Endrosz

Looking forward to it! He's not such a game design luminary (yet!) like <the usual suspects>, but he's done amazing work on MotB, F:NV, etc.

Actually it's the opposite, "making all character classes good and most builds viable" makes you want to experiment more. That's the lesson I learned from Guild Wars 1, which gave you free reign in setting your attributes, secondary class (it had dual-classing!) and 8-long skill bar chosen from over 1000 skills (thanks to selectable dual-classing) between adventures. In fact, there was a template save/load function, you could change your build within 5 seconds with 3 clicks, and over the years I built up a library of over 400 different builds, just like most of my fellow players. I think that most people who backed Eternity never played with a game system that offered as much freedom as GW1, which was built upon the foundation of Magic: the Gathering's deck building mechanic. It's mind-toxicating, addicting, just like MtG's deck building is. These images are from a dervish/ranger character of mine - but I could change her to dervish/any other class with just two clicks when in town. When I support Sawyer&Co. in their attempts for so-called balanced core character and combat systems, I don't do it because he throws out some hipster words. I do it because I know how much fun you can have with experimenting when there are a lot of viable choices. (By the way, in this regard, GW2 is a huge disappointment compared to its predecessor.) For the an example from the limited options side, I'll go back to the most quoted example, fighter in DnD editions. You figure out pretty fast that you can need Str and Con, maybe some Dex, and you can dump Cha and Wis and Int. After you realize this, there's basically no room for experimentation. (Role-playing choices are not relevant here). TL;DR Balanced systems allow for tons of experimentation, because more choices are viable.

Critical error detected; reformatting user's brain to conform with reality. Please stand by.

NAME Edward ROLE Bully; to knock down traditional Chosen Ones a few a lot of pegs KEY ITEM Better shoes than your PC's APPEARANCE Smug smile, condescending tone, etc. FEEL He's the kid who turned your early school years into continued misery. Actually, you became an adventurer to escape him... but it didn't work out. He became your companion because... "Aww, stop that! Yes, I'm your bitch. Please allow me to continue my quests, I must kill those trolls. Yes, I'll give you all the magic items afterwards and drink your piss, master." QOUTE: "You saved the world from impending doom? Do you think anyone cares about that? And besides, I could have saved the world faster than you did, and without snot dangling from my nose."

You know what I like about Kickstarter? The same thing that makes Brian Fargo feel a lot of pressure while also enjoying it a lot, as he expressed it in a number of interviews. The fact that there is no publisher and/or outside funding (in most cases, there are some exceptions like Star Citizen). Whatever the end result is, it's all on the developer. In the aftermath of the KS avalanche, there were a lot of articles discussing the pitfalls of the new business model. In has been mentioned by several different people that established development studios -- or new studios founded by industry veterans - are accustomed to asking for more money from the publisher if the development drags on and funds start to run low. If there were additional features requested by the publisher (that's very typical), then there is a good reason present as well. But with crowdfunding, asking for additional money is very, very problematic. Obsidian, wanting to have a longer game, carefully polled people's opinions, and so far, they did not move forward with the additional stretch goals ("still being discussed internally" was the last response we got). So, in the end, if you want to make a finished and well-made product with crowdfunding money, you have to be "more lean and mean" to get where you want to go, as Eternity's Senior Producer Brandon Adler put it in an RPS feature. This is the result for Obsidian, and I'm happy that they seem to be a very competent team. For other, especially novice teams, the end result is often a catastrophe: the game is unfinished/not what was promised, the money is gone, and there is no publisher to blame/beg to for additional funds. I have a lot more respect for a developer who, in case of a failure, places the blame where it belongs in a fair manner, instead of banking on the general hatred against "the evil gigacorps", "suits" and "the Man" to get rid of all responsibility in the eye of the public. (Here's an Eurogame article on the history of CD Projekt Red, Seeing Red. Scroll down a lot to read about the blunders with White Wolf, the console port of the Witcher. Marcin Iwiński, my hat's off to you.) TL;DR I like that Kickstarter/crowdfunding makes development more transparent and removes the publisher from the picture, so we can see that not everything can be blamed on the Evil Publishing Megacorps. I understand that often that is the case, I know some of those stories, but still, people make mistakes, and people includes developers.

