Lephys

^ Hence why almost every Kickstarter page says something along the lines of "Please include $20 extra for shipping of physical goods outside the U.S.". The simple fact is this: You don't need your stuff to actually be produced until a certain point in time. You can't make the game manuals if you don't even have a finalized copy of them yet, because you don't even have the info worked out that's going to be in them (if there will be manuals in the boxed copy), and you definitely can't make the game disc, itself, until the game is complete. So, all factors being whatever they are, specifically, if you so choose to take more orders at a certain point (STILL all before you've actually said "Hey, printer/manufacturer... I need you to now start production on X number of boxed copies"), you can do so and simply alter the quantity of things you need to be made. Yes, distribution is another matter, and it needs to be worked out. But, there's nothing inherent to the sheer process of producing boxed copies of games that prevents then from ever taking further boxed copy orders after a Kickstarter campaign has closed, as the closing of the Kickstarter campaign doesn't dictate the necessary start of boxed-copy manufacturing. That's quite literally all I'm pointing out: It's possible they might get the fulfillment site up and still allow for a short window of physical copy orders. It's also possible they won't. But it wont' be because it's inherently impossible. It'll be because of factors and factor values specific to this particular project, and decisions of people for various reasons, all of which I'm not claiming to know exact details about, which is precisely why I'm simply saying, to those wondering if they'll be able to get a boxed copy, that it's possible they might still take orders for those.

Whatever you say, Captain Unreasonable. Discussion fruitlessness: achieved. I'm wrong. You win. Congratulations. I just hope that, if you're going to throw a celebratory party, you've ordered all your chips and salsa at least a year ahead of time, because if someone calls and wants to invite 2 more friends, you know, before you've actually gone to the store and acquired chips and salsa, logic itself dictates that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for you to simply adjust the amount of chips and salsa you purchase at the time of procurement. If you take a head count for a party, you can NEVER change the amount of chips and salsa you plan for back when you took the head count. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I'm less ignorant.

... Are you feeling okay today? o_O I dunno, probably the same deal that allows them to take our pledge money and deliver us our product a year-and-a-half later. Or the exact same deal that allows a typical, publisher-run project to undergo years of development, THEN get a big batch of games and boxes made close to release date, and shipped out to a bunch of stores. Or, you know, the same deal that lets an author write a WHOLE BOOK, then edit it, THEN they actually send it to a printer to print a bunch of books. I mean... why didn't that guy have to, like, get all his books printed BEFORE he was finished writing the book? Why would you need to make boxes and manuals and goodies A YEAR before you can even POSSIBLY put a game disc in those boxes?

I respectfully disagree. It would simply demand a tighter constraint on the extent of the randomization, is all. As I said, ranged combatants would have to remain ranged combatants (obviously), and so on and so forth. A larger portion of it would have to consist of either hand-placed, non-dynamic entities or constraints upon what can be dynamic. But, every single encounter in the game doesn't bear an inherent need to be so unique that you couldn't allow for some flexible details. If a given room is supposed to be more challenging for a party weak against magic, there are a plethora of ways in which to configure a particular level of challenge, for example. The same goes for a particular encounter with almost any other criteria. Every encounter in the game doesn't NEED for Foe A to have THIS many hitpoints and THIS particular weapon, and be standing in exactly THIS spot, and for Foe B to follow suit with a different, ultra-specific set of properties. A lot of the challenge in combat will be how things shift once the battle begins, and how you react to your enemy while it's reacting to you. Not "your initial placement and makeup versus THEIR initial placement and makeup." If we reduce it to that, then we're sort of diminishing the vibrance of such a combat system, methinks.

