mstark

^I believe they've already confirmed we will have virtually unlimited carrying capacity while adventuring, with "top of pack" and "stowed away" options for items. Basically, items in "top of pack" will take up space & potentially encumber you (not confirmed), but will be accessible to you at all times. Stowed away items won't take up weight or space, but will only be accessible while at a campsite, or similar "resting" area. That way we can pick up all the loot we could ever dream of, but what resources are actually available to us at any given time still requires strategic management. Anyway, I agree, don't let movement hinder us too badly, whatever the cause!

It might be fairly unplayable on that screen (and others like it, it's the same DPI density as a Retina Mac). But, judging from the imagery released so far, it's possible it will remain playable, seeing as the target high resolution renders looks quite heavily zoomed in when played on a regular monitor. Playing PE on a high DPI screen might end up looking something like what playing Baldur's Gate looks like on a 1080p 24" screen, you see a lot of the map but it's still highly playable (and I prefer playing that way anyway, it gives a good overview of the action!). Anyway, it is VERY likely that high resolution screens on laptops will become the defacto standard soon enough, even for casual buyers. Why? Because it's where the market is going, laptops are taking the same direction as smartphones. It's a relatively cheap upgrade, and much more attractive to casual buyers than a better CPU or GPU. I was hoping for an even higher target resolution to be included with the game, or at least as an optional download (as I'll be getting a 4k monitor once they drop down to sub $1000, presumably next year). When I asked, Josh replied with incredulity at the sheer madness of the idea of rendering all the areas out at those sizes :D. So much for true high DPI support, but I'm happy we're getting two sets & zoom capability built in . They confirmed a UI that will have scaling options, meaning that, at least, text will remain readable on high dpi screens. Hopefully.

Concerning the speed reduction from wearing armour, does this affect actual movement speed or simply the speed of actions (eg. attacks or spells)? If it affects movement, would it be possible to make this penalty only appear during combat, so that I don't constantly have to wait for my heavily armoured fighters to catch up with my nimble rouges? Got a rush of excitement reading this. All the hints of a new and unexplored world, and not too far from now I will visit it!

Fully supporting this idea It was discussed on various threads on lighting in the past, too!

If you're looking for an RPG that's truly out there, you're viewing the wrong project. They're delivering what they promised and what we backed them for. The setting is decided, and will dictate the theme of the overall game. If you want a PS:T kind of out there world, go have a look at Torment: Tides of Numenera.

I just imagined a stumbling mechanic, basically a random chance check while moving through difficult terrain (like wading through the river). If the roll fails, a stumbling animation could be played, moving the player a step in a random direction, and any action interrupted! Rangers would, of course, have immunity to difficult terrain checks The "stumbling animation" could count as movement, and potentially trigger a subsequent terrain check (potentially triggering a secondary stumble), making it harder for characters with very low dexterity to pass through difficult terrain (because of repeated random direction stumbling). I imagine this could be used to great effect when creating dynamic and interesting combat areas "You have entered a swamp, who knows what beasts lurk in the fetid pools surrounding you. You decide to tread carefully, as walking too quickly could end in disaster..."

I don't like this either. There is absolutely no dynamic shadowing. None. Zero. Zilch. The shadows from trees, bushes, etc. never move. I'd guess that's one of those things they still need to work on, assuming they're going to have them. It does seem a little odd once you look for it, but eh...doesn't bother me much at this point. I wonder if it would actually be possible! It didn't bother me that much, though. Maybe they could use the same light mapping system as they did with the little glowing spirit, but on a (much) larger scale. Say, they render out a light map for a HUGE glowing object passing by, far away, in a semi-circle, then time that lighting map to match the day/night colour filter cycle. That actually sounds like it could be potentially awesome. Maybe it'd be possible to have 2 overlaid light maps, one slowly repeating for day/night cycles, and one for other objects (torches, spirits, glowing weapons) passing over the area. Not that I imagine I understand exactly how the technology works, so maybe it's not possible at all. Dev input?

Note that the animated environments from Torment were created at the same time as the Eternity one, using the same engine, with the same people working together. InXile are cooperating with Obsidian, they didn't have to do any of the pre-production, they're simply leveraging the work that Obsidian has already done. Because of this, both games are going to have pretty much exactly the same graphical quality (it's down to the artists of either team when creating the areas, since they are using the same tools). And that is awesome.

