Gnostic

Like... Firefly universe "shiny"? Or just make the game have a metaphorical sheen, from the metaphorical polish? I was think of a certain mephit that smith your armor and polish your weapons that is easily distracted and go oh shiny! When it find random things that interest it.

Yeah Obsidian, take as long as you want, I don't mind if it is released next year or the year after as long as your polish make the game shiny.

Okay I'll spend more time looking at other games to make additional selections. I'll PM you and Gnostic now with my email address I had not received your PM, anyway I can only buy gifts for you by this Saturday when I get back home from outstation. Also we can also just give you the game key and you can redeemed it through https://secure.gog.com/redeem If you successful redeemed your titles, we can check in our gift section like the picture attached

Yes BruceVC, can I interest you with SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition which cost $19.99 on GOG now? As it is on GOG you need not worry the Origin **** up ever

I would strongly prefer a symmetrical arrangement. How about both of us buys BruceVC a $15 game now, and he buys the winner a $30 one when the wager is decided, assuming he agrees? Then we can all gloat/sulk about it together. I agree BruceVC will you take it up? It is not like you get the prize right away, your anticipation is if you get the prize for free or not.

Well it is about half a year later so I don't know if I can remember to check it by then. That's why I want to buy you games first so you will not go all around the place claiming that I am a deal breaker in the event that I lost. Can we do it this way? I gift you $15 worth of games first, if either one of us forgot about this wager when the result is determined then you are off the hook. My memory is not as good when I am younger so tell me what games you prefer by Saturday?

I have PE obviously as I am replying you in this thread, and I am quite sure you have too. Do you have the expansion? We can wager on that, If I am not wrong the expansion cost $15. Lets do it like this, I will gift a game or games with a total value of $15 or less for you. Then if you win the wager you need not buy back any for me. If I win you will gift game or games worth a total value of $30 to me. If you agree tell me what games you wanted by Saturday, I am outstation now and have some problems with my cards, I can only do my purchases by then to gift you.

I don't do steam anymore, not after they mess up. I am only willing to bet on GOG titles. How pricy a game you want to bet? If I understand correctly, you are wager that PE will be fully release before 2015. So Beta release does not count?

Bioware did that and you know how it ended. I know exactly how it ended, one of the worlds most highly regarded and successful development studios with millions of fans who absolute support them and there products financially. Yes this is exactly the success I imagine Obsidian would want to achieve, what business wouldn't? As long as they don't go the dumb down the game to attract young gamers route I will be fine. You cannot please everybody so build the games on what your already huge fan base love is crucial. Mostly working adults who have more money and can enjoy a challenging game. I loved Dungeon Siege 2 that is RTwP with 6 party based combat. Obsidian develop Dungeon Siege 3 which dumb down the game that you can only control one avatar, which makes things less challenging.

Even non Early Access review are good. Watch Dogs review: The first mission is quite a difficult one where you have to repeatedly try to log in to the Uplay mainframe. http://steamcommunity.com//id/Fiskie/recommended/243470/ Thing is, for us to throw more money on a game that does not exist and still roam this forum about 2 years since kickstarter, we are most likely among the most fanatical of Obsidian supporters. If the majority of us has these apprehension to PE coming to EA, how will normal gamers think about PE in EA?

no. just, no. nope. Errr...... can you be a helpful a bit and enlighten a dimwit like me why not? What I am aiming now is how to make RTwP better, instead of derailing TB lovers of their distaste in game model that require to make quick decision against a timer, it will be more productive to discuss how to make RTwP enjoyable for a wider range of people. RTwP supporter or game lovers should help to make RTwP better instead of locking down RTwP into one model only and block progress. TB has evolved to Continuous TB, Phase TB, Simultaneous TB, Opt to skip animation in TB, Speed Up option in TB, Auto Resolve TB. RTwP evolution is pretty stagnant since BG, still auto pause function and customizable AI script. I am happy that in Eternity RTwP evolution started again and is including Slow Motion RTwP. Maybe we will even see Reverse Time / Replay RTwP like Prince of Persia Sand of Times. Now I try to initiate a discussion how to exploit the Slow Motion RTwP to best effect. If Eternity does not have this function then the next best thing is to mod this or at least try to. On how to mod this, we can reuse the build in Slow Motion and Zoom function, just choose when to trigger them. On when to trigger, I suppose the text display of the game engine will recognize the death of a foe, so we can use that to trigger this function, but it will be after the victory animation of a character, only the defeat of a foe be recognize. I imagine this will be the limitation and we have to make do with the defeat animation of a foe. Then if we want to filter out that only strong enemies will trigger this function, we have to do a average party level check vs level of foe, only when the level of the foe is higher than the average party level can this animation be triggered. We also can do a foot print check. Giants, Dragons, Golem and other tough enemies should have a larger footprint so we can endorse this function against enemies with a footprint larger than X (human?). Character with less than 25% health, stunned, dazed will warrant this function and the camera will zoom in to them. But for foes, we must know the location to zoom in. I hope the game engine will register both the death of a foe and the location of the death so I can mod the place to zoom. Optimally we should zoom to a dying foe as close as possible to watch the animation, we are limited by the engine we have to settle for a lesser zoom, like 75% zoom and out to 100% zoom to attract attention. Maybe the developer or an experience Modder has a better way to overcome the limitation than a novice Modder wannabe like me. Without the actual code of the game this is all theory crafting on how to mod this. Any developers kind enough for giving a hint?

