Robsidious

Overall I liked your post. I just have to note that all activists use social media. They'd be idiots not to. The notion that the internet is somehow distinct from all other aspects of our lives and doesn't really matter is absurd. It is without contest the best way to reach a large audience. Good point. My appraisal of 'Internet drama' wasn't intended to make such a distinction, nor was my saying that activists I know 'don't try to change the world using Twitter' meant literally. Every human being is an agent of change and all our interactions matter in some way, be that through word, deed or text. The Internet is an an invaluable means of communication and important facet of humanity for sure. I was simply trying to make the point that disparaging those who seek social justice based on some of the sillier stuff one finds online might not be giving due consideration to either the people involved or the issue at hand. It seems to me that the Internet can encourage this sort of narrow perspective in forum discussion. Regarding the best way to reach people, the Internet is certainly the most accessible means of media in developed countries and a very powerful tool. Of course the way to reach people on a given issue is a combination of actions depending upon context and one's goals and means; whether you're a grass roots activist, lawyer for Amnesty International or a politician. Granted, many people probably take Twitter more seriously than I do.

Mungri can I ask you a question? As a gay man how do you feel about some of these comments on this thread? Do you find comments like " homosexuality is not natural " annoying? Offensive? Or do you just not care. My gay friends seem to care less about gay rights than I do, they say things like " you will never change some peoples minds so why bother ". But I refuse to accept that. I don't need to change peoples minds, I just want to let people that homophobia is not acceptable I'm pretty much desensitised to such stuff after my father told me that he would have had me aborted if he knew I was going to turn out gay. It's things like this that make you realise why some people become passionate activists for social justice, no matter the significance of what their efforts may be. In this light I don't really understand the degree of enmity I see towards those labelled 'SJW's ((I am loathe to use this term myself, preferring to consider people's actions & arguments case by case and respond to those), however this could be because I don't pay much attention to Internet drama. The activists I know in real life don't try to change the world using twitter. After all, surely we can all agree that social justice is a good thing in itself, even if we disagree on exactly what that looks like. Likewise, surely we can sympathise with people like Erika being offended by the poem, even if we might see it as over-sensitive in this case and may take issue with the manner of some people's advocacy. Sometimes I wonder if it's the Internet that does weird things to people or if people were always this way. A bit of both probably. I personally didn't find Firedorn's poem outrageously offensive or worth bothering about. It was just 'a bit wrong or naughty' like some jokes tend to be. I did find it crass and unfunny though. It made me wonder why of all the things in the world you could leave on your memorial stone, why some silly poem. Even though I was eligible to leave something on a stone for all to see, I chose not to for fear of polluting the atmosphere of the game world with something out of context and inappropriate. Thank you Mungri for your posts. The first was hilarious, the second profound. No matter how things may be for you now with your family, I feel for you *virtual hug if you want one*

When I first backed Pillars I really didn't think it would end up looking so good, considering it was supposed to be made on such a modest budget. That mock screenie they knocked up during the kickstarter was impressive though and gave me high hopes, which have been completely blown away. This is probably the most beautiful game I've ever seen.

Modders are saints. Thank you! I assume/hope it's an in-game toggle, so we have the option to either walk or run as we like?

Feet. FEET!? A real gamer straps himself unto his chair and snaps his neck before even starting, then plays using his tongue and nose. A lifetime of handicap is no price too high for the true gaming experience. I have to admit you have a fair point, and it is indeed a far more rewarding challenge to use my face only to truly experience this game the way it was meant to be. Also, lending the neighbours cat and putting a significant amount of catnip on the keyboard enhanced this even further, my face may be utterly maimed but I finally find this game challenging enough. That's all well and good for casuals. I play using nothing but the power of positive thinking. Admittedly I have not managed to get very far or indeed even load the game using this method, yet I believe in myself.

Or perhaps they care about it too much? I personally don't see the issue with people claiming they don't want to play at all unless they can walk, even if I find that hard to relate to myself. I prefer to respect that that's their preference and prerogative. In any event, aren't those people a very small subset of all those who would like a walking option or would enjoy having the option? Options are good... and there's cookies involved.

