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The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Jajo

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  1. Jajo
    Amphitheatres were the round ones with sits on all sides, theatres were the ones with half circular benches. The first ones were used for family entertainment (lions, gladiators, etc.), while the second ones were used for more intellectual stuff (plays, stand-up philosophers, etc.). Modern usage is inconsistent, but if it's meant to provide intellectual bonus, please name it as it should be named.
  2. Jajo
    MFW stronghold has a maze: This is considerably more than I've been expecting. Or is this not just a filler update, but the actual big one?
  3. Jajo
  4. Jajo
    The poll is totally speciist! 10 rings? How many fingers do orlans have? How many fingers do all variants of godlike have? What if a godlike is half a chameleon (who wouldn't want such a rogue in the party) and only has mitten like hands? I will not support segregation of any kind, so I voted for 2. Being able to equip many rings will just result in their power being watered down. That's not my preference.
  5. Jajo
    None taken. I know it's misleading - it was meant as a joke. Of course they're not going to call it DEADLY SHADOWS OVER THE DYRWOOD: ETERNITY CHRONICLES VOLUME 1: THE REINCARNATING: THE URQUHART JOINT Or are they?
  6. Jajo
    Visually, IE games were always going to be a tough act to follow. What we've seen so far shows, that P:E team is more than just coping with that, so I'm not worried in the slightest (GUI is debatable ). In the end, if on really does not find any portraits to his specific taste, we'll be able to import them anyway.
  7. Jajo
    The name has been leaked (source)! I fear this topic may violate the NO SPOILERS rule, but the truth has to come out!
  8. Jajo
    +1 The BG1/2 portraits were okay too, but not nearly as cool as the IWD1/2 ones. I get that, but wouldn't it be possible to partially mitigate that by creating multiple variations of the same portrait with different weapons and other small differences? The artists will work digitally anyways, so if they use different layers etc. then shouldn't this be possible with minimal overhead? I've never seen this done in a game before, but I imagine it could be an effective way to increase the "coverage" of the shipped portraits (i.e. make them cover as many different character builds as possible), without making them less expressive. In the same post you've quoted he heavily implied that even making full body portraits with just one weapon/armor combination would take too much manpower. Your suggestion would require even more effort, regardless of how difficult it is or isn't to achieve that (and my guess would be, that it's not something that can be done quickly and still get good results). Interestingly, I've never seen anybody mentioning portrait matching problems until Josh brought it up. Why I regret the decision to get rid of full body portraits the most is, because I feel that IWD portraits show not just what character's face looks like, but rather what the character is like. And I don't mean the class and proficiencies (anyone can hold a mace for the photo and nobody is walking bare shouldered through the winter); I mean the stance and the poise. It gave you something much more to choose from than just the prettiest face. If the finished portraits will be on par with IWD's I'm fine with it. I really hope they will be at least comparably as memorable.
  9. Jajo
    Josh confirmed the portraits will be shoulder up, so this probably wont end up being a portrait which is a shame! this picture is an amazing piece of art by Kaz and would more than deserve to end up in game it's up there with the very best pieces of art in icewind dale 1 and 2, and those are probably the best ever created for a video game the godlike "portrait" we have seen is also very good (but is Polina's work, isn't it, her work is great too!) artwise, this game really could rock the nation IWD portraits are my favourite (by far) too. IWD portraits came in different sizes, like the ones in P:E will. The biggest image was always the full body character rendition, while only the head cut-out has been used for smaller ones. So... is it confirmed, that all portraits (meaning all sizes) will be shoulder up, or just the smaller ones? I've re-read my post. I guess I should clarify, that me being so incredibly glad that Kaz is making the portraits is purely because he's done an excellent work on them (it) so far and not an implication, that other artists suck and should better stay away from the portraits. Because they don't. I've mentioned Polina only because I thought that she was the one who made the Sagani portrait.
  10. Jajo
    It has also come to my attention, that You (and not Polina) is the one behind this: I am now sooooo incredibly glad, that you are the one making portraits.
  11. Jajo
    Those were sketches I did to establish the general mood for the various districts in Defiance Bay. Someone had asked how long they took, and the answer to that is two days each, six days in total. Follow-up question: May we get higher resolution ones Otherwise we'll be stuck with waterfall lithography backgrounds.
  12. Jajo
    However rude it may sound, but I was expecting something more special for the anniversary too... Anyway, Heyo Kaz; what areas are the images on the 2x2 split picture from?
  13. Jajo
    Another exciting update! I can see why Tim has been advertised as "having fun with stronghold" int he past couple of weeks. A couple of questions: 1. How will we be notified? Some sort of spell (similar to Sending)? Carrier pigeon? Long distance duck? An arrow? 2. Will the stronghold be fully explorable by foot (before and after restoration), or will we just have a special UI interface for it and some selected areas?