I came, I saw, I drooled. Any chance to get a 1080p video?

What that bit of news, hopefully, means is that Torment will have 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. They've not confirmed it, but have been hinting heavily that it's the direction they're taking. My only worry with Torment was that they'd use fully 3D environments (like Wasteland 2, which doesn't much appeal to me), if they confirm 2.5D IE/PE style graphics I'm ready to quadruple my backing level.

Hack n Slash, but do have a look at Path of Exile . IMO, what Diablo 3 should have been. It's just got *that* feeling so many new games are missing.

This. But at least we have these updates!

I think the only thing they've said on this so far is that it'll be similar to switching between chapters in some of the IE games, where you get a narrated sequence, accompanied by static art (which I love, btw). Animation simply is too expensive/time consuming to fit within a crowd sourced budget (and there also seems to be little demand for it in the fanbase).

Looks like a nice choice (though anti-aliasing botches up the type by a lot once it goes below 14pt?). Potentially a good compromise between keeping glyphs legible and maintaining a handwritten, story-telling feel. Maybe you'll be running tests (across screen varieties, with different people) to find the best possible solution? (different operating systems, and different screens, do anti-aliasing and subpixel rendering differently). Currently playing PS:T on a 27" screen (2560*1440), and it's only really playable when using font patches!

Oooh, does it switch between the two resolutions seamlessly when you reach certain breakpoints in zoom level, or do you zoom within the target resolution you currently have selected? Is the zoom intended to "stay put" between sessions, so that you can keep it at a comfortable level? Does this completely remove the necessity of toggling between resolutions, since that essentially is just a way of selecting a persistent level of zoom? Details! Details! :D

Project Eternity will be created with 2 target resolutions in mind that you can switch between on the fly, depending on what fits your computer screen best. One will be targeted to screen resolutions around 1280*800 (generally 10-15" screens), and one targeted at 2560*1440 (fit for 27-30" screens, or very high resolution smaller screens, think the retina MacBook). With those two rendering resolutions you can be sure that PE will remain crisp and gorgeous looking on most screens for many years! There was an update on this a while back: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63020-project-eternity-update-36-off-to-our-elfhomes-but-first/ A post further clarifying the target resolutions: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63020-project-eternity-update-36-off-to-our-elfhomes-but-first/?p=1293137

Looking great! Love the idea of the "what do you choose to do" images. I'm a bit concerned about the choice of typeface, many of the old IE games used typefaces with bad readability (most notably, Planescape: Torment, and it's considered an interactive book by many!). While Black Letter typefaces (or Gothic, a derogatory term, as they started being called in late medieval Italy—the period PE is largely based on) was still the common way of writing, it was rapidly being abandoned for a new type of script. During this period, many far more readable typefaces started making it into popular use. I'm concerned because my eye sight is far from perfect, and extended reading on screen requires good typefaces (and relatively large sizes) for me. In printed books (and long form reading in general), serif fonts are generally used because they are considered more readable than sans-serif. However, serif fonts require high resolution (or high DPI, in print) to read better than a sans-serif, for that reason sans-serif fonts are usually the better choice for on screen reading (unless you happen to be on an above-average DPI (think "retina") screen). Personally, I wouldn't like to see a sans serif font in Project Eternity (that would be too immersion breaking!), but maybe you could consider at least providing an alternative to Black Letter? Maybe give us the option to toggle the font to a highly readable serif, for visually impaired, dyslexic, or people who generally find it a chore to read for extended periods on screen? Many (Italian!) serif typefaces widely in use today were conceived in the 15th-16th century. I realize the printing press hasn't been invented in P:E, so if a Black Letter font is the only non-immersion breaking choice, I hope there'll at least be an easy way of hacking a typeface with good readability into the game (and maybe a way of toggling font-size?). Some relevant (and good!) sources: http://www.garamond.culture.fr/en/page/italian_typefaces http://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-1/type-families/oldstyle Thanks for all the hard work! With best intentions, A web typographer

Hoping for a YouTube "Let's Play"-style video, where he's commenting on the gameplay, story, enemies, loot... and anything else that comes to his mind during playing

It's already confirmed that they'll be making a documentary, the OP is concerned about during what stage of the development process filming will actually start .

I'm a regular at head-fi, but hadn't seen that last thread Cheers!

