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Falkon Swiftblade

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  1. Falkon Swiftblade
    I'm actually curious to hear from the dev's how was beta testing done back in the original infinity engines handled? Surely you have a lot more beta testers this time around?! Brandon, does your data show how many people will be testing on PC vs MAC or Linux, etc? Or will the Beta be specifically a PC only Beta?
  2. Falkon Swiftblade
    Hey I was wondering, other than art direction, why would inhabitants live in a world that has stuff like the the broken walls and towers in image below, and choose to live there when their whole town is in shambles? I see a lot of images throughout the game shared so far that things look very old and falling apart. Will the context of things like that be discussed as we progress in the story, or are they merely designed to induce mood and nostalgia as we play through? It's not a knock against anything specifically you guys are doing. Many RPG's have the decrepit towns and abandoned towns in them. It just seems like all of the props you've shared seem to show old or aged structures, and I wonder what a "newer" part of town or building would look like? I remember seeing some shots of the keep as it's upgraded though so that gives some context. I was just trying to imagine if I lived in a world like what you guys are sharing, why would I want to live in somewhere that's all but broken down. Maybe that's part of the story line though? Will we see NPC's trying to rebuild the land, or have quests involving the player to make us want to have this be a place worth saving and caring for? Sorry I unitentionally went into 20 questions haha. Edited to say I think this image probably is not as run down as I thought it was initially, but I just was speaking generally about the props shared seem to show a lot of broken arch ways, and broken towers and walls. So it seems like there's been a lot of past conflict, and I was more or less inquiring if those conflicts are intended to be present throughout our story, or if the world is showing it's age through past conflicts from long ago, and the towns are just showing their age. Environment Art Much like our area designers, our environment artists have been revisiting all of the areas of the game and performing their Alpha checklists to make sure all of the areas pass art Alpha. In addition to the checklists, they are performing polish work that had been identified previously by Bobby and Rob (Art Director) on areas. Currently, the environment artists have done a pass on all of our critical path areas and they will be moving onto our side content once we enter Beta. Take a look at one of the areas that has gone through Alpha polish without a paint-over pass:
  3. Falkon Swiftblade
    Well that's surprising to get told this on a Monday, no complaints though. So August 18 is day after Gen Con, and I have been theorizing the game play footage would premiere there, and Beta would follow, but looks like it's sooner than I anticipated. Better sooner than later, so we can help fix the bugs. They're still fixing hundreds of bugs each patch it seems like on the BG EE games!
  4. Falkon Swiftblade
    I think he meant house windows in game, rather than UI windows But yeah, that'd be cool too You are correct, but indeed I'd love that feature too, or just something subtle even idle portraits that had our party show angry faces, or smirk, or look frightened, etc depending on what choices you made in dialog options.
  5. Falkon Swiftblade
    Hey Adam, or graphics team... Is there any chance you guys could do something like a gradient fader for the windows, so the color that emits at night fades in and out slightly like the light that is on a wall from candles or fire? The few ways I was thinking of how to do it probably wouldn't be too much extra work. You could even take it a step further and use really low res animations and have shadows behind the glass as ya walk by. keep up the good work. By the way, what type of Post processing fx are ya guys planning on having in the game besides choosing resolution?
  6. Falkon Swiftblade
    When I was about 13-16 having romance options in games were really important to me. I hadn't ever had a relationship before, and my family was really dysfunctional, so when there were some gems out there like some of the Final Fantasy games that included some options I really felt connected to the characters in a meaningful way. However I quickly came to realize that these are in fact just games, and as much as I enjoy playing them, the characters are just scripted events. It takes the fun out of the romance for me now. Especially now a days when it's almost an expectation like when you go to the movies, the guy always seems to shack up with a gal even though the span of the film might be all of a few days. The thing is, that's not even remotely like real life, and if it is where you live, no wonder you're sad and searching for it in a game. There's a time and a place for romance, but it doesn't have to be in every game or movie you play, even a roleplaying game. Personally, I'd rather a relationship develop over the series of Pillars games. It might not happen in this first installment, but it doesn't mean it won't occur in an expansion or another sequel. Plus, if it was in the game, then that gets your expectations so high and if it's not what you were hoping for you'd rather they didn't even put it in there. Don't lose hope though, I'm sure they're gonna start working on the expansion soon enough, and likely there's enough interest in romance options, it'll be in at some point.
  7. Falkon Swiftblade
    Sorry if this is a double post. The forum didn't load this when I posted it just now. I'm having some cognitive dissonance issues with the concepts shared with us so far about the game play mechanics and the concepts of souls. To me it seems very silly to spend so much time creating things in the game world that are so realistic that we have in our world like taxes and specific damage types, and using elements like berry's and water to heal yourself with, etc. Yet the lore seems to state that souls are a big deal in the game, & we'll spend majority of our time killing things. Don't monsters and wolves or w.e. have souls? Where do their souls go when they die? Why don't the powers at be just have an infinite amount of zombie monsters at their disposal, and how do you kill something that's already dead? Why not bring people back as animals or reincarnate into a giant, or something cool? I dunno, something about the whole soul mechanic in the game just doesn't feel like it fits. I'm just asking for context to really give the story or world a solid foundation. I understand it's a game, but some things you can't just be hokey or sloppy about unless it's done so in a satire or parody way. I got the impression this is a mature story and more of a serious game though, so some aspects seem wonky to me.
