this. Now, to be sure, this requires that the game actually keeps playing this when going from the starting menu to character creation, which I just realized it may not, but I much prefer it to the ear-grating bombastic nature of the BG2 theme that hits you when booting up. I'd rather have something nice to listen to that lulls me into the game during my initial forays into the game, and then stays calmly out of the way when I feel like I'm just in a hurry to load my game or whatever. There is truth in this, it would be a nice music to listen to while in character creation. But I still think it has to have a stronger beginning.

It is a nice piece of music on its own, but I have to be honest Justin, it is not like a main theme in its current form. This is fitting for an ingame music, where it has time to build up. A main theme has to have more impact IMO. You only hear it in the main menu I assume, so people will only listen on it once or twice, and many of them only listens the beginning. It has to have more oomph right from the start.

Hats off to Sensuki and Matt, you did a hell of a job. This is designer level stuff.

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA. :checks back: No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument. Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others. I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education. I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

Why does it have to come from books, rather than, say, meditation, martial arts, a pact with the infernal powers, physical discipline, or something similar to learning to play a musical instrument? Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence. IME every time someone says "it's just common sense" he's run out of arguments. I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

Why would one assume that? Because if someone has this raw soul power in him/herself, the guy needs to learn how to use if effectively, instead of having random magic bursts, that destroy a whole village. And you can learn from reading books that have this knowledge. I assume using soul power as magic is pretty difficult, otherwise every farmer on the land would his his soul power. So you HAVE to learn a lot, to be a good mage, and it should be like this in PoE, if we want the setting to make sense. Seriously, a low INT wizard is just as stupid, as a low STR fighter, even if Josh wants to prove otherwise. At least as far as common sense goes.

So why would you care about your attributes again. It seems that currently you can assign points in whatever way you want, because it will only have a minor effect on your character build. This needs to be fixed. Im just going to respond to you and the post you quoted here interchangeably since quoting it wholesale says you agree with every single thing the post claims. And an 18 in DnD 3.5 is only giving a measly +4 to hit and damage. Sheesh why do melee characters even care? An 18 for a wizard is giving them a +4 DC to spells. How useless! Are you being serious here? You just increased average dps by a considerable margin here. On weapons that are not even the most damaging ones. If you want to complain about Might go look at comparing the damage boost of fast 1h weapons and normal 2h ones. People are already doing much better work than you here. You didn't even look at abilities that have higher damage and thus are boosted even further. Minor effects are still effects and thus NOT a placebo. Please know what words mean before you use them. A placebo is a sugar pill whose results are compared against a pill we hope actually does something. If the effects of the real medicine do not outperform the fake then the medicine is worthless. Here we clearly have a real effect on damage (and healing output) that make a difference. Yes a single point does not make a huge difference. In DnD 3.5 a single point makes even less of a difference since only even modifiers count. In 2e DnD every point only mattered at certain thresholds. 18/51 to 18/99 was still +2. No difference yet people are pretending the IE games had some sort of amazing attribute system where going from 3 to 4 was some kinda revelation in character power. There were stupid thresholds. Going 18/99 vs 18/00 was +2 vs +6! This was stupid and is not the same as making "every point super cereally important." How big of an effect are you looking for before you are satisfied? Do you know what are you talking about at all? +4 to hit in D&D is a huge thing, especially with a low level character. In PoE, max strength barely gives any bonus. Don't you see that there is barely any difference with a character of Might3 and Might 18? Compare this to D&D characters with a strenght of 3 and 18. With a STrenght of 3, you are nothing. In PoE, it doesn't matter.

Let me paste a quote from another user here, which shows how useless the attribute system is in its current state: So why would you care about your attributes again. It seems that currently you can assign points in whatever way you want, because it will only have a minor effect on your character build. This needs to be fixed.

I'd like the K badge as well. Edit: Got it.

No, they are icky, overused, and usually done all wrong. And, despite that, still awesome. That article is BS by the way, in a sense that you can't do things like that in an RPG like PE, because it would make them too OP compared to other creatures. And some tings just cannot be done because of engine limitations.

I have some reservations about the music, but overall I'm really liking what I see. Speaking about music, the devs should really do an update about sound and music. That is more important to me than graphics, and I would really like to hear some samples from Justin, which shows what kind of music will we have in PoE. I also hope the game will be heavy on ambient sounds, just like the PE games. I want to hear the sound of the city in the background, and the chatter and music in taverns.

You can never know. I bet they planned to use chipmusic in PE. But now that I've warned them, everything is just fine. :D Seriously, it is easy to mess up the audio. I just wanted to tell them what I think is the best approach about music.

