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AndreaColombo

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Everything posted by AndreaColombo

  1. AndreaColombo
    About the update—I generally like it, although I am also very happy that Josh would consider melee opportunities for rangers. I like the ranger concept presented here, but having the additional option to make a stronger melee ranger build can only be good. Area art is very pretty and very reminiscent of the IE style with a more modern look—and that portrait is freaking AMAZING! About what to put in the next update—I'm very curious about both priests/chanters and wizards/druids. If the latter comes packed with spell previews, then that's what I'm rooting for. Otherwise, either one of them suits me fine (but really, the update on fighters would be totally cool, too). Question for the devs—Since my mind is already made up about increasing my pledge, I would like the extra money to also count against the additional stretch goals for more companions and wilderness areas in case you decided to go for them. Hence, I have not finalized my pledge on the backer portal yet. Are you going to need every pledge to be finalized before the time you estimate you'll be making a decision on extra stretch goals, or is it fine to wait?
  2. AndreaColombo
    Well, Josh did say that it is still early in the development of the game's mechanics, and the actual effects of INT on AoE and spell duration are still up for internal discussion. As a matter of fact, he implied two solutions are being debated: One is to let high-INT mages dynamically alter their spells' AoE from a minimum given by each spell's standard range, to a maximum given by standard range + bonus range from INT; the other is to have the bonus range from INT apply all the time but not hit your allies. The latter appears to be loathed by the majority of the users who cared to post about it (including me), and I am sure the devs will take this into account in their internal discussions. As a side note, it would be overly kewl (and logically sense-making, if you ask me) to let high-INT mages dynamically alter their spells' duration as well (as suggested by ProjectBG2Respawn). If I'm casting a Cloudkill-like spell to take out a pack of low-level monsters, I certainly do not need it to last for hours, forcing me to stand idly until it's gone or worse to waste a Zone of Sweet Air-like spell to advance in my path. Standard duration would be more than fine. So, yeah—Josh, dynamic adjustments to AoE and spell duration for high-INT mages are totally cool and should be part of PoE's game mechanics
  3. AndreaColombo
    Brilliant! My only concern would be if the mousewheel was destined to zooming in and out, although I guess you could always assign zoom (or AoE size) to a different key in the game's options.
  4. AndreaColombo
    Josh, not sure you saw my post a couple pages ago—I look forward to your feedback on the matter, so here's some shameless self-quoting for the sake of convenience I thought I'd chime in on this to ask something to Josh: Is the increase in AoE deriving from INT permanent, or more like a range within which the character may choose a value each time they cast an AoE spell or use an AoE ability? To clarify: If it is permanent, it is a lot less flexible and might become suboptimal past certain levels and/or in certain circumstances. E.g. I may cast a fireball that hurts my party because of its huge AoE derived from my high INT score. Maybe in certain circumstances I need a smaller fireball to take out fewer enemies that are concentrated in a limited area. If, on the other hand, INT makes it possible to increase the AoE arbitrarily within a given range, it would gain a lot of flexibility and go a long way toward marking high-INT casters as true masters of their discipline. E.g. Vanilla fireball has an AoE of, say, 30. My high INT score enables me to choose whether to cast it like that, or at 35, or at 40. (again, just an example to clarify what I mean).
  5. AndreaColombo
    I thought I'd chime in on this to ask something to Josh: Is the increase in AoE deriving from INT permanent, or more like a range within which the character may choose a value each time they cast an AoE spell or use an AoE ability? To clarify: If it is permanent, it is a lot less flexible and might become suboptimal past certain levels and/or in certain circumstances. E.g. I may cast a fireball that hurts my party because of its huge AoE derived from my high INT score. Maybe in certain circumstances I need a smaller fireball to take out fewer enemies that are concentrated in a limited area. If, on the other hand, INT makes it possible to increase the AoE arbitrarily within a given range, it would gain a lot of flexibility and go a long way toward marking high-INT casters as true masters of their discipline. E.g. Vanilla fireball has an AoE of, say, 30. My high INT score enables me to choose whether to cast it like that, or at 35, or at 40. (again, just an example to clarify what I mean).
  6. AndreaColombo
    That would be a second at best, the first one being John Titor ;-)
  7. AndreaColombo
    Absolutely agreed. You may write to Obsidian's support and they would update your (finalized) pledge for you.
  8. AndreaColombo
    Whether more companions and wilderness areas are non-essential is moot, however. For some people they are quite essential. I wouldn't mind the release date being delayed if that meant a bigger game with more joinable NPCs.
  9. AndreaColombo
    If your expectations are "PS:T level", I take it Planescape: Torment is among your favorite games ... which makes it rather surprising for me that you would not be interested in Torment: Tides of Numenera (as the fact that you refer to it as "Tides of whatever" seems to suggest). Chris Avellone has already been doing work for it, by the way, providing feedback and creative advice on all concept and plot documents; other than that, he will only be writing one joinable NPC for that game. Chances are he can probably spare the time to write a few more for Pillars of Eternity, if they're portraying them as an option for more stretch goals (provided that writing NPCs for Pillars of Eternity is exclusively Chris's job, that is).
  10. AndreaColombo
    +1. Also, for how long will we be able to upgrade our pledges?
  11. AndreaColombo
    Hello. I would only like to chime in to ask the developers to please, please, please not use italics inappropriately—and using them for descriptive text counts as (highly) inappropriate. I understand and appreciate people's desire to separate descriptive/action text from spoken lines, but italics are not the way. As explained in this book (among others; this is the first example that came to my mind), italics are a punctuation mark that serves the purpose to emphasize text; but if everything is emphasized within a given text, nothing is. It ensues that the (ab)use of italics for descriptive/action text is gratuitously ungrammatical, and it makes the text itself harder to read. It's like the loudness war of written text (well, not really: Written text never experienced anything similar to the loudness war, but the results are the same—something that is harder for our brain to process). In light of the above, I reinstate my request to look into alternatives to italics if you want to separate descriptive/action text from spoken lines.
