anameforobsidian

Is anyone really having a hard time reading it? Would the time spent fixing it to everyone's satisfaction (which will totally happen) really be the best use of resources?

What about about a paladin of Stealzo, the god of thieves?

I like the circles just fine.

It's not like they're in direct competition (if they were, then Bioware is a damn nice competitor with the help they've given Obsidian), but comparisons are natural. Obsidian and Bioware are the two heirs to Black Isle, and it's natural to judge them according to the other. Hell, some people have been comparing this to Divinity: Original Sin for a while, and they have two very different designs and goals.

It might be nice if mods changed sneaking a bit to have cones of vision, patrol paths, etc. I'm not sure how much is in the game right now. I personally like the idea of changing the perception shape from a sphere to a keyhole (sight + sound).

I actually agree with this. I feel that the closer we get to launch, the spirit of the kickstarter is being lost. I has questions when E3 came around, but let it slide. Now that several media outlets are getting to play around with the actual game, I am getting miffed. No one should have played this game before backers. I'm pretty sure they got the a pretty similar experience to ours. I'm pretty sure Obsidian employees were the ones playing the game (it's doubtful every reporter would have picked barbarian or fighter). I agree about the spirit being a bit attenuated, but Sawyer has been on the forums recently, which is a good sign.

Eh, I wouldn't be surprised if DA3 did have a more extensive stronghold with more features. DA3 will probably have more characters than PE, and some of them probably have some good lines of dialogue. They'll probably have a ton of features this game won't like destructible terrain, full 3D, interaction with past saves, spell combos and the like. I'm certain EA is aware of how precarious Bioware's reputation is, and are throwing piles upon piles of money at this game. That said, I'll be shocked if they can deliver anything approaching PE's gameplay, and that's even if their game is bugfree and Obsidian's is riddled with them. Their vehemence in promoting and defending the second game places them in a trap where they can't completely forget about it, but virtually every single feature in it was worse than the original. Their need to push it on consoles means that you'll be limited to four party members who mostly use bad AI. The universe has yet to show any brilliant flares of originality. They've been institutionally damaged by completely discarding the simulationist aspect of gameplay (Obsidian doesn't hold a strong attachment to this, but still consider it). Similarly, they separate narrative from gameplay to such a high degree that it damages both. And high praise for previous efforts lead them to be resistant and confrontational to criticism. In essence, they've created an institutional trap for themselves that they'll have a hard time escaping no matter how many features they add.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/pillars-eternity/obsidian-hope-pillars-eternity-sales-will-fund-its-sequel The most interesting part in this article is that Obsidian (or at least JE Sawyer) does not want to go back to kickstarter. I can see how it could be a drain on resources to generate backer rewards and take care of logistics, and the campaign itself is probably exhausting. As the article mentioned, it might be nice to see them push new IP on kickstarter while concurrently producing sequels using the funds from the previous game. I would love to see an underwater or desert rpg.

Something I really liked from the IGN video was seeing how brutal disengagement attacks were. I don't know why, but that made me really happy.

It looks beautiful. So beautiful.

By the way, was anyone else slightly miffed by Brendan Adler's obvious disrespect of the consumer? It's not worth raising a huge fuss over, but it was good to see Josh rebuke his "eh, it sells" with "crack sells."

No, it's the Neogi.

Improved AI. There's always ways to improve AI that take an unfeasible amount of time for the original developers.

I would agree about Tolkien's elves, at least in the Silmarillion, but it's been ten years since I've read any Tolkein so my recollections may be off. There's a very interesting contrast between them being angry ****ups who are destined to fail and their seeming perfection to human observers (although this varies from work to work). However, I never got the same picture of the orcs, which were corrupted elves who spoke a language that was a corrupted form of elven. They seemed to live in material and cultural poverty, and it doesn't seem like Sam gained any insights into their culture when he pretended to be one.

That's a fascinating concept that I would love to see explored. Weren't the orks in 40k something like the decayed remnants of a eusocial culture?

Does Arcanum really need a sequel? I think it would be better served by reproducing the themes and motifs than by making a flatout sequel. Especially since there weren't really dangling plot threads.

