Boox

Ah, Brennecke has struck again. Alas, behold! The bird of ill omen, bearer of bad news, destroyer of dreams, devourer of light, hatchet man of hope, Adam Brennecke. Tremble in fear as he dashes our wishes and desires upon the jagged stones of postponement, lengthening our suffering and prolonging our torment. Heed his wicked might and abandon all hope! Ok, seriously, it's too bad but I think it's for the better that Darren has time to iron out the major bugs. I'd rather wait longer and be able to increase my pledge successfully, than despair over error messages and money that's vanished into thin air. Zed:

On the other hand, and correct me if I'm wrong, Starcitizen was a long ways off of their target even after the successful Kickstarter campaign. Didn't they only recently hit the real goal of 30M (or was it 20M), which consisted mostly out of post-Kickstarter pledges? P:E got funded after the KS ended, so Obsidian have been able focus all of their efforts on making the game and, while getting more sweet moolah is nice, there isn't necessarily a need to divert much effort into PR and additional marketing/hype/awareness as extra funding isn't crucial as it is for Roberts&co. Of course, I'm sure that Obsidian would want the game to be successful after release and hype/PR surely factor into that.

Didn't Brandon say he was working on the backer portal alone? I don't have much website coding experience, but I can't imagine the backer portal being a very simple thing to create. I'm sure he has a load of other production-related work to do, as well, so the months of delays seem justified. Also, updates have been weekly for long stretches (e.g. last year), so there's no reason to believe that the people at Obsidian are worshipping the Lord of the Fortnight. We might yet see the update today/tomorrow! (Oh gosh, I hope it doesn't turn out that Adam Brennecke is the Lord of the Fortnight. In which case, I didn't mean any disrespect and I humbly apologize for anything that could be construed as insolent.)

Yes, please Justin! A music update with perhaps a small sample of a new piece would be amazing!

Don't worry, Quetz, Adam will be here shortly to give us more bad news *pessimist at heart* Seriously, though, I really do hope that we'll get the big update/portal launch ASAP.

I read through this thread again and I've been trying to think more about the mechanics aspect of animal companions. The shared health/stamina pools seems to be the most significant factor in how to play the ranger-animal companion as a duo, at least from a combat perspective. I suppose we would need to know more about the stamina system in order to make any really meaningful points, but I will settle for speculation. That being said, I enjoyed reading Osvir's thoughts on the stamina system and it mirrors my understanding. I'd also like to share some thoughts on the health system. Based on how I've understood explanations of the system, health is more a description of how injured you are (bruised, joints sprained, muscles pulled, tissue cut, bleeding, inflammations, broken bones, etc.) whereas stamina describes how winded you are, i.e. how much of your energy resources you've used up. For example, if you've just run a marathon as fast as you possibly can, you're probably fairly close to 0 stamina, but at 100% health. On the other hand, if an ogre just chopped off your arm with an axe and crushed your body with a mace, you're health is at 0% no matter how much stamina you have left. Being in combat, you are likely to block and parry enemies' blows and your armor will protect you as well, but it takes energy to fight and therefore it reduces your stamina. Maybe your opponent is very skilled or lucky and he manages to strike you in a way that causes a cut or other damage, which will decrease your health. I think Osvir's system would be a good representation of this on a mechanical level. But how does health tie into this and, more importantly, how does the health/stamina sharing fit into the picture? Maybe as your health decreases, your maximum stamina decreases as well, i.e. your body's energy and effort output capacity decreases as damage is accumulated. A simple example would be, that I can't possibly fight as effectively if I have a broken leg or arm, but I can still fight if I have to. A decreased health pool could also affect abilities and the use of skills. For example, a 50% decrease could result in a 50% reduction of max stamina and the efficacy of abilities also being reduced to half (just as a basis for discussion). A fairly simple lore-based explanation for shared health/stamina pools would be that the soul-bond connects the ranger's and animal companion's consciousnesses together. As the ranger becomes more tired, the animal companion feels the same strain as their minds are one. Similarly, if the animal companion suffers enough damage to die, the ranger's soul departs his/her body as it follows the AC's soul into the afterlife/limbo/reincarnation cycle. What comes to in-between cases, a severed limb is experienced by both the ranger and AC in a similar fashion, regardless of whose limb is severed. If we assumed this kind of system, I wonder what the effect on combat gameplay would be. Obviously, great care would have to be taken in positioning the ranger and AC on the battle field. I think it's safe to assume that most players would use the ranger as a ranged fighter, as that seems to be the emphasis of the ranger's abilities. If ranged weapons suffer a penalty when an enemy is engaging the character in melee combat and switching weapons in a similar situation would incur even more penalties or attack of opportunity for the enemy, a natural role for the AC could then be to serve as a melee deterrent. Another mechanic could be that when the AC is engaging an enemy, the ranger has a bonus to attacks on that enemy, i.e. the AC works together with the ranger and guides the enemy to a disadvantageous position or otherwise distracts him/her. These two roles could be further improved with the AC's abilities. For example, when both the ranger and AC are close to each other, both could be granted a bonus to defense/attack. Or, the ranger and AC could share the field of vision which would mean that a ranger could attack from a greater distance (Ulquoirra's panther stealthily sneaks closer to a bandit camp unnoticed allowing Ulquoirra to strike a deadly first blow from beyond where the bandits can see).

