SophosTheWise

I'm an avid reader and kind of an enthusiast when it comes to literature. Also, I'm not easily impressed by writing. It seems I would incline to agree. But the problem with your statement is, that it hinders development of good gaming narratives. If people in the beginning of games with stories would've said "Ah, shucks, I don't want stories in my game!" we would've never had, say, Dear Esther or Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs which were absolutely stellar in writing. They have to be the most literary games I've ever played and I loved them dearly. "Reading" sounds unspecific and that irks me. It reminds me of verbose, everyone's-a-walking-encyclopedia-of-banalities Planescape. That, on the other hand, is true. I wouldn't say Torment was full of banalities, at least not in the context of other computer and videogames. I think Torment introduced players to some interesting albeit not very deep philosophical questions, and I think those players were never in a "philosophy" target group. So there's that. But I really hope we will not see "quality" writing in the vein of R.A. Salvatore.

You are welcome I don't think there's a german forum dedicated to P:E, but the [RPG]Board used to be a good spot for german discussions about RPGs - the section for questions about P:E would be here: http://www.rpgboard.org/subboard.php4?id=18 What about World of Players? Why don't they have a German subforum? They had one for pretty much every big RPG in the last few years.

I'm an avid reader and kind of an enthusiast when it comes to literature. Also, I'm not easily impressed by writing. It seems I would incline to agree. But the problem with your statement is, that it hinders development of good gaming narratives. If people in the beginning of games with stories would've said "Ah, shucks, I don't want stories in my game!" we would've never had, say, Dear Esther or Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs which were absolutely stellar in writing. They have to be the most literary games I've ever played and I loved them dearly. Probably in form of the next update.

i think she is a fighter. No it's confirmed she's a priest.

Sooo, waddaya guys think? Update tomorrow? No update?

I don't really think that's going to work. I'd love the idea, but honestly, I doubt Obsidian will be that responsive to an update suggestion. Mainly because they are still showcasing the game and showcasing according to communityfeedback might not be the best idea. Nevertheless I'd love to see all the classes in action in like a traileresque manner. By the way, all the best. Hope your hospital stay wasn't too bad.

The sheer amount of umlauts makes that a cool looking title. If you like umlauts we could also name it "Stützä vo dä Ewigkeit" You should really come to Zurich. In Züri redät jedä so, ich findä das pärsönlich zum chotzä. We can go waliserdütsch for the hardcorz. As a Solothurner I'm closly affiliated to Bern so Züri can go to a very special place. *smugface* J/K. Wait a second, you're Swiss? Edit: That's actually pretty amazing. Edit 2: visit combobreaker.ch

If you can't take a joke....... Making things too pr-ized and dry can be a slippery slope as well. Also, slacker backer rhymes.

The sheer amount of umlauts makes that a cool looking title. If you like umlauts we could also name it "Stützä vo dä Ewigkeit" You should really come to Zurich. In Züri redät jedä so, ich findä das pärsönlich zum chotzä.

Säulen der Ewigkeit for german. Swiss german: Süüle vo dä Ewigkeit

Though I remember the campaign referring to the backers as "Pillars of Eternity" and these are screenshots of the backer portal, so... It would be a nice touch nevertheless and a friendly nod towards us backers. To add that I really like the word pillar. It's somehow really a beautiful word, soundwise and letterwise.

Well, that was pretty big for a small update. I'm glad. Loving the WIP.

I want to believe.

I think you're confusing "convenient" with "what I'm accustomed to". That's really the big difference here. Have you played the PS2-version of Age of Empires II? I have and it was horrible. Not even because of the U.I. but because the whole principle behind the design is that you click and select stuff. That's not what you usually do on a console. I know, Dragon Age has done it, and I haven't played it, but from what I've heard, they've locked the camera to some kind of 3rd-person view there, which is, for an RPG that's supposed to be tactical, not desirable at all. Not to forget that PE has a locked isometric view which means the DA-approach wouldn't even be applicable. To have a working system that accomodates both, console as well as PC players, would mean that Obsidian had to spend loads of their resources to basically reinvent the wheel. Let's not kid ourselves. There are reasons why RTS games and such have never made it successfully onto consoles. And even if I were a controller person (as a matter of fact I play on consoles as well as on PC) I would never want Obsidian to squander their money for an additional UI-wizardry which is not even dearly needed. It would be cool for the console-people, but it would mean that there's a lot of money going toward an additional budget that is not the core budget. If I had to choose one evil over the other, I would definitely vote for no-console-UI as a "sacrifice" to have everything else awesome. On a more personal note, I see no reason whatsoever to play a game like PE on a controller and I would hate to see Obsidian cater to controller-people because that would mean consolization and that has never ever in the history of gaming been a good thing for PC-exclusive genres. Not speaking from a business standpoint of course, but I think the numbers are quite clear, even without doing a cost/benefit analysis. The game was pitched as an old-school-RPG and it was absolutely implied that it would play with a keyboard and mouse. Thus, everyone who backed the project gave their implicit "I would play with KB&M". I'm not one for crying "The devs have betraaaaayed uuuus!" but in this case using funds for a controller-layout and UI (and playtesting, and debugging etc) I could agree here. People wanted an old-school-RPG and not some consolized action RPG. Well, so is the Iso-RPG crowd, I could argue here. But it's not true. The thing that I see is gaming diverging. Gaming is more and more creating own segments. There's mobile gaming with simple puzzlers to play while on the toilet/in the train (Candy Crush, any of those bubble shooters, Angry Birds) , there's short artsy indies that care more about storytelling than about gameplay (Gone Home, Amnesia: AMFP, Dear Esther, Brothers), there are (more or less) console games which are the hollywood equivalent of gaming and there's complex games with complex systems causing complex simulation, promoting modability, complex systems and so on. PE clearly belongs to the latter category and it should be kept that way. You could be right and I agree with you that seeking compromises is a good thing and if they lead anywhere, bring it on. If you've got the money for it. I mean look at consolized games with a publisher behind it and who that worked out. Now look at their budget. And now look at Obsidians budget. This is a no brainer, really.

Or maybe just "not"

10 gold says it's still too early. 10 gold? What are you? A lousy Xvart? Bet me a thousand!

Sooo, what about an update on wednesday? Should I plan on staying up late tomorrow?

That would actually be pretty cool for Orlans

I guess it has been answered somewhere, but it seems difficult to find: how long is PE going to be and how much content do you plan on having? Someqhere I read PE is going to have "IWD 2-length" which could mean 60-100 hours. Any update on that? Is there anything "secret" you can share with us? Maybe a roooough description of one of your favourite quests so far? Or the coolest NPC? I don't actually think you'll answer this one, but hey, I tried :D Great to see you anwering questions again!

Also, I'd bet my underpants that they'll do some sort of preloadingn steam. I ****ing hope my collector's box arrives on time. Or I will go and kill everyone involved with packaging and sending it.

I was just referring to his Twitter description which said "working on torment (yay) and project eternity" That seemed... odd :D

Getting what you want is not always good. After equiping all the armor and weapons in pile 2 you encounter 10 more piles, all with stuff weaker than pile2. Instead of being happy at finding stuff you just feel bored. Ah, the old god mode problem

But I really guess it depends on their marketing strategy and the situation PE is in when they have to decide on boxed vs. distribution. I think physical goods outside of Kickstarter will not exist, but a boxed version maybe. Also I would be absolutely pissed off if they would just shell out a Collector's Edition. I backed that tier because I really wanted a Collector's Edition and not some mass market "collector's edition"

Even worse, it's wearing a metal skirt! Is that a historical design?

Wow, that's awesome!