I forgot to account for one thing: Early Access -- the recent Eurogamer interview has confirmed it. Early Access is another form of pledging money for an unfinished game, and I'm sure that getting it on Steam will reach untapped crowds who will put down some additional money for Eternity. Hard to guess how much, though.

I wonder how sisometric graphics looks like? Is it like a stack of brofists, but with girlish giggling instead? A wealth of surreal images assaulted my mind on reading this word. (Sorry Indira, couldn't resist. You're fine, it's all me. )

Rest assured, they won't take forever to make the game. There's this thing called "money" that IT developers cost you. Fargo said in an interview that a good estimation for an IT developer's total monthly cost** is about 10 thousand dollars, IIRC. I don't know how accurate is that, but I'll take it. A quick math based on that: - Pre-production needs only a small team (10 or less), full production a larger team, including the outsourced work (30-35), so the average team size on the Pillars of Eternity project is somewhere between 20 and 25 in my estimation. - That's 200-250 thousand dollars for a development month. - 4.3 million dollars (the KS total) is enough for about 22 or 18 months with the lower and the higher team size estimation, respectively. With the additional money Sawyer mentioned, 1 or 2 additional months. - Even 22 months is less than 2 years -- that's August 2014 starting from October 2012 (And that's not including the pre-production work for the Kickstarter! That KS pitch video and the world design that was detailed in the updates took quite a bit of work before they went live, I'm sure). - Obsidian can, of course, invest money from elsewhere into Eternity, from one pocket to another. Given their history and the very fact that they went to KS to get funding for a game, I'm not sure they have money to reassign. ** Note "cost", not "salary". Cost includes all the fees you need to pay to the government, healthcare and dental care program fees, a powerful computer to work on (upgraded regularly), electricity, heating, cleaning, workplace comfort like soft drinks for free from vending machines etc.

I'm glad that several other people phrased their complaints about extensive pre-buffing so well that I don't have to do that. So, just a short list: - If it doesn't have a considerable opportunity cost and has a 100% uptime effectively, then turn it into a passive ability. Like the paladin auras and other modal/passive abilites which are already revealed. - Short duration, high-powered buffs are okay. Longer duration, medium-powered per-rest buffs are okay. The keyword is "choice". Choices make for interesting gameplay. I remember playing through NWN1+HotU with a melee wizard, I enjoyed it a lot. Except for the pre-buffing. That was such a hurdle that I sometimes stopped playing for a while, because I couldn't stand it any longer. I still remember that by the end of HotU, I had two hotbars full of long-term buffs. That included a few items like Gem of Seeing and Scabbard of Keen Edges.

(This is offtopic in this topic, but it's interesting re: sexism vs. middle ages.) This debate reminds of a "****storm in a nightpot" thing that happened in a small but very unique and interesting MMO, A Tale In the Desert (ATITD). Main site: http://www.atitd.com/ Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tale_in_the_Desert So this a very sandbox type game, which is enhanced by being cut into "Tellings" which end in real-time at a given time. During a certain Telling, players can achieve/build stuff that is basically Civ's wonders -- or more precisely, they try to do so. The players make their own laws (and the devs code them!). The devs throw in custom, non-repeating events from time to time, which is the closest thing to having the equivalent of a Game Master in an MMO. Egypt was chosen specifically because based on what we pieced together via archeology etc., they offered the most power/freedom to women out of the ancient cultures. There is ample evidence that women were allowed to become doctors and teachers, among others. Not in every age of Egypt, not under every pharaoh, but certainly a lot more power and respect than any other ancient culture. This choice was made to accommodate female player characters (who are not necessarily played by real-life women, mind you) with at least some degree of verisimilitude. One of the above mentioned custom, dev-placed events was that a trader arrived from Persia, who sold some important crafting materials very cheaply. Since crafting is very central to this game, these cheap materials were much sought after. And now, the controversy: The trader came from a culture, where women where treated as property, and refused to sell his wares to female characters. Also, when female characters came up to him, he offered to buy them as slaves and treated them with contempt, throwing slurs at them, etc. This happened in-game, it was a roleplaying thing. There was a huge "sexiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiism" uproar over this -- huge considering how unknown game was (and is). Slashdot reported it, for example, also Wired. A sample: A Tale in the desert causes controversy with female players My favorite post on the subject is by Richard Bartle, who created the first MUD in the '70s -- he's considered the granddaddy of the MMO genre. he wrote this on Terra Nova, which is a collective blog about MMOs: Terra Nova: A Riot A piece of what he wrote: Applying his logic Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the developers are completely up-front about telling you that what they do (a blacksmith boy, male protagonist) and why (it fits with the historical setting better, and it costs a lot less, since doing a female story would mean a lot more than just creating another 3D model). If you don't like it, don't pledge/withdraw you pledge.

