Luckmann

Oh god, it's almost like that's exactly what I said there could be a good argument for to do if possible, two hours before your condescending reply! It's almost as if you almost but not really at all read the posts in the thread to understand someone's position before firing at the legion of strawmens and charged the windmills. What a time to be alive. What a time.

Stick of Truth, Dragonfall, Wasteland 2 and Grimrock 2. The rest I feel can pretty much just be flat-out ignored. But still, even with "just" those four, that's still better than most of the last 10 years or more. :D

Well dang, I guess that's that, then. The big question now seems to me: Does that mean you're gonna pirate it now? Of course not. But if I were, do you really think I'd be dumb enough to admit to it on a board that'd ban me for confessing to it, no matter the ethical implications (or lack thereof)? There's a possible argument that the by far most reasonable thing to do in this situation would probably be to hold off pre-ordering, wait to see if there's a legal solution to the problem, or extralegal if necessary, and then if so, buy the game at that point but only play the supposedly pirated copy in order to get the full game, or bar those options, simply pass on the game, at least until such a time at which it'd be possible to get the whole thing. But even then, with a legal copy in one hand, a pirated one in the other would still be considered illegal, and to some, strangely, immoral. But again, at this point, any such argument would be purely academic. What I meant with the "Well dang ..." was that for now, I'm passing on getting the game, and a general expression of.. I don't know.. sadness feels a bit over-the-top. Disappointment, I guess? A big, fat "meh"? Sufficient to say, no, I'm not going to pirate the game, but for now, I'm also not getting it, no matter how much I look forward to the game in general (because it simply looks amazing). And again, I propose locking this, because the original question has been answered, and I don't see it really going anywhere productive.

Was already posted earlier. Damn, I keep getting more and more stoked for the game.

"Ultimately, it doesn't incentivize participation, it promotes exclusion and fuels piracy out of necessity."[/size] Are you daft? Since when is understanding piracy the same thing as condoning it? It's like saying understanding the mechanisms of debt slavery implies supporting it. X leads to Y and therefore Y is good? What kind of backwards logic is that? Again, though, the intent of the thread was not to spark a lengthy and futile debate regarding the nature and morality of piracy. To avoid further confusion on your part, since I think I can't really make myself any more clear than I have on the subject (straight-out saying it in cleartext) and the topic itself has been settled, I propose it be locked before people intent on sparking needless debate and mistakenly assigning blame through (frankly odd) over-interpretation can pull it further off track. It would be nice to keep it open in case other people show up with the same (or similar) question(s), but at this point, I think it's a bit hard to keep it productive with the tone taken by some.

Thank's a lot for clarifying. :D

Everything you just said is ridiculous and harmful to the industry. You want less DRM? Shed this BS "if I don't see Shepard breathe for a half second after the credits it's not the full gaaaaaaaaaaaaame" attitude. I'm sick of hearing about how people are being "forced" to buy 5 copies of the game. 1) Yes it is the full game. Just because other outlets have incentives doesn't mean they are essential. In fact, it means the opposite. 2) You are the only one that thinks it is neccesary to pirate. I didn't know you defined what parts of a game was considered essential or not. I apologize. And I never said it's necessary to pirate. It may be, if you want the full game, but I in no way endorse piracy as such - it may seem like it, because some latched on to my mention of the fact that piecemeal chop-up of games helps fuel piracy due to aforementioned reasons, but that was never my intent, nor was my intent to spark a lengthy and futile argument regarding the nature and morality of piracy. For all we know, there'll be perfectly legal ways to acquire the various scattered parts - but it might also not be. Part of the problem is that we have no clue whether this problem can be solved without piracy or not, which makes the discussion academic at best, and as for me personally, I'm not going to buy the game (or pre-order it) before I know whether I'll be able to get the full thing or not. If I knew for sure, I would've pre-ordered two days ago.

