Karkarov

I don't know I think Pillars of Eternity is sort of a poopy name but then again it keeps making me think about those books about the Pillar's of Earth or whatever based on the building of various cathedrals etc in medieval times.

What he said, but to be more anally specific. Tactical games are better served by a free 3d camera, period. A camera you have totally control over is always better "tactically" than one you do not. You can cite examples like NWN2 and said "no it isn't" but I can simply counter with "Yes it is, it isn't the cameras fault it was programmed badly and poorly implemented. Blame the designers. A well made and properly done free movement 3d camera will always be better." Secondly, games are getting more and more graphically detailed. It is hard to see graphic details from a fixed view 30 feet in the air looking down at a 5'5" tall human. As games start to look more visually impressive it is only natural that you would want to move to a style of camera that takes advantage by showing off the superior fidelity. Lastly... Even the modern versions of chess lets you rotate the camera to look at all sides of the board. Being stuck at one view from one angle is by definition not as helpful as having any view you want from any angle you prefer.

I guess this story and especially this final paragraph concerns me for a couple reasons. 1: It reminds of World of Warcraft or "Insert Trinity Based MMO Here"... I don't have a problem with that type of game, the appeal (especially for multiplayer) is painfully clear, it is easy to design encounters for, encourages team play, gives everyone a unique and defined role in the party. Many MMO's use it because it really is one of the easiest and best ways to get a group of people to work together to overcome a wide variety of encounter types. I even love to play tanks in MMO's, but while my primary job is "get punched in face and not fall down" there is some level of threat management, ability dodging, different cooldowns you may need to time, specific mechanics you have to counter.... PE on the other hand is a single player game, the cooldowns won't be that intense, the mechanics won't be as demanding (such as move 15 yards in 5 seconds or die), there is no threat I just use an ability with the fighter character to force "engagement" on those in melee.... or I don't. 2: If grazes are basically sub optimal and not desirable outside of "graze or miss" situations, which can't be that common and could surely be fought with a better approach, what does that say about the fighter class if one of the top end skills is being able to graze more often? It tells me they are a low damage class first off. Per your own words even the worst hit you can get will do better damage than the best graze you can score. Most of their use seems to be heavily reliant on positioning and use of engagement. Based on your story a fighter can clearly take a hit... but unless someone tries to break out of engagement it doesn't look like they can deal one. They sound like the very definition of the "get hit in face but don't fall down" character. It sounds like the Baldur's Gate 1 fighter, except now he can force you to hit him but consequently does no damage. Handy, but not really more fun for the player or all that interesting mechanics wise. Why not just bring a barbarian and deal better damage and counter higher damage intake with higher hp? Why not bring a paladin whose damage is still probably weak but has better utility overall? I am sure caster classes have some form of mob controlling abilities that might paralyze or even prevent someone from moving and likely a far better offensive complement. Sure there is all kinds of tactical synergy with the engagement system, but it sounds a little too much like MMO combat to me and it only works and is fun there because of all the things going on around it, very little of which will be going on in PE. A lineman on a football team does a lot of work to help his team win... but unless he is on defense and sacks the QB no one ever talks about him. He does a key important job but he just isn't exciting or interesting. I guess I am saying I would like the fighter to be more exciting and fun to have in my party, not just a meat shield who gets beat down so the rogue can score an easy backstab. Hopefully I am just over reacting, but then that is what happens when you speculate based on limited info. Normally I wouldn't do that but it has been a long day

???? Are you saying the link isn't working for you? It definitely works when I click it.

Yeah for the physcial location.... It really should just be like a big tavern or ale house. Or a barracks like facility with offices that works like the base of a mercenary company or something. The concept of some big overwrought building with all this elaborate stone work or whatever makes no sense. It is an adventurers hall, not a museum, a college, or a government building. When I walk in there I expect to see some rough and tumble ready to roll people who seem capable and good sorts to have in a fight.... not a well dressed clerk with a pile of papers for me to fill out while I sit in a well lit indoor garden.

Legendary weapons in PE? NO Guys, this is the first game in what is meant to be a new ip and have a sequel. We even know we are going to be level capped in this one. Why should a guy who ends the game as the equivalent of a level 8-10 D&D character have a "legendary" weapon? Also Excalibur was a magical sword dudes, while Arthur is definitely the more important piece Excalibur could cut through any armor and made his attacks land with far greater strength than they would have if it was just him swinging say.... the Sword in the Stone. It was also a symbol of his virtue and all that other stuff, cause it had to be given to him since he was worthy of it and any other knight could not have it etc etc. Due to some posters being.... yeah... I am going to get slightly more specific on the "no" potion of my post. Varscona was a cool sword from Baldur's Gate, to me it was special cause it was the first named weapon I ever found in those games. It had a little history to it I guess, and that was nice. It however was not "legendary". Legendary implies it has more than history, that it is well known, that little bobby on the street got read stories about this weapon by his dad at bedtime. Legendary says this sword was used to kill the Dragon that ate half the Dyrwood, that it was a sword given to a champion by a god themselves, not that it is a axe with a neat story where one time it was used to take out a regular werewolf back in the day. Any weapon can have a neat history, but a neat history doesn't make it "legendary".