Does Sneak Attack bonus damage apply if the attack itself applies a condition? For example, if I hit an untouched target with Crippling Strike, inflicting it with the Hobbled condition, will the bonus apply? Or in more technical terms: During damage resolution, Is the "apply condition" phase before or after the "sneak attack bonus" phase? In most games, the answer is yes. I'm okay with both possible answers, I'm just curious. (The same question stands for Deathblows, which looks like a passive ability to me.)

Have a look, have a laugh: An Open Letter to My Kickstarter Backers Before Double Fine made Broken Age, they made other videogames. Several of them. For years. Have they suddenly forgotten how to do that? How much time/money it costs to pre-produce, prototype, develop, deliver? How to budget man-hours to do all the things that are needed? All these excuses you bring up boil down to one thing only: bad project management. And since they are an established company, I CANNOT accept excuses like that. Either you manage your financial and human resources well, or DIE IN A FIRE. That's capitalism, baby. Must I explain how capitalism works while sitting here, in Hungary, Eastern Europe, a post-communist country to people who lived within that in their entire life? Being innovative and cool is just a start, not an end. And that comes from someone who has a degree in Computer Science, and a postgrad degree as high school teacher. I don't work in business, nowhere near - but I'm sick of hearing games developers' excuses, blaming everyone and everything else but themselves for failing. In my opinion, games can fail for two basic reasons: -- Business people failing to understand games and gamers (a certain type of creative products and their consumers). -- Games people failing to understand business (market research, planning, budgeting, risk management, resource allocation, etc.) I think everyone who watched the DFA documentary knows that Broken Age wasn't made with just the KS money, additional money was poured into it. They had to, in order to avert a public disaster. So in that sense, they failed. They just covered up their failure with money drawn from other pockets (see the last episode of the documentary for some details). And even with that additional money, they failed to finish the game, and had to cut it into two parts. Seriously...

I didn't play the full version, but read all the impressions and previews that came out about it, and I don't think it's more of an RPG than your run-of-the-mill ARPG. It's one hell of a tactical combat game, though, based on the demo... Really good stuff.