I wonder why he gained experience for killing the Lion, but not for killing the Skaen Temple Guard. I really hope they're not trying to put experience-for-murderhoboing back in, especially this late in production. Maybe the Lion was part of a quest...?

Merry Christmas to one and all! :3

I thought it was "Early Q1 2015" or at least "Q1 2015"? March/April is pretty far from "Early" 2015.

As has been stated, already in the game, and in one of the vids (I forget which, it's a small playthrough with someone) Sawyer mentions that Single-Weapon Wielding is a popular choice and you get an Accuracy bonus. I'm not sure if Matt516's post is still relevant (since it was made in September), but yeah, there's definitely an Accuracy bonus for Single-Weapon Wielding. Which I think is really, really cool. Way too many games these days focuses on dual-wielding and dance moves as part of combat, and whilst I'll probably always end up with sword-and-board-esque characters, it's nice to know that when I do make that Rogue, Chanter or Cipher Nobleman, he will be able to go into combat as a Duelist. ...I wonder if there's any good rapiers...

Because you want to be able to tap it when necessary, but not be forced to see the AoE Highlighting and the Selection Circles all of the time. Right now (if I understood it right) you'd have to go into Options to change it every time. Obviously no-one is actually going to be jumping in and out of Options all the time for something like this, but it'd be very nice to have the option of turning off AoE Highlighting and Selection Circles and then another option to have show when holding ALT. That way, you'd only see it when you want to.

That video and this one more or less underline everything I hate about the modern gaming industry. I'm not sure what it has to do with Pillars of Eternity specifically, though, but fair enough.

I know it's silly, but I'm still hoping that they'll actually do that in regards to CNPC:s, being all like "Haha, just kidding, there's actually 16 and Cadegun is totally one of them."

I wasn't even expecting a reply, much less a chance to get it into the game. All of my thanks. :3

Any chance for a toggle/key functionality? I would like for Selection Circles and AoE Highlighting to only show up when I hold Alt down.

I really hope it's still in, but I would be very surprised if it is, considering that we haven't heard jack squat about it since then.

To me, friendly fire is a core mechanic of the combat system - same as the way melee engagement works, for example - so it would be very odd to have a toggle.

Pirates aren't exactly digging deep to "justify" their actions... all to masquerade the real thruth... they just dont want to pay for someone else's hard work. Any excuse made otherwise is just that, an excuse. If it's not this kickstarter thing it will be something else, always an 'excuse'... Right, but it's not "promoting" piracy, any more than any other add-on component. The argument I read goes like this: there's an exclusive item only available to some buyers; ergo this promotes piracy; hence there should be no exclusive items. It's nonsense. /shrug If that's what you think, I'm certainly not going to change your mind. The fact remain that it's true for a great many. I don't think so. I haven't been active on the boards for years. If it's been discussed before, I apologize, I tried to do a search for it across the web and couldn't find any confirmation on it - or any information whatsoever as to the nature of the in-game exclusives. I get the feeling that they're keeping it on the down-low to not turn people away. I think most people pre-ordering the game think they're getting the full game. No worries, it was a reasonable assumption.

Well dang, I guess that's that, then.

Hmm.. I was just going of of what Snoozer said, but based on what you're saying, I better just hold off pre-ordering, then. I hope that Obsidian clarifies this before it's too late, I'd hate to miss out on pre-ordering and then find out that the Kickstarter In-Game item and the Pre-Order items were the same all along after all.