All we know is that they've said the aesthetic approach will be inspired by the "solid" appearance of BG/IWD/PS:T UI. It'll be graphically "heavy", to make it feel like it's tangible, as opposed to NWN futuristic transparent floating windows style. There's quite a bit about inventory in one of the recent updates! I think it was the one right before xmas.

Pretty much said this in the previous economy thread, but here goes: Since the (main) game that Project Eternity is based on, Baldur's Gate (2), had a pretty good way of handling an RPG economy, as compared to many newer titles brought up here, I believe discussing the flaws of that system makes more sense than bringing up what other games did wrong? It might be presumptuous to assume PE will mirror BG2 with regards to how it handled loot and economy (though a number of crossovers between the two have already been confirmed), but IMO it makes even less sense to talk about other games (like NWN, a game PE will supposedly not take after). Nothing wrong with discussing what other games did right/wrong, the discussion just feels a bit redundant at times. In short, BG2: First of all, there are no randomly generated loot chests (PE will take after this). This makes the amount of gold available to the player easier to control by the designers. Basic loot was generally worthless in mid-to-late game, but it would give you a reasonable amount of money in the beginning when you were just as ordinary as anyone else. Rare loot (from unique monsters, and non-random chests) would sell for more, and after a few adventures, you could even afford to buy something rare from the shop. After having finished pretty much every side-quest there is, you'd have enough money to buy most of the very expensive items. And to top it off, even though money gave you a safety net to buy some gear that you might be lacking, and provide you with basic supplies, most of the things you'd end up using you found yourself, throughout your adventures (more fun than shopping). The economic system, if you examine it, is very basic, but it was unobtrusive, and apart from some Throne of Bhaal insanity, it supported the game very well. If there are going to be merchant factions, that could make for some really cool quests involving trading and delivering valuable goods, in a scripted event that would feel like a more realistic economic environment (because you'd be taking part in real trade), but there's no need to over-complicate the basic economy system to make it feel "real". I believe designing an RPG is more about making unobtrusive, abstracted, and enjoyable systems that don't get in the way of the player experience. Somehow, though BG2's system is far from perfect under scrutiny, it managed to keep the game highly enjoyable. You wanted to get out there, find more things, sell it, and amass more gold.

^While I agree with you about the no-MMO style bit, IE games did indeed have hotkeys in the same sense MMOs today have, in a line, along the bottom of the screen, with little colourful icons. F1-F7 accessed all your basic options (attack, sneak, lockpick, spells...). Once in the spells menu (F7), the first 12 spells correspond to F1-F12.

I, too, would like to express some concern about not making classes overlap too much. I like having fairly extreme differences between classes, it gives each member of your party a clear purpose. In a game where you can have 6 party members, building a good party composition with unique and clearly defined roles is part of the fun. I don't mind needing a thief in order to be able to open locked chests, it makes quite a lot of sense. I also don't mind needing a (theoretical) dedicated healer class, should my party composition benefit from having one (in fact, I would much prefer having all my healing magic concentrated in one character, instead of each character having their own way of healing... convenience . Healers get a bad reputation in MMO's & possibly P&P D&D, but that's because when you play a healer, that's all you do. In PE, you control the entire party). I know you've said that it's possible to build such old-school D&D classes in your upcoming system, but I guess the real question is, will people do that if the optimal way to play won't require it? Maybe making harder difficulties rely more on very highly specialized classes would be an idea to mitigate such an effect, eg. you'd need a highly skilled thief in order to unlock chests when above normal difficulty, a fighter with some proficiency just wouldn't do. I'm sure all these possibilities will be possible in the system you come up with, but I'm afraid that if the classes are too lenient with how you can specialize, it might make any party composition play pretty much the same as any other. I quite like the idea of having basic stealth and lockpicking on a wizard, cipher, chanter, or fighter, but I just wanted to voice this. Best intentions in mind, and sorry for going somewhat off topic. I hope your internal discussions steer you in a direction of adapting a commandos-esque system (simply because it felt quite realistic, even without the advanced AI of later Thief/Hitman games), and if not, I'm excited about what you guys will come up with instead .

Nice video... oh the memories :D. Notice all the "degenerate" reloading and quick saving? I loved when games let you do that, and I hope PE won't differ from IE in that regard. It allowed you to experiment with difficult situations, you could play it safe, or test out solution after solution. A required feature in a game that can be VERY penalizing once you make a mistake. It's annoying to watch, but it's a great feature.