[Dragon Age: Inquisition]

"Grinding tedium" is precisely how I'd describe the experience of playing DA:I.

 

And I must say, Sera has to got be the most repulsive character, in terms of both personality and looks, that I've yet seen in a BioWare game. It almost felt as though she were created specifically to annoy me, a dubious "honour" previously held by Bastila from KotOR.

 

At least BioWare seemed to acknowledge that a lot of people would hate her, so they gave you the option of booting her out.

But they kept that stupid tavern song about her....which plays on repeat. lol

[Skeletons army animation]

What?

[Skeletons army animation]

Well, stop discuss. Disappearing characters are cool cause they bring that IE old flavour. Why don't make the whole game  8 bit, would be really much better, u know, old flavour

Straw man.

 

Summons are not characters; we are not discussing graphic technology; and the "coolness" or lack thereof is not the reason why I'm against the spell/chant being changed from how it currently is.

[Skeletons army animation]

Or because the demonstration was over?

[Skeletons army animation]

But I am not sure that even such simple animation can be added in this point of time,

It can't, and they wouldn't do it even if it could, because it would be a waste of resources. We're not talking about sword swings, or death, or anything so common. We're talking about an animation that will only ever be seen after every single one of the following conditions are met:

 

1) There is a chanter.

2) that chanter has the skeleton summoning chant, and employs it.

3) the skeleton survives for the duration of the spell.

 

This is not skyrim. The devs here do not have 5 years and $100 million in funding to spend on unique animations that most players will never see.

[Skeletons army animation]

Most summons in at least BG actually has a little spell-effect when they unsummon,

Not really, unless by "little animation" you mean "they just disappeared with a brief sound effect and a message in the combat log saying: X unsummoned".

 

 

Enough of this. Look at the stream. Look at how flashy the skeleton summon graphic is. What do you guys want? Consistency? Do you want them to disappear with the same graphical pomp and flourish? Because anything less (ie. a 1-second puff of smoke) will look just as out of place and 'lacking' and the same people who complained then will complain again.

[Skeletons army animation]

Sarcasm man, sarcasm.

 

Btw, if they will provide new animations for summoning, u can always go to options and run all settings to low, so we'll be both happy (us with animation and you without it)

Really? so putting the game settings on Low removes animations?

 

 

Where in the world did you get that notion from?

[Skeletons army animation]

 

Because I already have the Original 5-disk version from Bioware.

 

And because I Backed this game.

 

And I can play Baldurs Gate with windows 7, and in today's wide screen resolutions.... can't you?

[Skeletons army animation]

well, in every place there is always one guy who try to feel himself special by going the opposite way, nothing new.

 

However, we're not asking to create 40.000 new animations motion captured by the most expensive hollywood actors, we're just asking to reuse a simple death animation or fadeout, or whatever.

 

Little work needed = all happy = worth it

Oh, I'm sorry, but you're assuming that I'm some lone wolf with unique viewpoints, instead of one of the masses who wants things to be how they were in the infinity engine games.

[Skeletons army animation]

It had been already mentioned that the devs can reuse animations that already exist in game (run summoning animation backwards or use the dying animation).

 

The last month is for polish and such small annoyances are exactly what is being taken care of right now.

Run the summoning animation backwards? Ok. In the stream, each summoned group of skeletons appears and a loud and flashy green crystal-like... thing comes into existence on top of them. First, that's NOT an animation, that's a spell graphic. Second, Are you saying that you want this loud, flashy spell graphic to play again when the spell expires? Well...ok, but that will require that the skeletons first warp back together in a bunched pack from where they currently are on the screen, and then have that green crystal like graphic play again on top of them, and then have the skeletons disappear. Yeah, like I said. SILLY.

 

As for replaying the death animation. I'll ask again: Does the spell/chant description say that the summoned skeletons die when the chant expires? No? Then why should a death animation play?

[Skeletons army animation]

Hear that devs? All of 4 people on this thread have professed their wishes for you to... halt the bug-squashing process and go back to designing new animations for this one Chanter invocation.

 

So get to it! March 26th is just a month away!

[Skeletons army animation]

Death animation or fade out? Ok, lets discuss the logic behind those two.