Random loot and items is fine. Algorithms and code design have come a long way.... I don't doubt there is a way to program unity to distribute basic gear to a type X mob randomly and then have skills assigned based on the gear that was chosen. Or even to have 10-15 Mob X created and then have unity deploy a random selection of those 10-15 different types with their level tuned to the areas challenge. As long as it is done in such a way that you don't end up randomly fighting 5 fighters who all have been given weapons they aren't proficient with and mage robes for armor random mobs and loot work just fine. I trust Obsidian is capable of using the Unity engine to create such a random system. As has already been stated the major encounters and important loot will be hand placed.

Just to play along I will repost the final version of the UI Mockup I did for the actual UI update from way back. The idea was to do something with a "medieval/fantasy" feel using graphics and such to highlight the UI but also be highly functional and minimalist. http://i1.minus.com/iMaaVYAinXEqY.png The image is pretty large and my thumbnail code isn't working for some reason so just follow the link.

I would be happy if they go the wizardry 8 route. Having a bunch of mute, personality deprived, stats on paper.... would sort of suck. That said the power gamers probably love that

The only contribution on what I know about PE that I don't like for this thread is this... The fact that I don't know enough about the actual mechanics of PE. We know tons of concepts, ideas, and things that will be included.... but we don't know enough about stats. We don't know exactly what happens when we level up or how much freedom we have to make our own leveling choices. We don't know the bare bones mechanics of "I swung a sword at goblin X" how do we determine if I hit, how do we determine the damage? How much real damage does it do or is it all stamina? We just don't know anywhere near enough about the actual game parts of the game.

Would this ability be called "Frontstab"? And would it deal .5X normal damage, instead of 1.5X like a BACKstab? Karkarov, I'm not sure who you're suggesting is putting too much emphasis on class names. As far as I know, Osvir and myself were merely rolling with the idea of titles (or whatever word you want to use); what people call you as separate from your class name, as most of the time (as you pointed out), no one's going to refer to you by your class name. That's not what class names are for. That's why I pointed out how silly it was that other games either just use them like nothing's weird, or awkwardly avoid using them without actually handling titles or anything of the sort; they refer to the fact that you're a fighter, or a rogue, but just don't use any particular word (i.e. "We could really use someone with your magical skillset" for a Mage, etc.). I wasn't calling out an individual just making a statement about the whole thing. I agree there should be something in game that lets you have some sort of "defining role" that the game/NPC's identifies you by. For an easy example Dragon Age: Origins, where everyone basically called you "Warden" because that's what you were regardless of your class... a Grey Warden. Doing something like that in game would be smart because it makes sense, adds immersion, and really isn't hard to implement at all. If they do it in a way that also gives us power of choice over what that title is somehow.... even better.

If I were you I would consider starting in on the family tradition of succession Personally I honestly have no real concept for a type of character I would have made. You don't really know what restrictions might be placed on the character, what kind of room we would get, or even if you get to choose where or when they show up. Knowing me though I would have designed something like an old fat orlan with extremely hairy ears and feet that wears a torn up old bowler hat, dirty clothes, ripped pants, and no shoes. They would go around begging in all the best parts of town for money to buy a "insert whatever food item here" and promise to pay you back in a week and should you actually ever give them the money all they do the week later if you find them is offer to pay you back via the week old left overs which will include a delectable special sauce made of toejam and nose hairs. Well that or an annoying drunk bald dwarf who says "oh aye" every other sentence and likes to get naked and dance on top of statues while singing bawdy tavern songs about a wild orlan lass. Of course he would then have to pee on passerby's but that's a given.

Again you guys put too much emphasis on class name. No one is a "fighter" they are a mercenary, a town guard, a militiaman, an adventurer, a monster hunter.... blah blah blah. Class names are generic for a reason, classes are just a loose definition of your skill set.. they are not what you actually "are" or "do". That would be your occupation. There are a few class names that can almost be used as job titles, but they are the exception not the rule. Later versions of D&D went overboard with a lot of things, prestige classes and being extremely anal about class names was two of those things. Leave them out.

Yeap happy one year, looking forward to hearing about whatever this new big update is. Still feels strange to think it has been that long since the kickstarter happened, feels like it was a week ago sometimes.

This is why in my earlier post I went more to the crux of the matter. A generic 5 year old human female Little Suzy is not dangerous to me the Main Character or my party of adventuring chums. One day she will be just Suzy. However you have to ask yourself what are the odds "Just Plain Suzy" at 20 years old is going to be a danger to me? More than likely she grows up to get married, have kids, runs a house or a inn, or a whatever it is normal commoners do. Statistically speaking she has like a 1-5% chance (likely high exaggerated even there) at ever being any kind of danger or threat to me or even other normal people. A baby black dragon named Cuddles on the other hand will one day grow into a man eating lizard that spews acidic death at whim. He will more than likely be a threat to me and chums if we ever cross paths at that time. Odds are quite favorable that Cuddles will also at some point be quite the danger to civilized humanoid society in general if left to his own devices. It may be circumspect for me to just take Cuddles down now before he is capable of putting up a more.... stringent opposition. Because let's be honest, unless Cuddles is still in his egg he is in fact a danger to pretty much any human sized creature including me, even if he hatched "just now".

