mstark

Might make you happy to know that I wouldn't go near Apple software for the life of me, or pay exorbitant prices for mediocre hardware. That said, do you recognize the issue with scaling assets to be readable at native resolutions on both high/low DPI monitors? That entire thread is a mess because of the issue being fairly hard to grasp, and my (uneditable) opening post making a mess of explaining it. Apple just happened to pioneer delivering these kinds of products to a mainstream market, so, for most people, their design solutions & marketing terms are easiest to relate to in order to understand the underlying issue. That said, I'd love to see this game be 4-5x the install size of the average game, just like BG was back in the day, if that's what it takes to deliver the quality. I remember BG taking up half my HDD, dad wasn't happy.

We do seem to be talking about a similar thing now - but rather than specifying DPI (which most people won't know - how many monitors mention DPI in place of resolution?) I'd suggest listing scaling options (with sample graphics, like a statue, drawn to different scales to show the difference). Defaulting to native resolution will make sense most of the time but there should be an override to allow users to specify a preferred resolution instead (to cover situations like non-EDID displays where native resolution figures can't be determined or emulators/terminal servers where a "virtual" monitor may be in use). Many high DPI screens nowadays do mention their DPI (often as PPI), along with resolution (or, in the case of Amazon's kindles, just PPI). (Not saying they shouldn't also mention the resolution). These scaling options you mention, if we are talking about the same thing, directly relate to scaling the assets to be appropriately sized for a monitors DPI, hence calling it DPI scaling (the term exists, I didn't invent it, there just isn't much awareness of it yet). The in-game option could be named anything, with a user friendly explanation to go with it, but what I think you are talking about is scaling assets to be made readable/usable for that particular screens DPI. DPI scaling, or "to make the game look as good as possible, use this option to scale the game assets to look good on your screens native resolution". The term DPI scaling, which I agree may sound stupid, only had to be invented because we're so used to ~120 DPI. Today, everything (font sizes, user interfaces, images) is optimized to be readable at this DPI. Now that we're seeing screens twice this DPI, assets need to be "scaled" to twice the size to look similar, and remain readable, on these screens. In the future we might see 4x DPI scaling, or if they invent a better name for it, I'm just as happy with that. The term only exists because we're stuck with a DPI "norm" that should never have been there to begin with. We'll likely see more DPI agnostic design approaches in the near future (hello Windows , that will work on any screen, not just the one with a "normal" DPI. Instead of changing resolutions, we'll be changing "scale" of screens, never moving away from native resolution. The shift certainly will be confusing for consumers, Apple (as much as it pains me to say it) gallantly sidestepped this by calling their screens "Retina", popularizing high DPI while avoiding the potentially confusing discussion about DPI, and turning it into a massive marketing term. They took the (long needed) step and removed the ability to change the resolution to anything but native while in the desktop environment, since the only thing that really should matter is scaling the screens fonts & assets to be readable to you, while remaining at native resolution. If you're not playing a 3D game, changing your resolution away from native is nothing but a cheap way of "zooming", since it saves the company from having to prepare optimized high & low DPI assets. Yeah, I suppose for some situations they'd have to keep a resolution option. We'll also always need resolution options for as long as cards and cables have upper resolution limits, and for 3D games' FPS performance.

