Falkon Swiftblade

They've already answered this a while back. Actually I think that information is in this very update. Actually I haven't read all through this, but I believe he only called out specific folks. I can't imagine there only being like 3-5 artists. Even the tiny mobile game studio I started marketing on had 2 artists, and quickly grew to like 4-5.

hmmm so Ubisoft offered $3.2 million for South Park and no one else bid for it.

speaking of art updates, any rough outlines/ideas of what the next few updates will be? How long is the pre pro cycle for this before the fun starts? How many artists are on staff, and how are the teams broken up?

when I get some free time I plan on mocking up a ui design for the game. I've always been a fan of those old IE games huds. I just want to have a little more context about the game before I put in a ton of time and it's like a bamboo skin when there's nothing like that in game, or what I really wanna do is make it like a customized skin that relates to the story or villain or something and not just modular boxes. I am hoping the PC's get a lil more love. I really like the PE environment screeny, but I thought that was even kinda teeny for scale from the get go. I love the isometric style games, but I want to feel like I have some breathing space to move in.

I'm sure that's a similar method they planned on doing anyways If they did create the backgrounds in flash though, they could make everything scale to any size without losing quality. I like to use flash for shape sculpting. I can make anything with enough reference.

Nice update Josh! Classes sound interesting, and mechanics sound solid so far. Few things not as impressive though, primarily the scale of the heros seem about 15%-20% too small. I know its a work in progress, but I couldn't distinguish Jack from Jill and there's not much detail to see in the hero model. (I was hoping for a modern day game you guys might have adressed stuff like that.) Are there gonna be any little races? Also the scale of the tile sets seem a bit claustrophobic for a group of six plus monsters in that space. Maybe the encounters are not too many though? I'm kinda worried how the ui or hud will work with that as well because it looks like a single pop up or loot box would be as big as the player and you may lose hierarchy and legibility trying to read. Oh speaking of legibility, can ya guys have a wee bit of negative space in between lines so our eyes don't get too tired from straining to read like some of the old IE games did?

I was told its def still coming out this year by a lead in the Studio!

That's a good point, and why i was asking for 20-30 min episodes. If you edit the footage of failed attempts and keep them at 10 min+ intervals that would be ideal. I'd still like VO commentary if Chris is open to it.

that's precisely my feeling too. I thought the portraits in the old games didn't do anything for me, especially since they were not dressed the same. I really enjoyed the banter in the party though. I just was hoping for a portrait that was more representative of my heros.

Rjshae, they can do it in 3d, and just save the animation as a gif file, it would be very small, easy to swap out a few expressions. I'd prefer more of an idle animation, or use something like this

Sesobebo, That's my question, and this is a prime example of how it could be done with minimal work.

hey Rob, while you're on, can you guys make some areas that allow us to knock enemy's into streams of lava or off bridges in battles for a change of pace? It's a little silly when enemy's get knocked down and then just disappear but if they get burnt up, or wash away, or fall off a cliff that would be better. Also It would be cool to have a level where we ascend in elevation as we're playing, so maybe we start in a dwarven mine, and end up on top of a snowy peak or something...

I'm curious why would this be so hard? Couldn't ya just script the code to loop frames so they choose a few keyframes and adjust the speed as the skill went up or down? Im not expecting all new animations with every point, but within 3 points maybe the speed changes, greater than 3 might affect key poses so the swings a little further back or maybe the swing bounces an extra time or two. Similar to a walk cycle and a skip and just fudging the timing. maybe this will help ya http://www.motionscript.com/articles/bounce-and-overshoot.html

lets play with commentary on youtube, preferably in 20-30 min segments.

I completely agree Valorian, there's a reason why Batman and Uncharted were such great games. It was partially because they had a ton of variety in the animations, especially Batman. If the games very slow paced and combat is much less an emphasis you can get away with only one basic attack, but if you're going to be using the same attack several times per fight, and the average fight is like 7 seconds things get boring quick. That's why I encouraged Josh to consider a method to counter attack, parry, dodge then attack, and attack from a block when appropriate in the new system to avoid tediousness animations. I know it's not an action game, but they would be tactical choices of how to play. I fear though we may have 8 classes, they'll all feel like the same but with different textures on them and that's def not fun. I want my little guy to have to use more momentum and maybe have to take a few extra steps to get his spear thrusts in compared to my beefcake muscle head guy. Or if I have a big fella he would have a much bigger follow through because the momentum would build up under his force. I would def not have a single attack for everyone unless it was a game for young kids. I'd even have the weapons like spears flex a lil bit as I move.

I think the guys from gameinformer did a really fantastic job when they were covering the Elder Scrolls Skyrim. I just like their style. Although, arguably the guys who filmed the kickstarter for Double Fine's adventure game http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fine-adventure?ref=live have a fun quirkiness that seems like it would mesh well with Obsidian sense of humor. I imagine the documentary will likely come on like 4-6 week intervals starting pretty soon if recent interviews and updates mean anything. Another thing I'm excited about, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that we paid for funding of a developer commentary in game as possibly an unlock-able reward in game. I also remember Josh mentioning he'd give us his input how long the game was based upon his play-through.