  14. Jajo
    I am not a roguelike player but I have recently been informed that FoW clearing in roguelikes takes into account facing as well as the casting of light, rather than a simple radius around party members blocked by walls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4ngG8Eqvz80 Hopefully, it will work very much like COH2's fog of war, and if it does, I'll be very happy indeed. I agree! That really would be something to strive for. Gives a nice additional tactical angle to something like obscuring mist...
  15. Jajo
    Excellent update! I really hope I'm going to have at least comparably as much fun with the stronghold as Tim is having. Couple of comments: 1) What is a "rogue-like" fog of war? What is "rogue-like" anyway, for that matter and why is suddenly everybody using this term? have I been inadvertently living under a rock? 2) I think it would be better, if description text would be indicated differently (more distinguishable) in the dialogue UI (first line in the conversation). As it is now, it looks like the inn keeper is narrating his own description. Perhaps even the Inn keeper's name tag (Osmaer-) could be removed from such lines. It wouldn't make much sense to have it, if the line was describing several characters, for instance.
  16. Jajo
    Screen shot looks beautiful! I disagree with critiques of the environmental shadows. In a place with multiple equivalent light sources and many objects that reflect and disperse light being close to one another (ceiling, walls, pillars, ...) the shadows will never be prominent or sharp. To me, characters don't really stand out or feel out of place, but I'd have to see it in motion, to be sure. Armours and weapons look very nice too. Can't remember the last game, where these didn't have fantasy/caricature painted all over them.
  17. Jajo
    A great update in every sense of the word. Just one consideration about overlapping skill sets: I hope there actually is some overlapping - it will give a player a choice when considering which companion to take on board to cover that challenge mechanics. Two other options are, of course, a mercenary and PC himself, but mercenaries are dull in comparison with companions and PC is usually the one that party is being built around.
  18. Jajo
    The only way I could see durability work is, if it's elevated from the depths of MMO inspired annoyance into a non-negligible strategic aspect. For instance: Do I use my ultra expensive, but very fragile gear to defeat this encounter? That way it's something that would actually bring depth into the system, not just annoyance. Also, such aspects should be kept to the higher difficulty modes. Having item durability just for the sake of making one skill more desirable is a completely wrong approach. It does not promote picking up a skill because one likes it, but because doing so is the lesser of the two evils. Judging by some of Sawyers posts, having a multi-skilled character will already be a rarity.
  19. Jajo
    I'm glad that at least someone is thinking of us!
  20. Jajo
    Durability seems to be in it solely as a gold sink. Such mechanics have no place in a single player game, where the amount of gold can be closely limited anyway. Some people like crafting, some don't. This is really one of the most polarized aspects of every game. Don't make crafting a must-have skill by tying it to several other game mechanics, like durability. Crafting should be done in such a way, that it's compelling enough by itself. People should not be forced to consider picking it as a lesser of two evils. While each skill should be desirable by many, not all skills should be desirable by all.
  21. Jajo
    Great update. Crafting sounds very similar to NWN2:SoZ's system, which was the most usefully done one, that I can think of right now. A couple of questions: Will there also be skills that will help with gathering crafting resources? Is repair cost / durability repaired a linear function? By-section linear function? Not decided yet? How big of a gold sink are the repair costs meant to be? Will an unskilled party be throwing every penny earned for it? Will it limit usage of certain expensive items to special occasions? If being able to create an item is a reason for being able to take a good care of it, will being able to expertly use an item also be a reason for being able to take a good care of it (will 'weapon focus' or similar also help with slower degradation, or is this exclusive domain of the repair skill)? Will there be any nook balancing updates in the future?
  22. Jajo
    Easthaven from prologue of Icewind Dale.
  23. Jajo
    Thank you for posting these. The store concept art is excellent and now my favourite, but not by far. Between the VS dungeon, VS wilderness, shop concept and the original screenshot, I like how a wide variety of colours is notably used. It strengthens my conjecture, that visually, this game will be a sight to behold. I dislike, how many games make one or two colours predominant throughout the game, to forcefully create an atmosphere. It feels like a cheap trick - having a constant and obvious visual clue of how/what I should feel, without having any good reason to feel so.
  24. Jajo
    It was great. The new screen shots are absolutely fabulous. I can't wait till the vertical slice presentation update! And all the BLOG memos were hilarious :D
  25. Jajo
    No surprise there. Something sure is silly, but it's not the questions. With resurrect, raise dead, etc, yes, yes it is. Your mental gymnastics is beyond astonishing.
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