mstark

One of the 10k pledgers is allegedly Notch, and he wouldn't back out

It probably will require multi-core processors, since more and more low-frequency, high-core-count computers are entering the market by the day (looking mostly at laptops/ultrabooks). The benefit of using two low frequency cores is far higher than using a single high frequency one (lower temperature, more simultaneous processes). If the engine can support it, and their intention is to support current-gen low-end systems, I'm certain it will support multiple cores . The game will rely a lot more on CPU than GPU, seeing as things like advanced AI & path finding is all handled by the CPU.

I certan I certainly hope both the first and the second city will be larger than Athkatla . Those cities are great, and 10 years later still measure up to some of the largest cities we see in RPGs today... but since we can ask for moar, why not? MOAR CITY PLS. With new technology I'm certain they can make the cities feel even more alive than the ones from Infinity Engine, things like day/night cycles affecting NPC behaviour (people going to sleep, people going to work, people going fishing, people having a meal at a restaurant, people going for a drink...) are very well possible. For example, inns could be almost empty during the day, apart from the occasional drunk, and fill up during the evening.

At the moment, those are indeed the only two devices (not counting Sony Vaio SA/Vaio Z) with higher-than-ordinary DPI. However, at the end of this month, Windows 8 will start paving the way for high DPI monitors to reach a more mainstream audience. In 2014, I'd estimate fully half of all screens entering the market will be 160-220dpi, significantly higher than todays 120. This shift will start being very noticeable within just a year or two, whereas it took over 10 years for DPI to shift from 96 towards ~120. I don't think the PE team will be able to ignore this during the production of the game, my post just serves as an opportunity for the community to understand the issue, and voice their opinion on it . My opinion is that if it barely affects production time, counted in man-hours, (it shouldn't, if properly considered from the start), it's very much worth considering because the game will look so much better for it . Not to mention that, as the first high-DPI supporting game, they'd attract a whole new demographic of gamers. They'd get a lot of media attention just from this fact. On your point about old school gamers: A lot of those gamers were in their teens when these games were first released, and are now grown up professionals. I was 12-13 when I first played the IE games, now I'm 25, with a job. With this I'd like to say that we're just entering a stage of life where we can afford investing in our own computers, no longer relying on our parents, and as old school PC gamers, this demographic is likely to buy higher end systems. Much more likely than the Console gamer generation of today, who are all stuck with 6 years old tech. From next year, the shift towards mainstream computers starting to have high DPI monitors will be drastic, so won't just be for people who can afford to drop $1000+ on a system any more.

I can't believe I used that term either, lol. I'm sure there'll be people in the game who will be happy to sell you information, if your charisma isn't high enough to get it from them for free

There's no limit for the amount of levels Every 2,500 backers (kickstarter+paypal) = 1 extra level Every 20,000 likes on Facebook = 1 extra level I think it's likely that we'll see 1 or 2 more levels added before the kickstarter ends, with the surge of backers we're likely to see on the final day. Making the total 10 or 11 levels deep . Impressive.

Not likely. They stated in the adventurer's hall video/interview (not sure where) that people who like levelling up can use new companions for this, suggesting that new companions start out at level 1, or significantly lower than the PC's level at any given point. It sounded a bit like pokemon, you basically pick them up and drop them off as you want, levelling them up one by one. I don't mind this system, but then, I will most likely only play with the designed companions, never a party created entirely on my own. If you can always recruit companions at your current level, it would highly reduce the replay value of the game, and you could at any point go pick up the character you need for any particular encounter, and they would magically be at your level. Do not like. NWN was never like the IE games, PE will not be like NWN, for which I am very happy

Hopefully, "Adventurer's Hall" is just the name of a tavern/inn that is famous for attracting people of the adventurous persuasion . That way, such a tavern would also attract people who offer advanced services that adventurers might well be interested in, like crafting. If it was just a great hall where people stand around waiting to get hired, that'd indeed feel very artificial. A purpose designed inn/tavern, just happening to be named "Adventurer's Hall", would be more realistic . On topic: I'm happy for it to be a money sink. I'm sure they would scale it so that the cost is never too great. Say, during a normal play through, maybe you would find companion #1 after 1 hour, companion #2 after 2 hours, companion #3 after 3 hours, etc. The cost of "hiring" an adventurer (read: creating a custom companion) in the adventurer's hall would probably be weighted against this, so after 1 hour of playing you can easily afford to hire one adventurer. After having played for 2 hours you can easily afford to hire a second adventurer, and so on. Money sinks are never designed to outright ruin you, or be prohibitively expensive, they're generally designed to scale well with your estimated wealth at any point in the game. Maybe you'd be able to pay extra to hire an adventurer closer to your current level, rather than having to level them up from scratch (although I personally would HATE to see this, unless it's ridiculously expensive. It's hand holding).

