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jarpie
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Posts posted by jarpie
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Interesting, both DFA and WL2 had a spike in backers around day 16-19. This happened when WL2 announced their Obsidian parthership and DFA announced new goodies. I wonder if PE will manage to get a mid-spike like that too.
There's apparently going to be some announcement/update when PE hits 50k pledges so might be something what will get surges like that.
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I think it's a bit odd to read some of the comments in here, the Western influence on the East, where RPGs are concerned, resulted in several of the big names in Eastern RPGs, as well as countless others. There's not a gaming wall over there keeping western games out, in fact plenty of western games are played over there and many of their games past present and future are inspired or influenced by western mechanics and game design. Wizardry isn't the only one but it's a big one, without Wizardry you don't get Dragon Quest. Without Wizardry you don't get Etrian Odyssey. Etrian Odyssey pretty much 'is' Wizardry with a different coat of paint and a name change, and that's not even counting the fact that the Wizardry series of games is still going 'because' it was so adored in the East that they wouldn't let it die.
And again, it's not even the only one, it's just a well documented example that's easy to research if you aren't willing to take my word for it. EO and Wizardry aren't the only Western styled games going in the East for that matter. The Eastern market has eaten up the Elder Scrolls series of late, being quite of interest to them and you can see that it's not just something that's enjoyed, but yet another thing that has influenced game design which you can see in practice in several of the newer Eastern RPGs.
Japanese game developers are of course going to play Western games, but that doesn't mean that they're successful to normal consumers. I'm sure Western developers are more likely to have Japanese imports.
Wizardry? You had to go back to the 1980's to give an example. Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim are a good argument that Japanese people don't like Western RPGs, because these games are not like Western RPGs, they're shallow sandboxes with pretty graphics, Bethesda does these games well, better than anyone else, but they're not even close to being the type of game Project Eternity will be, Bethesda is god-awful at most of the things that make Western RPGs great. Bethesda games do not do nearly as well in Japan as they do in North America or Europe. VGCharts says that Japan makes up under 4% of total sales of Skyrim.
More importantly Japan does not have a PC gaming market, Bethesda games were sold to them on consoles, and so was Wizardry. Due to differences in popular hardware in the 1980's PC gaming never got traction in Japan.
This is very much spot on, couldn't have put any better.
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Regarding RTwP vs. TB. Why don't you just add a stretch goal with the purpose of allowing the player to choose between RTwP and TB? So that each player can have his/her prefered game gameplay style.
(a) it would require work (b) Turn-Based is as dead as disco (it really is) and (c ) they said they wanted to recapture the spirit of the IE games which were RTwP.
I hope to partially accomodate TB fans they can put in enough autopause options as possible, but creating two parallel systems doesn't make much sense to me.
Turn-based isn't dead, there are several (more and less) indie games coming which are turn-based like Wasteland 2. That said, I won't mind RTwP.
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Big no from me to dork elfs, I can barely tolerate elfs and dork elfs are even more annoying.
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It might be worth adding Korean, Thai, or Japanese translations, but I don't think the game should be changed to accommodate any stereotypical "Asian tastes"
I don't think it's worth adding those translations, asian tastes are completely different than western ones and there are so few potential pledgers and customers in asia that there's no sense adding those translations with the budget Project Eternity will have.
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CRPGs are popular in europe, especially central europe and I'm a bit surprised that after revealing the stretchgoal for translations there wasnt surge of pledgers. CRPGs are also quite popular in Finland and other scandinavian countries but fortunately we dont need translations.
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I wouldn't want -any- voice acting on this one, would take too much from the budget, and if they do, just a first line or so from dialogue with -unknown- but good voiceactors. Anyone who' has at least some name would probably take too much.
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I remember some older CRPG (Ravenloft) having a gypsy laying out cards on a table. This method of character generation was simply fitting the theme of the game.
The Infinity Engine character generation was OK too. You were led step by step through the creation screen and determined your character.
Ultima-games did the gipsy thing ever since Ultima 4, it was somewhat decent system and suited the game. Not sure will it work in Project Eternity but it all depends how they do the game.
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And I am already looking at the wrong game. This is not a game for me, I am fully aware of that. But I still cringe when I see ignorant people discussing things based on old notions and nostalgia.
Query - if this isn't a game for you it, the wrong game as you say...
did you donate to it? Why - to just support Obsidian?