 

 

Death animation - Why? Does the chant description specifically say that the summoned skeleton dies when the chant expires?

Fade out - For a creature to fade out would suggest they were phased in. As far as I know, this is NOT how that chant/spell works.

 

 

The skeletons are summoned. So the devs would have to spend an enormous amount of time and money designing an elaborate animation where the skeletons go back to where they came from (if that's underground, then that means they have to re-bury themselves; If they're from the nearest tomb/cemetery, then they'd have to walk away. Both options are a silly waste of time) Alternatively they could design them to just sink into the ground. But that would look silly too.

 

 

Wait, I have an idea, why don't they just... disappear when the spell expires? You know, like they do in every IE game.

[Skeletons army animation]

We'd have to see the description of the spell/chant. As far as I know it's a standard summon. Which means their disappearance is apt. They've been unsummoned. They disappeared just as they appeared. That's how BG1 did it.

[The box art for this game - am I dreaming?]

our first reaction were to be dismissive? box art? however, if we had paid for physical goods, am betting we would expect more than a usps envelope with a cd case dropped into it. if you pay for something extra, then you got some justification to complain if the extras is not worthy o' the price.

 

...

 

that being said, box art?

 

HA! Good Fun!

Your first reaction is the most apt here. Because I'd like to think that I paid for the development of the game, and not for whatever physical goods my chosen tier gets me.

 

It's better that way. Otherwise I get struck by the reality that I overpaid.

[The box art for this game - am I dreaming?]

Aah. Thanks.

[The box art for this game - am I dreaming?]

Is that 16 PEGI rating for real?

[My old school solid UI mock-up for Pillars of Eternity]

I have no idea why people keep citing these things as issues.

Because there isn't anything else for the hipsters to cite as issues in the BG's.

 

I mean, what do you expect them to do? Complain that the story sucked? Or the Combat was boring? Or that they couldn't customize and role play their characters? Or that the party-based gameplay was poorly designed? Or any other criteria we judge RPGs on? Nope. They can't gripe about any of those things because the BG games did them all really really well. And they know it. So they're forced to grab their microscopes and scour the 'fine print' to find something that, when described on a message board, doesn't sound too great. And then they blow that tiny little thing massively out of proportion and pretend that it ruined the experience or made everything 'hard and confusing'

[My old school solid UI mock-up for Pillars of Eternity]

 

Well ok, "hard" is an overstatement, since nothing is "hard" in the IE games. But lets do a comparison.

You must have not played BG and BG2 at the age of 10 with no 2nd AD&D experience. THAC0? Lower AC is better? And more similar fun... which didn't really made a lot of sense even after reading the manual up on it.

 

And it's really preference.

 

Correct. I played BG and BG2 at the age of 20-something with zero 2nd edition AD&D experience (I grew up playing 1st edition AD&D). But rule-set intimacy doesn't really matter that much as long as you're a gamer. Because any gamer will know, by instinct, to use the shiniest weapons, the fanciest armor and the most deadly-sounding spells. BG is easy for anyone with just that for knowledge.

 

But what does this have to do with the 'select all' button?

[My old school solid UI mock-up for Pillars of Eternity]

Why is that hard and silly. That's how I always did it in the IE-games too...

Well ok, "hard" is an overstatement, since nothing is "hard" in the IE games. But lets do a comparison.

 

1) Clicking one small button on the bottom right of the screen in order to select all.

 

vs.

 

2) Clicking on the game screen, then dragging the mouse and making a highlighted 'square' big enough to envelop everyone in your party. Of course, depending on how scattered your party is on the screen, this can be tricky. And then there's those situations when you think you've gotten everyone with that square but you only managed to select 4 out of 6, and then once you're marching your party forward you notice.... "wait a minute, I didn't get everyone." So you click and drag again, and it dawns on you that your two missing party members aren't actually on the screen anymore so you can't click and drag, so you move your controlled party members back to the uncontrolled ones, then click and drag everyone. Success! You can now move on.

 

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll just click the 'select all' button. It's faster. And less silly.