Because Goblins and Orcs are lazy. The idea of an evil society devoted to conquest is beyond unrealistic. Furthermore, it leads to unrealistic conflicts. A small group of chosen warriors defend civilization against the illiterate, uneducated, unwashed masses, and other fantasy barf. This problem is aggravated when writers conclude that there must either be perpetual interspecies conflict, or that the solution is a rigid caste society. The only time they are done well is when they're given a distinct culture with conflicts that make sense, and PE already has enough heavy trope lifting to do. Each traditional fantasy element added has the significant risk of detracting from verisimilitude and makes the task of writing significantly harder. Bear in mind, the same criticism holds true of traditional elves; they're the inverse of orcs and just as unbelievable. Josh et. al seem to have had a significantly hard time making them interesting and relevant for that reason. But I would argue that elves are more core fantasy than orcs, because stories of elves and faeries played a significantly larger role in English canon than orcs. Dwarves don't have the same problem. They're different, but very obviously driven by human motivations. Interesting point of view that is quite logical too. But then, it all depends on how you design these races. For example in the Warcraft universe orcs are quite balanced, although in the Middle Earth one it's not: they're just the "generic" evil guys. But I really think that there are ways, if you want so, to integrate, at least orcs (maybe halflings too?), in a realistic and satisfying way. I would like to reflect on something that you said though: "The idea of an evil society devoted to conquest is beyond unrealistic." I don't necessarily agree. And lastly, I don't necessarily think you have to flesh out an entire civilization to include some races. You could very well have an orcish civilization in a region far away, not in the game, and have some rare orcish mercenaries employed here and there and the orc race available in character creation. Warcraft's Orcs, while interesting, revert to perpetual, unnecessary, and unsustainable war by cataclysm. Herding societies do give rise to antagonism, but total war is largely unsustainable in a historical context. Eventually the invaders from the steppes settle down and new invaders replace them. I.E. the Berbers took over Spain, but didn't maintain a state of continual mass conquest for 1000 years. Furthermore, there's a problem where fantasy races internalize historical and geographical factors as a racial trait and thus become less believable as a people. The idea of an always improvished, always aggressive, always invading intelligent species is pretty unbelievable. This is even worse with the Drow than the orcs, because they have so few surviving kids and so much internecine conflict, their society would collapse quickly. Finally, the Aumua play the role of a far away people that appear as mercenaries.

What about tangentially related IPs like Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, Forgotten Realms and Spelljammer, or Shadowrun and Earthdawn?

Because Goblins and Orcs are lazy. The idea of an evil society devoted to conquest is beyond unrealistic. Furthermore, it leads to unrealistic conflicts. A small group of chosen warriors defend civilization against the illiterate, uneducated, unwashed masses, and other fantasy barf. This problem is aggravated when writers conclude that there must either be perpetual interspecies conflict, or that the solution is a rigid caste society. The only time they are done well is when they're given a distinct culture with conflicts that make sense, and PE already has enough heavy trope lifting to do. Each traditional fantasy element added has the significant risk of detracting from verisimilitude and makes the task of writing significantly harder. Bear in mind, the same criticism holds true of traditional elves; they're the inverse of orcs and just as unbelievable. Josh et. al seem to have had a significantly hard time making them interesting and relevant for that reason. But I would argue that elves are more core fantasy than orcs, because stories of elves and faeries played a significantly larger role in English canon than orcs. Dwarves don't have the same problem. They're different, but very obviously driven by human motivations.

No means no.

I personally would love to see what happens to the setting in three hundred years. There's been so much information about souls, I would love to see what a soul magic fueled industrial revolution or computer age would look like.

Not perhaps strictly on topic, but wow games are a weird market. Especially for the big AAA games. The prices are stickier than just about anything else you can think of. Yeah it's fairly weird, but I'd say it's more that they rigidly adhere to the appearance of stickyness while constantly embracing some of the most innovative models. But, the entire pricing and delivery model does get contorted (special editions and day one DLC) to maintain the appearance of the $60 price.

Making profit is neither bad nor good. It's only bad in the sense that too much profit is normally an inefficient allocation of resources and thus can take jobs away from where they would be better used, and good in the sense that a long term negative profit means that a firm will shut down and people will lose their jobs. In the ideal (most efficient) market, the average economic profit is zero.

I always though the justification for wearing robes was a bit flimsy. Supposedly wizards wear robes because they don't constrict their movement. If that was the case, why wouldn't they wear comfortable pants and a shirt, which are less constricting since they're closer fitting?

All that proves is a lot of mod makers are lonely weirdos, really. My friend made a mod about a 35 year old who runs away from home and lives in a house with talking chairs (sidenote -- he actually did this). I think this proves that all modmakers are talking chairs.