Anonymous of Holland

Alright, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Keep up the good work!

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, so I thought I'd asked. I finished the Brighthollow restoration work, and the upper floor looks all prim and proper but the ground floor still looks like a ruin. Is this because I didn't purchase the hearth upgrade yet or is something wrong?

I'm terribly sorry, but I'm just not one of those people who is going to be reading through these forums and replying to threads and stuff, but I still want to tell you (Obsidian) about my first reaction to the Beta. Firstly, I had a few gripes with the character creation and since you specifically asked for feedback on the races, here it is: 1. Everyone's heads were too large, except for the Elves and Orlans. You don't really see it in-game but it looks a bit silly and it's quite unnecessary. 2. The Aumaua designs are...not very good. I'm sure these designs are locked down by now and you won't change them, but I really don't like them at all. They don't look interesting at all, just like a guy with some finger paint stretched over his face. I actually thought these might be placeholders or something but if they aren't they could REALLY use work. 3. I'm also not a huge fan of the Death Godlike. Well, their look, anyway, because I love the idea. But all their cool heads look like silly helmets instead of like they were born that way. 4. I'd appreciate some more faces and hair to choose from, but that's not that important I guess. I'd also like some more colors when it comes to hair. Not being able to pick grey or white for a dwarf for instance kinda sucks. As for the interface, it's obviously lagging quite a bit right now but I'm okay with pretty much all of it. I don't like the clicking and dragging much though, but I could get used to it. Some interface-related points though: 1. The closest zoom level should be a bit closer. Even if the game isn't made for that, it would still be fine (see: Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition). I feel the closest zoom right now feel very limiting. 2. There's no button yet to highlight interactable objects (like loot, doors, containers, etc). I'm hoping that will get implemented. 3. Some transparancy issues, like the woman over the stove in the inn. I'm fairly certain the big bugs will get fixed anyway, so I won't talk about those, but there is one thing that is so, so important to me and I feel like I should really mention even though there's probably nothing you're going to do about it at this time anymore: Design. 1. The inn lacks character and atmosphere. Inns are like the places where you can create an atmosphere in your game and the Inn in the beta is very boring and uninspired. 2. I know you initially planned waving grass and trees but removed it because it didn't look that great, but now the backgrounds are pretty static.. Honestly I think I would probably prefer the not-very-good-looking swaying stuff because the environments are so not dynamic right now. 3. There's not enough people with stories to tell. You walk into the mill, and it's this huge open room with nothing of interest in it (seriously, places need more character!) and the guy inside barely shoots off one line. So...why should I go in there? All in all, most importantly, you need to inject some character into the looks of the game. Yes the animations aren't great, and the fighting isn't fun at all to me, but I don't play RPGs for that anyway, I play them to be immersed. And nothing helps that better than good art direction.

This trailer confirms everything I have believed in since I read the Kickstarter pitch: Obsidian is the only company who could do this and do it well. (Okay, I'm also hoping inXile will be able to pull it off but to be honest I'm not too sure about them) Everything looks gorgeous and exactly the kind of style that we know, love, and were expecting. I hope we'll be seeing breakdowns or extensions of the scenes in this teaser in the coming updates. One thing though that has been mentioned before: the animations really need some more work, but I'm sure that will be fine in the end. Can't wait to see more!