That's the thing, why do you have to start with the same equipment? What with the souls and all, there could be an element of minor "story" and/or lore which is only unlockable or revealed on the second playthrough (cryptic questions that you couldn't answer on your first playthrough). The equipment you crafted and named yourself now drops in your second playthrough (late-game). I would like to see a New Game+ which is a fresh New Game from the very beginning (with level 1) where you don't have all the gear and loot from your previous game, but perhaps you get a slightly quicker start (as an option) to start at level 2 or perhaps even level 3 (outrageous!). Perhaps there could be a secret dungeon that didn't exist, but in this parallel universe (2nd Playthrough/New Game+) it exists. I wouldn't mind such an option for NG+, but then, why not simply spend that time and effort on making the base game that much better? A NG+ option as you described it could, potentially, make for a great addition in an expansion pack, or major content patch. It'd be a fairly cheap way of somewhat refreshing the experience of playing through the original game, and it'd give you a reason to play the game from the start before getting to the expansion content (assuming expansion content is available at the end of the game). I still can't help thinking that their limited time would be better spent working on quests & dungeons available in the base game, making that reason enough to start again from the beginning to explore new avenues. Because it gives you an additional reason to play the main game over again with different choices, and you can have harder enemies at earlier plot times for those unlocked side quests in a NG+ which may not be realistically possible on a first run through without tons of grinding (which I dislike). NG+ could be used to, say, import your non-combat abilities to allow you to better explore earlier areas as well (in the Kickstarter update they said for example you could learn the true name of an enemy or something) or find other secrets that aren't unlockable in the first run through. Replayability is something I look for in RPGs. Look at it this way: Let's pretend the game is going to have 10 quests. That's all the team has time to create. It could be 100, or 200, but let's pretend it's 10. The different options for NG+ would then be: 1. If you add a NG+ option, for "replayability", you'd have 8 quests in the normal game, and another 2 would be unlocked in NG+. 10 quests, same length, only it's forcing you to play the entire game again to experience these two quests. 2. Or, as limith suggests, we'd end up with only 8 quests, because they'd have to spend the time it'd take to create the last two quests simply re-balancing the game for a NG+ mode. You could argue that this would give us 16 quests, because the experience in NG+ would be slightly different from your first play through. I would rather take 10 high quality, polished quests, over 8+2 unlockable, or 8x2 "re-playable" quests. If you follow me. If I wanted a different, harder, experience in these 10 quality quests, the game already provides several difficulty levels, in addition to game modes (Expert, Trial of Iron, and Path of the Damned). I have a hard time seeing the need for, or justifying adding NG+, since it doesn't add much replayability value compared to these options, without a great time investment. I do love the ideas for a potential NG+ adding replay value, but unless it's done the way it's done in, say, Torchlight (which simply ups monster HP, damage, and drops), it'll require too much time. Remember drops in PE will be mostly hand placed.

That's the thing, why do you have to start with the same equipment? What with the souls and all, there could be an element of minor "story" and/or lore which is only unlockable or revealed on the second playthrough (cryptic questions that you couldn't answer on your first playthrough). The equipment you crafted and named yourself now drops in your second playthrough (late-game). I would like to see a New Game+ which is a fresh New Game from the very beginning (with level 1) where you don't have all the gear and loot from your previous game, but perhaps you get a slightly quicker start (as an option) to start at level 2 or perhaps even level 3 (outrageous!). Perhaps there could be a secret dungeon that didn't exist, but in this parallel universe (2nd Playthrough/New Game+) it exists. I wouldn't mind such an option for NG+, but then, why not simply spend that time and effort on making the base game that much better? A NG+ option as you described it could, potentially, make for a great addition in an expansion pack, or major content patch. It'd be a fairly cheap way of somewhat refreshing the experience of playing through the original game, and it'd give you a reason to play the game from the start before getting to the expansion content (assuming expansion content is available at the end of the game). I still can't help thinking that their limited time would be better spent working on quests & dungeons available in the base game, making that reason enough to start again from the beginning to explore new avenues.