And where can I see how much money there is and how many people put there money =) Click the obsidian link on my signature for twitter, they post it there. Now the only worry facebook =) They're not gonna hit 40k likes before the end of the kickstarter, so we're not gonna see another level from there Unless they keep that option open for the rest of the year.

There's no question about it any more, we are going to hit way above $3.5kk The final 24 hours they'll get on the front page of all the mainstream gaming blogs & other media, as they did the first day of the kickstarter. That gave them $700k. Since they are very close to being the 2nd highest funded project ever on kickstarter, media will pay a lot of attention to it. I'd be surprised if they got anything less than $350k on the last day. We need moar stretch goals, people :D

You can use services like "viaddress.com" for receiving goods in USA and then from there ship to europe. When you ship you can declare any value for the goods.... wow! is this legit? It's not legit to declare a value lower than the actual value of the contents. You'll only run into problems if your package gets inspected. I do not agree, onece the material is in my home (viaddress home) I can ship it everywhere in the world and if I decide that it value is 5, 10, 15, 20 dollars it's up to me and to no one else. Regards Customs isn't going to care much about your opinion, if your package gets inspected, they will look up the general value of the goods online/against a list to determine its price. You can, of course, appeal, but the law wouldn't be on your side. Customs would hold your package until the fee is paid, or destroy it if it's not.

You can use services like "viaddress.com" for receiving goods in USA and then from there ship to europe. When you ship you can declare any value for the goods.... wow! is this legit? It's not legit to declare a value lower than the actual value of the contents. You'll only run into problems if your package gets inspected. I do not agree, onece the material is in my home (viaddress home) I can ship it everywhere in the world and if I decide that it value is 5, 10, 15, 20 dollars it's up to me and to no one else. Regards Customs isn't going to care much about your opinion, if your package gets inspected, they will look up the general value of the goods online/against a list to determine its price. You can, of course, appeal, but the law wouldn't be on your side. And customs would hold your package until the fee is paid. Customs is generally operated by the police.

Yes it is a lot smaller. 800x600 on a 15 inch monitor results in a 0.381mm dot pitch, while 2560x1400 on a 27" monitor results in a 0.234mm dot pitch, i.e. everything is only 61% of its original size in each dimension which means everything occupies about 37% of its original space, i.e. everything is almost only 1/3rd of its original size. That's just maths. But it gets worse when you add the psycho-visual effect of representing much more of an area and thus shifting the focus away from small details, making them even more difficult to notice. So yes it looks like "Sim Ant" because objectively everything is much smaller, and because subjectively you're representing a much larger area within a single screen. Yes, this is all true. (I did say 1024*768, though, which is a much smaller difference, and how I played the game back in the day... but you're absolutely right).

Too easy to break NDAs, especially with ~6k testers. Easier to either hold the beta as the full game, very close to release, to iron out the worst bugs, or limit the content of the beta to a side quest instead of the main quest line. Looking at what Adam said, it's probably the latter. I intend to leave the internet for the duration of the beta, only way to avoid spoilers

You can use services like "viaddress.com" for receiving goods in USA and then from there ship to europe. When you ship you can declare any value for the goods.... wow! is this legit? It's not legit to declare a value lower than the actual value of the contents. You'll only run into problems if your package gets inspected.

Awesome, I get a documentary :D! I am with everyone who wants you to record the DnD session! I won't be able to watch much of it live .

DPI ≠ Resolution. DPI/PPI (Pixels Per Inch) is the amount of pixels that fit on one real-world inch. It can be 120, it can be 240, it can be any arbitrary number. Resolution is the amount of pixels, heigh * width, in any given area of a screen. Higher DPI always means higher resolution, but higher resolution does not necessarily mean higher DPI, because the area can also be larger. That's where the problem that the topic of this thread is suggesting a solution to starts, and it's not an easy one to grasp without experiencing it.