And whether you donated or not (especially if you hadn't, but it's not that important) - if it's isn't for you, why are you advocating for changes to it?
This forum is not restricted only for fans of this game. Of course he has right to voice his opinion as much as any of us do.
What's the point coming to the forum to demand things which are not gonna happen, especially if you're not gonna pledge/buy the game. For example I'm not going to the BSN and demand Bioware to make Dragon Age 3 turn-based, isometric which uses 2D backgrounds and remove the romances.
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No, I mean designing a game means making a choice. That is not "limiting" in the sense you were implying. What exactly is limiting with isometric?
You are asking the wrong question. Noone here is arguing for first- or third person view.
What I am arguing for is that they will use 3D instead of 2D backgrounds. Still isometric! Still static camera! I don't even need a zoom function, although it would be nice.
If you render a 3D world, you can do a lot more things than in a 2D painted world. For example, it is much easier to implement day-and-night cycles. It is much easier to implement physics (try making a 2D object tumble..). It is much easier to implement shadows, hills, running water, animated doors, destructible environments, etc. The list can be made a lot longer.
But let's take an example: imagine firing off a fireball in the middle of a forest.. at night. Imagine seeing the orcs you hit ragdoll around, hitting trees and shrubbery as they tumble around from the force of the blast. Imagine seeing the trees closest to the impact center catch fire and light up the night. Imagine seeing the trees closest to ground zero actually fall outwards and break from the power of your magic. Imagine seeing the surviving orcs run screaming and burning between the trees, casting long shadows before they fall over and perish.
Now imagine the same scene in 2D.
Sure, none of the 3D scenario was in Planescape: Torment. None of it is needed for a better role-playing experience. But I still want it in my game.
If you are looking for ragdolls, you're looking at the wrong game. With the budget of 3-4 million max. do you really think they should be wasting that on unnecessary fluff like 3D and ragdolls?
Physics engines to license probably costs quite a bit too.
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At least Nvidia's drivers has "Adjust desktop size and position" settings where you can choose "Scaling" and "Aspect ratio" which keeps the aspect ratio of the resolution intact and fills the rest with black bars, "Fullscreen" fills the screen with the full image and distorts the image and "No scaling" in which it doesnt scale the resolution and fills the rest with the black around the screen if the resolution is smaller than the resolution of the monitor.
Exactly. And when in future we have those 4k monitors you are going to play BG in a box about the size of stamp in the middle of your screen?
I don't think this is going anywhere. I have stated my opinion and I have nothing more to say on this matter.
Didn't you see the picture I put? As you complained that BG with 800x600 resolution gets stretched out and distorted, I tried to show that it can be scaled up to fill the screen vertically, keep the image undistorted and fill the sides with black as 800x600 is in 4:3 and the monitor is 16:9/16:10.
As Project Eternity will most probably support both 16:9 and 16:10 resolutions (as 1920x1080 and 1920x1200) it can be scaled to fill the future monitors (for example resolution 4096x3072 which is 16:9) without black bars.
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@Jarpie: "Of course they are somewhat blocky but it doesn't really matter because nowdays with the widescreen mod they're not even that big. What ugly distortion? do you mean when old games which are in 4:3 resolution are scaled to the 16:9 or 16:10 monitor? Some monitors have the setting where it leaves black bars on the sides and centers the image but you're probably gonna say "But oh noes! Can't stand those black bars! teh horror!".
No, I mean distortion which occurs when monitor scales non-native resolution Image to monitors native resolution. Do you understand? If my monitors y Axis has 1080 pixels and BG has only 600, monitor has to "stretch" those pixels so the image fits my monitors y axis, which is going to result as distortions in the final Image I get on my screen. I'm not talking about black boxes. Those don't bother me at all.
BTW, I think this conversation is drifting off the point here.
At least Nvidia's drivers has "Adjust desktop size and position" settings where you can choose "Scaling" and "Aspect ratio" which keeps the aspect ratio of the resolution intact and fills the rest with black bars, "Fullscreen" fills the screen with the full image and distorts the image and "No scaling" in which it doesnt scale the resolution and fills the rest with the black around the screen if the resolution is smaller than the resolution of the monitor.
Example:
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As I am a film buff I am fairly early adopter of plasma televisions and bluray players, and as I've watched lot of films from the bluray, I'm convinced enough that any resolution larger than 1920x1080 would need at least 60" display to make big enough difference vs. 1080p.