Well, let's see... Considering the manufacture/procurement of something can, and often does, occur at not-the-exact-same-time as an order is placed, I'd say that, so long as you haven't actually made the manufacturing run yet, you can take as many orders as you want, as many times as you want, at whatever varying times you want to. I'll break this down for you, despite your completely unnecessary condescension: Obsidian is making ice cream. They've planned ahead, and they're working on the recipe right now, but they've gone ahead and said "Hey, we're gonna make ice cream next Saturday, who wants ice cream?! 8D!" So, they took a head count, and said "Oh, cool, okay, we'll plan to make this much ice cream, then." They still haven't made ice cream. But they're GOING to. They took orders in advance, to know how much ice cream to make whenever they do make ice cream. So, if, the next day, someone calls and says "Hey, sorry, I was sick yesterday, but my family and I ALSO want ice cream. Could I get 10 more ice cream orders, on that day?", then, if they so choose Obsidian could say "Yeah, that's fine. We'll just adjust the recipe to make 10 more people's worth of ice cream on Ice Cream Day, 8D!" Now, obviously it's up to them, and obviously I don't know for a fact that they haven't made most of the materials for the boxed copies already (except, clearly they haven't made the game discs to put in them). But, the point isn't whether or not they have done so, but rather, that IF they haven't yet done so, and they so choose, they could easily just up the order. I'm not really sure why you'd want to argue against that, or why you'd want to argue against not-that, and pretend that I'm arguing against you, so that you're not arguing alone. *shrug* If they haven't printed the boxes and manuals and made all the physical goods that will be included in the boxes yet, then they could easily just say "hey, people who print boxes and manuals and things... .we want like THIS many" instead of however many they WOULD'VE said if they had requested them on some other day when they had a different number of orders. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, then I don't know what to tell you.

I beg to differ. What DA:O did was unnecessary. Not the inherent qualities of reactive animations. Do they have to "wrestle control" from the player? Not really. No more than the sheer existence of an animation wrestles control from the player. You want to attack 5 times, right now, but your character gets the attack command from the game code, and executes the attack. You can either allow the animation and attack to continue for its entire duration and take effect, or, possibly, cancel it. Basically, there is stuff that's already outside the player's control. Therefore, you have a zone to alter without actually wrestling anything away from anyone. The reason DA:O wrestled control is because it made long-duration things happen without the player's choice. You couldn't choose NOT to spend the next 15 seconds taking down an Ogre. It just happened. Then, you've got things like stuns/knockdowns, etc. Interrupts, if you will. If my character is performing a little multi-hit combo attack, and some mage smashes a boulder into his head, I expect him to fall down and/or stagger. I expect a reaction. The same I'd expect if MY mage were doing the same thing to a foe. We don't shun these types of effects simply because it means the player can't control things 24/7, because, again, there's an understandable zone of uncontrollability that we know and expect. It's got a purpose. Granted, if you're going to utilize any of this, the player needs to know about it. You need to know that things striking you CAN stun you, and now you're allowed to deal with it. And if you could feasibly cancel mid-attack to perform some kind of dodge roll or something, it needs to be possible to do so, either actively, or as a passive mode/stance that's actively set. I don't care if my character's going to automatically break casting at 4.9 seconds out of 5 for that Fireball spell and dodge that incoming spear if I've expressly told him to do so when the opportunity arises. Control isn't wrestled because my character reacts to things. It's wrestled when I have no say-so in the matter. Also, it makes sense that they're planned to be rare in Eternity (thanks for the point-out, Josh!). The less focus the perspective has on the detailed motions of the combatants on screen, the less benefit there is to increased detail.

So... what "the non-random crowd" (I'll just go ahead and overgeneralize, too, I guess) is saying is that, there's no dial to tune this? We either have to just randomize everything in the universe, or nothing at all. Is that it? Because, heaven forbid that group of bandits who assaults you jumps you on your travels not consist of an EXTREMELY specific weapon-wielding loadout. If there're TWO daggermen, and only one mace-wielder, *gasp*... the game is ruined! Heck... they could ALL have daggers! Oh, the horror! Is this weaponism? Is that what this is? Are we being weaponist? Do we need to spread tolerance by ensuring that every encounter has at least one of each weapon in it? Seriously though... I understand the need for specific encounters to involve specific weapons. That keep or safehouse you're assaulting isn't going to last long with dagger-wielders on the walls instead of archers. Or if all the enemy mages spawn with a greatsword in each hand, instead of a grimoire... That doesn't mean we can't have any randomization in the system.

Stun... READ. C'mon. Who in the crap said ANYTHING about "on-going distribution"? Well, except for not-me? Yep, for them to on-goingly take single orders for boxed copies would be ludicrous. I absolutely agree. Am I supposed to be arguing against that? o_o

You know... most legends are based on some simpler truth. While I agree that "legendary" is generally used much like "epic" nowadays in gaming terminology. But, the regular definition of "legendary" applies to a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily chocked full of PC-uberizing properties.