You normally hold smartphones and tablets much closer to your face than a desktop monitor. If you're sitting 35" from the screen with a perfect eyesight, you won't be able to see the difference beyond 114ppi. To fully use the 220ppi screen, you'll need to sit at the distance of about 15", which is hardly a good idea. Not to forget the obvious disadvantages of increasing the pixel count by a factor of 4 when it comes to gaming. I'd rather have 60fps at a reasonable resolution, than 15fps for something that I can't even see with my much less than perfect eyesight Do please please please read this: http://www.cultofmac...enough-feature/ also, think of printed photographs. They are anywhere between 300-16000dpi, and yes, you can see the difference both near and at a distance. We're being fooled with 120dpi monitors, simply because we never had anything better to look at. Yes, 3D gaming will take a massive hit by the new high dpi monitors, but PE won't. PE has the opportunity to looks just as gorgeous, without a better graphics card, on these screens. Because it's 2D!

Not blurry compared to the 1080p monitor, virtually the same as the 1080p monitor, which isn't bad. In my opinion, compared to what a 2160p monitor of the same size looks like, it is bad. Terribly bad. It's hard to realize just how bad until you've used a retina screen for some time, and then go back to non-retina. You will literally see the pixels. It's almost a joke that the manufacturers have managed to keep us on low dpi devices for such a long time, the print world is miles ahead in quality, and phone screens are just about catching up with print. In a few years, the consumers will likely agree . 220dpi+ will become the norm. Not over night, but the shift is happening. Why ignore it just because it's not a necessity right now, when you have the potential to gain a lot by taking it into account? I reiterate, it's not a necessity, but certainly something worth considering. It'd make the game that much more gorgeous on these screens. An edge over all real time rendered 3D games.

I must say it's not really not theoretical if high DPI screens will or will not be in homes in the years to come, the market has already spoken, look at smartphones, and look at the resolution of tablets/laptops being released in the near future. It's only a matter of time before desktop monitors must follow suit. I'd say 1-2 years before 2160p 24" monitors make it to the market, and by that time, high DPI laptops/tablets will be very common. The first 1080p 5" phone is just about to be released, too . (My future & work depends on me being informed about this, so I'm not just guessing!) "Current gen assets" would equal making your asset scale well on to 120dpi monitors. That's easily 95% of today's desktop screens. That's what BG2 did, they made their assets scale well to 96dpi monitors, which was actually closer to 99.9% of desktop screens at the time. The issue is slightly bigger now, because the paradigm shift is about 200% (2.0x scaling): 220-240dpi. The difference is huge, and the opportunity to include retina graphics is too great to ignore, in my opinion . Even better idea, if you have a mac book pro with retina display, put a 1920x1200 image on it and compare it to a 1920x1200 display with the same image, if you you only have a 1080p screen add black bars to the image and use that on the retina display. Now read this again, and then read what I said in the post above. The issue is that the 1920*1200 will appear twice as small on the retina MBP as on the regular screen (if you think in in-game terms, it would make the game models appear tiny). Or blurry, if compared to what the retina screen is capable of, if you upscale it to match the regular 1080p monitor. If that image was also rendered at 3840*2400 (2.0x) it would appear the same size, but twice as sharp, on the MBP screen. This is what I wish they will do . On the point with integer factor scaling: I'm fully aware of this, I just don't want any scaling at all to be done in the game. Ever . I want it to use the capabilities of retina screens to their fullest, because: why not? It'd be gorgeous. The "a pixel is not a pixel is not a pixel" is not just about this, however. Only the PE team can decide if this is prohibitively expensive, but as far as I'm aware, it really shouldn't be, as long as it's considered from the start.

My point exactly. What I'm saying is that we need "more detailed" (2x DPI versions) for high DPI monitors. Did you view the site at a high DPI device? If you do, I think you will understand the issue. On a standard monitor, all 3 examples will look the same. On a high DPI device, you will see that they are all rendered quite differently, with the 3rd image looking far better. You'll see that anything not rendered at high-dpi resolution will either appear blurry, because of upscaling, or tiny, when rendered at its actual resolution. The answer is DPI scaling, a second set of assets, rendered to "have more detail", to put it in your words . Again, this is only relevant if you understand the issue that high DPI screens bring to the market for all forms of bitmap graphics. You are wrong, in your example the two on the left will be the same, the only way they get worse on a high ppi screen is if there's an error with the scaler. No offence, but you're actually missing the point I'm trying to make entirely :/ Consider this: 1. Try playing BG2 on a 15" retina MacBook Pro at native resolution. This will make everything so tiny you can't play it. BG2 was made at a time when 15" screens were topping out at 1024*768px. 2. Changing the resolution to a more playable 1024px*768 px (on a 2880*1800px screen) will make it look unbelievably blurry, yes, it would look worse than on a normal 15" 1024*768 screen because of upscaling, but it would be playable. 3. Now, if the assets for BG2 had been rendered at two different resolutions, one which is twice as high, you could play BG2 at the Retina MBP at native resolution. The game would not appear unplayable and tiny, and still appear sharp, because you're using the higher resolution assets. That's probably the clearest way I can explain it in. It's not the end of the world if Project Eternity doesn't keep this in mind, retina screen owners will simply have to cope with the game appearing slightly blurry, or that the graphics appear tiny. My point is that they have the chance to keep this in mind from the start, without adding too much development time to the project they could make it future-proof by providing 2 sets of assets, or at least making the game capable of handling DPI scaling so that it can be patched at a later point.

