Sensuki

Josh Sawyer has said that if they get to do sequels they are designing the system to scale up to 40 levels (rather than 30 in D&D / BGs etc) Whereas Baldur's Gate 1 had an effective level cap of between Level 7-8 ; Pillars of Eternity has a level cap of 12. 8/30 = ~0.27 and 12/40 = 0.3, but 9/30 = 0.3 (attainable by certain classes in Baldur's Gate Tales of the Sword Coast), so the level up rate in the game is about the same rate if you compare the maximum levels attainable of either game. Not only that but Josh has said that PE will be a low-mid level game, and he said it in the thread about the PE Backer Items, which you read.

I think that is largely because it's a really awful mspaint drawing. Baldur's Gate 2 used them to very good effect. The IE games had very distinct effect animations. So far no new RPG has been able to match them. I think they may have been inspired by graphical FX from RTS games as well. Whereas PE currently seems to be taking cues from 3D non-isometric RPG games for it's effects, which really isn't a good idea IMO. compare this (excuse lame BG2EE) Sh1t all over the screen is just far too distracting in isometric.

No that wasn't my suggestion. I was suggesting that an icon or above head animation be part of the spell FX - take a look at Death Ward in BG2 for example. The spell animation was a Skull of some sort floating above the affected character's head, with a 2D blue FX or something over the character. It lasted for a second or so, before disappearing - and the buff was applied to the character's portrait. Dire Blessing already has an above-head animation it's just not very distinct/doesn't linger long enough, I thought that perhaps tying it to the spell icon would help make it more recognizable (whatever the icon is). When you start going with these flashy, lighty effects that aren't really that distinct they tend to be a bit forgettable / blend into one another. With Dire Blessing, the glow on the character AND/OR the animation above the character's head needs to be very distinct and unique in my opinion. Same goes for all other spells.

Hah, just saw this. On that note CHEERS BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!111111111111111111(s)

After thinking about it a bit I'd also probably suggest to tone down the brightness of effects, because with lots of them going on you won't be able to see a thing on the battlefield - much like NWN2.

By the way for those complaining about the Priest. Remember this is a low level game. The Priest sounds pretty much like a low level Cleric of most D&D versions (particularly 2nd). What a surprise Who knows what they will be able to do in the sequel?

Guns were mentioned on like the third Kickstarter Update, and by Josh Sawyer on the Obsidian forums on either the first or second day of the KS.

The general consensus that I've seen from the Codex, Youtube and here seems to be that the Spell FX for PE are a little too reminiscent of the NWN2 style of spell FX, where were a little bit forgetful. I have to say I agree, and I have taken a couple of screencaps from the effects to show what happens at various stages of the effect, to demonstrate how they could be improved, and be made "more IE like". I will use the red circle "Dire Blessing" spell as my example: Here is a screencap from fairly shortly after the spell has been cast, we have a lot of use of the new "lighting" effects that spells in PE have and the devs are proud of. There is also a visual above the characters (that doesn't really stand out). Shortly after the lighting effects start to fade, at this stage of the spell we can start to discern a glow radiating from the upper body of the affected characters, easier to make out on the male characters, as there is a light still shining on Cadegund. The above character visual is now gone. The spell effect keeps dissolving away, we can see a faint red glow around the characters, accentuated by the pattern still present in the middle of the circle of the spell This stage of the effect is where I think the problem is clear. In the IE games there was often very clear visual feedback that a character had been effected by a spell. This is however not specifically an IE games feature, most 2D games of this time employed similar styled opaque 2D spell effects on units affected by a spell. It's obvious that any character in the circle would be affected by the spell, but I think if you want spell FX to stand out a bit more, and feel a bit more IE then you have to have a bit more visual feedback for units affected by spells. Here is a cap from shortly after all the effects have dissipated SUGGESTIONS (I have absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever, so these look absolutely atrocious.) #1 - Give the effected characters a bolder and longer lingering red glow, that persists for a bit longer after the spell effect dissipates (an extra .05-1 sec would be fine) #2 - Put a bold 2D visual graphic above the character evocative of the spell icon that persists for an extra 0.5-1 sec longer than the current 'red' effect #3 - COMBINE THEM In Summary I think spell effects need to linger a bit longer than they do currently and effects on characters need to be bolder, more unique, and perhaps in some cases accenuated by a 2D icon above their avatar. These things will help give off more of an IE feel. EDIT: Regarding the visual effect above the characters - there are a few lines above their heads that move upwards and dissipate. You could make the lines bolder have them linger above the characters a bit longer or something. For Circle of Protection I would simply suggest that the affected characters be outlined in the same white glow of the spell, but not as boldly as the circle itself.

