mstark
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Posts posted by mstark
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Sounds like we'll be getting a gameplay video around the time the closed beta starts? I guess that would naturally coincide with the game being polished enough.
I might be of a minority, but I couldn't care less if I get to see a bit of gameplay or not before release. I'm just happy the game is being made, which is what I agreed to when I said: shut up and take my money.Lovely portrait, and looking forward to eventually building a party of glass cannons. As I always do.
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It's still possible to draw plenty of conclusions based on the information that has been released so far.
- We know the approximate polygon count of 3D characters/monsters.
- We know the approximate number of PC's/NPC's that will be on screen at any given time.
- We know spells are fairly simple 3D animations.
- We know the backgrounds are all 2D images.
- We know Pathfinding is likely to be the heaviest CPU requirement.
- We know the approximate size of the maps that need to be loaded into memory.
- We know the game is of "average" disk space size compared to modern PC games.
From this data, it's quite easy to say if a computer can, or can't, run the game. There might be a fairly large grey-area created due to bad optimization from devs/graphics card manufacturers, but this is outside of the PC owners' control and is likely to be patched following release.
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It doesn't really sound like a class, it sounds like a field of study or research. Something you do in a lab and could become a grand master of without ever even leaving the house. Maybe it could be like an "NPC class" if you wanted to take it that road since it is all about study and experimentation but I don't really like that concept all that much.
I think Animancer sounds about as much as a field of study as Cipher, a class name I didn't like very much because it's a specific field of study, rather than a general class description. Both names are a bit more specific than the other classes, but cover scholarly areas. I think it would make more sense to have a Scholar class, with Animancer and Cipher sub-classes, or branches in the skill tree.
I get the feeling that Animancy is a specific field of "magic"/scientific research, similarly to how a Wizard's or Priest's magic are separate areas of research, and practical skill sets.
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Graphics card?
If you can run Dungeon Siege 3, you should have no issues with running Pillars of Eternity.
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I wouldn't be surprised to see Animancers as a playable class in the future, they have to leave some things for the expansion after all.
There are plenty of examples of games in which you meet NPCs with character classes you cannot choose, only for them to be added with an expansion. Creates some free hype.
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I'd say that you will be perfectly fine with Iris, the latest gen of intel graphics is a big step up from the last. Also, PoE will likely be more CPU intensive than GPU.
We still don't know how heavily used 3D elements will be in the game (eg. how many characters/creatures on the screen at any given time). There might be some scenes where running at maximum graphics will drop your FPS, but then, if you're choosing between integrated graphics and GT 750M, you can't really be expecting to run anything at maximum settings.
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It wouldn't be too infeasible to imagine older buildings ending up above newer ones in a treetop city, if Twin Elms is going to be anything like Suldanessellar.You know... ruins always sink (realistically so), but, in a fantasy world (not necessarily PoE), I think it'd be interesting to have a previous civilization's ruins actually end up ABOVE the new civilization, due to some catastrophic alchemical/magical catastrophe.
So long as the setting involved a lack of altitude-exploring technology, it would be infeasible to reach these ruins for quite some time. Or maybe there are even remnants of towers that will get you up to them, but no one really goes up there because of the danger (just like with going downward into dangerous/infested subterranean ruins.)
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The expansions names?
Pillars of Eternity: Tales of the Pearl Coast.
Nailed it.
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I'm not sure why this is terrible. Baldur's Gate 2 had 1 big town (5 maps), 3 small town (Trademeet, Brynnlaw, Ust Natha), a few non-dungeon areas, and dungeons. We can make no judgement on dungeons based on this map, and it seems to have as many of the other types, at least. Judging the map as horrible isn't very useful at this early stage.
Athkatla was 8 areas:
I'm kind of expecting Defiance Bay + Twin Elms to, together, have about as much content as Athkatla did in BG2. Josh talked quite a bit about how he likes the idea of 2 content hubs, as opposed to a single one. I'm guessing Twin Elms is reached about halfway through the game, similarly to how the protagonist can return to Athkatla towards the end of BG2.
Completely agree.I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so.
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Full sized normal and spec, 4k background render, 32bit BC7 for albedo, Normals in DXT5_NM, compressed losslessly using something like X-Zips.
It was my understanding they were going for 2560x1440 native resolution for background art (as opposed to 4K)?
I think that's actually been dropped. They seem to be mentioning a "screen" as 1080p. Looks like there's no longer two art assets of 720 and 1440p.
I'm not so sure. A "screen" of 1080p was always their base reference, that "screen" will show different amounts of area depending on if you've chosen to run the game with the renders made with reference to 720p screens (which will make the game look more like an ant farm. IE games were made with 480p monitors as the reference), or with the 1440p reference renders, which will make characters and areas appear larger on screen, without up-scaling.
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A couple of things that stand out as particularly jarring to me still is the lack of nuance when characters turn. Aloth snaps into another direction while he's running as if he's a sprite.
Could be fixed by giving characters a 'turn-rate'. They use it in quite a few RTS games to control the speed that a unit can change directions.
I personally would prefer it to be instant, or "jarring". It makes game controls feel so much more responsive. Less annoying, if you will. If I ask a character to walk somewhere, I want them to start walking, not take 1 second to turn around and then start to walk. Especially if you're like me, who will keep changing direction of my party all the time.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they go with the old parchment style, as this is already similar to something they're doing in-game already.
I also wouldn't be surprised if they just slap concept art onto the loading screen, since they should have plenty of that around, and it's gorgeous.