Maybe they could all just act out their comments without speaking, like Mario in Super Mario RPG.

I'm pretty sure there's only one stronghold, since it seems to be tied to the land/lore no matter what. However, it's possible we'll got lots of different development options for it, since it seems the pursuit of the stronghold management content will consist of the rebuilding of the stronghold from an almost-rubble state. Probably enough foundation there to not literally be starting from scratch, but walls/towers/configurations could probably be changed up. *shrug* Then again, they might have reasons for a lot of it to be relatively static in nature. It's a possibility, though.

Well, if possible, they could always go the Mass Effect route and allow the import of narrative branching. Then, they could always take that farther than Mass Effect did. I'm sure without full voice-acting and intricate 3D third-person graphics to worry with, a lot more focus and resources could easily be placed into the actual potential branching that is allowed for in the between-game import process.

Ehh... I suppose they COULD be hand-making them individually. They could be hand-crafting each disc, as well. If they really, really wanted to, I suppose. However, if that isn't the case, then they'll be mass-produced in a batch. Distributed? I have no idea. Distributed to the people who ordered them, yeah. Maybe Obsidian'll do that, or maybe a third party will handle that. Maybe the same people who print all the boxes and assemble the physical goods into the final boxed copy products. Again, I have no idea exactly who's going to be doing it. All I know is, when you make something like that, you design a template, then produce a bunch of them. Like the box. You get the size and shape of box you want, then print/emboss the cover art onto it, then fold it up into a box. If you want 1,000 boxes instead of 973 boxes, you put 27 more boxes into the big printing/embossing machinery. I mean, the manual... if there's a manual, that's quite literally just a book. It's paper that's been printed on, folded, and bonded together along a seam. You think they're not going to make a print run to produce a bunch of identical copies of the manual, in a mass batch? "Made-to-order"? Yeah, except the only thing variable is the quantity. So, I don't know what I'm supposed to be holding my breath for, or why this whole "mass fabrication" process seems to be so crazy. o_o

*Is pelted with spherical chunks of ice for 37 damage* . It did clear something up, and I apologize for the fuzziness of my question. I was sort of wondering about several factors at once (frequency, etc.) as well as specifics on exactly what kind of interactions were encompassed by the awesome little scripted illustration scenes. Your answer pretty much tells me exactly what I was wondering, so thank you quite muchly. ^_^

This. It's like a lunch run for the office. "Hey, who wants a sandwich from Subway? You, you, you, and you? Okay, each of you give me $6, and I'm driving up to Subway, and I'll have them construct me 4 sandwiches, and I'll use this money you gave me to fund the sandwich-manufacturing process." So long as you take orders prior to actually having the physical goods made, you can pretty much take as many orders as you'd like.

Josh has talked about how they don't really like the overly-simplified process of "Speech Skill = success" as seen in a lot of games. I think what they essentially want is for something like Intelligence to provide a unique dialogue toolset (maybe you can't handle ultra-stupid people very well because it's difficult for you to get your brain down to the level at which they're thinking -- it's just always in overdrive), with which you then must properly manipulate them. Also, there's the good example of something like beauty. Your character might be strikingly beautiful, and yet, some NPC might not like that kind of beauty, and might find rugged, broken-nosed scarred-up people with hairy chests to be the most beautiful people they've ever seen in their life. So, beauty becomes a factor, rather than a static positive-negative scale. Maybe you're a genius, but maybe someone isn't smart enough to match your wits, yet is smart enough to realize when they're being outmatched, and HATES it when people try to do that to them. Maybe they grew up being derided by scholars all the time, and now they just hold contempt for anyone who reveals themselves to be "snooty" and learned in their eyes. So, smarts don't just instantly give you the ability to manipulate people. Just like beauty. That type of thing. So, even if you have some kind of "[intelligence] line that shows up because you're smart, you might have multiple, or it might just be a bridge into a new branch of dialogue (as in, there won't be any more [intelligence] tags on things, but it was your intelligence that got the overall dialogue onto this track in the first place) in which you still have several steps and multiple choices at each to properly produce results from someone. "[intelligence]" will not be the same thing as "[Completely convince them to give you that item you want or unlock the door, etc., because you're smart]." *shrug*. I'm hopeful, based on how they've said they want to approach it.