What word would you prefer... engagement? Absorption? Occupation? Involvement? Leaving pedantry aside, people are simply saying that the ability to walk is important or significant to their enjoyment of the game. What is the problem you have with this? Regardless, I think you are taking a rather narrow view of the definition of immersion. http://www.goodgamesbydesign.com/2011/03/immersion-vs-engagement/ http://www.torkshaw.com/Immersion%20and%20Engagement.pdf Also, why do you reduce the desire for the ability to walk to the status of a whim? What exactly is capricious about people's desire to be able to walk?

I won't attempt to speak for anyone else, yet hopefully I can provide some insight into why this feature is important to me personally, though I would hardly describe myself as freaked out (it matters enough to me that I'll wait a few months in the hope it'll be patched in, yet I could play the game right now and enjoy it). I like to immerse myself into the world of rich RPGs, to feel like I am there in that fantastically beautiful and atmospheric land, evoked so vividly in my mind and imagination as a game like Pillars is capable of. I enjoy feeling like I am my character, or am 'there' with the party as we gather and venture forth to explore new and exotic places, or simply wander the increasingly familiar streets as we go about our business, adventuring. I like to slow down and breath when in the relative safety of towns or quiet moments, when we need not hasten and run, imperilled by our adventures. I like to take my time browsing the stores when spending our hard-earned loot and enjoy the local sights (those luscious 2D-painterly environments that become a living world). I find it discordant when I am unable to slow my pace to the 'reality' of the game world, when all other NPCs move differently I feel less a part of their world. Indeed, it is now their world and I am merely playing in it (please don't read me too literally here), no longer immersed in a world but playing a game. And when playing a game there is a tendency to sometimes rush through content, as efficiency and the too sorrowful constraints of time and pressure of real-life urges one on to achieve and complete. Sometimes I find myself as if under a hastened spell, running through a dungeon, and must take pause to breath and feel alive again. As in life, as in game. Immersion in an RPG is like this for me. One of the primary reasons I play RPGs is for an oasis away from the mad rat-race of adult life in my society - I take a long time to finish games, though my time is precious, savouring the experience. I don't want to be running everywhere. Btw, I assume we can all agree that including this feature would make the game better, even if our preferences accord it varying priority.

Hi I would say something welcoming but I'm pretty new here myself. Awh, shucks, welcome anyway!

Oh, is it not possible to only use your sig for some posts? I didn't realise it would show up in all my posts. Well, I guess i'll disable it for now then. Edit: It's still there in my other posts? Hmm, I guess I'll delete my sig for now until I figure out what I'm gonna do.