That doesn't make any sense. Why is "pirate the inferior product" not a choice? Don't get me wrong, I understand that, matter-of-factly speaking, piracy is based on incentives. But, generally, they're "I want something for nothing." No one's like "Awww, man, I'm all about integrity here, so I buy everything. But, it turns out I can't get a pet mecha-dragon in this game without going back in time and being a Kickstarter backer, or buying that $2 add-on in the store. COMPULSION TO PIRATE, RISING! *berzerk* Besides... when you're talking about tiny exclusive tidbits, why wouldn't "hack/mod that in" be the considered option here? In what way does piracy solve the problem of your missing out on some little exclusive add-on to a game? That's.. actually exactly kinda how a lot are, except for the hyperbolic sarcasm - also, I'm talking specifically about things that can no longer be acquired, so the "...or buying that $2 add-on in the store" does not apply to the argument. But in a nutshell, that's pretty much it. A lot of people just want the full game; they'd prefer to buy it, but if they can't or the cost is utterly unreasonable (such as buying multiple copies of the game for multiple pre-order bonuses, or an extensive laundry-list of piecemeal DLC), they will resort to piracy if necessary. And obviously, hacking/modding that in is definitely considered an option, but in a lot of cases, that is considered just as bad as pirating it outright, or result in incompatibilities. Nevermind that there isn't always the possibility to even do that without violating copyright laws; I remember a DA:O mod that aimed to do exactly that, but it didn't actually add the Pre-Order exclusives, because those had to be downloaded, it just mimicked the effects. Piracy solves it because you get all the content of the game, no ifs or buts or nos. And that's not the way it should be. And as Snoozer clarified, it's not the way it is with Pillars of Eternity. :3

Even so, a lot of people, if they want to play something, they want the full monty. Faced with the choice of buying an inferior product or pirating a superior one, they are going to go with the better option. It's not hyperbole, nor is it intended as a trivial point. It might be trivial to you, especially since you are already a backer, I understand that it's hard to empathize. I would not say that it promotes piracy, but unwittingly incentivizes it. Look at any (non-online-only) game with a large amount of exclusivist (not sure if that's a word) content and you'll also see a lot of people that ends up pirating it because they can't get everything they want in the legal copy, even if they wanted to. Borderlands 2 is a great example of this, filled with exclusive skins and nuggets that you can only get if you went to Event X or participated in the 2013-something Y. So either you live with a neutered version, pirate only the additional content you are locked out of (and thus invalidate your legal copy regardless) or you pirate it straight up from top to bottom. Mass Effect 2 is (was?) another great example. I'm not endorsing piracy in any way, I'm merely underlining a point that was brought up in relation to the topic. Nah, I can live without the Kickstarter icon and anything outside of the game, as long as I can still get the full game. All those extra things I think are perfectly fine, as long as it doesn't touch upon the content of the game itself, and I just wanted to make sure that I'm not missing out, because back when the Kickstarter was going on, it was referred to as a Kickstarter Exclusive. I had a hunch that the Kickstarter Exclusive In-Game Item was the same as the Pre-Order stuff (the Giant Miniature Space Piglet and the Pledge of Gaun Ring) and I had the general feeling that Obsidian had made the right calls on most things like this, but I just wanted to make sure before I actually pre-order, and I couldn't find anything specific about it anywhere. I still feel that Pre-Order exclusives like this is a bad idea, but if I pre-order myself, at least it won't be an issue for me personally. Thanks a lot.