The difference between resolutions when certain threshold has been passed gets smaller, one of the few things where huge resolutions comes into play are pictures taken by DSLR cameras.
Trust me, it's coming and there is a difference (also see Edit above), the easiest way to make sure yourself is simply go to an exhibition that have some of those 4K/8K displays around and see the difference yourself. The point is, when you look at your PC screen or at the TV do you have the same visual experience as when you look outside a window and the answer so far is no
The human eye generally can recognize details up to 300ppi (obviously depending on distance away and visual acuity.
1080p on a 60" television is only 36ppi, but since you don't know any better and you're sitting so far away it will seem somewhat fine.
Even 4k (3840x2160) on a 21" monitor is only around 210ppi and 8k (7680x4320) on a 30" is about 300ppi, it all depends on the distance, size and usage of the thing. But especially for phones,tablets and PC monitors that you likely have right in front of your face it makes a lot of sense and it'll come naturally for TV broadcasts too.
Fun fact, IBM already had monitors with a resolution of 3840x2400 in 2001: http://www-03.ibm.co...elease/1180.wss but they ceased producing them as they exited the hardware market and sold most of their manufacturing capabilities to companies like Lenovo. In the past 10 years most manufacturers were in a race to the bottom to create the cheapest possible product for the largest market possible, but especially the mobile and tablet market in the last few years has brought some change.
Anyway, that's why it would be nice if this time around they rendered/produced their backgrounds at at least 4K, it shouldn't be that much of a problem for 3D models and hand painted stuff so it'll be somewhat more future-proof than the Infinity Engine games, which we have to zoom out a lot to look good. (It's always easy to downscale something, adding detail ain't possible)
I can't imagine that films would look that much better as 4k vs. 2k since imo they already have enough detail...some people even wrongly claim that they can't seen difference between dvd vs. blu-ray but that's discussion for different topic.
I wouldn't be surprised if they actually render/produce the backgrounds in 4k since it's always better to downscale than make for the maxium resolution (as 2k in this case). The future monitors should be good enough to scale the lower resolutions well enough as I dont think there will be larger monitors than 24" or 28" as it's pretty much maxium what people can use when used as a normal desk.
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@Metabot: Where did I say that?
@Jarepie: And you are saying that BG character made out of few dozen pixels isn't "bloggy"? I agree the human characters are the weakest spot of 3D, but that's why I suggested Wasteland 2style 3D where Action and characters are seen from far and thus don't need as much details.
Problem witj resolutions is that when you create 2D art it's going to have certain resolution and that cannot ne changed afterwards. As resolutions increase the picture is getting smaller and smaller unless you let you monitor scale lower resolution to monitors higher native res which causes ugly distortion in the Image.
It's actually Jarpie.
Of course they are somewhat blocky but it doesn't really matter because nowdays with the widescreen mod they're not even that big. What ugly distortion? do you mean when old games which are in 4:3 resolution are scaled to the 16:9 or 16:10 monitor? Some monitors have the setting where it leaves black bars on the sides and centers the image but you're probably gonna say "But oh noes! Can't stand those black bars! teh horror!".
And btw. only Half-Life bought from Steam has the patch which lets you use higher resolutions, and you can't update game which is installed from the CDs.
Someone can probably correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't display drivers nowdays have scaling where it leaves black bars on the sides if some game is 4:3 and viewed with 16:9/10 monitor?
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Coming to resolutions, nowdays the most big monitors are about 24" and works with resolution 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, and as I have been using computers, televisions etc for all my life, any considerably bigger resolution would need quite a bit larger monitor. If we're to use resolution double that (3840x2400) you'd need monitor which is almost double the 24".
That's bs, there will be 4k (3840x2160) and likely 8k (7680x4320) monitors and television in 10-20 years time depending on adoption and how technology goes on, the standards have been largely finalized as "Ultra High Definition": http://en.wikipedia....tion_television and there are working cameras for such content already, in fact the BBC had an 8k test broadcast of the Olympic games earlier this year. The largest problem at that point is bandwidth and storage.
Some Apple displays are already using 2880x1800 in their "retina" displays at only 15" and there's very much more of that to expect in the next few years (along with adoption of OLED technology), this is a nice article: http://www.pcgamer.c...makes-me-angry/
This is certainly a point of contention with 2D/pre-rendered graphics.