HI Mark, hows the new unity 4 animation set up going so far? I think its pretty amazing compared to what I learned in 3ds max 09. It was pretty tedious work compared to this new system. Times have sure changed! I have several questions for you when you get free time. 1) what types of benefits do you foresee as major improvements to PE as compared to limitations animators had to face during the old IE games? 2) Have you tested cloth physics yet, and any chance you can collaborate with programmers and texture artists to include animations reflecting state changes so the more beat up you get your weapons and armor get damaged, and maybe your hero appears exhausted and hunkered over? Similarly, you mentioned you like Batman, what will it take for the players gear to look like as they progress in the game with ripped capes, or rusty swords that don't swing as smooth as a fine weapon? 3) I suggested to your programmer a long time ago to collaborate with the animators, so our stats influence your movements. So maybe someone with low dexterity may stumble a bit in their walk, while someone with high dexterity would have very smooth animations. Your mage with normal intel might cast magic normal, but a very wise mage might have much more followthrough or elegance in the way he casts spells, and the animations could adjust overtime in addition to new skills. Would you consider a system like that? 4) please I ask really nice to animate the baddies and good guys with some personality in them, so when it comes later time to add text or dialog the body language show emotion. Some of those old games you read for 15 min and its kinda lame to see the npc just standing idle or making silly gestures out of context. 5) I have one final request, can we please have animated portraits instead of just the standard image, unless we choose to upload our own? I think by 2014 its not unrealistic to expect semi mocaped facial expressions since the software does most of the work for you now. Thanks for the introduction and I hope you're having fun

I partially agree with you guys regarding the evil scheme, though I wouldn't want to play a game that had mechanics in it such as killing children for a quest or for fun because I'm a bad guy and its supposed to be fun to kill everything. I'd much prefer like what was said about a political or society belief system that was a little more gray than true evil. You know what would be fun for me is if the bad guys were like the bad guy in Space Balls, or the 5th Element. They had a lot of personality and charisma.

I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but it's bothered me for some time that final encounters are almost always like a tennis match and pretty much a button spamming match. Not to mention is pretty obvious the boss is ALWAYS in the deepest dungeon or highest peak, so it's no real surprise. I challenge game designers to script a boss fight that changes things up. How about just as you get to the deepest pit or highest mountain to fight said boss, you actually accidentally free them upon the world, and have to back track to find him and stop him from burning down the whole city or something where you chase him across the over world before he kills everyone. Also there would be an option to inflict much more environmental damage to him instead of killing him by stabbing him in the toe 187,000 times until he bleeds to death. If you were a smart player you would have done the optional side quest that set up booby traps around the place to stop the impending army, only to realize afterwards they would be used on the boss instead. Something like that would be way more entertaining than spending 40 hrs to collect a shield that protects you from the dragon's breath attacks.

I thought of another one, I despise having to pick my starting class or role before I even play the game. A rogue in game x may play way different than a rogue in game y, but I don't know that until dozens of hours in and you realize how much you don't like the class, but now you have to weigh the options of playing through and suck it up, or waste a weekend replaying the same content over hoping it's something more fun. I much prefer let me play the game, and just allow me to use the game mechanics to do what I want. Although from the wee bit I've read, I think PE is addressing some of those areas.

It's interesting reading these responses. I'm working towards my own kickstarter on a project I first started some 5-6 yrs ago and it was a notebook of nearly 70 pages of an idea for a story and one of the main things even then when I started writing my character was I wanted to create a hero who was not a heman, or a tank, or a fairy shooting elf kinda of a thing, but wanted the hero to actually physically and intelligently go through a character arc the audience could connect with. All too often games stereotype roles and make folks feel like unless they're not a beefcake or a busty beauty queen they suck. I'm happy at the work that has been done so far, and it gives me more confidence I've made the right choices. I'm hoping to pitch my plan this year. Since I'm developing a new IP I can take it many directions like books, animated features, boardgames, mobile, console, or PC. Currently the goal is to make it an interactive storybook/game. Details are still under wraps.

I concur the hero's being the Destined One is also up there on the samey same all the time too. I'm actually working on a project that the hero's in the game are all quite flawed by society standards. Only one of them would pass as a real hero, but mentally he has no desire to fight, he's more of a bard. Another one I pretty much despise is how unviable it is to play as an unarmed fighter. All these games require you to acquire the largest weapon ever imagined to kill something that's larger than a city skyscraper and for some reason it makes sense I'll be able to run around with a 70 lb sword or hammer on my back, but to make some magical knuckles or gauntlets for someone to fight with unarmed seems utterly unrealistic or too hard to do. Granted, I know some games have monk classes, but they're typically pretty one sided and not much fun to play. I'm hoping that changes in this game.

Basically, I wonder if there's anything in either game design, class design, or other RPG conventions you've seen so many times they're cliche or boring? I know mine is not a popular choice, but it's still how I feel. I'm reeeally burnt out on zombies in games. Even more than dragons in games. I think it's because I started playing games in the mid 80's and I've lost count how many I've played where I'm forced to kill zombies. To be fair I don't like to do much of anything the same way over and over again. However having things like zombies in games seem like lazy design to me. I'd much rather a fresh perspective and if it was a single case of a zombie, or a deeper story revolving around them like the walking dead had that's a different manner, but even then I hope since this is a fresh story being told, they'll take the opportunity to do something fresh and that makes sense.

I'm interested in the animations and AI, as well as technical stuff like the systems design. Most interested in would maybe be animations or sound design though.

all this talk of facial expressions, and to me it's body language I was looking for. We barely ever saw the npc faces in the IE games besides the portraits. I would feel pretty gipped if this game comes out and they don't include someone punching their fist, or taunting the npc, or kicking the dirt, etc. The portraits never really meant anything to me because all they served was a background for the health bar to rest upon, but I liked my lil action hero on screen. If I was reading, often the text is right near him or her. That's why I commented on my last post the way I did. I do think we're in 2013 now, and another yr and a half before this comes out, so I would expect a modern technique to rig some faces with motion capture and have some portraits that move and breath. If it's not there it's not going to ruin anything, but I don't think it would ruin it by using the tech available to us now either.