Sensuki

I actually do have arguments for that because remember how you're supposed to be able to attack anyone ? (At least so far). So what if you want to initiate combat on someone who is non-hostile? You could use your attack button, sure. But what if you want to use an ability to initiate? Also what if you want to move around your quickslot selections out of combat? You'd need access to the UI to do that (and I mean the positioning of the abilities, not buttons themselves). We haven't seen what happens when a single character is selected though. We have an art update coming up next so there is a chance that we may see some UI stuff - now that the leaked shots are coming out. This will give me a bit of time to construct arguments as advocate for change.

It's possible (about the bars). Although they could also be class resources such as Monk Wounds etc. I don't think it's for testing anymore. I think that's actually it. Big **** storm incoming on here I think. Action bar must pop up in combat. I recall something JES said during a GameBanshee interview, something about Dark Sun keeping the screen free of UI elements while exploring, so that might be what they've done here. Action bar is only needed in combat. You can't pre-buff and stamina auto-regenerates outside of it. So I'm guessing once combat begins it pops up in the middle, or on the left side above the portraits or something. Health and Stamina NUMBERS are the most intuitive (moreso than bars), so they may be doing that instead of health bars. I can't make any out though (which sucks). In the Youtube screencap I took, Status effects were shown above AND below the portraits. This may be the reasoning for using a wireframe, although also possibly due to the non-static nature required from that part of the UI with class resources and animal companions. It sucks, it's ****ty to look at, BUT I can understand the functional reasoning for it. It's a shame that they weren't able to solve it encased in some artwork (or did they even try?).

On second thoughts, maybe they are actually going full retard and intending to use this UI ? https://www.facebook.com/steve.weatherly Strange thing is that there is only a "bar" on two of the portraits. One for the Cipher, and another on the far left portrait. Perhaps the bar indicates class resource and blood on the portrait is being used for stamina. But ummm ... Health display? Action bar? ??? If that IS the intended direction then they'll never hear the end of it from me. WIREFRAME portraits, FLOATING menu bar. LOL, you have to be kidding. Maybe the action bar "pops up" in combat. But then - where does it go? On top of the portraits or in the center? Making the UI look uneven?

If there was a decorative bar surrounding the elements it would, but as I stated previously in the thread, I think it's just a temp UI for their area module tester. When the Area Designers are designing a level they create a 3D Blockout and then run around in that 3D Blockout and test the design, once it's complete it goes to Environment Art.

Yes I also believe that the "mouse" statements made by JES last year were more his beliefs than actual fact - obviously not an FPS player, as yes, anyone right handed turns clockwise naturally. However, there is no chance that the design of the UI will change. Portraits will be on the left, dialog window on the right, action bar/menu in the middle.

There's no health bars or action bar, so it's probably just the one for the testing module.

Yeah it looks like an updated Aloth, as I pointed out on the codex.

Yeah I really don't want gaps like that. It's probably just the UI for the combat/area tester but who knows

I got this from the newegg video recently posted by C2B. This appears to be Obsidian's Combat or Area Testing module where they use the 3D blockout of an area. Previously we saw a rough UI with default Unity buttons. Now we appear to have some art, particularly the menu/action bar area in the center, and a newish dialog window. What I would like to know is, is this the intended direction for the UI design or just the temp one for the test module? Because it's kind of opposite of the expected direction based on interviews after the teaser trailer, giving way to the minimalist crowd. Nice gauntlet cursor though.

Yeah if you want it to have more of an IE-like sound, bringing some instruments forward in the mix would help in particular. The upper range strings could be done by a lone violin or cello in the foreground or something (may not be the best suggestion, just an example). Sometimes the IE games had more of a chamber music style soundstage, rather than a classical one. That may not be what you're going for though, which is fine.

Well in the update thread you remember how that guy said this track feels like a sombre homecoming. Maybe she died.

I didn't find that the BG wilderness music was repetitive. When you went to a wilderness area, a track would play and it would end, and then there would be silence for a while. Environmental tracks - such as inn music got repetitive if you paused or were standing in the inn for some time, as they were endless loops.

Lord Harond's daughter went missing

It does sound better with rain. The Witcher 1 had a combination of environmental tracks, environmental sounds (rain, birds etc etc) and music tracks. Sometimes there would be all three playing at once and that worked really well in conjunction, but very hard to replicate outside of the game.

In my post I compare the piece with the music of the IE games (BGs/IWDs). It is indeed a more background piece, this is not however like the music in the IE games. In modern film (games, movies, tv series) a lot of composers (with direction) go for a more subtle approach where the music is much more subtle than the previous era. If you think back to earlier periods (eg. 80s-90s) and most cheesy Hollywood films, music is over the top. I think the IE games (particularly the BG games, composed by Michael Hoenig) are a bit more upfront and noticeable which is sort of representational of their era, without being too over the top. The IWD1 follows a similar formula but in a different style that is more ambient. IWD2 is a little bit more orchestral and choral than IWD because that's Inon Zur's style, but he still managed to capture the same tones and uses some of the same tricks. Over time Jeremy Soule's musical style has become more and more like background music, and progressively more forgettable. But that said, from what I understand once the digital/library version of the track is complete, then (some of) it will be recorded. So the lifelessness of the instruments in the piece isn't as much of a worry, but I did feel that it was missing *something*. While Justin's piece may very well fit the mood of that part of the game/that village at that time in the game, I do not believe the piece has been done in the IE game style at all. This is fine, except for the fact that they've been saying that overall they are going to do something kinda similar. I honestly don't know how you can listen to the opening string part and feel any emotion whatsoever, because it is a bunch of digitalized strings playing a note. Atmosphere is a little bit subjective, but I believe that several things contribute heavily to the atmosphere of a piece - tone and color (of the actual recording itself) and sound production play a heavy part. The thing that is the most jarring for me most of all is that the piece to me, gives me absolutely no 'vision' of Dyrford itself. Perhaps this is not the 'main' Dyrford piece. When I look at the Dyrford art (whether it be this concept art or the screenies): I don't hear this track. This is one thing that the IE games (particularly Icewind Dale) did very well. When you listen to the Kuldahar theme, the piece is evocative of Kuldahar - smoke rising from the buildings, a sense of warmth in a vast coolness, the stillness of the town, a sense of magic about the tree. The color of the music suited the art of the town as well. This art here is evocative of something much more organic than the piece we have heard, it could be sad sure (from memory Lord Harond's daughter went missing or something) but that essential mix of medieval/renaissance instruments or perhaps woodwind or reeds is probably necessary to create the right feeling.