After a few watches, those spell animations need a bit of work (combined with spell FX for the cast animation), but that's why it's Alpha, right Can't tell whether the delay of the spell appearing is intended delay or lag, might just be a mismatch with the animation though.

You know that's quite true - you haven't been mentioned in an update Unfortunately I can no longer edit the post Matthew Sheets - QA Lead What games have you worked on previously btw?

Great update. Love the portrait (Nice work Polina). Love the classes. Love the video (only thing missing IMO are a "ready stance" and a casting FX - like the blue/red/purple/etc etc colors the casting animations the IE games had). Can't wait for the next update, really looking forward to some more technical details on the game. Glad to see that Adam said yes. Looks like he's already solved the blending issue?

A lot of people have a terrible sense of humor. This is why shows like Big Bang Theory, and The Simpsons are popular. Oh yes I did.

I didn't do those. I just added the missing ones. We don't know Seth's "title" for the Project as the only reference that he's working on it is Josh using his first name in an SA post. According to George Ziets, it's not uncommon for Designers to do some writing (such as NPC convos).

Matthew Perez was promoted to Designer from Design Intern in February. April Giron also promoted to Artist from Art Intern.

Taniec Ze Smiercia (I only know song names haha)

Cadegund portrait incoming

There's a quote from Something Awful (I think) about amount of text in a node, but I no longer have access to that thread as it's over two years old. Can't really be arsed paying $9.95 just to search it either.

I've been bored so I've updated the Eternity Wiki with all the new staff that myself and C2B have found over the last few months. Since some people have been complaining about not getting all the "little bits of info" on the official board and having to go to places like the Codex (goodness me), I'll list all the changes here. http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Developers New additions that have not been mentioned in an update: Seth McCaughey - Senior Animator (Fallout: New Vegas, FNV DLCs, South Park) Shon Stewart - Lead Animator (took over from Mark Bremerkamp who left earlier this year) Jeff Husges - Area Design (QA Icewind Dales, Design NWN2, Fallout New Vegas, FNV DLCs, South Park) Constant Gaw - Area Design (NWN2: MotB, Alpha Protocol, DS3, South Park) Dini McMurry - Level Design (Fallout: New Vegas, FNV DLCs, DS3, South Park) Liam Esler - Level Design (Previous BG2 Modder, did some work on BG2:EE) Roby Atadero - Gameplay/UI Programmer (South Park - member of the boards here) Carrie Patel - Narrative Designer (novel writer) I removed Brian Menze's entry from the wiki as it is my understanding that he was not on the PE team, although that may have since been remedied.

This game won't have any walls of text. They mentioned a while ago that while Planescape Torment was a good game, they'll be avoiding walls of text and splitting up dialogue nodes if they get too large. That line is more a stab at the people who prefer Mass Effect's way of doing things, and the fact that a lot of actions that would have an animation or cut scene in an AAA game, will be described through text in PE.

In my experience, Unity isn't necessarily the best at handling lots of things going on at once - even a game like Shadowrun Returns which was also done with 2D backgrounds and 3D characters, lagged sometimes.

From memory it's Final, Diffuse, Specular, Normal and Depth.

Yeah I'll never forget my first time encountering those chicks on the second floor of the low lantern. "Would you like to join us for some entropy pleasure?" ME: YES PLZ 8==D only to be met by a Longsword and spells. My dreams as a child were ruined

Splurging Sturgeon (the one with the Coran/Brielbara quest), also the ship at the docks I believe was an Inn too (part of Brielbara's quest IIRC). Copper Coronet.

Doing involved updates takes man hours out of the work day that could otherwise be being used on the game. I would love to see more videos etc but apparently that takes a few hours+ and a few team members off the job. I can understand why we don't get them any more. Although I do think that some of the filler updates are a bit light on text.

Dwie Drogi