Ganrich

Eder will supervise all menial tasks, smoke his pipe, and quip on job quality.

. Pretty much feel kinda the same. I want to try five with all the changes, and then I'll give it a pass or fail. If it was 4 I'd be really irritated, though.

Specs haven't been announced, but I doubt they're going to be much increased over Pillars 1; at worst you might have to turn off some fancy particle or lighting effects. Linux is listed as a supported platform. Linux is supported, and Feargus said they are using new tech for the capes and it should work in Linux now. Just figured I'd add that little tidbit. Edit: and the graphical facelift looks great!

Custom AI scripts for companions is the new stretch goal for $2 million! Also, Spanish Localization. Dragon Age: Origin scripting! That is the best feature they could pull from DAO, imho.

No I'm not worried at all. Look like all the other large scale video game crowdfunding campaigns have played out and you can guess that this will be very similar. There's an initial huge spike in pledges, raking in about a quarter of the end result within the first 24 hours or so, then a rapid drop off over the next 2 or 3 days. Then there's a slow drip over the majority of the campaign with very occasional (small) spikes when there's some media attention. Towards the end there's another rallying and donations increase again during the last week or so with another spike that gets close to the first day on the last day. That's more or less how all the big, very successful campaigns (Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, Torment, and I guess also the recent Wasteland 3 and Psychonauts 2 campaigns... even though I haven't followed them very closely, so I'm not sure) have played out and I bet this one will play out like this as well. So my prediction is we will end up with something between 4 and 5 million and will obliterate quite a few more stretch goals on the way. This is accurate. The only exception to the rule that I know of is Star Citizen, but it's the WoW of Crowdfunding. So, it's more an aberration than anything.

I asked Feargus about videos similar to the ones they did during the first game's campaign. He said that the flu was going around, and it's hitting the studio, but they definitely plan on those types of videos when people are feeling better. He mentioned Josh specifically should be doing some vids before too long.

This is a fairly blatant example of Deus Ex Machina no matter how you slice it. I am fine starting at level one, and prefer it the more I think that things are being changes in the system. That doesn't make the reasoning via narrative much easier to swallow.

These are all good points. It would have to be more limited. I doubt you would scavenge defeated ships for upgrades, but you could get gold and the like. Use gold to buy upgrades like the first game. It would be limited to traveling between islands (maybe first time only), and maybe some random encounters and bounties. Here are some more thoughts I had on it. Offense upgrades give more offensive abilities. Adding cannons, adding different types of projectiles, and so on. Perhaps increasing damage of your current weapons. Defensive upgrades do the same, but for defense. They also increase your ship's DR. Mobility upgrades increase maneuverability, and speed. Perhaps giving you some abilities To Help dodge attacks and the like. Still thinking on this one. Now, in the first game you had Prestige and security. These could be turned into attributes. Offense (or whatever name you want to give it) - accuracy, damage, attack speed. Defense (placeholder as well) - DR, Health, etc. Mobility (placeholder) - movement speed, deflection, etc. Now, your crew (not companions, but hirelings like Card Nua had) will increase/decrease these attributes like gear. This, allowing you to fit your ship and staff it appropriately. You could also allow the PC's base class to give some abilities or an ability to further differentiate. Example - Paladin has the ability to apply Flames of Devotion to cannon round once per encounter or some such. Of course, ship resting bonuses could still be applied. Anyway, I'll post more if I think of any more ideas.

That's really what I was thinking about. What a great game.

Honestly, I don't see this requiring any new systems really. Have small ship models, and animations for it. Have a handful of maps for the open sea. Give the ships abilities based on upgrades. Using some weapons are positional (side cannons for example). Have some turning limits on the ship so you can't turn on a dime. Then you just use the same RtwP mechanics for your ship that you have for standard combat. Allow players to build more offense based, defense based, and speed based ship upgrades. When/if boarding takes place you do a scripted interaction. That's not to say it isn't a lot of work, but it would be a great addition. At least imho.

During beta on the first title... people dug out the companion info via its files. I fully expect that to happen again. So, avoiding those spoilers may be a chore. This is definitely a possibility, though.

If I had to wager a guess... I'd say Eothas was caught in one of the Engwithan Machines that the Leaden Key activated, and when we defeated Thaos and shut down the machine (as a canonical ending) Eothas was set free. Keep in mind that Eothas is just a mass of souls, and would still be susceptible to that technology. Then it took some time for him to gather strength, and he used the Statue under Caed Nua to achieve it. So begins Deadfire.