No worries. Just androiding my way in with observations and questions like C3PO, as I tend to do. 8P Because, those ripples do look a bit odd, but then, if those rock formations are just supposed to look like that intentionally, then cool. But then, if that was just supposed to be "this is a generic stone surface" texture, then yeah, they'd look quite strange and out-of-place in that environment snapshot. I am ignorant of further technical details, as well as this Zbrush (though I've heard of it), so, I'll just stick to my androidish interjections,

Unless you think dragons fight with swords in Project Eternity, your example kind of missed the point, as usual. I'm pretty sure the actual point he was making had nothing to do with whether or not dragons should drop swords. And the fact that they sometimes do in existing games makes it all the more valid of an example, with the point still having nothing to do with the "should"ness of dragons dropping swords. Mentally replace the word "dragon" with "guy who was wielding a +5 sword," if you must, and watch how the point remains the same. (For what it's worth, I'm in agreement with you that dragons should neither wield swords nor magically produce swords via the act of death).

Is it possible you're seeing the specific aesthetics of those rocks as "this is just what random stone jutting from the ground is supposed to look like," when it's really that those particular rocks are supposed to look exactly like that (with the little layers/ripples in them and such)? Because, otherwise, they look like pretty darn-good-quality rocks to me. I mean, as that screenshot is mildly old now, and the game still has months to go, I'd wager they'll tweak some things a bit more before we play the game. But, I don't really see any blatant inferiority in the rocks... *shrug*

Wait... is there something else we're supposed to be doing? A) That's totally cool that you want that. I have no intention of judging you based on a preference. I was only trying to point out that, objectively, in the system, the value of the item lies much more in its components and nature than in its process of creation (in this case, component combination.) B) Funnily enough, I realize that, the very same argument in A reveals a crafting process that really shouldn't be more difficult than the bounds of the player's crafting skills anyway. 8P... So... yeah, while there can be things that maybe the player can't craft and only some other NPC can, the simpler combination of remarkable ingredients shouldn't really be one of them, I suppose. So, silly me. And, to further clarify, I'm more just open to the idea of some stuff being beyond the player's maximum amount of time and effort and learning in the allotted amount of time (the narrative's length) but not beyond some 70-year-old master craftsman's skills. I'm not really adamant about making sure there's something in crafting that the player absolutely cannot do. It's more just... you'd think there'd be SOMEthing that they couldn't. SOME level/tier of folding Adamantium properly or something that only like 2 people in history have ever perfected, that the crafting system doesn't just say "Oh, you worked at a forge for a bit? Well, naturally, you now progress to Adamantium folding in the forging process." Heck, maybe JUST because the material is so rare, and hardly anyone ever gets to work with it enough to master it, if its structure is different from other metals. In which case, no matter how much you spread the knowledge of its working across the world, only 1-in-500 smiths is ever going to get their hands on any to actually gain experience with it. Stuff like that. You'd just think, out of all the potential factors at play, there'd be SOMEthing that would contribute to the lore of the world by being outside the player's capability. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of second here that the choice shouldn't be between crafting and combat prowess. If you master both, however, then you won't be very good at much else. But I don't think it's a stretch to think you could master CRAFTING rapiers as well as utilizing them. In fact, you'd think there'd be some kind of synergy there, if anything. Someone who crafts rapiers probably has a much more extensive knowledge of their balance and effectiveness, etc., than someone who doesn't. *Shrug* But that's not something that necessarily needs to make its way into the abstracted systems.