According to Brandon, the land was ravaged by fire and has only recently begun to recover. It makes sense to me that the trees are small since it takes a good while for trees to grow big. At least, I hope that's the case here and that in other areas the trees will be larger (e.g. Twin Elms).

This might be a bit of a non-answer but I've wanted RPGs to be more like Baldur's Gate 2, in almost every way. Okay, that's definitely not the kind of answer you are looking for. It's really hard for me to choose just one thing because there are quite a few reasons why I haven't been satisfied with RPGs for a long time. BG just captured so well what I wanted from a game.

Hmm, I don't think I will play with permadeath on but I'll wait until we see the system in action before I make a definitive choice. Osvir, thanks for the links!

Now that's a brilliant idea! That would really be something special. However, I think that it could be possible to incorporate player choice into that. You could choose your animal companion during character creation and that choice would carry over into whatever scenario is used to introduce the companion. Possible scenarios could be: (Your original suggestion:) At some point, you receive a quest from your order (or tribe or whatever) to search for your soul animal, or A scripted event that shows the process you described, or You start out in a special small and unique intro zone where you discover your soul animal, or A combination of the above If the scenario would be brief enough, it might be viable to have a custom event for each animal companion type. I think that especially the scripted events consisting of concept art and text could be manageable. Alternatively, couldn't a scripted event (the visions you see as you deliriously stumble through the undergrowth) contain a set of puzzles or questions that could determine what your animal companion would be? For example, the answers could indicate play style preferences or companion type preferences without being too obvious.

Josh mentioned that rangers and animal companions are "soul-bonded", so I think your assumption is correct. I really like your idea of the animal companions affecting people's attitudes and thereby dialogue, etc. which would make the choice of companion more meaningful. Wouldn't it be cool, if certain quests would become available based on what companion you choose (and expanding on that thought and generally speaking, class choice)? For example, if you chose Ulquoirra's panther, a band of poachers might capture it while you are resting. This would result in a quest to rescue your companion. I agree! Also, animal companions could be used to interact with NPCs, too. A belligerent NPC could be easier to influence if an intimidating animal had them pinned to the floor. As I mentioned before, I was a lot younger then and not as fussy about this stuff. That doesn't mean that I can't wish for more depth and variety in the P:E ranger class, right? I agree that, based on the limited knowledge we have now, P:E is attempting to provide a lot of choices and interesting gameplay experiences regardless of which class you choose to play. Which is really great! I, too, would like to have the opportunity to choose an avian companion.

I understood what Josh wrote as, basically: Rogues can backstab -> Their damage output capability (i.e. max damage in one hit?) is the highest Rangers have 2nd highest damage output capability -> They also have an ability to cause severe damage in one hit (along the lines of an assured critical hit with a bow or something similar) DPS refers to damage per second, right? Maybe DPS isn't the perfect analogy for what Josh meant. Mr. Sawyer, please enlighten us? (I am hoping that posting his name summons him like Adam Brennecke.) I would assume that fighters, barbarians and paladins deal a more steady rate of damage over time compared to rogues and rangers. JFSOCC, that's a great list of great ideas! I too really like the idea of different companions providing unique bonuses and abilities. Due to the development budget and time constraints, we won't likely see that many choices, though. It'd be great if we had a couple of companions to choose from all of which are really well-designed and implemented, i.e. quality and depth over quantity. Personally, I'd like to have a crow or a raven that could be used as a scout and who would give perception and accuracy based bonuses. Also, animals capable of tracking would also complement a ranger's capabilities. "Go for the optics, Chiktikka! Go for the optics!" Tali was one of my favorite NPCs in the Mass Effect series.

That just got me thinking... I know they've said that "godlike" will basically be a subrace option for any character creation races, but... will we bump into godlike humanoid (or even non-humanoid?) creatures out in the world? I mean, if Trolls are intelligent, why would all of the gods completely refrain from affecting anyone but the character-creation races? That's a good point! How neat would it be to interact or fight with a godlike Troll King/Queen, not to mention godlike vithracks, etc.?