Oops, I was a bit unclear there. I meant solid state as compared to disc media like DVDs and BluRay. The price difference is much smaller there, at ~£6 for a 25GB BD-RE vs a 32GB memory stick for ~£10. Difference in production/delivery costs would be even smaller. The problem, again, is that the market isn't ready for it. Much of what I say here you might already know/realize (TL;DR: it's explaining why the term "resolution" is dying, and DPI scaling is living. Changing resolution allows a screen to be experienced sub-optimally; a cheap way of "zooming", if you will. DPI scaling has the same effect, but doesn't lose screen real estate/quality by lowering the amount of rendered pixels), It'd differ, because you could choose for that statue to appear any size you'd like, while being rendered at your screens native resolution (with an upper limit, of course). Apple has decided to completely remove the familiar resolution switch, because it's actually kind of idiotic to allow a user to switch from the native resolution of a screen, since it will give that user an inferior experience. So what do you do instead of allowing a user to choose a non-native resolution, to hinder the from UI apearing tiny? Apple handles this by providing a few (2?) different sets of graphical assets that the user can toggle between (which automatically adjusts font-sizes, too), that way, a user can choose the option that fits them (usually depending on eyesight), without losing screen real estate & quality by using a lower, non-native resolution. This is also the solution the web is using for presenting imagery on high DPI screens. If I correctly understand what you mean here, this is exactly what I'm suggesting they should do. Get rid of the possibility to play the game at non-native resolutions, and offer DPI toggles to allow a user to choose zoom/UI size with a DPI toggle. (Resolution toggling is a must for 3D games that are limited in polygon count by your graphics card, but for a top-down 2D game it's sub-optimal). As Apple understood when removing resolution options from its Retina MBP, it's just pure bad business to allow a customer to experience it at anything else than in its full capability. It's to protect users from themselves, the average user wouldn't realize that using a screen at a non-native resolution is what makes it look ****, DPI scaling is going to become a thing, unfamiliar as it is, even if it means more work for software devs and graphical artists. (Today, apps that want to make it in the Apple app store are pretty much required to provide two sets of assets, one normal and one high DPI, or it'll look bad). As I'm sure you understand, just offering different resolution options would not solve the issue with the statue becoming tiny on high resolution monitors, you'd have to choose to play the game at a non-native resolution. Something I just wouldn't do with a 2D game. If there's no scaling, a single set of assets is going to appear large on low-res monitors, normal on our monitors, and tiny on newer monitors. I believe it indeed comes down to what you're saying in your final paragraph. I would, however, like to keep manual control over how "zoomed in" I want my game to appear. If the engine can't handle down sampling of high res artwork in real-time (ideal), that'd mean they'd have to provide us with a way of toggling between 2-3 different pre-rendered sets, which is what Apple are doing on their retina screens, and what I am doing, day to day, making websites that need to have their logos/imagery appear sharp on every kind of screen, without appearing too small or too large. People/businesses pay a lot for this, it's becoming a big thing. I hate mentioning Apple so much, really not a fan, but they are very much helping pushing for a paradigm shift in display technology that's long overdue. Their user friendly solutions (eg. DPI scaling) are making the potential problems that high DPI screens bring seem trivial, and like something we should have been doing from the start. We're now so stuck with games and programs so highly optimized to 100-120DPI that it's hard to move away from it.

Loving that they're going with the BG style VO. Not just because I loved that game, but now that I'm replaying it, using voice just to initiate a conversation is just perfect. After that you can concentrate on reading dialogue options. I really do like the fully VO'd Irenicus cut scenes, though. Immersion where immersion's due.

"Get that crate out of my way" - BG2 Slums

I read the title of this thread and went "dafuq?", then I read the opening post and I agree wholeheartedly .

S'pose we'll have to get used to it. This is what our lives are going to look like for another year and a half. I hope they'll take pity on us and give us decently frequent updates . I should say that since the time leading up to the release of NWN, my life's been that of waiting. I waited for that game, and hated it. Then I waited for Oblivion, and hated it. Then I waited for D3, and hated it. All this waiting, because I loved IE games, Morrowind, and D2. Now, I'm waiting for PE. 10 years, and I haven't learned. I know it'll be worth it this time. I just know.