Personally, I have a soft spot for the BG2/ToB loading symbols. For me, they have a lot of emotional value attached to them, and were much more memorable to me than the random art loading screens. The fact that it only changed rarely, based on location, got me very excited the times when it did change. It heralded something new, without spoiling it as artwork might.
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It's looking exceptionally good!
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We are looking into either allowing you to scale the effect size or have the "bonus" area be a foe-only AoE. E.g., if you cast fireball and it normally has a radius of 4m, but it's grown to 6.5m because of your Int, the area added between 4m and 6.5m only affects enemies. We probably won't get to it for a while, but we've been thinking about it.
I love this idea and hope it gets implemented
I hate this idea and hope it doesn't see the light of day.
...but I will behave if it's implemented.
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You do realize this is all just derived assumption based on a tiny lump of information and not necessarily actual fact?
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mstark, as I said, the problem with that is that unlike Perception, your Stealth skill keeps on increasing as you level up (if you choose to increase it).
That means that eventually, at high levels, the Stealth circles will shrink into nothingness and cease to exist as a game mechanic. Stealth will become a game based on avoiding enemy Perception circles only. It's like how in high level AD&D your THAC0 eventually becomes so low that hitting enemies becomes pretty much guaranteed.
Of course, some people might not see that as a problem, but rather as something inherent to the high level experience.
Sorry, I only skimmed the posts after the OP (at work!). I should read properly.
However, from what we've seen of stat points, on a level 8 character (which should be close to end-game in PoE) it seems like a +36% is a major bonus. A maxed out rouge may never achieve more than -50% or -75% to their radius, which can be controlled fairly easily by making sure which bonuses are available from items. Potentially, diminishing returns or hard caps could be introduced if they'd prefer to have a plethora of stealth based items available (though I'm usually not a fan of that kind of solution).
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Reading this makes me very happy on so many levels. This is very close to what was discussed in this forum, and I can hardly complain seeing something I argued for (or similar) make it in.
This. Exactly this. He even mentioned Commandos.
I agree that the normalization - if indeed present as interpreted by Infinitron - seems a bit weird. What's the issue with giving NPCs a fixed perception that grows larger with a higher skill, and your characters a fixed stealth radius that grows smaller with higher skill? As long as the tiny circle of your stealthy rogue doesn't touch the huge circle of the highly perceptive watch scout you'd be fine. I have a feeling there may be scenarios where normalization makes a lot of sense, though. Would be nice to know.
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I can identify with getting bored quickly when playing new games, I've stopped bothering with trying to play any for the past few years! Oblivion was such a disappointment after Morrowind that I dropped it after only 10 hours or so... Skyrim? What's that? Maybe it's because I've grown older and expect more than a mere brand reboot can offer, or maybe games really have changed. Hard to say. I've learned I'm not part of the target market that 90% of games produced today are for.
I have enjoyed replaying parts of the IE games, but again, I usually only get so far before something else gets in the way or steals my attention.
Project Eternity is the kind of game I'd pay for simply to see it made, and introduced into the "modern" market. I'm already trying to mentally prepare myself for setting aside enough time to play through every nook and cranny of it
.Welcome!
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No mention of additional funding stretch goals. Would I be correct to assume they are off the table now?
They've said this is still being discussed internally, and that they have nothing to say/announce about it yet.
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By the way, have you changed the way fonts are handled, or are they still bitmap fonts? The new text looks fantastic (asked about this on page 1
).To be clear, that stat page is a mock-up and the text is still from PhotoShop. That said, the in-game text is much better looking because Brian found much better settings for it. There are still bugs to work out, but it's looking better in-game.
Ah, thanks for clarification. I'm hoping the in-engine result will end up as good as the Photoshop mock-up; it makes all the difference if the game both feels and looks like reading a well typeset book.
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By the way, have you changed the way fonts are handled, or are they still bitmap fonts? The new text looks fantastic (asked about this on page 1
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I would just like to add that I find Lephys' concerns very viable. There are many good reasons (not least of all balance and gear differentiation) to separate which stats support melee, ranged, and magical damage/proficiency.
For example, I find it more intuitive to equip an item that gives a Wizard intelligence or wisdom if you want to be a spell caster, and strength if you want to attempt a melee version. Simply pumping Might for both spell and melee bonuses seems strange to me.
Now, these are just concerns. It might be a very nice system that we just haven't had a chance to test yet, but familiarity has a lot going for it.
Edit,
I do like what Josh is saying above, though. I'm less concerned if such diverse approaches are equally viable. Seems to make room for a lot of interesting ways to build your characters. An AoE/duration buff & support mage, a single target glass-cannon mage...
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What a step up in typography! Big thumbs-up! Subtle indentations after headlines, colour consistency, oldstyle(!) numerals, ligatures :D. Is that manually hinted and kerned, or have you gone with a different solution than what you used before? Give all my praise to whoever is responsible!
And what an incredible looking screenshots. Trees have evolved leaps and bounds!
And the attention to detail on monsters that will barely appear larger than an inch on screen!
Thanks for an awesome update!
(23" 4k monitors are now RRP $800, you may want to get one and test your UI on it
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Cheers! *cracks open a beer*
Awesome work, guys!
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Update #81: The Front Line: Fighters and Barbarians
in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
Posted · Edited by mstark
Does Carnage, and other special attacks that use default attack animations, have any sort of visual/audio feedback when it is performed?
(Btw, the recent "choose your own adventure" action dialogue window that was released along E3 previews looks absolutely fantastic, love the typography)