As I am a film buff I am fairly early adopter of plasma televisions and bluray players, and as I've watched lot of films from the bluray, I'm convinced enough that any resolution larger than 1920x1080 would need at least 60" display to make big enough difference vs. 1080p.
The difference between resolutions when certain threshold has been passed gets smaller, one of the few things where huge resolutions comes into play are pictures taken by DSLR cameras.
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There could be at least on certain places where you could ask opinions from the companions, or in certain discussions you could ask them to handle the discussion.
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Oh my god. Is there seriously a debate going on about the question whether the game should be awesome or use a soon-to-be ugly 3d engine? I want to play this game in 10 or 20 years without my eyes beeing insulted by some outdated 3d engine. It's not about nostalgia, it's about ageing. Baldurs Gate 1 is still a beautiful painting. Any 3d game from 1998 is unplayable because of the use of a seemingly 'superior' 3d engine. You just can't beat a painting. Don't fool yourself we havn't reached the pinnacle of graphics yet. Any 3d game being released right now will look bizarre in 20 years. Also, the devs want to create a Infinity-esk game. If you don't want such a thing support an other game.
Half-Life was released '98 and it's still very much playable. Actually I think it's still pretty good looking in it's own way. I would even go so far to say it has aged better than BG or PS:T when it comes to graphics, because it still has endless resolution options and you can even add filters like AA or Anistropic, which in the time of release were unheard of, but still make game look much better today. With BG you are stuck with tiny 800x600 resolution unless you use mods. Can you tell us what resolutions are we using in 10 years and how we ensure PE will still support them?
You definitively can create timeless 3D art. 2D on the other hand might not be as timeless as you make it sound like. EDIT: But, I still want to say that whatever developers choose to do I'm sure I'll be fine with it. They know what they are doing.
HAHA OW WOW! The old 3D looks just so fugly. Well done 2D looks still good even if it was done in the late 90s, all the AA and AF etc wont help the fact that Half-Life models are so low-res that they still look blocky as hell.
Coming to resolutions, nowdays the most big monitors are about 24" and works with resolution 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, and as I have been using computers, televisions etc for all my life, any considerably bigger resolution would need quite a bit larger monitor. If we're to use resolution double that (3840x2400) you'd need monitor which is almost double the 24".
I have to agree on what you said that how we can know what kind of resolutions we have in ten years...unless I'm wrong they can write the code what picks the resolution from the graphics/display drivers and game can use any resolution they tell that display supports.
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For those who are saying "Why wear plate armour with the gun" I just can say this; guns like that were slow to reload and they had to be reloaded after every shot so she most probably will shoot once and then switch for the hammer and melee, or just save the gun for the special circumstances (like shooting at the wizards).
Guns were used with metal armors for a bit before they became powerful enough to get through the metal, and I'd guess it's the same in the world of Project Eternity.
Also, they can just make the triggerguard big enough so that glove can fit into it, and not a whole finger has to be plated with metal, just the top has to be so fingers can bend more.
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I don't understand why the "sim-loving crowd" are even interested in old-school RPGs in the first place, or why they just can't use cheats if they honestly wish to play for just the story.
They are like The Borg...they want to assimilate everything so that there's nothing more than the games they love to "play"..."Resistance is futile, we will add your complexity and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your games will adapt to service us."
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I think you misunderstood me. They would love if girlfriends and the like became fans of the type of game this is meant to be. They want classic style RPGs to become popular. They are in the business of making money and they are good at and seem to enjoy making classic style RPGs. Nobody who is in the business of making money wants to only serve a niche market. That doesn't mean they will change the type of game they make to pander to a wider market, but there is no way Obsidian doesn't want as many people as possible to enjoy the game they do make. The ideal outcome of this game isn't for it to sell to only hardcore RPG fans. The ideal outcome is for this game to appeal to RPG fans while also being a commercial success. Thus, creating new RPG fans and proving that this type of game is financially viable. But if this game is not a at least a moderate success commercially, then this will likely be a one time thing.
Finally someone who has some understanding of the way business and companies work.
Actually this only describes one model for how business works. Many creative firms do quite well servicing a niche market. In fact, many of these companies can be incredibly profitable. I have no idea how wide a market Obsidian wants to appeal to with this game. It could be very likely that if they can fund this game with Kickstarter and sell another 100,000 copies upon release, a reasonable profit could be made; enough to pay for the next installment and really nice fruitcakes come bonus time.