Sacred... I have no idea what you're getting at. You seem to be suggesting that having two different defenses that react differently to two different damage types is arbitrary, and sparks an arbitrary balancing of those damage types? Let's take out the "redundant, arbitrary" split defenses, shall we? Let's just go with two, with the physical-versus-magic damage you used in example. So, what, Psyche and Deflection? Okay, so, let's say now there's just "Defense." Because, why do we need two different ones? Awesome. Now let's see how not overly simplified the system is. What happens when you run into that room full of melee brutes/archers (physical combatants)? They do some number of damage to you, and have whatever accuracy, and your Defense acts accordingly. Now, instead, what if you were to go into that room full of spellcasters who blast the crap out of you? Well, let's see... your Defense acts the exact same way. So now... why is there magic damage, and physical damage? Why isn't there just "Damage"? Obviously, you could just keep running with that line of thought and end up with no different attacks. No magic versus physical... just "attacks," and that's it. Everyone uses the same weapon and everything. My point being that, variety is what makes things interesting. Sure, you can introduce variety, and then negate it. But, that doesn't happen just because there are multiple attack types and multiple defenses in the game. And it doesn't happen when you make both defenses viable, either. ONLY if you made both Deflection AND Psyche equally effective in all the same situations would it be problematic and insignificant. So long as high Deflection and low Psyche means something different for the player's circumstances in a physical fight than it does in a magic one, the defense types and attack types are not redundant, and are serving their purpose. It doesn't matter if EXACTLY 50% of the encounters allow for Psyche advantages, and 50% allow for Deflection advantages. Why? Because it's a different set of encounters for each thing. You said it yourself: If something's inferior overall, then there's a problem. Why would you have two separate defenses, then have 90% of the game only give a crap about one, and 10% of the game give a crap about the other? Defense is a part of combat, and combat's a part of the majority of the game. So, why shouldn't you split the importance of the defenses evenly, and allow for different circumstances to decide the significance? Half the game's going to laugh at your 7,000 Deflection rating, and stab you in the 5 Psyche, and the other half of the game's going to curse your blasted 7,000 Deflection rating, and wish it could stab you in the 5 Psyche. And that's only just ONE factor. There's much more, obviously, to beating a given encounter than "I have good defense against the attackers here." AND you've got 6 different people, who probably all won't have the exact same defense ratings, no matter what you do. So, I see exactly what you're getting at. But, to be honest, it seems like you're only looking at it in isolation. You're finding a problem without the rest of the picture in place. True, but making the consequences of both overcomable in some way does not mean they're equal. If the game offered you a choice between a sword or a fish as your weapon, would THAT be a choice? The fish does 1 damage and falls apart once it strikes something. The sword is actually viable because it lets you damage enemies and forcefully stop them from killing you. So, no, the game offers you multiple VIABLE options: a sword, an axe, a dagger, etc. They're all going to get you through the game, if you use them properly. They're not all going to get you through the game if you just charge at everything you see with all 6 party members, equipped with random weapons, and auto-attack everything to death. Viability is about potential, not inherent effectiveness. A choice is viable because it CAN be plenty useful, under the right circumstances, and in combination with the right other choices. Not because it just does the same thing as something else, without any player input or cleverness applied.

The feline race rides battle-dogs into the fray?! Feh I say to that... They ride enchanted stacks of papers and keyboards, u_u. Ehhh, serious question... hmmm... could you give us some hint as to where/when those illustrated scripted events (like the attempt to jump the gap in the fallen bridge, or finding the huge egg in a little mountain alcove) are likely to fit into the gameplay? They could appear in all manner of situations, so I was wondering what the plan was for them. Or, you know... as much of the plan as you're allowed to reveal. You can totally give us classified information. This is just the internet. WHO'S going to see it, really? (Happy Friday to you, too, Adam, and all the team! And hopefully a happy Saturday and Sunday to follow, eh? ^_^)