Another public thank you to LC for being awesome. I love my new coat of arms

Exactly, this is the crux of the issue. How reasonable it is to assume the player will know how to combat certain creatures and their abilities, at a given point in the game? 'Hard Counters' is not an all good or all bad issue. There is a spectrum of hard counters in the IE games, according to the predictability of encounters and the potential to be prepared for them. I don’t particularly like coming across an encounter that I literally cannot defeat even with infinite reloading because I need to go back to town to acquire specific item(s), memorise certain spells or whatever. This is neither challenging nor fun, even if it doesn't bother me as much as it apparently bothers others. What I do enjoy is the danger and excitement of powerful enemy abilities that require hard counter(s), so long as I can reasonably learn how to prepare myself to deal with them. I DO NOT THINK THIS NECESSARILY REQUIRES METAGAMING. I want to learn through playing the game how to combat unique monsters and abilities, not be able to just always make **** up as I go (tactically speaking). Perhaps the player can be warned through dialogue to beware the banshee’s gaze or whatever before undertaking a quest that would encounter such creatures. Perhaps the gameworld can include bestiaries that once found or purchased and read, update your journal’s bestiary and provide information about creatures notable abilities and how to counter them. After all, it seems logical that an adventuring party would start out with limited knowledge of how to fight certain monsters (and other humans, wizards etc), and that some adversaries would have unique abilities that must be countered in specific ways. Since learning how to fight different adversaries is a natural part of these games anyway, I believe that gameplay is enriched when players are more actively involved in this learning process, rather than such key information being spoonfed or resulting from trial and error, aka metagaming. I also think the issue (note again I said issue, not problem) of hard counters in the IE games was greatly exacerbated by the vancian casting system. This should be (at least partially) addressed by grimoire swapping, which should enable more immediate access to counters. Although this still necessitates certain class requirements for party composition, this in turn can be offset be having multiple solutions to hard counters through scrolls, potions, salves, magic arrows etc. The problem then becomes how to balance the availability of countering solutions while still making preparation strategically engaging. Stun’s example of fighting clay golems is a good one to illustrate this point. The player needs to learn (ideally through exploring the gameworld rather than metagaming) that such creatures require magical blunt weapons to damage them, and so prepare or adapt during combat accordingly. I think it reasonable to require an adventuring party to be equipped with a variety of skills and weapon types to deal with the diverse array of adversaries they can expect to encounter throughout such a fantasy setting. Yonjuro’s example of encountering an adventuring party similar to yours provides another good illustration. Perhaps this party has a grimoire or two at the ready with some dire spells you must counter or you’re screwed. Combat begins and you don’t have immediate access to the counter - a party member or two is taken out of action, yet you are able to switch grimoires and bring them back into the fight, losing precious time because you weren't immediately prepared. Alternatively, your priest may have an ability that affects the same counter, or you may have a magical salve in your backpack that does the trick. However, if you have not learnt what the correct countering spell is or your priest does not have that skill and you have no such salves, scrolls or any of the few ways to counter that spell... you are dead because you are not prepared to deal with the threat. To me the issue is not ‘hard counters are bad and need to be removed’, but rather ‘hard counters are an exciting tactical element that require multiple available solutions which the player can reasonably learn through exploring the gameworld, so as to facilitate and reward intelligent preparation and play’. The issue then becomes how to reasonably inform players of how and when to prepare, while still making preparation a balanced, thoughtfully engaging strategic aspect of gameplay.

I like this, its a great idea. Their are so many new words in the lore it would be helpful to practice how to pronounce them. I'm a good speller, I can spell rouge right and everything. Were do I sign up?

Those screenies are just glorious. So, so beautiful. I think I need to squee a bit here. Leaving any issues aside for the moment, I just want to say this update has made me very, very happy. And not just because of ooh pretty. Not just because of this update. The depth of lore, attention to detail and care with which this game is being crafted is an absolute pleasure to behold. It's like seeing a long-cherished dream slowly becoming real, before your very eyes. A big thank you to Josh and all the crew, for taking the time to engage with us on the forums. It's especially nice in updates to have some questions answered and is greatly appreciated. It is no small thing being entrusted to bring back the Infinity Engine magic, and in some ways is not an enviable task. Thank you for your dedication, patience and passion. I imagine that working at Obsidian must be really nice, different in a very special way, now that Eternity is cooking in your kitchen. Respect.

What are you talking about? This thread is awesome. Granted it has become more argumentative than the earlier discussion of sharing and expressing views, and there has been some incivility, yet I'm highly enjoying listening to people express what they enjoyed and found frustrating in the IE games. As others have commented, all this talk is making me really excited for Eternity. It's as if you don't find anything of value in dissenting opinions. Though if your comment was supposed to be a meaningless throw away joke I apologise for misreading it, ignore me and carry on

Hmm, actually rereading Josh's post I do feel like I over-reacted somewhat. This doesn't change the substance of my concerns and I'm happy I expressed them, however his post is more reassuring than my initial impression perceived. This... Some of these things can be toggled by player difficulty settings, but other elements can be redesigned to still be interesting without being obnoxious. is the sort of thing I want to hear. Torch of Worst Case Scenarios +1 indeed