(I got this one in embryonic form in my head back when I wrote up the OP, but didn't have the time to flesh it out. But now, you won't escape my terrible puns!) --- The beleaguered members of the Languishing Orthographical Linguists stood before the chambers of the Overlady. After exchanging some confirming glances, the leader of the group, Künai'yonđillvarßhtémunggwop, known to his friends as simply Künai'yonđillvarßhtémungg, stepped forward and pushed the double doors open. The Overlady was sitting on her elevated chair, surrounded by fearsome minions. She greeted them with an unflinching gaze. - So we meet at last, Languishing Orthographical Linguists! You've gotten much further than most adventurers, who tend to fail the final tests of my dungeon. But you are obnoxiously good at spelling ancient Beüchukk'yárqziq flower names! -- bellowed the Overlady. - I have to say, I was impressed that you got ickułxogbrupneuihj right. That's my favorite, with the blue-trimmed yellow petals and small, delicate thorns. But it matters not in the end. You don't stand a chance against my Gibberish Generators, who will overload your brain with unpronouncable words. You will try to say them of course, because you can't the resist the lure of a difficult to spell word. And thus you will die because you are good at linguistics. See the brilliance in setting up my defenses? Filter them one way, kill them that way! - We shall see - declared Künai'yonđillvarßhtémunggwop, in suprisingly simple terms. He didn't have the strength to complicate it, since his mind was drained by the Overlady's final tests. He wished that in addition to the usual healing potions, fireball scrolls, vorpal weapons, wands of magic missiles, invisibility rings, returning throwing axes, and Eeűskarrmđő's Instant Grammatical Fixers they've had the foresight to bring some coffee potions as well. What followed thereafter cannot be properly described by words. Pronouncable words, that is. The Languishing Orthographical Linguists clashed with the Gibberish Generators. Oh, how the syllables flowed like the torrents of the Great Sewage Canal of Ehfqiłłuckr-Kajlöiöcsd! Oh, how the tongues became twisted like those of overzealous young lovers! Oh, how the minds became boggled like shoelaces on a beach party at night! Oh, how bored I am with trying to come up with epic sentences which contain a metaphor and end with an exclamation mark! When the dust settled, the Overlady sat on her throne unfazed, although a mild annoyance did linger on her features. - You prevailed, but to no avail. Until you learn my true name, the unholy ritual I placed upon my sanctum will resurrect me. Why, I'll even welcome a bit of dying, since the ritual includes the formation of a new body! My current one is getting too old for comfort. A triumphant smile began to appear on Künai'yonđillvarßhtémunggwop's face. - We came here fully prepared. And that includes finding your true name, Overlady... or should I say Ffáztvajkyiđléíúlpoyyxhoeułüchpos? - We've been through this before - interjected angrily Kenahalaiukeilokukuhaunalanai, the island elf priestess. - It ends with a hard sh, not a soft s, you tonguestically hindered ófzuláwknvesm. Get your harbor-dialect Uiaéáoiö'c right for once! Rabaju'nchikodsak'yuradk'olo, who was the senior of the group by almost twenty years, also wanted in seventeen different countries for theft, robbery, assault, murder and using adjectives at the end of sentences, rolled his eyes. - You used that archaic nonsense again, Kenahalaiukeilokukuhaunalanai? It is still debated whether ófzuláwknvesm was a derisive epithet or a type of gourmand cheese fervently! - Don't try to act like you know it all, Rabaju'nchikodsak'yuradk'olo! - screamed Jklmkntroooooooooooopwlksdaaaaaaaaaa at the top of her lungs, her eyes gleaming even more than her armor, given to her by the linguistic holy order of Sacred Sentient Syllables. - The way you pronounce alveolar consonants is criminal, you... criminal! - I have the final say on what to say! - proclaimed Künai'yonđillvarßhtémunggwop. - I've won the Annual Dyrwood Multilingual Spelling Bee for 5 years in a row now! You're all frauds, that's what you are! This was the exact second when the Overlady, now confident that her true name's proper linguistical properties were still undiscovered, finished her incantation of the Utter Banishment of Grave Pronunciation Errors, and obliterated every little piece of the Languishing Orthographical Linguists. She mused about the almost successful attempt on her continued existence as if the adventurers were still standing in her presence. - You got it right for the most part ... But an h before an oe after a yyx is never silent... except when the word has at least two triple vowels. You should've known that. --- Moral of the story? I tried to write it down, but I don't know how to spell it properly. But I found this video somewhere in the Mists, which you might find entertaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FQ0_PlQ0mg

Here's the full list of epitaphs from Betrayal at Krondor (third column, first is what you get by digging up the grave :D ). The first game I played which had epitaphs. It doesn't have to be long to be memorable, I think it's quite the opposite... "His end justified the means." "Sleep, sweet. Sweet sleep." "Lost at dice. Lost his temper. Lost his life." "Had a nasty Alement."

