anameforobsidian

I don't think there can always be a separation between classes, interests, and methods in a game that is somewhat rigidly class-based. I could see multiple methods trying to tackle the same problem, i.e. what are souls. The priests could ask the gods, the mages could try to extract it and cut it with magic, the cyphers directly manipulate it through training. The problem with class-based fantasy is that the methods a character uses to approach/alter the world determine their powers. A class is comprised of powers, and each power corresponds to class(es). Class is a rigid concept, an immutable law of nature in class-based worlds. It's exacerbated in this game, because there's almost no overlap between class based powers and skills are separate. The class-power relationship is important for animancy, because we know the study of animancy grants valuable combat powers; the creation of golems / the undead / the ability to steal weak souls. So, if animancy was an interest entirely divorced by class, the members of different disciplines who studied animancy would either have their own animancy abilities (because class alters the physical world), and thus be a subclass. Or, if the soul could manipulated in similar ways through multiple methods, then the members of classes interested in animancy would share powers; something more like a prestige class or a skill. A last alternative would be that, an interest in animancy granted no powers whatsoever, but that's already been firmly disproven. This distinction can lead to some minor edge cases. Suppose there was one of the flesh eating undead who sought an evil PCs help strengthening their soul's tie to the body / keeping them from death. Would a bookish fighter be able to help the NPC? A cypher immersed in mysticism? A wizard who studies animancy? If the answer is different for any of these, then animancy has to correspond to class. This is the wrong game for a non-combat class, but I do love them deeply and truly.

That screams an NPC party member to me; an alchemist driven out of her lab to hunt down her golem, etc. Alternatively, that's not that far off from the description of D&D Wizards. Finding all that forbidden lore can't be easy in a world without a printing press, and animancers would want to study natural phenomena having to do with souls. Seeing a group of vithrak or the like up close probably means you're no stranger to danger. But, here's my issue. Perhaps I'm reading the lore wrong, but it feels like Wizards manipulate souls to affect the outside world / physical forces. Cyphers manipulate souls themselves. Wouldn't that mean that they're more likely to be experts on souls, and hence animancers? I'm curious how the two classes (and others, but especially those two classes) relate to each other in lore.

The game lore mentions animancy quite frequently, but is there a class in the game that best corresponds with animancy? Is it Wizards, Cyphers, or possibly even priests? It's weird that it isn't a class in and of itself, given their importance in lore.

Yet the same game (series) has women NPC's with more personality and agency than just about any RPG, does its best to allow you to create emotional connections with them, and writes relationships with them that are not pure ego-gratification. While both games had features that were similarly problematic as anything else out there, IMO it's not fair to dismiss them because of that without even acknowledging what they did better and, yes, more maturely than any other mainstream title I can think of. Triss, Shani, and Ves are not props, objects, eyecandy, or cheap thrills. Really? I wouldn't say they even had interesting characterization or agency. The only time Triss and Shani inform your choices is when you have to choose between them romantically, or when Triss has been kidnapped. Ves is rarely in the narrative at all, and the most notable time is when she's a rape victim.

And then Bethesda nothing. Interplay had destroyed the series and itself for almost ten years before Bethesda got its hands on it. Because of Bethesda we got F:NV, which is far more Fallout than we would have had otherwise.

The kind where your supersperm creates a child after 33 days. That is an awful story.

Here's a list of all the videos they've shown from the game to add to the pictures. Environment: Water Flowing, Ocean Water Flowing, Animations: Two Spell Effects, How Shadows Work, How Tree People Move, Animators having fun / making references Gameplay: Trailers: Introducing Pillars of Eternity

I don't think the Witcher and mature should be mentioned in the same sentence. That said, I am somewhat conflicted about sex in PE. It can add to verisimilitude if done sparingly and well, but it can also lead to Mary Sueish characters or stupid exploitation. And people on forums get weird about it. Add it if it adds to atmosphere or narrative, don't if it doesn't.

I'm not a backer and I still think the way Obsidian handled E3 was grossly unfair towards backers. After all, people invested their money (I know by KS rules it's not legally an investment but de-facto it is) in the project. They deserved better. Again, I understand that there's no obligation beyond KS pledge rewards but we're talking about being fair and nice here, aren't we? Well, Obsidian put press above their most loyal fans - by any standard this is neither nice nor fair. Telling people who feel disappointed and betrayed that it's all envy and whining is, let's be honest here, very childish. You know such thing as well-founded discontent actually exists and that's we have here. And, as far as I know, Obsidian simply turned a deaf ear on all complaints. Not cool. That's all I have to say. Not cool. I am a backer. I'm certainly not blindly supportive of Obsidian since I'm calling for more videos, but I still don't think E3 is unreasonable. There are two reasons for this. One is that the vast majority of information available about the game has come from updates or the forums. Press articles rarely include anything the backers don't know already. Obsidian has certainly not been deficient in talking about the game or their progress. The other is that Project Eternity is not their only game, and may not even be their largest game right now. They are a large studio and have other games that need press. I'll almost certainly back any other kickstarter they make, and I don't think E3 is worthy of serious consideration. My own current problems and speculation follow below, but it's somewhat OT so it's spoilered.

Why post anything then? Backers complain about everything. (Including not posting).

Then just make it a backer only video on kickstarter.