What we we just talking about ITT about assuming the worst to protect oneself from disappointment... It is simply my fear that features I liked will be removed or changed into something that loses what I liked. What will happen to random rest encounters for example? I'm sure the devs are considering all manner of ways to tweak, fix, replace, remove and enhance all the features of the IE games, however as I mentioned (to me) Josh's list read like a list of problems to be fixed without recognition of the good aspects of those issues. Now that doesn't mean that this represents his attitude towards design (I more or less stated that I didn't think this to be the case) but I felt the need to express my wish that he takes my preferences into account in considering what it may be that I, and perhaps others, enjoyed regarding the issues he described. On the subject of character systems, did people really get halfway through games and find they couldn't proceed? This blows my mind, I didn't realise this was even possible, unless perhaps you intentionally tried to do so. That's not amusing to me, just baffling. Thanks Lephys for your post, but it didn't help me personally to conceptualise how Josh's proposed system will work. This could just be my a fault on my part sure, I just don't get it for whatever reason. The concept of a forgiving and flexible character system sounds fantastic on the face of it, I just sincerely can't imagine how it would work. Probably why I'm not a systems designer ;-) I'm looking forward to seeing what the team comes up with though. Also, I think Prime Junta makes a great point about the lack of variety in ways to build characters. That more than anything suggests to me that we can do better than the IE character systems. Being able to build an intelligent fighter or wise wizard without gimping yourself would be a dream come true, but I can't foresee how this can be done. Hopefully Josh does ;-)

Yes, I too enjoy learning to make good characters through making mistakes. The feeling of being able to fall makes the flying all the sweeter and adds to my sense of accomplishment. However, this is not to say that a more forgiving character system can't be made as complex and compelling, I just personally can't conceptualise what that would look like.

Thanks for elaborating Josh Generally speaking, even though I don't consider all of those things entirely problematic and could say I enjoyed some of them, I am not particularly attached to any of them either... except for random rest encounters. I loved the feeling of uncertainty and risk when needing to rest in a dangerous area while out adventuring. That feeling of hoping there wouldn't be an encounter and BOOM we're under attack (or phew, we weren't discovered!). If I managed to survive I felt awesome, and if I died I didn't care, just reloaded. Although this feature could force backtracking to town in ironman, I didn't find this annoying at all. To me it added more to the gravity of danger and to the vitality of my party's lives than it created tedium. I also enjoy the realism of such backtracking to some degree. I do have trouble conceptualising how eliminating bad builds can still entail an interesting & challenging character system, yet as I say I'm not especially attached to bad builds, so am more than happy to see what you come up with ;-) Additionally, I would like to mention that I didn't just pledge for this game to get what I want (an IE spiritual successor) but also largely because I have respect for and faith in Obsidian, and so wanted to help you guys have the chance to create your own new game, at my expense. However, I echo Stun's point about tweaking as opposed to eliminating so as not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think a good question to ask about each 'frustrating' feature is... what does this feature bring to the table that people might enjoy? Whether it is the sense of danger and strategic risk-taking of random rest encounters, or the exciting suspense and potent danger of powerful enemy abilities, it would be great if we could keep the value(s) of these features intact while reducing or fixing the perceived problematic aspects. My apologies if you are already doing this (as you probably are), however you have described these issues here in purely negative terms without stating recognition of their potentially fun aspects.

The only such list* that matters to me (tier more significant than order, limited to 15)... Original Sin & Pillars of Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Age of Wonders 3 Age of Decadence Legends of Eisenwald Blackguards Wasteland 2 Dead State The Banner Saga Dragon Age 3 Stasis The Mandate Witcher 3 Lords of Xulima * List subject to change

I just had to quote this. This is the funniest turn of phrase I have read in quite awhile, it really tickled my funny-bone for some reason. Lol. Lephys makes a good point too about the tendency to make negative assumptions regarding Eternity. This applies to all video games really, especially kickstartered ones. I'm not commenting on Gifted1s views particularly, it's something I've just noticed as well, for all sorts of games. I fall prey to this myself sometimes, usually when there is a fear involved about some feature I really dislike, or think I will dislike. It could be that this behaviour is simply a way to protect ourselves from disappointment by pre-emptively lowering our expectations. However, does this actually increase our eventual enjoyment of the game, as opposed to going in optimistically assuming we will have a great time? I don't know. Human beings are pretty good at jumping to conclusions, yet I want to leap off the cliff into Eternity, I want to fly.