1.5x compared to what exactly?The Galaxy Nexus will render everything on the web at 1.5x the size, meaning that an image that is 400x400px physical pixels will be upscaled to cover 600x600px on the device. This results in a less sharp image, as you experienced on the demo site. This scaling has been implemented because if they didn't, websites would appear unreadable. The Apple retina screens has a scaling factor of 2.0 instead of 1.5. On the web, this can be overwritten by using DPI scaling, which is why one of the images appears sharper, while still remaining the same size as the first image that's rendered at default settings. I'm suggesting using DPI scaling in PE because if they don't, everything would become tiny, as in the second image of each example, on retina screens. Or slightly blurry, as you notice when comparing the first to the third image. It's not the end of the world if they do not to this, but it will certainly make a difference. More on why this is happening: A pixel is not a pixel is not a pixel: http://www.quirksmod...xel_is_not.html A pixel identity crisis: http://www.alistapar...dentity-crisis/ The web, and apps, are scrambling to find a way to deal with the higher DPI screens, and the two solutions are: use only vector graphics (not viable for a sprites based game), or render all your assets at twice the resolution. I know I'm talking about web and apps here... but as I said in the first post, the issue stems from the usage of bitmap files that don't scale well on retina screens, making this issue very much a reality for PE, too, since it's using 2D rendered bitmap files.

The Galaxy Nexus is a 1.5x DPI device, I've enabled the demo for any device with 1.3x DPI scaling or higher, but for the full effect it really has to be viewed on a retina MBP/iPad 3. It works on a Galaxy Nexus. You can see the difference, for example, by looking at the statue teeth. It's nowhere near as dramatic as in the 4 monitor picture from the previous page, though. I did state that the example was exaggerated, to the benefit of non-hi-dpi monitors, that can't actually see the effect in action. No, it's no where near as bad as in that picture. I'm not assuming it'll be free. I know for a fact that the rendering time will take exactly 4 times as long (2x the scale = 4 times as many pixels to render), which is significant, but won't use up any extra manpower, just rendering hours. The hand drawn parts will be less of an issue, since they take pretty much just as much time to hand draw on a large picture, as on a smaller one. Hand drawing isn't limited in the same way. Either way, it's up to PE to decide if they can do it or not, without it affecting the quality of game play (game play above all!), but I certainly think it's something they should consider.

Hmm, I wish I had one of those lying around, I am seeing a clear difference on the various devices I have here, I might have messed something up in my code for iOS Safari :S On a retina device you should see the following: First image appears slightly blurry when compared to the third one, this is barely visible if viewed on a tiny phone screen, but very visible on iPad 3/Retina MBP). Second image is the same image as the first image, but with DPI scaling enabled. This shows the effect you would see if you played, for example, BG2 on a retina screen. Everything would look sharp, but TINY. Third image is the high-DPI image. It's the same size as the first image, but rendered at twice the resolution, making it appear much sharper.

My point exactly. What I'm saying is that we need "more detailed" (2x DPI versions) for high DPI monitors. Did you view the site at a high DPI device? If you do, I think you will understand the issue. On a standard monitor, all 3 examples will look the same. On a high DPI device, you will see that they are all rendered quite differently, with the 3rd image looking far better. You'll see that anything not rendered at high-dpi resolution will either appear blurry, because of upscaling, or tiny, when rendered at its actual resolution. The answer is DPI scaling, a second set of assets, rendered to "have more detail", to put it in your words . Again, this is only relevant if you understand the issue that high DPI screens bring to the market for all forms of bitmap graphics.