I wanted to thank you for responding, and say that I think complaining about a company with multiple games in development, only one of which was kickstarted, going to E3 is stupid. While I agreed with most of the post, I wanted to say that I disagree with the decision to only show off polished video. I understand why Obsidian is doing it: You don't want to misrepresent the game or show off critical story; Obsidian has to contend with a somewhat undeserved reputation for bugs; each video of the game is advertising material for a hype hungry group of fans who did not back it; there's probably some of Obsidian's own money in the pot; everything you show produces a fair amount of nitpicking, much of it misunderstood; and it's the way the game industry works, so no one wants to break precedent and have fans see an ugly Alpha. That said, I still thinks it shows a degree of mistrust in backers to only want to show off your finished, polished (and possibly best) material. It's like backers couldn't understand that it's a work in progress? Why not show an unfinished area off the critical path or combat with some random scrubs in a grassland? Furthermore, there's been a bit of a shift in development and tone that I think people are using E3 press releases as a symbol of. The campaign started with talk about a new model of development, and there was an atmosphere of freedom of communication. Many members of the team certainly helped further that with open and ongoing communication (Justin Bell and JE Sawyer are especially good at this). But now it feels like those possibilities have closed, and there's little distinguishing Project Eternity from a traditional AAA game. Backroom deals with publishers that are announced after they're made. The fairly press previews which look bad because there hasn't been an actual preview of the game yet (even though that's misleading because I've read extremely few articles with information backers didn't have already). Hell, if you're not reading between the lines, it looks like that utter ass Nathan Grayson has had more time with the game than most of the fans. The updates have stayed as preproduction descriptions of mechanics and polished pre-rendered shots. The developers have stopped asking backers questions about the game, which is a consequence of shifting development, but still gives backers less information. I don't think that because I gave Obsidian my paltry sum I own them, but I understand the discontent over E3 and press previews.

It's important to note that the sound quality on youtube is affected by the graphics settings, so bumping it up to HD will normally get you better sound too.

Unity supports C#, Java, and Python. In fact the documentation is significantly more robust in Java.

Oh, it was in keeping with the theme, all right. No debate there. I question, however, whether manually routing around through containers of crap was a good game mechanic, since it is based not on skill, tactics or any form of strategy but rather just on repetitive mundane actions. Naturally, in the mmo age, the plaudits piled up. That's not quite true that it wasn't based on tactics. You did have the choice to pick perks that made searching more fruitful at the expense of other perks. I was not a huge fan of Fallout 3, but found it an adequate dungeon crawler.

NPCs in Gothic, particularly Gothic 1, have a visceral reaction when you kill people. The game assumes that you just want to beat people up (monsters you kill), and you have to do an extra stabbing motion to kill them. You murder people straight out if your last blow is magic rather than a sword, which is fair. There are some rare exceptions, but even random bandits in the woods and people who ambush you can be beaten rather than killed. Sometimes that just means they attack you with their fists though. It also means many npcs will beat you up and rob you rather than kill you straight out.

This is true. Unfortunately, NWN2 reminds us of the virtues of Steam by requiring 8 ****ing years worth of patches. It seriously took me an hour and a half for the autopatcher to get all the way up. But yes, I played it late and didn't have half the camera problems people complain about. I always wonder why devs put such arbitrary limits on how high a camera can go. Mountains really sucked in NWN 2 for that reason.

The difference between this and NWN is that NWN rendered the images in real time. This uses pre-rendered maps, so unless the users make their own renders (which is much, much, much harder than placing buildings on a map), user generated content isn't really a likelihood. But there are graphical advantages. That's why BGII looked like this: and NWN looked like worse in some respects even though many years had passed:

There could be few sales and it would still be a success. After all, every single sale they make will be pure profit. If it releases at $40 and they get $50k sales in the first week, that would be $1.3m (after Steam and kicking it forward cuts are taken, but before Paradox because who knows how much they take). At 150k sales they would reach close to even with the campaign (or not depending on Paradox). At 500k, they would have enough for a very small AAA game ($13m without Paradox). The real test of sales is the quality of the game. Multiple developers have said that kickstarter proceeds were a very small portion of their profits, but their games were all really good.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Raistlin & Caramon were a horribly designed characters made to justify the author(s) minmaxing in the D&D system. Of course you're not going to be able to make quite the same character when you switch to a different system.

The extra area from stats only hurts mobs. The original casting area hurts both. That could make for some really neat line dancing.

New Vegas had a pretty nice tutorial. You could go your own way if that's what you wanted. Final Fantasy 6 had a house where they would teach you things about the game, but it was optional.

Why does everyone expect each other to read their posts in other threads? And then not link to it? It's not like we're great authors cranking out masterpieces by the day, nor are our works particularly worthy of analysis. You can see a subtle irony in aname's post "Dragon Age 2 is a turd of a game." By the conventional standards a turd of a game would be a very bad game. However, in his post "I love this ****," the author implies that they have coprophiliac tendencies. So the author invites the reader to explore their public private dichotomy when consuming interactive media by careful juxtaposition of the two ideas.

There is no healing magic in the game. That's true in lore if not in gameplay. There's no healing potions at all. And I don't believe the lore has much if any magical healing, but there are actions which restore stamina, and stamina is another health bar.

I don't mind it. Yes it accentuates the form slightly more than "real" scale armor would, but it's not stupid. I don't think you need perfect verisimilitude, and gender is an important part of many people's identities. Anyways, there's probably a happy medium between Terry Pratchett's dwarves and Red Sonja.