^ Cheers Mist Devil. And yeah, if ever there was going to be an extended time between updates, the Christmas/New Year's holiday period would be it. To be honest I was surprised after the kickstarter ended that Obsidian were so awesome about doing such frequent and regular updates. I've come to expect them now but with this being my first kickstarter project, I didn't think we'd get them nearly so often. Now that I've had a little more ks experience, Obsidian is still right up there with the best in terms of updates.

We have taken (and continue to take) great pains to maintain a challenge for players without being oppressive or frustrating in the ways that the original IE games could often be. My concern is that some of the things deemed oppressive or frustrating may be features I liked, though I know the game isn't being designed for me specifically ;-) I would be very interested to hear about the process you guys use(d) to determine what the good and 'bad' things about the IE games are. It could make for an interesting topic in a future update as a way to address player expectations, if you feel so inclined.

This is a cool thread, I likes it This is precisely the issue I was calling to question. Who's to say what is nostalgia-driven and what is someone's authentic preferences? Where is the line between good streamlining and bad streamlining? Some of those 'short-comings' you allude to we can probably all (mostly ;-) agree upon, yet some will be contested and considered good features by people. To illustrate my point, initially Josh/Obs was planning to have a shared party inventory, then upon further consideration (and hopefully listening to backer feedback), this has been altered so that party members still have their own inventory space, yet with the added convenience of all these inventories appearing on screen at once. This seems an ideal compromise to me, yet I tremble when I think that we almost lost personal inventories, though again to some others this would not have been a big deal. So, what's to be done...

I think the issues are as diverse as the players themselves, in other words, all of the above. This is why I am so incredibly happy that Obsidian is focussing on providing extensive options for tailoring the gameplay to our personal preferences, beyond mere difficulty levels. Imo this is absolutely the best thing you can do and I hope Eternity becomes a leading example for other RPGs in this regard. To me, the 'problem' this thread raises is an inevitable product of the engagement between people's lives and a complex game. I'd say this is actually part of the beauty and attraction of RPGs; that they can be challenging to engage with over a prolonged period of time speaks to their depth and richness. Of course the reasons WHY they are challenging to engage with is the key, and it is here that people's preferences muddy the waters. A long desired convenience for some may be unwanted by others; fixing a certain issue for one person may be breaking a feature for someone else. And RPGs have so many, many features. Regarding the RPG 'renaissance', while I hardly hold the 'classics' up as examples of perfect game design, I do fear that some things I liked will be changed or removed because others don't like them, or because they are deemed 'busy work' or excessive to gameplay. Some of this evolution is par for the course and I surely appreciate that you can't please everybody. So I simply hope that these upcoming games will conform to my personal preferences as much as possible ;-) That said, I do feel there is a case to be made for the integrity of RPGs. To answer the question more directly, I personally tend to disengage from games for a variety of reasons, indeed for a variety of reasons in each instance. I have never felt like an RPG was too large in scope or too difficult. I suppose you could say it is mostly a matter of scope in the sense that when I abandon a playthrough I simply haven't experienced all of the content yet ;-) Difficulty is not a concern due to the availability of walkthroughs if needed/wanted, and I enjoy dying in combat (or rather what that means, assuming combat is engaging). I may get overwhelmed, frustrated or stuck for awhile, yet if I find myself abandoning a game I'm enjoying it's usually because stuff has come up in my life and not a direct result of the game itself. In fact, I can't imagine an RPG I'd want to play that doesn't stymie my progress in some way, at some point. I was only half kidding when I said that I enjoy the challenge of 'completing the damn thing'. An epic RPG is epic and I wouldn't want it any other way.