  8. Falkon Swiftblade
    I fully expect game play footage to be shown at gen con this year, which is in August, and beta probably will be in Oct. I expect release to be in nov ~the 21 or so.
  9. Falkon Swiftblade
    I'm curious to note will there be any fist weapons for monks? One of the things that always happens to monks in rpg's is they're screwed for loot drops. They get like a pair of boots and a necklace or amulet it seems, and maybe some rings. Or they're forced to wield a weapon to compensate, but I'm hoping they balance their skill tree so we can get comparable drops like the rest of the group without the need to be fully equiped in the same armor or wield the same weapons as the next party. With all due respect, I don't want the whole party wearing the same gear or using the same weapon and look identical for them to have the best gear. Visually I want my party to stand out apart from another.
  10. Falkon Swiftblade
    I wonder if the guys doing the making of dvd were there for the e3, and I'm wondering how long the making of dvd will be? I hope its not like 10 minutes haha. However remember, "We want to do more polish before we show the backers," he said. "We'll also show off other game play to the backers that has no spoilers. But backers can expect a beta later in the summer."
  11. Falkon Swiftblade
    I saw a quick mention of Pillars of Eternity tonight with good news.... http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e32014/11739-Johns-Five-Favorites-of-E3-2014 So I'm guessing we might hear something Wednesday, maybe?!
  12. Falkon Swiftblade
    I want to see game play as much as anybody, but I know darn well my natural tendency will be to recognize it's still pre alpha or alpha footage, but still critique it as something that in my mind should be more polished for as long as it's been in development. Therefore, I choose to remain patient and be grateful for anything that is shown, because regardless of when they show something, every day it's not shown is another day to make it better, and I'm ok waiting a few more weeks or months...
  13. Falkon Swiftblade
    Hey Justin, just curious do you guys play the internal builds with temp tracks? Also how are you going about designing battle music? I think that might be one of the harder things to get right since battles may last 3 seconds or several minutes. Does unity offer you any way to add any dynamic or randomness to the tracks? I get the impression the game will have a lot of reading and a lot of combat, so I wonder your thoughts on avoiding listener fatigue? Thanks, I look forward to hearing new samples soon
  14. Falkon Swiftblade
    I really liked their technique in this game of how they saturated the colors and use a gradient from darker to more saturated up top. I pulled this from their kickstarter page and like the logic they use to make the characters more awesome against the game world. I'm not saying the characters have to look cartoony, but right now there just doesn't seem to be much life to them, and they're fairly stiff and rigid and not very emotive. One of my pet peeves in Rpg's is so much of it has to be role played in your mind, where as I would preferred more gestures and body language to help enunciate the mood or personality's more. They still have a good 6 months to work on stuff, so we'll see how far they can get.
  15. Falkon Swiftblade
    We do have dynamic directional light shadow maps. Those are the shadows that are being cast by the spheres and characters. We do not have point light shadows, which can be more complex, and for us is challenging because of our psuedo-2d/3d situation. It's something that I would love to do moving forward! Adam, did you guys switch, or will you switch to Unity 5 while on this project, so many new goodies that seem like they'd be a good fit for you're team, however I understand sometimes switching in mid project creates a lot of new work too. The screenshots of the stuff you're showing at E3 look super cool. I love how you can see in the cracks and see some of the textures. Will your rendering techniques be able to use ambient occlusion or will your files be modible for us so we can go in after the game is out to adjust textures or maps at all?
  16. Falkon Swiftblade
    Interesting update, the support classes seem sufficient for what they do, and their skills seem useful. A few critiques or suggestions if you can modify them in your pipeline; can you have the castor's use different inflections in their voice for when they cast spells to add some variety and reduce listener fatigue? Maybe if it's a spell that offers an ability to crit, the sound of the spoken spell has a stronger pronounced enunciation when that occurs... same goes for wizard casting spells as well. Also the timing of the spell fx feel like they're coming in too soon before the spell is finished being uttered which is a little jarring, maybe you guys can ease in the fx transition a tad later. I understand you're probably still working on fx still, but the round sphere would communicate better if it transitioned from the caster or the center of the party outwards, similar to a ripple from a wave in water rather than a solid circle just, bam in your face! Everything else is looking better and better all the time.
  17. Falkon Swiftblade
    hey what race is that blue barbarian backer portrait that was showcased kind of recently? He had blue bald head and sharp shark like teeth. I'm guessing that's the Aumaua. I guess I'm gonna have to look that up cause I don't know anything about the races in the game other than a tiny bit about the Orlans.
