Sensuki

This was always going to be a balancing act. We want our rewards to be of the quality that Obsidian employees would expect of a game like this - things that are built to last and of good quality. Right now we are still trying to find where that perfect balance of cost vs. quality is, though. Indeed, and fair enough. I hope you are able to get some good deals

The best thing about pre-ordering this game is you're adding to the game's budget. That $29 could go towards some extra QA or a line of voiced dialogue etc

next update br0

What are you aiming for regarding the quality of the physical rewards? http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65868-a-question-for-paradox-on-physical-reward-quality/

New locations are new locations. It just depends whether you want to be able to access the content in the vanilla game or not. A story within a story. Bringing up MotB is a good point, that was one of the better expansions of an RPG from a story perspective.

The devs already have a clear idea of what they want to do for the expansion (that probably means general story idea and location), I wonder if they also have a specific expansion style in mind as well. By this I mean where the expansion content fits in regards to the vanilla game. There are two (technically three) different examples that can be given for the Infinity Engine games Style #1: New Quest hubs within the vanilla game world Tales of the Sword Coast added a new quest hub to Baldur's Gate in Ulgoth's Beard which had two distinct major quest lines - Werewolf Island and Durlag's Tower. This content style was actually replicated for use within Baldur's Gate 2, where De'Arnise Keep, Trademeet, Umar Hills and Windspear Hills were all quest hubs completely separate from the main storyline. I believe this is also the format used for DLC Content such as Fallout New Vegas' DLC stuff Style #2: A continuation or separate story from the main plot, set in a different part of the world. Throne of Bhaal could almost be considered a separate game from Baldur's Gate 2. It follows on from the main storyline of the game and is set in a different part of the gameworld. Icewind Dale Heart of Winter technically falls under this category as well, although it was (probably for budgetary reasons) made accessible from within the IWD game world, but separate from the vanilla Icewind Dale content - which was probably the easiest way of doing it in the Infinity Engine codebase. My understanding is that Obsidian will probably do more of a New Vegas style expansion for Eternity where they do something a bit different for the plot/themes. How would you like that to access that content? Would you like the PE Expansion to add new quest hubs / locations that are accessible from the vanilla game, that are able to be completed from within the vanilla game? Or would you like the content to be separate, where you import your PE party and do the new content separately, after completion of the game. Both options probably means at least a few more design levels for classes required (TotSC raised the experience cap in BG1 allowing players to gain at least an extra level of experience) and option #1 might mean that the vanilla game crit path needs to have some new balance/scaling applied to it.

At home he does. I think he said he was using a DAS Keyboard at work.

I never have vsync on in ANY games it is just terrible.

Was nice to see another video, miss those from the ol' KS campaign days.

Many of us pledged higher than normal amounts of money for Pillars of Eternity due to the prospect of getting in on the nice physical goods that were available in the Eternity Kickstarter. The Project Eternity Kickstarter probably had the best value for money reward tiers out of all of the premiere PC Game Kickstarters as it came out before the realization that production of physical goods and shipping (in particular) was very expensive and takes a large chunk of money from the Kickstarter funds. Physical goods then became limited and less were offered in following Kickstarters. The quality of physical goods from other Kickstarters (such as Shadowrun Returns) have been reportedly pretty underwhelming. This is not surprising as the developers would have done everything as cheaply as possible to retain as much of their development budget as they can. With the Eternity physical good fulfillment being handed over to Paradox, is what kind of quality can we expect for the physical rewards? Smart business sense would be to do everything as cheaply as possible and keep the costs down because none of these goods are being sold, they have already been pre-purchased and putting any smidge of effort or quality into the items would just reduce the profit margins of the business. I think that Obsidian and the Eternity backers who are Paradox employees probably care at least a little bit that the quality of the physical good is acceptable by today's standards, but I'm not as sure if there is any chance of us getting anything of the quality from the IE days. The Baldur's Gate 2 Box and the original BG2 cloth map are of excellent quality as far as video game physical goods go, and my cloth map barely shows any sign of wear at all. Perhaps this is somehow related to the profit margins that Paradox will be getting from the Steam (or perhaps all digital distribution sales). Take this imaginary discussion for instance Paradox: "Okay so if you want high quality physical goods, we want 30% of the profit margins" Feargus: "Hmm, too much, what can we do for 25% ?" Paradox: "We can keep the collector's box size, but we'll have to go with a lower quality cardboard, and go for a cheaper hardcover art book and cloth map." (Completely made-up, figures unrealistic). Here is my wishlist for the quality of the physical goods: Collector's Edition Box A gatefold big box like the Baldur's Gate 2 game box, with the outer cardboard being strong and thick and no inner cardboard sleeve. Newer collector's editions often have a thin layer of carboard on the exterior, with an inner el-cheapo cardboard inlet to keep the box shape. Cloth Map A thick cloth map like the Baldur's Gate 2 map, with the map of the world printed onto the cloth, rather than the tacky combination used by EA with the Dragon Age Collector's Box (anyone want my copy btw?) Collector's Art Book Book production these days is all done in China and/or there are many online services that provide it. I am mainly concerned that the quality of the hardcover exterior and the page paper quality is good. My primary concern is that the book look and feel nice to read and that it will last. I don't mind if the page count has to be reduced because of that. Project Eternity t-shirt T-shirt companies are usually pretty hit or miss. The shirts I have had that have lasted the longest have been JB's followed by Gildan Ultra Cotton (don't use Heavy or Softstyle, they are bad) and PORT and Company (Pre-shrunk 100% cotton, tagless). B&C European style and Fruit of the Loom Heavy (or above) cotton isn't bad but they fade faster than the others. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE anything done in Bangladesh, India, Kazahkstan or anywhere in that part of the world, the Carribean and Mexican sweat shops seem to do a better job overall. Mouse Pad I would prefer if the mousepad was done by someone who does 'gaming quality' mousepads, as office mouse pads are small and crap, but that's probably not going to happen. If any of the Paradox employees read this thread, would you be so kind as to answer, what are our chances of getting some decent quality physical goods, rather than the made to break stuff that is manufactured today.