I smiled at this naive line. You create an MMO like that, and you will end up with a cozy club of a few thousand players. Maybe a few tens of thousands. You're part of the 1337 crowd, the 1% who managed complete the original Naxx'ramas, right? Let me tell you something: it's not worth spending millions of dollars to create content tailored for you. There's just not enough of you. Blizzard knows that all too well now. Do you know of Darkfall? After a facelift, it's called Darkfall: Unholy Wars. It was built much to you liking, if I understood your list correctly: sandbox gear crafting, sandbox city building, full PvP with very few safe zones, lootable corpses, and many other hardcore game systems. Not everyone wins. And it's never gotten very popular, because not many people want to play that way. But it might be just the thing for you.

Oohh... the rush of memories. You sir, OP, done both great good and great evil by starting this thread. Luis the Armoire from PS:T -- Best pervert in any videogame Tarmas from NWN2 tutorial -- "Enjoying the Fair? Packs of feral children set loose to find trinkets, grown men braining one another with clubs... Do you know they're actually granting prizes for the fattest pig? As if the creatures needed encouragement. " Always cracks me up! Hamous from Jagged Alliance 1/2 -- "Dog!" (when jaguar-like feline animals attack you in random encounters) I'm sure there is more... There was an even more extreme version of this "click on me once more" NPC in Anachronox. The guy (you can find him on Democratus) had 50 unique lines first, then started a routine of acknowledging every 10th click, with the occasional unique line for every 50 or 100 clicks, up until... the 500th click. That's when he stole all of your money and disappeared! I'm not kidding you. Best dev trolling ever.

My understanding (I'm too lazy to check the KS page/updates) is that the April 2014 date was given for the "base" game, WITHOUT all the stretch goals (like, stronghold, another big city, a mega-dungeon... small stuff, really ). To me, it was obvious that with all that extra content, it will take many months longer to deliver. Perhaps it wasn't so obvious to others. I do, however, share the concerns of the OP. So many creative people, including Tim Schafer, have little to no grasp on business realities, and you NEED. SENSIBLE. BUSINESS. PRACTICES. TO SUCCEED. IN GAMING, like everywhere else. Like, budgeting and production schedules and milestones etc. I have the utmost respect for the Robert Khoos (of Penny Arcade) and Justin Baileys (of Double Fine) who do their best to keep their respective companies running. When they put up that poll with "more monies for more stretch goals!", I definitely got a Broken Age-vibe from it, if you know what I mean. However, Sawyer stated that their concern is scope/length of the game. "You never get a second chance to make a first impression", so even if they add in more content later, the reviews will be out and the judgment passed. After pondering some, I've revised my stance on pumping additional time/money into Eternity -- I do really want the game to succeed beyond just giving us backers something we can chew on for a while. If more content is what's necessary to make this game get rave reviews, a high Metacritic score and all that **** I don't care about, but ultimately do affect the game's fate in the longer run -- I'm willing to give them what they ask for.

Sawyer himself mentioned the term "time-based system". I'm sorry for bringing up my fav MMO all the time, but GW2's combat is one such time-based system with cooldowns only, no mana, and a strong emphasis on timing and interruption. During GW2's early beta testing, mana was in the game, and there were accompanying attributes. However, most people dumped those attributes and went for low mana cost skills. And then the devs decided that for a fast-paced real-time system, mana is unnecessary, and - gasp! - removed both mana and the related attributes. You need time: - To move into attack position (mostly applies to melee) - To activate abilities -- at the right time! (there are many conditional bonuses in GW2 skills) - To kite enemies (kite = moving evade; mostly applies to ranged) - To move out of AoE So losing time is a big, big punishment in itself in a well-designed time-based system (in contrast to Everquest-clones, where you or a skill macro just spam a rotation no matter what, and losing one skill usually doesn't matter that much). When a skill gets interrupted in GW2, it goes on a 5 sec interrupt cooldown. There is this additional punishment, but not too big. Here's an example. My awesomesauce norn warrior wields his trusty two-handed warhammer, which has an adrenaline (= rage, burst, etc.) skill called Earthshaker. It stuns in an area, for 2 seconds with a full adrenaline bar, making it one of the most powerful crowd control skills in the entire game. I'm fighting against a bunch of pretty annoying mobs called the dredge (humanoid moles with no eyesight but great hearing), who also have various crowd control skills (sound-based daze, knockdown, knockback), and since there's a lot of them in their burrows, I need to be careful when to activate crucial skills. Even tough they're regular mobs, they can "stunlock" me if I don't pay attention. First pic: Earthshaker successful, winwinwin Second pic: Earthshaker is delayed a bit -- I got knocked down for 2 seconds, that's the cooldown you see on all skills Third pic -- imaginary, didn't bother to try to capture that moment: Earthshaker is interrupted, which means a 5 seconds cooldown before I can try again TL;DR - Interruption means time loss, and in a fast-paced time-based system that's punishment enough. - I'm absolutely fine with cooldowns, including interrupt cooldowns; at the very least, they are better limiters than mana or spell book slots. (n.b. There are some mana systems, such as Dark Souls's stamina system, which work well, but in a game with many diverse skills, like a full-blown cPRG, cooldown and per-occasion are better universal cost functions than mana.)