No no no. I wasn't proposing those as solutions. I was only making points with those. I mean, yes, what I was getting at involves not all drops being random, but that's already the tentative system for P:E, as set forth by the devs. The only -- only thing I was initially trying to say was that you really don't HAVE to make unique enemies drop completely static unique loot, and that it might be interesting (most notably in multiple playthroughs) if the "unique" weapons and such varied a bit. Instead of in EVERY single playthrough, you just say "Oh yeah, that ogre lord guy has an axe, but I already know what it is, and I already know its exact stats, even though it's a 'you're-only-like-a-third-of-the-way-through-the-game'-tier weapon." In other words, I love the idea that some bandit leader or notorious troll or something might have some iconic, signature weapon as opposed to random lackey-grade foes, because he calls some shots and has been doing this for a while. But, unless he's one of THE top challenges in the entire game, or one of THE most notorious beings in all the land, I really don't NEED his item to be uniquely legendary or anything. Some really specific, lore-heavy, time-intensive quest(chain)? Yeah, that should probably always produce a static, unique item. That's an item that's fixed in the world lore. But, some goblin lord who happens to have been running a cave of goblins for the past few years? He doesn't need to be wielding the legendary Goblin Blade, that was forged by goblin angels 1,000 years ago and was lost for centuries. It doesn't need to be THAT specific of a weapon. So, yes, that being said, I realize you specifically just distinguished between boss-types and sub-boss types. I realize that, and there's nothing wrong with that. To add to my clarification, though, I wasn't meaning to make such a specific distinction at the time. I was basically talking about both of those types together, in a single group, making up the "anything that isn't 'random creature with no name.'" So, that's all I was saying. Some unique enemies should carry SPECIFIC unique items only (the most substantial, lore-tethered ones), and some unique enemies should carry something more special than a random enemy carries, but not necessarily a SPECIFIC more-special thing. Heck, you could even use seeds generated when the player clicks "New Game" to determine which unique things carry what. It's the same dice roll, just done at a different time. That way, if there are 20 semi-spiffy equipment pieces (for example), and 20 sub-boss type foes, you can still have variety in your playthroughs without chancically getting 10 axes, 7 daggers, 3 halberds and no swords at all out of any of those sub-bosses. The "randomness" isn't true randomness, and can be tweaked, and I think it'd be interesting to explore when and where we could apply such tweaked randomness where many games would simply stick with static things. If I'm not mistaken, I think the original Diablo did this (if not the subsequent Diablo games); the first "boss" you fought (or maybe he was a miniboss, technically?) was The Butcher. On the 3rd floor, I think? Or 5th? I can't remember. Anywho... when you killed him, you always got "The Butcher's Cleaver" or whatever it was called (it was a cleaver, and it was his... you get the idea), but I'm pretty sure the stats were slightly randomized. And sure, I'm talking about weapon types, but it doesn't HAVE to be weapon types. But, then, it just as easily could. The weapon COULD have the same name, and be an axe, or a unique sword. AND different stats, for that matter. Just a sprinkle of dynamics. I just think dynamics often get neglected before they're even explored. "SURELY that would rain destruction down upon our game's design! *ignore*"

I hear ya, but I don't think it will, so long as every talk of souls isn't accompanied by a "Mwahaha," Really though, it's about good writing. At first, the frequency of mention of "souls" will seem a little weird, because we're not familiar with just walking around constantly talking about how souls affect everyday actions and capabilities. But, so long as the writing has it treated like a natural part of the lore/world and not some overly dramatic thing that incurs gasps every time its mentioned, it should be fine. I mean... in a world of telekinetics, moving something with your mind would be as un-noteworthy as opening a door or sitting in a chair is to us, so you wouldn't go around noting the details of how you sat in that chair, or expertly turned that doorknob. That's why I think it's hilarious when, in movies and such, people using telekinesis (for example) always have to make a big show of it, and/or expend a whole bunch of effort. Or, when people can fly, and on the screen it looks like they're just dangling around, waiting to be set down on the ground. It should really look deliberate and familiar, and pretty simple (the very act of it, at least) to someone who consistently utilizes such a capability. Or, heck, just take a Rogue in a fantasy RPG setting. He's not going to start deftly juggling knives all about every time combat starts. If you're his opponent, you really shouldn't see how skilled he is with a knife until it's protruding from your neck before you even saw him pull it out. The writing doesn't need to draw constant attention to exceptional knife skill in every mundane second of events.

Generating the materials for a boxed game are similar to printing a book. They probably haven't made the boxed copies and manuals and such yet, so it's likely they'll be accepting more pre-orders for as-yet-to-be-produced physical goods, then just make more of them when the time comes. Of course, because they need to know how many to have produced, IF they do things like this, they'll have a cutoff point for the additional orders before they actually need to send the order to the manufacturer. If you're going to print/emboss/score 1,000 P:E boxes, you can easily just run 100 more through there. Going to burn 1,000 discs? Just do 1,100 instead. But, like books, they'll probably do one run of all the stuff, and that's it. It's not like when you say "Hey, I want a boxed game!", they get get some papersmith to manually hand-craft a manual and box, then they burn a disc and put a serial number on it, then ship that out via UPS. So, I would bet that, unless they've already begun manufacturing the boxed-copy goods, or have some other good reason, they'll probably accept at least SOME additional amount of orders for them, for some duration of time.