So basically a much easier game. I mean these are the exact things this game is supposed to be AGAINST, right? This isn't a dig or anything, this game seems quite intimidating to the casual gamer, but this essentially saps a great deal of the difficulty, and this genre is already bloated with unchallenging titles and this game was created, ostensibly, as a response to that. I've never done a proper D&D game as a multiclass but D:OS put it together pretty seamlessly, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing something like that in this game. My issue wouldn't be with a lower difficulty as such, but rather that it would cheapen a lot of the core gameplay relating to combat. I remember Dragon Age: Origins having similar issues, where you actually had to turn up the difficulty to add Friendly Fire to spells; there was no option to stay at a lower difficulty but still have Friendly Fire. Aiming powers and utilizing the environment and positioning is a very important part of any tactical ruleset in my opinion. It's utter nonsense to be able to stand in the middle of a vortex of fire as your opponents conflagrate around you and all of your allies just survive unscathed. Not to mention those times you may have to make the call whether you should throw a fireball into your team and take the punishment but hope that it hurts the enemy more than you (such as being swarmed by hordes of Gibberlings in Baldur's Gate). Healing spells and potions, though, I wasn't even aware of not being in the game. I assumed that there were and I think it's odd that they wouldn't exist in this kind of setting, but at the same time, I'm perfectly fine with it's absence. Unlimited Resting is meh, although I know how it can cheapen the action economy and make it hard to create any semblance of balance - at that point you might just as well not make resting matter at all. This very much depends on the approach of the game and so many other small things in the game. It was always odd in BG2 how it was perfectly normal to walk into a small dungeon and come out four days later (easily), so for the same of immersion, I don't lament the loss of unlimited resting at all. And action-based experience is the anathema of roleplaying and I'll forever remain flabbergasted at the fact that it still exists outside of ARPG:s. Players should be rewarded on achieving goals, not how many peasants they killed on the road to achieving that goal. I remember early on in the development cycle it was said that you'd get experience like in the old Infinite Engine games, and I argued extensively for goal-oriented experience rewards. I'm glad it's dead and gone, so it's viable to achieve diplomatic solutions, avoid combat, sneak or steal your way to success, and be appropriately rewarded, rather than rewarding lockpicking even when it's not necessary and killing every last squirrel on a map for their delicious experience. Reminds me of Deus Ex: Human Revolutions, that drastically changed the XP formula from how it was in Deux Ex, and you just went around hacking everything even if you had the passcodes or passwords, because it was more effective. How can someone hate BG2? It's not the perfect game, but it's downright amazing in it's own right.

I get that. I was referring more to the effort quantity. Not so much in just raw effort. I realize hundreds of people work their arses off on every new version of Call of Duty, but someone decides "make it basically exactly like the last one, but with a more ridiculous single-player campaign that starts in space and has an action dog, and no one really likes it anymore" on the conceptual level. Instead of "Hey, let's try to make some improvements and put out something that's very similar, but has actual new stuff that isn't just new for the sake of being new." It's like they're robotizing the creative process. And you can't do that. You can't calculate creativity. And I realize they gather mountains and mountains of numbers, and crunch them all, but, I dare say they always make far more conclusive decisions than the data actually provides. That's why, after 5 iterations of some game, the 6th one finally ends up selling like half as well as the previous. And they're all scratching their heads, "Hmmmm, what went wrong?! We followed the ultimate formula precisely!". It's clearly not the ultimate formula, then. Then, you have indie games come through, from people who are just like "I thought this would be a really great game idea, and I objectively thought about it to make sure it was feasible and intelligently designed." They didn't collect a Hollywood's worth of consumer market research data to design that game. They just mixed their imaginative creative design with their objective technical smarts and make a cool game, and it sells like hotcakes on Steam. People who didn't even like that GENRE say "Hmmm, saw a friend playing it, and it's actually pretty awesome, so I picked it up." My point is just that businesses tend to run things like everything can be calculated with certainty. If they at least took into account that that information only tells you so much, and that there's a whole 'nother factor to human function when it comes to appreciating creatively-designed things, we'd all be better off. Only difference between Obsidian (PoE) and Rockstar (GTA 5) is that Rockstart can invest 100 mil $ and earn 1.5 billion $ while Obsidian can invest few million and will earn about 10 million back. Both games take a few years to make. Now, why would anyone able to invest 100 million $ ever want to make games Obsidian does? Because it's the only way you reach that niche market. It's the argument between mass-market wide appeal and the tailored target. The thing is, it's not mutually exclusive. Fancy restaurants are still in business, despite McDonalds having a higher market share than any individual real restaurant. Also, a dedicated fan base is far less fickle, and have proven time and again that they are willing to "work with" the companies they support, while the mass market is incredibly fickle, essentially a house of cards where a single major investment gone awry will hurt you far more in the long run. Relatively speaking, there's a huge market out there of people that aren't going to eat **** just because that's what the big corps are serving. EA and others are refusing to exploit that market, and by all indications have no idea how to, and Obsidian (and others) are reaping the benefits.