Uh, you actually want to watch a scene where little figures march across the screen when viewed from a 45-degrees top-down perspective? .... .... You do know you just described the actual gameplay..... Considering most of our time is going to be spent watching a scene where little figures march around a screen that is viewed from a 45 degree angle. The fact that sometimes for like... 1 minute I might lose control of the little figures doesn't really bother me. Either way everyone seems in favor of the still frame drawing thing, which is funny, cause it requires paying an artist to draw them. Still it is cheaper that a "full on" cinematic and less time consuming for programmers.

There are already plenty of class options and balancing the game around the idea that you can be a paladin/cipher/barbarian is well... dumb. There are far better things to spend time on and the concept of multiclassing only every existed in D&D to make up for the fact that Elves etc could not get to level 20 in any class. Let's not take a broken bad mechanic from D&D used purely to create uber super characters and make the mistake of putting it in PE and blasting any change of actual class/gameplay balance out of the water.

Uh no, leave them as is. A Fighter is a guy who fights. A Rogue is a guy who specializes in being a sneaky douche. He does more damage because he stabs people in the back, uses poison, ambushes them from the shadows, etc etc. Not because he is better with weapons or more skilled with a sword.

That makes it even easier, now they don't need to change the camera angle just set up the scripted animations, effects, and text if needed. I would point out everything in PE IS a 3d model, they are just creating it on a 2d field for the sake of the isometric view, which frankly I don't think serves much purpose as anything other than a "homage".

If you're working in an engine that's suited for cinematics, then of course it's easy and cheap to make them. If you're not, you have to use some other engine for them, which immediately adds overhead. In any case, it's not a question of absolute cost; it's a matter of bang for the buck. If you already have groovy concept art, why not just make an IWD-style slideshow with voiceover? That serves the same purpose, is just as atmospheric, and a lot easier and cheaper to make than creating an animated cinematic from scratch. So yeah, I'm all for IWD-style slideshows with narration plus Darklands-style intertitles. No mini-movies TYVM. That'st just it Junta, it costs absolutely nothing to do an in engine cutscene. (and trust me, Unity can easily do them) All it takes is setting up a scripted event where the camera moves as needed/models on screen are animated as required, maybe some text pops up or a "effect" happens. No additional effects that you weren't creating anyway, no additional animations. You use purely things you were going to develop regardless. The only resource involved is time, which is going to be spent no matter what you do.

Little Suzy is a random child NPC, the only thing she can snap in half is her pretty princess red sonya dolly. Now having a scenario where the player is forced to deal with say 10 year old Psychic Pete the insane kid who has lost control of his cipher powers could be a great moral decision for players that gives plenty of leeway for seeing killing him as a valid resolution.

Some people put killing children on the other side of the boundary, as separate from killing adults. I could say that's valid, sure. I can see where they are coming from. Ah but here is the catch 22. You already have to randomly slaughter adults all the time in most RPG's, thought rarely because you "choose" to. Example... Baldur's Gate. You are traveling between zones and gosh darn-it, bandit's waylay you. You have no choice, you have to kill them or they will kill you. You did not "choose" to go looking for them etc etc, they found you. But end result you kill them. Odds are good these bandits were adult humanoids. I don't think anyone is going to argue against you being able to kill an adult male human bandit, right? That said, what is not going to be found in that group of bandit's waylaying you? A five year old kid. What's your point? Okay, fair question. This is my point. Maybe Farmer Joe isn't a bandit... but he can theoretically fight back and pose some sort of threat at least to a low level character. Heck you don't know, Farmer Joe may even be in the town militia and packing a short sword and actually be like a level 2 fighter. A five year old kid who is unarmed can't defend themselves and even if they had a weapon would likely be no good with it. Therein lies the rub, some random kid is basically defenseless. A random farmer can at least put up a fight on some level. There should still be repercussions either way, like town guards attacking you, the town militia Joe is a member of mobilizing, maybe you become wanted in the country or city you committed the crime, etc etc. But killing Farmer Joe, whatever your reason or lack of, is inherently different than killing Little Suzy. Little Suzy can't fight back, Joe can.

See, now that's a cinematic. Again, as for my personal opinion... Depends 100% on how well they are made. As for no cutscenes? Uh really.... No I definitely think there should be cut scenes or "scripted events" if you prefer. The infinity engine games used them out the wazoo, why shouldn't PE?

Yeah, sadly, it is. Fortunately no one has sunk quite that low on these forums. ... ... Yet.

Considering he is smiling ironically and about to die in that scene I don't think his avatar is off base at all