I love RTwP, in my first play through of BG2 I did not even realize there is a pause function to queue command, I just thought like every other action game it only allow to pause by opening the inventory and drink potion. I have one heck of a time enjoying the urgency and satisfaction of being able to analyze the situation and give command fast enough, being in control enough to turn the tide of battle to victory. Yes I run away and visit the temple a lot of revive by party, but that does not diminish the fun for me. What I am aiming now is how to make RTwP better, instead of derailing TB lovers of their distaste in game model that require to make quick decision against a timer, it will be more productive to discuss how to make RTwP enjoyable for a wider range of people. We as RTwP supporter or game lovers should help to make RTwP better instead of locking down RTwP into one model only and block progress. TB has evolved to Continuous TB, Phase TB, Simultaneous TB, Opt to skip animation in TB, Speed Up option in TB, Auto Resolve TB. RTwP evolution is pretty stagnant since BG, still auto pause function and customizable AI script. I am happy that in Eternity RTwP evolution started again and is including Slow Motion RTwP. Maybe we will even see Reverse Time / Replay RTwP like Prince of Persia Sand of Times. Now I try to initiate a discussion how to exploit the Slow Motion RTwP to best effect. I am not sure if it will be out of the scope of Eternity since they already have “Slow Motion” and “Zoom” build in. It is how to set a condition to trigger this function. If you like an “IE feel” then you can opt not to use this function. If the developers had lock down the feature then fine, we will have to see how to mod this or lobby this in the sequel. On how to mod this, we can reuse the build in Slow Motion and Zoom function, just choose when to trigger them. On when to trigger, I suppose the text display of the game engine will recognize the death of a foe, so we can use that to trigger this function, but it will be after the victory animation of a character, only the defeat of a foe be recognize. I imagine this will be the limitation and we have to make do with the defeat animation of a foe. Then if we want to filter out that only strong enemies will trigger this function, we have to do a average party level check vs level of foe, only when the level of the foe is higher than the average party level can this animation be triggered. We also can do a foot print check. Giants, Dragons, Golem and other tough enemies should have a larger footprint so we can endorse this function against enemies with a footprint larger than X (human?) Character with less than 25% health, stunned, dazed will warrant this function and the camera will zoom in to them. But for foes, we must know the location to zoom in. I hope the game engine will register both the death of a foe and the location of the death so I can mod the place to zoom. Optimally we should zoom to a dying foe as close as possible to watch the animation, we are limited by the engine we have to settle for a lesser zoom, like 75% zoom and out to 100% zoom to attract attention. Maybe the developer or an experience Modder has a better way to overcome the limitation than a novice Modder wannabe like me. Without the actual code of the game this is all theory crafting on how to mod this. I will have to post this in the engine section to hope for a hint.

The difference between you and me is that you expect the book producers to design the book so that those 100 pages are intentionally removable, so that you don't have to tear them out. I have no problem with you tearing them out. If you don't actually like the whole book, then don't read the whole book. IT's not the book's obligation to make sure it's inherently accommodating to your completely random subjective human desires. Is there anything wrong with that? I thought the purpose of this forum is to bring to the attention of the developers what is the player preference and what may be good for the game. Whether the developers choose to implement that is up to them. That said, how hard it is to implement a speed up function? If I choose to mod this into existent, will it be enough to reduce the frame rate and "turn" time? Or I just need to mod the internal timer of the game that it thinks one second is actually two?

