rjshae
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Everything posted by rjshae
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So, about priests...
rjshae replied to Fashion Mage's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
It might be interesting if priests and druids always magically interacted through intermediaries. When they "cast a spell", what they're doing is asking some spirit to perform a task for them. That could have several effects: first, there is less of a range penalty since the intermediary will be implementing the effect at the corresponding location; second, the completion of the task would depend on the willingness of the intermediary to perform it; and the third is that the effect would appear to emanate from a semi-random point in space rather than from the priest or druid. The last may allow the character to hide more effectively and reduce their vulnerability. It would also eliminate many of the casting obstacles faced by wizards, since all a priest or druid needs to do is transmit their request to the intermediary, rather than channeling the power. The effectiveness of their soul is what determines the type of intermediary they can call upon. -
Found a few more: Atlantis, the Second Age RPG -- at $5,155/$6,000 The Shadowlands Campaign Setting Guidebook for Pathfinder -- at $15,224/$5,500 Necropunk Pathfinder Campaign Setting -- at $2,695/$2,000
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Sound-based puzzles
rjshae replied to Cultist's topic in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)
It's a really nice idea. Unfortunately I know several people who are hearing impaired and may have a problem with such a puzzle. -
At work we call those awards "attaboys". Slave away for an extra 100 hours to make some nob happy; get a coupon for free golf lessons.
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I've found that the bristles on the old-style typewriter eraser pencils work spectacularly well for cleaning out any loose gunk in your keyboard. As for gluing the bits back into your head... sorry, haven't a clue.
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Not exactly a video game story, although it's associated with the Fallout series: Fan Made Fallout monopoly replaces Boradwalk with Megaton
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Urge to donate screeches to a halt: there's no Paypal option for the boxed copy. Not good. Hurray they fixed it!
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I had that impression as well. But using a particle-based mist generator might be too processor intensive. Perhaps they just need to blend it a little better? It's a WiP, after all. I think what would improve the waterfall spume/mist, is if they'd remove the gray taint and make it clean and white, so it looks like water not smoke: Yes. Perhaps even with a rainbow tinge. However, it might depend on the lighting conditions: what works in daylight lighting may not look good when they switch to a night scene. I'm not sure if the mist is an overlay or an effect, but they may need to make the mist tintable and vary the tint. I'm sure they'll work it out.
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I had that impression as well. But using a particle-based mist generator might be too processor intensive. Perhaps they just need to blend it a little better? It's a WiP, after all.
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I'm pretty sure that's a coding/world-building term, and not a marketing term. Yeah, the others being static objects. Jeez, what's with all these whiners? Did they not get their special treat today?
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I don't know why everyone assumes people are talking about "pitch black like you're blindfolded" when people say they want it darker and want light sources to have more of a visual/gameplay effect. Some parts of an area map are going to be darker than others. Just look at the illustration above: the pools of darkness are near impenetrable. That means lowering the lighting levels will create areas of pitch black. I've played in games like that, and there was little to enjoy in the experience. I think Baldur's Gate 2 had a few underground areas that were very difficult to navigate because they were so dark. But if necessary I can use the game calibration feature on my monitor to brighten the dark regions, so no matter.
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Casting my Summon AH-46 Apache spell now...
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It will be interesting to see what fog and weather look like... some sunny day. Can't wait!
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I kind of like the look of the dialogue system for D:OS:
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Playing in a dark environment is about as much fun as a bag full of mixed nuts and bolts. No thanks. If you need to play in a pitch black environment, I suggest wearing a blindfold.
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Perhaps they could illustrate the penalties from lighting effects using the character portraits? When a character is in darkness, their portrait could go to a dark gray near-silhouette with a monochrome background. Characters with night vision could transition to a reddish hue. When a torch (or light spell) is active, the player portrait can light up with a flame hue and the background go darker.
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I completely agree. The game designers can model the night effects just by applying combat and skill penalties; there's no need to make the players go groping around on a pitch-black screen.
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You must have the wrong country. We use advanced airborne robotics to smite our twits now...
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I don't like this either. There is absolutely no dynamic shadowing. None. Zero. Zilch. The shadows from trees, bushes, etc. never move. If you watch the character cross the river, you can see his shadow shift. But yeah, that's about it. Dynamic shadowing would probably be a very hard problem to solve with these 2D graphics, so I think we just live with it. Then again, maybe in this world the sun doesn't set... it just turns off for the night. Nah...
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In update #49, I was trying to figure out how they got the character shadows to shift when he crossed the river. My guess is they have built a gray scale depth map for the area that gives the actual surface depth once the water and vegetation is removed. That can then be used to compute the perimeter of the water surface and to determine where the projected shadow falls. However they do it, that's pretty nice work; it's an effective illusion. The shifting highlights from the moving point light source is presumably computed from a bump map. But I could have sworn I saw some shifting shadows as well. Maybe it was just my imagination? There were only a couple of really very minors issues. The first was that light from the camp fire was pretty weak even at night. I'd have expected a more expansive lighting circle to appear. The other one was the motion blur, which didn't seem very natural. But perhaps that was an effect caused by the video? The ambient sound was very nice and I thought I got a good directional sound from the water.
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Whoa! That is very cool. I had to watch it in HD a dozen times to catch all the little details. Very, very nice. Maybe a little blurry with the character moving, but otherwise just fantastic! The work and the technology is sublime.
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^^^ Funny dat. The dude with the crazy tattoos used to be the one you worried was going to rob the convenience store. Now he's the guy behind the counter.
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Urge to donate screeches to a halt: there's no Paypal option for the boxed copy. Not good.
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You're free to be a complete twit. You're also free to loath a complete twit. Freedom: everybody wins.