In fact, the case Ogrezilla makes may not be realistically possible. It could lead Obsidian down the notorious path of designing a game with, "something of everyone." This is usually the worst mistake that any creative company can make; not only because that game doesn't exist, but also because the pursuit of such a mythical creature will only disenfranchise their core audience. that is why you see so much opposition to certain ideas that make the plea for wider appeal.
Exactly this, and when you try to cater for both niche and mainstream audiences the end product is missmash of mutually exclusive ideas and leaves everyone disappointed. From what I've gathered what Obsidian devs have said, they are not looking to make game what would get Sim-loving "I want to skip hard parts/gameplay/etc" audiences but those who yearns for the proper crpgs.
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There should be an option to just create a poll without allowing any comments for these romance threads
You're right. I feel for all of the poor people who open the thread and see all of the comments against their will.
I'm really not seeing what I'm assuming are the bad ones. I know the culprits, and they are on /ignore. It makes reading the thread REALLY easy.
Everyone who disagrees with you?
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Why are romances special enough an idea that we argue about it being in the game before we even know if it fits?
I'm not trying to push for romances in this particular game.
(Although seeing as the devs have already confirmed that the PC's background and character will not be predefined, but can be defined by the players and their imagination, I don't see how it could not fit in the game if the player is so inclined.)
What I'm arguing against, is the close-minded prejudice against game romances as "yay we had sex" Steam-achievement, rather than as a well-thought-out optional part of NPC dialog-trees and action-consequence scripts that is fundamentally intertwined with character development and friendship and gives a game depth and makes it 'come to life' better.
As I said before: "Like Monte Carlo said, the problem with romances is that writing a single NPC Companion takes couple months, and if you do one romance (for example if you play male-character and have romanceable female companion), then people would demand romances for female -> male, male -> male, female -> female and that's basicly six months of writing and takes basicly four companions, and even if you dont romance the said characters their interactions/dialogue/etc will be limited because writing time and resources were spend on writing romances of what only a portion would play.
The budget for this game will be limited already so Obsidian has to look and think where they put it and get as much as possible out of it. IMHO it's better to concentrate on maybe on a bit fewer things than to spread too thin."
So in short; if say like they have certain amount of time and words per companion set, they would be wasting probably half if not more of those words for romance which less players would actually play, instead of having all the resourced words and time for non-romantic relationship.
We're not talking just about one companion but four out of seven.
All players could enjoy the friendship-like content but romance-content could be enjoyed only those who likes them and IMHO it would waste of already limited resources.
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immature, annoying, hostile, whining, energy draining brats
Well, duh, not everyone will like every NPC personality. In that case simply "role-play" what you would do in real life, and ignore that NPC or tell him/her to shut up.
I myself had little tolerance for the immature/whining NPCs in BG2, but quite enjoyed getting to know the (on the surface) "hostile" ones.
If none of the NPCs who have a friendship/romance scripted in a particular game grow on you (or on the presonality of the character you're playing), then so what. Thats the beauty of role-playing: Everyone will experience the story differently, based on their inclinations and choices.
But what makes you think that there could not be any NPC that you (or your PC) would actually like to get to know and spend conversation time with?
I wrote in another thread that I'd like a proper blokemanship with PC and one of the companions in style of "Hey, lets go grab a beer and reminesence of old times". I don't think any (or at least vast majority) of us who are against romances saying same about friendships or friendship-like relationships so don't put words to our mouths.
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Like Monte Carlo said, the problem with romances is that writing a single NPC Companion takes couple months, and if you do one romance (for example if you play male-character and have romanceable female companion), then people would demand romances for female -> male, male -> male, female -> female and that's basicly six months of writing and takes basicly four companions, and even if you dont romance the said characters their interactions/dialogue/etc will be limited because writing time and resources were spend on writing romances of what only a portion would play.
The budget for this game will be limited already so Obsidian has to look and think where they put it and get as much as possible out of it. IMHO it's better to concentrate on maybe on a bit fewer things than to spread too thin.
Level scaling confirmed
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
It all depends how they do it imo, level scaling like Oblivion is stupid beyond the belief but well done level scaling can work at least well enough. Level scaling in the style of "If player is lvl 10 then he will have X amount of monsters Y but if he's level 20 then there's gonna be X amount of monsters Y and X amount of monsters Z is much better.