IIRC there will be videos of classes using abilities/spells and whatnot. I am hoping for an eventual gameplay video a la SRR/WL2.

The game is obviously going to take advantage of Steam early access, because it's suicide not to, it's basically free money. It'll go up during the beta after backers get access and the price point will probably piss some people off, because it will likely be around $50-55 when some people payed $110+ to get beta access. Good thing is the beta will be mostly spoiler-free as far as the story goes.

Gonna go with Fighter & Barbarian because currently we know the least about Barbarians and their concept has changed a bit.

Post Edited

Wizards have a lot of spells. If you think about D&D there are a **** tonne of spells with AoEs and durations. In PE most active abilities are now duration based rather than single use. 4E has a lot of one-swing/one-shot Daily Powers, in PE most examples we have seen are duration based. Some classes won't have as much AoE stuff as others, some won't have as many duration based stuff. Paladins, Priests and Chanters all have auras, all of which are boosted by Intellect. Wizards, Druids (and Chanters) have AoE spells, Ciphers probably have a few as well. The Barbarian has an AoE passive. Fighters have some higher level AoE stuff. We don't know much about the Ranger class though. There will be some classes that it will be less useful on but it will still have an application. Dexterity is the best attribute atm as most abilities are offensive and every offensive attack/spell/ability uses accuracy to determine efficacy. Might and Constitution depend on the amount gained. Since CON is now a flat percentile bonus, maxing it may not be that great particularly on classes that have low HP gain. Might might not be as great on classes that don't spend all their time casting damage based spells. Going percentile based definitely makes for some interesting min-maxing.

That is spell loss for encounter spells. I don't care if people don't lose their spells, I'm just glad that hit reactions are back in (if weirdly tied to attributes).

Yeah, that's very 4E.

In his eyes it is. I don't care about multiple threads.

Int increases the durations of all spells with a duration and the size of AoE spells (such as Fireball). For a Fighter it increases the duration of their abilities (such as the one that regenerates stamina), AoE-wise I am not sure, it might work with their defensive mode or something (and I'm pretty sure they have an AoE stun).

This thread is the only superfluous one really.

Well if you didn't notice two of the threads are mine (I was the OP). The first one was stating my theory of what the attributes were going to be before they were announced. That thread took a turn for the worse where the simulationists, character concept/LARP people came in and started discussing attributes in that manner. I then started the Attribute questionnaire thread which asked some questions of the forum posters about things they did or didn't like about attributes - the attribute revision we have seen has taken some of the preferences stated in that thread to bear (which may or may not have been a result from reading the thread) - such as a single attribute for Stamina/Health and revising the combat stats being used by attributes. We haven't heard anything about inventory slots being related now in the latest iteration either. This thread is about the newest revision. So they are all on different topics about attributes.

Meh. Some people like reading large threads some don't. Theres people on different wavelengths as well. There's a lot of Simulationists and borderline LARPers here as opposed to the gamist and combat stat centric discussions.

That's class and build dependent. If you intend to play with just the cNPCs then like the BGs etc you only have a choice of what those characters have plus your own, and in that case all that really matters is your PC. If there's 8 companions, at least one of them will have a high Perception. But that is not what I am talking about though, I am just referring to the system design balance in relation to the stated goals. I like the direction that the attributes have taken since the last iteration but I think they need a little more work to meet the desired outcome.

I like Stamina and Health on CON and having them at the same values by default, YMMV.

I already said that. Point is it doesn't look as good of an attribute as the others, atm.