[My old school solid UI mock-up for Pillars of Eternity]

I have a gut feeling that the 'select all' button's placement/assignment is a very trivial UI issue for the devs. Have you seen the streams (as in, every single one of the streams?) They don't use it. Instead, they do things the hard, silly way. They click-and-drag the mouse over the whole party on the game screen in order to 'select all'.

[Yet Another Pillars of Eternity beta preview]

Obviously. It's like if you would write a car review, saying that "it's big and red, I like the round rubber thingies at the bottom, but it doesn't appear to do much. It was only after several hours that I discovered by chance that you can insert the key by the side of the steering wheel, whereupon the car makes a humming noise. 2/10".

lol

 

That is a remarkably accurate analogy.

[Kickstarter management & hype & Interview...]

Speaking of promised and undelivered features, if there's someone here who worked in real game development, I'd like to ask a question. I can easily imagine the situation when designer writes out a concept for a game (or, say, kickstarter pitch), team starts working on that concept, and later in the production certain feature(s) doesn't feel right (doesn't fit with gameplay, artstyle, generally feels wrong, whatever), so it's better to cut it off rather then redesign the whole system to shove it in. Could that be real case in game development process or am I stupidly theorizing too much?

I don't work in the industry, but I would assume the best thing to do in general is to just drop the feature. But if the developer finds himself in a situation where he's dropping one feature after another because they don't fit the system, then it's probably best to take a good hard look at the system and maybe change it.

 

But that being said, I have my own (related) comment for anyone who followed Divinity Original Sin's Kickstarter. (I didn't, but I bought the game a few months ago. Then played it, and loved it so much that I decided to go back and read up on its kickstarter updates and stuff just for my own curiosity).

 

I noticed that they promised a mega dungeon in one of their stretch goals. A rather large one. And that stretch goal was reached. And as I understand it, it was actually more than a simple stretch goal. It was one of those ongoing "how big can we make it!" things where 1 level would be added per 1000 backers. They got up to 10 levels.

 

And then...nothing. They flat out released the game without any mega dungeon. And their excuse was...bizarre. It was like: "er.... we thought you guys would be more happy with 3 or 4 single level dungeons scattered throughout the game instead." Ok THAT is the type of thing that would have royally pissed me off had I been a backer. Its one thing to look at your money and later and discover that it's not enough to do some of what you promised. But it's quite another to have enough money but later decide that one of your features, that you promised and the fans wanted, is not a good idea and so you're just going to substitute something much less in its place.

[My old school solid UI mock-up for Pillars of Eternity]

And.... what if it's only a matter of nostalgia? Is that supposed to be some massive dismissal to the argument for a solid 3-border UI? It isn't. The point of PoE IS Nostalgia. If you're looking for a radical, cutting edge, 'finger-on-the-pulse-of-today' experience, you've stumbled upon the wrong game.

[My old school solid UI mock-up for Pillars of Eternity]

Developers back than usualy made UI's like that so they dont have to render the whole screen with ingame graphics.

You've never accidently hit the "H" button while playing Bg2. How n00bishly adorable.

 

I want to see the actual game not a menu.

Aah but that's the thing. The "menus" ARE the actual game. As any of the old schoolers will tell you, the world screen is just the visual feedback. The heart and soul of the game was everything else. The menus, as you call them, is where you find the combat logs; the spell books; the portraits; the abilities; the inventory; the formation choices; the wood or stone themes that add to the entire game's feel and atmosphere; the controls...etc.

 

Games are meant to be played, not just watched.

 

You minimalists are a scourge and the genre would be better off without your poison.

[Yet Another Pillars of Eternity beta preview]

Yes, I also think this is a ridiculous review by a guy who claims to be an RPG fan but for some reason has never heard of using pause in the middle of combat.

Yep. He's simply not an RPG fan. I clicked on his post history to see all the reviews he's done and I only found 1 other RPG: Wasteland 2. And, surprise surprise. He spouts the exact same gripes at it:

 

1) Hardest game I ever played!

2) Steepest learning curve ever!

 

There's no mystery here. He's a typical casual. The various Wii Mario games are what he calls home. And that's fine. It means we can dismiss him and his attempts at "journalism" as completely irrelevant and move on. And by "we" I mean we "poor suckers who backed this game", as he puts it.