I hope it's a priest, there needs to be a priest. Pretty sure there will be a priest, I'm guessing there will be at least one of every class like in the first game.This morning while I was having my morning coffee I watched the campaign launch trailer again because I didn't have anything better to do and I noticed in a few combat scenes that there was two other characters with Éder, Aloth and Pallegina; fire godlike and a lady with a red hair that looked like a human or an elf. I assume the other one was PC and the other one a possible companion but which one is which? I hope we will have fewer companions this time with more substance. Seeing how party size is reduced as well it would make sense. PoE1 had too many shallow companions, larger half of whom were always sitting in stronghold anyway. And if 1.8m stretch goal is the seventh companion of the game, it is possible that Obsidian agrees with you. There were 8 companions with the core PoE game. We have 7 once we cross the $1.8 million stretch. I expect there will be another companion stretch goal over the course of the campaign (at least one more, and maybe more). That said, with party size reduced to 5, characters being able to be multi-classed, and so on they could get away with a little less because you only have space for four companions in a party and can more easily get them to cover roles that you need based on the companion's versatility. I'd be fine with less companions, but I expect we will see more as stretch goals are met. I do hope they are a bit deeper than PoE1, though.

Technically, every power of every class in Eora is fueled by their soul, and if a god sapped the strength of your soul it would be the equivalent to a level drain. It has nothing to do with knowledge. This lore was indeed laid down in the beginning of Pillars of Eternity's original kickstarter campaign. I'm not saying it makes the writing good, or 100% realistic, but it makes sense based on the setting and its lore.

It might be like the seasons in Westeros. GRRM has said that it isn't science in its basis so don't try to over analyze it.

That mega-dungeon was pretty fun to go through and lead to POEII narrative start point... It's an OK dungeon. The problem is that there are a few floors that are there to meet the goal. The level with the spores comes to mind as an example. There are a good many levels that should've been cut, but were left in to meet a floor quota. I'd rather have a solid handful of smaller, well designed dungeons than one that is so big it feels spread thin at times.

Narrative-wise. This is heavy handed, and I'm not much of a fan, but since they are heavily editing the class systems and adding subclasses... I can definitely understand it. Where as BG 1&2 kept the same system... this would require players to figure their class out with a crap ton of abilities instead of learning as you go along. I will wait for info on classes and how they may change from the first game to this game, and then I'll pass judgement. It won't help the narrative, but it'll make that go down easier. For me at least.

I was thinking about this earlier and thought immediately of ship combat in Assassins Creed: Blackflag and/or the similar system in Rebel Galaxy. Add in a pause mechanic to plan your maneuvers, and you may have something. Also, ensure boarding is a possibility.

I hope that update Josh mentions is slated for today. I was looking forward to some substantive news today. Thanks Infinitron. You're a saint.

I absolutely agree with that Gromnir, and wish it were so.

I brought that one up because it is one I have always read and skipped over the voice acting. I think the voice acting is well done, but listening to that whole conversation would just take too long. YMMV, of course. I definitely think that dialogue is... skip friendly, for sure. On a second play through, that is. It would be that way with or without VO, though.

On the note of Bethesda... Morrowind was pretty perfect in this regard. With modding... people can come in and make the game completely VO anyway. Which some modding projects are doing with Morrowind, iirc. I think it's Skywind doing it. So, I don't see the point in limiting your budget and creativity to do it, but I'm sure they make more money... and that's the name of the game. Which is unfortunate, but it is what it is.

@Gromnir - Yeah, I knew factions would be more prominent. I just hope that they have more than two. 3-4 would be optimal. Which is why I'm not 100% keen on the subclasses being tied to factions. If there were more subclasses, and factions... I'd be fine with it. Subclasses being tied to factions would be far superior to the Faction Talents of the first game, though. Because it would mean a few playthroughs with the same class would lead to fundamentally different gameplay. Depending on how drastic the differences of the subclasses are to the base class.

I believe crit-path VO is fine. So, the Dwarf woman in the tree was fine. However, I like limited VO for everything else because adding more dialogue options is significantly cheaper if you're not paying somebody to voice every option. Use VO to set tone, develop character, some fun barks and banter, and drive the crit-path. That's all it is needed for in a game like this.