I don't know about other people, but for me, music is one of the most important element of videogames, especially of RPGs. And since the infinity engine games had amazing music, I have very high standards for PE. I trust in Justin Bell, and I know he will do his best at this project. I hope I won't be dissapointed. Just don't fall into the trap of "over-epicness". A lot of RPGs today have a generic "OMG-I am so epic" sound, which to me is boring. I hope there will be lots of subtle music in the game, which help to set the tone. Like these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHhD6Kzq5PY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEqDtbC3bL8 For me these musics do so much more, than a generic high pumping epic orchestra. I feel totally immersed. It is a peacefull track, yet it urges for adventure. Please do something similar. Justin, I'm not asking you to copy these music, I'm sure you have your own style. Just keep in mind, that these great soundtracks have a great part in making the IE games so great. I also would like to say a few words about ambiance sounds. I want sounds in the game. This might sound stupid, but there are a lot of RPGs that are lacking in the ambiant department. I want to hear the wind in the forest, I want to hear the flowing of the river. When I step into an inn, I want to hear people laughing, the musicians playing something. Roaming the streets of the city, I want to hear dogs barking, the towncryer shouting, and people talking. And if you accompany the great ambiance with the fitting music, it creates a powerful mix. I hope you will do the right thing.

The Mega dungeon should stay right as it is. It is too big already, it will be a lot of work to make it fun and not a drag. I have one question: when will the PE store launch with the cards and other stuff? I want to buy some svag.

What industry? The whole world is like this. It's just young boys behave as young boys. I bet when you were 15-16 years old, you also looked at nice girl and told your buddies, wow, that's a nice girl. Nobody's feelings had been hurt, the green shirt girl didn't mind the whole thing. I don't give a damn about the whole thing.

One of our fellow Codexers made a good point about the health/stamina system: Aeschylus said: ↑ I'm a tad late to the party, but after giving it some thought I wanted to put in my two cents on the proposed stamina/health system. In summation, I like the *concept* of a mixed system, but I'm not crazy about the discussed implementation. To explain why, I will use as an example my favorite implementation of a combined health and stamina system; no, not Betrayal at Krondor, not Darklands, but Quest for Glory. I consider QFG something of a paragon of great game design, and while it's obviously not completely analogous to a pure RPG such as PE, I think the basic lessons of how the system was implemented apply. My first relevant issue w/the PE system: Stamina and Health are too close to being the same thing. Obviously I don't know the exact specifics of the proposed system, but it sounds as if Stamina is just a slightly easier to regenerate buffer on health. Ok, fine, but why? In QFG, Stamina was a universal resource. Basically everything you did used some stamina (including getting hit), and that worked well. Health would only be lost from being hit (or doing things that would obviously damage health like falling), or if you had no stamina, anything you did would damage health. If you're going to have a dual-system, have an actual reason and separate purpose for both stats, not just that it's a solution to a meta-design problem. And speaking of the primary issue here: rest scumming... QFG provides a nice guide to how to prevent it: simply don't allow it. I'm sure most people here are familiar with the system, but in QFG it went like this -- a short rest could be taken to restore a small amount of stamina and no health. You could rest for a while, but eventually you'd stop being tired, and couldn't rest. How hard would a system like that be to implement in an RPG? Not hard at all. You could only restore your health with a full night's rest, which you could only do after you became tired, not at any time. I mean, the IE games already had a fatigue system built in. If preventing rest-scumming is the primary motivation behind this system, then it should be reconsidered. Finally, the question of the rate at which you can restore health/stamina. As mentioned, there was a fair bit of attrition in QFG, though nothing unmanagable. Health potions were difficult to come by (except in 2, where you could buy like a billion) and were often prohibitively expensive. All this necessitated was intelligent use of resources, not resting all the damn time. Why? Because the rest of the game was intelligently designed to make the attrition both manageable and challenging. This is what Josh Sawyer and co should be aiming for; intelligent encounter design, well dispersed resources, and a system that encourages good use of those resources. Again, I'm not set against a stamina/health system, but there should be a solid design reason for having stamina as an additional resource, not just preventing excessive resting. Maybe they do have that and just haven't expanded on it yet, but just having the system for the sake of having the system and being different is lazy design. If you want to make health harder to restore, that's fine -- but having a second health stat with no other explained in-game purpose (yes, that's basically what it sounds like) is just redundant.

Don't puss y out Josh. You have a great idea in mind, don't change it just because 2 guys want to spend their times grinding monsters to level up.

This would be a good idea, but I fear it will increase the cost of the project, and the time needed to finish the game. So I support this idea, but if it doesn't make it into the game, I won't be too disappointed.