Can't see this not happening, still, would be awesome. Should add that I'd personally like to see the return of a well drawn, artful UI a la BG/IWD, rather than something modular along the lines of *insert any modern RPG here*. I suppose modular, easily scalable UI's has their benefits, and I suppose it can be executed well, but even having played a number of newer RPGs, going back to BG/IWD I find their UI highly functional, yet immersive. I want to play a painting, and I don't want a "high tech" UI to ruin this

I loved that skinner quest in BGII! I also love "indirect" quests, such as the one you get from entering and thoroughly exploring the sewers under the slums district, and finding the pipes with strange inscriptions on them . Exploration was always rewarded in such a way in BGII. You'd stumble across all kinds of interesting bits and bobs, areas always had a purpose, without it ever feeling too strained. I also like when what you say in a conversation actually is meaningful, you talk to people, find out who they are, and (depending on the choices you make in the dialogue) get an option to help or ruin their day. Thinking of the slaver mission of the slums. The only sad thing here is that, while I loved the quests, the "reputation" they gave rarely made any difference to anyone but the quest giver, and certain protesting party members.

Well, I've read both 7 and 14 days, it was 7 days for Wasteland 2, but I thought Obsidian quoted 14 for PE. Hmm, don't take my word for it, because now I got unsure.

I always get it close to going to bed, so that should be in about 10-12 hours from now :D I meant the Backer E-Mail where we clarify what we want/get. For example for the VIP Badges. A-ha! Probably once the 2 week kickstarter "grace period" ends, seeing as they won't know exactly who actually pledged/didn't pledge until then.

Artists renditions, and a massive selection, would be wonderful . I'd also love if they did something along the lines of each character "portrait" being a set of images, a full body image, a zoomed portrait image... to be used in different parts of the UI.

I'm ambivalent. I also think this should be clarified: Increasing Difficulty Level = starting the game from scratch at a higher difficulty. New Game+ = starting the game with the equipment and level from your last play-through at a higher difficulty. Adding NG+ is essentially a way of re-starting of the game, for people who don't want to abandon all their precious loot & experience. The problem this opens up for a game like PE, which has barely any item randomization, is that you will simply find the same equipment over again in a NG+ environment... unless they'd artificially improve each item by, say, +1 when playing NG+. Which would just suck and be quite non-immersive.

I always get it close to going to bed, so that should be in about 10-12 hours from now :D

The issue here isn't that it will take 10 years. It's already happened, and by 2014 screens entering the market will commonly be 2x the DPI of today's screens. Today you have the Retina 15" MBP, the 13" counterpart just about to be revealed next month. By 2014, Apple won't be likely to sell a single screen with less than 220 DPI. Desktop screens today are normally around 100-120DPI, which is what all games and applications are scaled to look good at. Sony's got a few 170+DPI laptops on the market, as do ASUS, and there are a number of WQHD and 1080p 11-13" screens (180-220dpi) being released next week, together with Windows 8 (an OS that is made to be much more resolution independent, with better DPI scaling (like OSX), than previous iterations). So while there's currently a minority of people with 4x that which would count as a "normal" high resolution (or 2x today's "normal" DPI), the shift will be very real by 2014. While it'll be even more extreme in 10 years, they will need to consider rendering their assets at least 4x higher in order to keep the game playable on native resolutions of monitors being released today. (for the sake of this post, DPI = PPI. Dots = Pixels.)

Calling it a conspiracy is indeed a bit extreme, but as long as it usually takes to agree on new standards, and manufacturing parts to handle these standards, I can't help but believing that there's been some form of stalling going on (as there always is... heck, we're still stuck with disc-format media when solid state is both cheaper and with higher capacity!). It's true that the market's barely ready for high DPI screens as it is: software will have to catch up, more programs will need DPI scaling options - imagine using, say, Office on a 400dpi screen. With DPI scaling I'm not suggesting making it auto detectable (eg. a statue always appears 5cm on every screen and there's nothing to do about it), but user selectable. A user can select any DPI scaling they want, out of the available options (or unlimited options, if the engine can scale down the original high-res artwork in real-time without lag). Making UI appear larger or smaller, and backgrounds closer or farther, at your will, while keeping the game at native resolution.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/20/cea-officially-brands-4k-as-ultra-hd-gets-ready-for-a-flood-of/ The flood is coming