  18. Falkon Swiftblade
    I might be wrong, but I suspect if the PoE team is successful in their implementation, then the group dynamics might actually be the most rewarding part and innovating thing about this game. From the sound of things each class serves very distinct roles and operate in unique ways. I don't recall ever getting to play anything like a Psionicist type of character in a CRPG, so a similar class in this game is going to be fun.
  19. Falkon Swiftblade
    I agree about the tinting feature is really nice touch, I hope they give us more choices of color than the original IE games. I work in the multimedia industry and my monitor does billions of colors per inch, it would be a shame to have like 4-6 colors to choose from. I still wish the characters were like 10% taller, something about their proportions feel micro to me for some reason.
  20. Falkon Swiftblade
    I have to give your art team props! (ha you see what I did there?! ) You guys have the best ground and floors in a game especially an IE type of game I've seen. I don't know if that's painted or a 3d texture or how that works out but it looks believable – and well grounded haha! The lighting is coming along really well too. Maybe we're finally done with artificial fantasy lights and faking it into oblivion finally thanks to technology. You mentioned one key word that I understand you might not be able to tell me, but realistically can you guys elaborate on the scope of variety in the game? Will we see the same 3 armor types dropping for 30-60 hours, or will there be distinguishing marks from one variant to the other? Specifically will something like a sword +2 look like a sword +1 etc? Will the armor have a naming convention other than say leather armor, or leather armor +1/ fine leather armor+1, or will it be something like leather armor of the bunny, because it gives bonuses to dexterity or dodging or something, but it it were to give bonuses to strength it would be leather armor of the bear...? Also if at all possible can ya try to make the npc's not look like the same character over and over 12 times in the game? give them different clothes, hair, boys and girls, etc. Some games put props in to fill space I think. I'd rather have 12 unique npcs in the whole game, than have a bunch of the same things just to fill a spot. Keep up the good work!
  21. Falkon Swiftblade
    Justin, one question I have regarding writing for the game, do the narrative designers or directors get really specific when writing for a mood or tone of a zone? I'm curious to know what the context of the tone in the game will be like. Will there be a mixture of really happy places and some super creepy - don't play the game in the dark, type of dungeons? Another thing, how do you handle writing for character themes versus choosing to write for a zone? I imagine everything you write is trying to evoke an emotional tone, and I wonder how serious PoE takes itself. I feel like there was a unique playfulness in the BG1 game vs the 2nd one, and the IWD games didn't seem like there was time for shenanigans, but I wonder with the personality's of many of the dev's who post on here they often seem very jovial and happy people, and pretty silly at times. Do you think the tone of the dev's will carry over into the overarching design, or will the game be fairly one dimensional in it's thematic design? PS this song is completely not what I'm saying the music should be like for this game, but what I think it does for me is it evokes an awesome sense of motivation and I can leave it on a loop all day without getting fatigued. I don't understand the techniques used it this style, but I find it very pleasing and its very different than the other types of music I like. Maybe it will give you some inspiration for composition...
  22. Falkon Swiftblade
    Thanks for the informative update Justin, I've been waiting for this update for a really long time. Overall I like everything you shared with us. I was wondering if at this stage of development are you finished writing all the tracks for the game and you just need to go back and polish them, or how much more do you anticipate writing? Also, how do you go about choosing which pieces go into the levels or zones? Will they be specific ques for each zone or town, or will you use a collective pot that picks sounds at random depending on designer triggers in the game. How much music do you anticipate will be in the final game? Finally, in the last stretch goal it mentioned one of the perks will be an in game dev commentary. It would be fantastic if you did an audio commentary regarding your process similar to how you did this update for a section you are particularly proud of. I love all those behind the scenes doc's in the LOTR dvd's and such on their creative process. Keep up the good work!
  23. Falkon Swiftblade
    basically the way it works from 3.5M to 4M is they divvy out man ours towards that much $. If memory serves there was 15 people working on the game before they got help from the rest of the guys at Obsidian that were working on other projects that are now helping on this one. So maybe they have 20-25 people working on it now. That $ just gets allocated in the same way your job gets an extra 4 hours a week to pay overtime for example. So basically it gives them an extra few months to polish the game. Remember the game was due out in April originally, so these extra months until Winter, (I think it'll be out ~Nov 18 personally based upon several factors that have been stated by devs and their holiday calendar on their main site.
  24. Falkon Swiftblade
    I believe they said in an older update it takes about 6 weeks from start to finish for concept to modeling, rigging and animating it. It vary's on whether they are humanoid versus something like the flying drakes, which apparently are much more work, especially creatures with multiple legs or appendages.
  25. Falkon Swiftblade
    regarding the animations, this is so fast and easy to do you guys should implement this into the game and the whole game would be like 900% better since you could quickly add dozens of variables and blend states so creatures have some personality. I can't believe how simple this is to do. http://youtu.be/t_dXBdqX5oA
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