injurai

Yeah, Josh has a point to a degree. I get what both of you are saying. But as a software developer myself, I'd be more interested in what Adam Brennecke has to say. Or even what he'd have to say about it if he had a larger programming team with free resources to build and support such technology. I don't think it's really the technique of the 2D that is most limiting, it's the fact that they are having to roll out a lot of bespoke and custom technologies that doesn't exist natively in the flagship engines. There are limits sure, but there are also trade-offs, meaning you get something in return. You have less dynamic vertical, but then you just artistically split a dungeon vertically like The Endless Paths, where you see elements cutting through layers. Or you occlude layers and take advantage of hills and slopes. Destructible environments are quite doable and are simply canned animations that might generate particles and other 3D assets, although it'd vere get data heavy. All their environments are fundamentally coming from a 3D source anyways, so visually they can do just about anything as long as it's in frame of the fixed camera. I think people today really really really take 3D graphics for granted because so much of the infrastructure has already been setup. 3D graphics get a tone of research support for medical and scientific simulation. The 2D approach only ever really existed for the sake of art and entertainment. In the comments Chris Bischoff (creator of Stasis) responded with: "Ive found that a smaller team of 2D artists can create a game that looks on par with AAA titles. 2D isometric art also has a magic about it that is hard to replicate in 3D." I think this sums up the essence of why teams back in the day went with it, and why some contemporary artists choose to use the technique.

Or maybe the world is just a game man. *billhicks.jpg*

When you realize pay to win doesn't just exist in games... feels bad man.

I'm really curious to find out the publisher. I know Obs isn't big on holding publisher grudges, could they be back Zenimax the with the dominatrix they know? I feel like it's not EA given their history in destroying most independent studios they work with, Insomniac is the one that seemed to survive and they have Sony as their angel. It's probably not a first party either, though it could very well be Microsoft. Despite their last attempt falling to the wayside, I still think a different pitch could work, and Microsoft has the pocket for risks. It's probably not a smallish pub like Paradox. Take-Two is good with PC titles, though their recent shift towards aggressive micro-transactions might not work with Obs's style of games. Ubisoft is fighting a takeover so they might not want to take too much risk right now. WB Interactive seems to mostly publish in-house stuff, though they did pub TW2. Namco Bandai doesn't really seem to take risks on western style games. I guess that leaves Activision who haven't really branched out in a while, but have large reserves. I'm kind of betting on it being Sega, Zenimax, or Microsoft. Like I said, I'm curious to see who the partner is, because I think it will suggest the sort of game that we are getting.

I don't see how they are limiting themselves in the slightest. The much of the world is a 3D wire-frame, with invisible walls and pathing markers. All the AI and movement works off a 3D representation that sits on top of a flat isometric background. All that logic can be lifted right back into a 3D world, so it's not wasted work that can't be used on a 3D title. Never mind all their work for Pillars is in Unity, and they are using Unreal for their next 3D game, so a lot of that work doesn't translate over regardless. I don't think we need to worry about Obsidian. As far as some of the flat/static lighting in Pillars1, Deadfire seems to be doing much better. It once again has 3D meshes that map global lighting onto both characters and onto the 2D environment. So I'm excited to see where things get. I don't think 2D lighting is all that naturally gimped, it's just largely unexplored. I get some of the things your saying, I don't want to just sit around refuting your every point. 2D certainly wins every time with baked lighting, and with additional dynamic illumination I think it's going to get pretty darn close. While 3D will never match the texture detailing. In computing you generally want to make everything that can be static and compile-time just that. Pre-rendering and baking is the analog of that for assets. So it makes sense that they are taking a hybrid approach and dedicating run-time resources to elements that actually are dynamic. It makes very little sense to have a fixed isometric camera and use 3D graphics from an engineering perspective, even if it's easier for a small team.

I love seeing a wise old witches/wizards who uses their index finger for magic. Something about it always seemed primal, it's a sign of mastery and affinity with the arcane. That'd be nice a nice animation to include, maybe an late-game item/mastery is simply "free-hand conduit."

I much prefer what Deadfire is doing stylistically and graphically. There are so many rpgs that get this sort of cleaned over bright look from the 3D graphics, which is a result of how textures variably project from different distances from camera space. The Witcher 3, Dragon Age; Inquisition, DOS2 all have this. The graphics can look great and service what the game set's out to be. But I really appreciate the high degree of realism that serves as the backdrop for Pillars. Even the most "realistic" and cutting edge graphics often fall back on some degree of stylization. Pre-rendered graphics have always been a boon to a certain style of realistic fantasies. That is fantasies whose setting is a real world like ours, full of detail. You won't get Naughty Dog making an rpg, so were else are you going to find this sort of stylization? It's certainly more work to make deadfire, but only to a degree. You can push yourself just as hard to squeeze the most out of 3D graphics, and remember they are doing all of this on a crowd-funded game. Not every RPG needs to go pre-rendered, but it was basically dead for over a decade. I'm constantly ecstatic that it's back while playing these new games. If only we'd get an RTS or Diablo-like that returned to that style as well. Hell Obsidian could probably find some audience in such a thing. I just don't get claims that it's simply not better.