Yet you liked playing ranger in BG where they had even less abilities? Well, in my defense, I was about half as old then as I am now, and stuff like mechanics didn't really appeal to me back then as much as the thought of playing an elven ranger. But more importantly, what kinds of abilities and animal companions would you like to see in P:E? Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes!

I searched these forums for topics on the animal companions, but couldn’t find anything dedicated to animal companion mechanics. Hence this topic. When I first played the BG series, I rolled an elven ranger who I stuck with throughout both games and the expansions. I really like the idea of a marksman tracker and therefore I’m toying with the idea of playing an elven ranger again. However, I feel that the ranger class is not quite as appealing as some of the other classes (e.g. the cypher or monk) based on the details that have been revealed so far. Where the cypher and monk have a lot of abilities and mechanics to fuss over, namely the concepts of focus and wounds that power special abilities, the ranger’s key distinction seems to be bonuses/abilities in ranged weapons and the animal companion which seem a little bland at first sight. What I mean to say is that, for example, cyphers, monks and wizards have plenty of abilities and “resources” that need to be managed and therefore allow the player to be more involved with the actions of the character. We don’t know much about the ranger class yet, but based on the information at hand, the class doesn’t seem to require as much attention from the player or provide as much strategic depth, except for the management of shared health/stamina pools between the ranger and animal companion. This is what Josh had to say about rangers: “ "Rangers have the second highest single-target damage output capability (behind rogues) but have the advantage of range. While many rogue abilities allow the use of ranged attacks, the rogue needs to be relatively close to the target to use them. Rangers do not have this restriction. Rangers also all have animal companions. They are an integral part of the class and animal companions gain additional abilities as the ranger advances. Because rangers and their animal companions are soul-bonded, they share a common pool of Stamina and Health. Mechanically, this means that rangers cannot use their animal companion as a "meat shield", but they can gain good synergistic benefits from working together.” As the animal companion is such a distinctive part of playing a ranger, it’d be interesting to hear the opinions of others on what you expect the animal companion to play like and what kinds of companion mechanics would you like to see implemented in order for the ranger class to be as unique and appealing as some of the other classes? Also, what kinds of animal companions would you like to see (e.g. large melee type animals, stealthy scouts, magical creatures)? TLDR: What kinds of animal companions and animal companion mechanics would you like to see in P:E?

Hahaha! How did that get in there!? I haven't even played Oblivion...

I like these P:E trolls. They look to me like humans or elves that have been corrupted by malevolent forest souls and they're quite intimidating.

There is some pretty good variation in our wilderness areas throughout the game. In future weeks we will show off some additional areas that will have more visual variation. Thanks for the reply, I'll be looking forward to seeing those areas!

Wow, I really like the Twin Elms concept art! Also, ditto on the trolls looking good. Everything is looking good! However, I'd like to see some more variation in the wilderness areas, since most of the screenshots we've seen have tended to be fairly similar, i.e. very uniformly green.

I backed the project on Kickstarter, but took my time to register here on the forums. Despite being a little late to this thread, I wanted to say thanks to everyone at Oblivion for making Project: Eternity. The Baldur's Gate series is collectively my favorite game (nothing else has come close) and I've been waiting for a similar gaming experience to appear ever since I finished Throne of Bhaal back in the day. Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner for you folks in the States, I just wanted to say: Thanks, P:E crew, for making my gaming dream a reality! I wish the best to all of you and all you forum members and lurkers, as well.

Aww man, what a bummer I'm sure it's a prudent choice, though, to open the backer portal after Thanksgiving. I'm still glad that we'll get an art update And those two posts being back-to-back is uncanny

I'm looking forward to the backer portal since I would like to upgrade my pledge. I'd also like to learn more about the history of the setting and the game mechanics, e.g. attributes and animal companions, and to see some actual gameplay footage. I really liked Rob Nesler's FIRST ART UPDATE, so I'm hoping he will make an appearance too :D

Based on what we've been told in updates, I've understood that people don't generally know all that much about how souls work, etc. So maybe the more fundamental aspects are still unknown. I think I'd prefer it to be a mystery. I heartily agree with what SophostheWise wrote.

According to the dictionary on my computer, cyclopedia is the archaic (unless used in a book title) shortening of the word encyclopedia. The term does remind me of bicycles more than ancient musty tomes, though... Ah, on second thought, maybe you weren't referring to the use of the word itself?

I am definitely late to the party on this topic, but I have a feeling that Obsidian have already taken this issue into consideration. Screen resolutions up to around 2560x1440 were mentioned in update #36, so I think it's pretty safe to assume that UIs will be appropriate for higher resolutions as well.