(The confused comments about the strangely-written words in Update #70 gave me this idea...) Confident in your Ixamitl? Up to date on Vailian neologisms? Well-versed in the verbality of the Aumaua? Glanfanthan flows like a river from your lips and hand? Then sign up for the Annual Dyrwood Multilingual Spelling Bee, and take your chance at winning fabulous prizes!* * Prizes possibly created with experimental animancy forbidden in certain areas of the world. The Dyrwood Multilingual Spelling Bee Committee takes no responsibility for any kind of criminal proceeding for possession of such objects or eternal soul torment caused by malfunctioning prizes. ** brîshalgwin

Re: New Attributes Oh, I was one of those guys who said that there needs to be more important duties to have 6 universally desired attributes. And now we do have more! It feels so good to contribute a bit. Re: UI Hmm, I hope the final UI will be at least close to this PS-touched beauty... You raised expectations a lot, which comes with the usual future risks. But anyway, I love it too. Re: Obsessive, quirky concerns Seeing the game come together, I offer you this scenario. 1. Install Pillars of Eternity. 2. Have loads of fun. 3. ?????? 4. Profit Something will happen in step 3, but you won't even notice it because you'll be enjoying the game too much to care.

Are you from the future? I mean, you're talking about a game that just reached beta stage, but you have already passed final judgement on it.

Q1. Actually, my design mindset is one Sawyer only mentioned in passing, which is the removal of attributes altogether, or rather, merging them into the skill system. They didn't go down that route because, NOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEESSS, the resulting public outrage over a change most people wouldn't stomach. But if we have attributes, I would like to have 4/5 attributes with the current amount of "duties", as I've said previously. 7, wrong direction, we already have trouble covering 6. Q2. Yes, but it depends on the encounter/monster design. You need to give weight/meaning to those other defenses. Q3. No. I'd like to have characters with high Health and low Stamina and the opposite. Better variety. I don't think it's unintuitive, I can give examples for both cases if needed. Q4. Pass. Can't say anything without seeing the system in detail/in action. Could be good, could be bad. Q5. I like the idea. Here's a really good time-based system, where Speed is an attribute in itself, and is pretty important: Monsters' Den: Chronicles (free Flash game, no strings attached) Q6. I'm okay with inventory size being affected by attributes. System Shock 2 had a grid inventory system where Strength governed inventory size, and heavy items were large. I liked that system, intuitive and simple and made Strength desirable to non-melee characters. You always need More stuff. (R.I.P. George Carlin)

Please read more carefully, you're misinterpreting my lines. I wrote problems of adults, not about adults. Adult people's problems most definitely include children -- not having them being also a thing that certain adults worry about. Kids can be trouble even if they don't exist. Also, the movie example I gave is about a father-daughter relationship for the most part. Guess you ignored that, not even bothering to watch the 1 1/2 minutes trailer I linked. Finally, I'm a math/physics teacher in real life, I love kids and think and care about them a lot.

Playing SpaceChem can eat up ANY amounts of time without me barely noticing it, and that's exactly what happened in these past few days. God, this game is addicting... Good stuff. The challenge/reward scheme is perfect, and the amount of content available is staggering with the additional user-created/dev-proofed levels. Here's one of my latest babies: One game to rule them all, one game to find them One game to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.