My point is that the DnD spellbook, being abstracted from inventory management, essentially means it's an item 'bound' to the character. You never see the 'item', you can't move it around. The character can't get rid of it, swap it for another one, or give it to another character. A scroll learned and then unlearned is lost. You actually have to sacrifice something in order to learn new spells, and make meaningful choices for how you wish to develop your character. Because the abilities are tied to the character, not a removable item. If the spellbook was a manageable item carried around by your character in their actual inventory, as the grimoires seem to be, it means it can be swapped between characters at your whim, removed, or replaced. Tying your characters core abilities to an item devalues the meaning of the character. If there's a significant drawback to exchanging your grimoire for another one, this issue might be moot. The system might have a solution to all these concerns, but I think it's a good to bring them up for discussion.

Why? Is it any different from the Mage Spellbook and Priest Spellbook in all of the IE games? I thought the points in my post explained this. And if the grimoire wasn't any different from the spellbook in the IE games, there's certainly no reason to make it an inventory item . That does solve part of the problem! I'd love if they could make it work, but very few games tie core character abilities to items, and for very good reasons! It devalues the character itself, and its development, while you focus on building the item required to make the character usable. Most games use items to amplify character skills (weapons increase damage...) but they don't make the character what they are. Just throwing it out there, I do have all faith in the OEI team will solve it gallantly

By a "vacuum" implementation, I mean the idea that the system will on its face appear in the game without any regard to any other potential mechanism. For example--ignoring different enemy types and frequency/density, ignoring the setting/level design for a quest, ignoring the objective design itself, etc. A prime example of "vacuum" thinking was with the cooldown announcement some weeks ago: The people dead-set against it assumed it would only be applied as a spell-level cooldown applied in seconds, without taking into account other potential variables such as application by spell levels, or very long cooldowns, or that cooldowns could work perfectly alongside limited spell number per tier or mana or something else. I made such a suggestion early on, but well, people got overheated quickly in the exact same way I see it here. And it turned out that I was right (in general, not my specific idea); Sawyer had other mechanisms in mind that would temper the main implementation of cooldowns as a solution to specific issues he saw in the old D&D Vancian CRPG application--cooldown by spell tier and grimoires, and rest for other things. I don't remember the details, but the point is that vacuum thinking merely generates useless hysteria instead of an academic discussion for other linking mechanics. Thanks for extrapolating . I think what's worrying a lot of people, including me, is that the way it was put, it sounded quite like killing anything will never reward experience, ever. Maybe that is what they meant, but for the problem Sawyer was arguing this would solve, it's seems a bit overkill. Especially since every IE game has always rewarded you with experience for combat, in some way, even if levels usually did come from quest solving. It also seems to indicate that if we want to find epic monsters (your Firkraag example), we first have to find the quest attached to them, if we want any other reward than the items they might give upon death... or being required to find the quest attached to said monster before you can even find/encounter it. I suppose these worries are kind of silly, the game will be made to work awesomely around whichever system they implement. I'm just so deep into my nostalgia of the IE games that I don't want to see PE deviating too much from their system, even if it's for my benefit

Brilliant.

No one else thinks that tying a class' available skills (in this case: a wizards spells) to an item is a terrible idea? It makes the wizards abilities hot-swappable, it'd make micro-managing different spell "sets" for different encounters the most effective way to play, which I don't think anyone would desire. I feel that the spells you select for your character should be more meaningful, and not changeable on your whim. Unless I missed something that would prevent this from happening? Maybe it will be really hard to build a good grimoire for your wizard, but the issue of micro-managing still remains. Inventory management would be another problem, unless grimoires are managed aside from your regular items. However you look at it, I believe the solution would be abstracting the learned spells away from an item, and placing them in a more traditional spellbook, as per the DnD formula? Please correct me if I'm wrong, for now, all I can see is this system bringing more trouble than good, even though it sounds awesome in theory

headphones and sound turned way up, it's almost possible to follow :D wish they'd get rid of the echo effect, makes it way harder to hear.