  12. AndreaColombo
    Pipyui — You're no hypocrit. We're entitled to enjoy whatever genre regardless of how good the mastering is. I myself like a lot of bands whose albums are overcompressed, but I certainly do not condone their partaking the Loudness War. In fact, I spread the word whenever I can, pester bands about it on their FB pages, and partake Dynamic Range Day every year (you can find it either on FB, on Twitter, or on Ian Shepherd's "Production Advice" website). Here is a link where to find out whether an album has been compressed, and to what extent: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/ You may also upload your own measurements for albums that don't appear in the list yet. Sorry for the OT, everyone—I just have strong feelings toward overcompression.
  13. AndreaColombo
    Pipyui - Just a quick link for you to peruse, which explains exactly what is wrong with music nowadays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war Justin Bell - Thank you very much for chiming in on this discussion! I'm very glad to learn that our opinions are perfectly aligned, and I'm looking forward to P:E all the more! If lossless audio cannot be implemented in the game as-is, a separate high-quality audio pack download would indeed be an awesome idea (provided, of course, that the game could be made to support FLAC and easily swap between it and whatever format you guys eventually go for).
  14. AndreaColombo
    Baldur's Gate (5 CDs) + Tales of the Sword Coast (1 CD) = 6 CDs
  15. AndreaColombo
    I complain now. I bought Baldur's Gate again from GoG.com solely because installing it from 6 CDs everytime I wanted to play it was downright appalling
  16. AndreaColombo
    I agree with the OP whole-heartedly. People calling this thread useless clearly have no understanding of how upscaling works, or of what it is altogether. What the OP is suggesting makes perfect sense, and he has explained it in every possible way (even with graphical examples). There really is no reason to not make P:E future-proof, and account for higher DPI screens.
  17. AndreaColombo
    I would like to chime in for, as an inveterate audiophile, the quality of audio in Project: Eternity is one of the first things I have thought of. I agree with the OP that environmental audio is key to creating an immersive atmosphere in the game. The design of good environmental audio is far from banal: Overdone environmental audio is as fastidious and bothersome as the absence thereof, so it needs to achieve a proper balance. On top of good environmental—and of course positional—audio, there are two things that really matter to me: Avoid excessive compression. The Loudness War is bad enough in music without it spoiling games' soundtracks as well. There is absolutely no good reason for overcompression to be used, ever, under any circumstances. If you want things to sound good, you must leave their full dynamic range untouched. Let the music explode in our face in the most epic moments, and fighters' blows to sound different in intensity from one another (a person would never strike with the exact same intensity twice in a fight). Spell effects would benefit from great dynamics even more. Avoid mp3 as though it was pest (which it is). Mp3 sounds bad and it can't be helped: Its compression algorithm just isn't good. If Project: Eternity's audio needs be lossy for space-saving purposes (which aren't urgent as they used to be in the past, anyway), by all means go with OGG Vorbis. It is free (contrary to mp3) and sounds significantly better. Q10 OGG Vorbis would already be a treat compared to what most games currently offer. However, if you wanted to bring the game's audio to the next level and make it really shine, go FLAC all the way. It is free, and it is lossless. Pure aural bliss.
  18. AndreaColombo
    I emailed them yesterday but hadn't quite come up with something like that yet. Depending on their answer, I may mention this in my reply.
  19. AndreaColombo
    Thanks, Humanoid!
  20. AndreaColombo
    I've been trying to upload .BMPs and .JPGs, but that would always result in some sort of error message and no avatar was actually uploaded.
  21. AndreaColombo
    Hello. I know this is probably going to vie as the stupidest question on the forum for the year 2012 (possibly a candidate for 2013 as well), but I couldn't find the answer anywhere else. What are the accepted file formats and sizes for forum avatars? Thanks.
  22. AndreaColombo
    Why do I systematically like everything I read about Project: Eternity? It must have something to do with the game oozing pure win ...
  23. AndreaColombo
    I like this idea. I would gladly pledge $250 right away, if payment was due in 3 months.
  24. AndreaColombo
    As I side note: I really don't mind getting the game later than Kickstarter backers if that means I can get the $250 tier. Need more time to have the goods ready to ship? No problem. I'm no publisher, and I won't rush anyone's feet off As far as I'm concerned, the devs may and should take all the time they need to fulfill whatever (be it content design, feature implementation, physical tiers fulfillment, etc.). All I care is for this game to express the full potential of its spiritual ancestors without repeating their (albeit few and venial) mistakes or incurring in the same limitations; in other words, to be awesome.
  25. AndreaColombo
    Hi SqueakyCat. Indeed, they did not disclose for how long the tiers will be up — they just said it would be a "very limited time". That's why I'm fretting about my ability to get the $140 tier, and I'm positively skeptic about my ability to later upgrade it to the $250 tier. Unfortunately, pledging $250 right away is something I just cannot afford; otherwise, I totally would. However, unless both Project: Eternity's website and its Kickstarter campaign webpage are mistaken (which they might, if the developers made an announcement that superseedes what I see written there), the $250 tier does include a collectors' boxed set signed by the devs. Yes, I imagined that (though thanks for confirming my suspicions; I still have a lot of catch-up reading to do about Project: Eternity). I figured it would have already been an add-on, if the devs had planned for it to be one. I guess that's one more reason for me to fret about getting the $250 tier.
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