The lack of foreground instrumentation gives the piece a bit of a lack of intimacy IMO as well. The closest thing is probably the clarinet? around 1:30 The overall piece has more of a classical soundstage, which is different from the IE games ambient tracks. The Baldur's Gate and Jeremy Soule IWD ones tend to follow a formula of background orchestration, some foreground instuments and a foreground melody. Inon Zur has a bit of a different style overall, a bit more choral and orchestral but he definitely uses the style on some of the tracks, particularly Skeleton of a Town.

Truthfully, nothings final till the game ships! It's sort of like going to a job interview... You always think of the right thing you could've said during the car ride home I can say that I've moved on to writing other music for the time being. But if past experience is any indication, the more I live with this music, the more I'll want to tweak it. In the update you talked about timbre and color. The majority of the track is dominated by scarse cold sounding upper midrange strings, which IMO is probably the most lifeless sounding area of library samples. They were all used in the IE games soundtracks, but for the quieter and more atmospheric parts of the IE games, the composers used something more colorful (usually warmer) in the foreground of pieces to make them more memorable. Usually a non-string instrument, sometimes a tuned down violin (or a cello), a contrabass, percussion. The track sounds fine when something else happens - such as the LOTR sounding orchestral bits and I think I heard a couple of clarinet bits. The lone instrument bit needs to be stronger in some way. The two primary things I look for in music is atmosphere and emotion. I don't think this track quite gets there on atmosphere. The piece has emotion, but some of the instrumentation doesn't. But then again this might just be the other influences that I don't perceive coming into play. Both pieces (this and from the gameplay trailer) to me, don't sound very IE-like. But that's okay if you're shooting for something different instead.

That's just the base track with the orchestral library samples yeah and it's not final?

I really like stuff like that. That was pretty commonplace in the IE games, but obviously the ability design in Eternity is going to be different, and not like that. The main difference should be duration, but if I were to suffer a short aoe stun that locks 5 party members down for 5 seconds, I wouldn't blame the game as many people here seem to do, I would blame myself for being an idiot and grouping them up like that. Stuff like that is all part of the challenge of an encounter. I don't have a problem with metagaming, you can qq about "oh I didn't know that I was going to get AoE stunned, I should be forewarned". I think that is personally retarded, but anyway in this game, you will be able to use the tooltips when you mouse over enemies to probably discern stuff like that. Think about all the times you died in a game like one of the Super Mario games, Bowser beats you the first time, then you figure out what you're supposed to do after being beaten by it. There is nothing wrong with that.

You are all a bunch of pussies who don't like disabling status effects. Dark Souls is also a 3rd person game where you control a single character. In that style of game, disable is a big deal, in a party of 6 - not so much.

They'll be out of money by 2015. December 2014 at the latest IMO. Steam Early Access should replenish their coffers for a couple extra months of Post-Production.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the BG and IWD games (and Knights of the Chalice) was inflicting status effects upon enemies / having it done to me. That's one thing that I think makes many modern RPGs such as the KotoR series, Dragon Age etc rather boring is they lack any of the really awesome types of effects & abilities available from the old IE games (and their predecessors). I am talking about stuff like Fear, Charm, Stun, Hold, Sleep, Paralyze, Petrify, Freeze - the really gnarly stuff. However I am seeing a distinct lack in anything of the sort from ANY examples given in Pillars of Eternity, there are status effects, sure, but they are mostly pissy ones like Blind, Slowed, nothing really nasty. There are only two examples that I have seen - one is a Wizard spell that has a random chance to paralyze for a short duration, and Stunning Blows were mentioned sometime for Monks. I have seen NOTHING that does any of the proper status effects from the IE games that take away the control of a character/disable characters from moving or acting. This is kind of disappointing because this is one of the things that I really enjoyed about the IE games. I believe status effects like this should have a place in Eternity, and I believe that they can be done properly without being too overpowered. Effect Duration is obviously the biggest issue as they lasted for a very long time in the IE games (BG1 especially) and getting a successful Fear or Hold on an enemy pretty much meant they were out for the count. I can understand why Freeze and Petrify wouldn't make it in - but I would still like to see Charm, Fear and Hold/Stun effects with shorter durations in PE (eg somewhere between the 3-7 second range for stuns/holds etc).

This is what I did too. Fighters and potions. Although the Kobolds spawned near the entrance too so you at least needed one sitting back to defend the weaker party members or a good ranged character with auto attack on. That said I never really found smaller areas annoying. I just accepted it.

I'll wager that one of the first mods available is an inventory anywhere mod

Is that close to what the fireball FX is going to be or just temp? I didn't really like the explosion look as it looks like a Nuke, but that's just me.