It's because Arkham Asylum created, or at least popularized, that type of combat system where you just hit a button and your character magically parries or floats over to another combatant, regardless of what they were doing previously or where they were, which, while nonsensical, looks pretty from a cinematic standpoint and was really fresh and novel at the time. That and Assassin's Creed, which actually came out a year earlier. Having played both, I think AC is a bit different. AC tried to create a marionette style of controls that maps buttons to certain parts of the player character. Arms, legs, head. Other than parries which when times can auto-trigger caned counters or finishers, it's mostly free form. Just if you get good then there is no reason to try for anything short of a finisher. Arkham has a far more intrusive "A to win" style of combat that grows old really fast. AC seems to be moving even further away from this style, and expanding ever more on it's more free form aspects.

They Live is a poor execution on a fantastic concept, and unfortunately any modern attempts to rectify it's shortcomings would only miss the mark by an even greater margin. It's strongest part is it's opening and first arc. After that the viewer is just along for the ride, with not much else being revealed through the bulk of the middle and most of the end. It has a neat little revelation at the ending, but it is rather rushed and poorly built up to. I certainly appreciate the film for what it is, and it has it's place in pop culture. The Thing, however, is a tour de force. One of the all time great films of it's era.

Deadfire is worth it for the character models alone.

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

The current system just groups up your party for movement, the party behaves like a bunch of children going out of their way to get "their" seat in the back of mom's minivan. Ideally you could set a non-combat travel formation that breaks into a new formation at the start of combat. Then further have formations which could honor any symmetry in that formation and thus not having to rotate/criss-cross the formation when merely trying to move backwards. To drive this formations could be based on roles where companions are assigned to roles which place them in formation. E.g. Melee up from, healing and range out back. Going further you'd want rules to have somewhat plastic formations, and rigid ones. Adding rules over when to switch between range and melee. Even the ability to insert and remove a "free-floating" party member in and out of an established line. As it stands, there is can be a lot of quick-pausing and fiddling with individual positioning just to maintain a formation. Personally I want there to be more depth both in risk and reward over positioning, engagement, disengagement, etc. All of which I think would make the combat far more dynamic and interesting.

If only some country would interfere with that style of quoting.

"The all-new Deadfire Pack DLC, which includes new in-game items to earn and discover, and new portraits from the forthcoming sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, releasing in 2018" I presume it will also feature some bug-fixes and some patch-balances, etc.

Formations are really a way of giving more detailed instructions down to the characters. Like "move in lock-step." If it's all "set and go" then the AI should abuse the fact you're not adjusting your formation. It's really about getting your team to behave together with shared instructions, rather than losing control. Micro-managing every single character to move in stutter-step is not exactly what I'd call tactical depth. I can't possible see how formations would take away from tactical depth. Further, adding in formations opens up a whole host of new possibilities with enemy AI behavior and the flow of battles. Plus formations are always optional so you can have chaotic battles with guerrilla soldiers or thief, or more structured battles against guards. It's just so enriching, if you're thinking it's all mindless setup and go, then you're imagining the most lazy implementation.

I read that CK is in no legal trouble, meaning he can acknowledge the sexual conduct without admitting to statutory sexual misconduct, which had not be committed. So he's allowed to make a baptism by confession that the other's cant. Because they'd be admitting guilt to an indictable crime. As far as I know, all of CK's conduct was consensual but abused implications of power.

Interesting read. Most of it was obvious. I thought there would be a higher turn out from UK/Europeans, maybe we didn't get the memo. Yeah I was surprised at the low turnout especially for the UK (since we share English as our primary language). I'm wondering if information about this kind of thing going on is not passed on as well here or if Europeans are less likely to bother with surveys? I know quite a few people who have played Obsidian games, not one of them seemed to be aware of the survey and didn't mention it if they did know about it. Might bring it up sometime with them to see, or maybe I might just not bother. I think we are just too apathetic. Brexit strikes again!

Having your own service allows you greater bargaining power when putting your content on other companies' services. I imagine Disney is probably going to work with Apple preferentially. Then use their own service for people outside of Apple's platform.

I can imagine joining for a period of time to catch up on their content. I think the main users will be young families with kids. All of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and Disney animation classics. That's a great library to have around for your kids. But Netflix is where it's at.

I always climb with nitroglycerin.

Wait... it sounds like they are still in. Because you need the proficiency talent to unlock the use of a modal. Proficiencies are replacing the weapon focus talents. We know that there are no plans for proficiencies to give generic stat boosts to the weapon, weapons are what they are and proficiencies simply open up modals for use with the weapon. We know that a single point investment gets you a modal for the chosen weapon. outside that nothing has been said that I am aware of thats new detail wise. By that I mean we don't if there is more than one proficiency level for each weapon or if its just a one and done type thing, for example. Alright, but it doesn't seem like any fiddly bits are going away, it's just a different sort of focus to invest in.

Wait... it sounds like they are still in. Because you need the proficiency talent to unlock the use of a modal.

Alright, I need a rundown on this Saudi Arabia / Lebanon scenario that is going down. It seems like some things are brewing, and something might go down soon.

I wanted Rian, but JJ is perfectly acceptable imo. Episode 9 is more collaboratively written anyways and he seems fine as a director. I'm really impressed by their confidence in Rian, and 8 seems to be turning into quite the gem.