I am sorry as I do not know this should be at the engine or mechanic section so I will post at both and let the admin decide. Short Version Exploit on the slow motion function to let the game zoom on a character and play in slow motion the animation that deal the killing blow or successfully perform a feat of awesomeness, or was beaten to near death. Finishing the action the camera can zoom back and run in real time. This is good for aesthetics and helps the information crunch of which character need attention or further command. People have the option to skip that all if they want. If possible Unity Engine can do a playback of the animation. Long Version One of the advantages to TB is that you get the information/aesthetics of each event at the moment it's resolved. RTwP makes it hard to track this as multiple events is played together constantly. Active pause of the player may be out of sync and miss some events. Auto Pause may not let the player know what is causing the pause unless the player look at the text breaking the flow. In no way I am stating TB is better than RTwP as both system have their pros and cons, I am stating how to improve the RTwP so it's weakness can be shore up and exploit some strength of the TB. Eternity already will implement a Slow Motion Function, so why not take advantage of it a step further to exploit it's strength? When a character do a deathblow, a great feat of strength, or under great duress, the game will go into slow motion and zoom in the particular character so the player can enjoy the animation or take action like switching target, run or heal. After the action ends the camera will zoom back and run in real time again. This function is skip-able with a button. If there are multiple such event happens at once, the latest character event will play into the player attention and the other character portrait will flash if they have a event that require the player attention. This function will be optional and customizable. In customizable, the player may not want to see the victory animation of the character triumph over a lowly rat but want to see the victory over a giant, so the player can select this function to happen only against strong opponents only. Or based on level, filtering out victory animation on foes 5 level lower than the character. The player can select if they want to see a really smart move from them like a fireball defeating 20 rats with good positioning and luring. So they can select the option to see animation if a character action affect 5 foes. The player also can choose to see the animation of a costly skill (determined by mana / ability level / casting length / cool down time) The player can set to slow down / pause and zoom in to a character under 25% health, finished action, stunned / blinded / feared. As such the game can enjoy the benefits of faster combat and more manageable information gathering and more satisfactions of the aesthetics animation. The developers also do not need to code a lot as this function just build on the slow motion function. If they want to take it up a notch higher they can do a playback / reverse time like prince of Persia Sand of Time, but I don't know how much work the developers need for that.

I am sorry as I do not know this should be at the engine or mechanic section so I will post at both and let the admin decide. Short Version Exploit on the slow motion function to let the game zoom on a character and play in slow motion the animation that deal the killing blow or successfully perform a feat of awesomeness, or was beaten to near death. Finishing the action the camera can zoom back and run in real time. This is good for aesthetics and helps the information crunch of which character need attention or further command. People have the option to skip that all if they want. If possible Unity Engine can do a playback of the animation. Long Version One of the advantages to TB is that you get the information/aesthetics of each event at the moment it's resolved. RTwP makes it hard to track this as multiple events is played together constantly. Active pause of the player may be out of sync and miss some events. Auto Pause may not let the player know what is causing the pause unless the player look at the text breaking the flow. In no way I am stating TB is better than RTwP as both system have their pros and cons, I am stating how to improve the RTwP so it's weakness can be shore up and exploit some strength of the TB. Eternity already will implement a Slow Motion Function, so why not take advantage of it a step further to exploit it's strength? When a character do a deathblow, a great feat of strength, or under great duress, the game will go into slow motion and zoom in the particular character so the player can enjoy the animation or take action like switching target, run or heal. After the action ends the camera will zoom back and run in real time again. This function is skip-able with a button. If there are multiple such event happens at once, the latest character event will play into the player attention and the other character portrait will flash if they have a event that require the player attention. This function will be optional and customizable. In customizable, the player may not want to see the victory animation of the character triumph over a lowly rat but want to see the victory over a giant, so the player can select this function to happen only against strong opponents only. Or based on level, filtering out victory animation on foes 5 level lower than the character. The player can select if they want to see a really smart move from them like a fireball defeating 20 rats with good positioning and luring. So they can select the option to see animation if a character action affect 5 foes. The player also can choose to see the animation of a costly skill (determined by mana / ability level / casting length / cool down time) The player can set to slow down / pause and zoom in to a character under 25% health, finished action, stunned / blinded / feared. As such the game can enjoy the benefits of faster combat and more manageable information gathering and more satisfactions of the aesthetics animation. The developers also do not need to code a lot as this function just build on the slow motion function. If they want to take it up a notch higher they can do a playback / reverse time like prince of Persia Sand of Time, but I don't know how much work the developers need for that.

Dear Lephys The Crux of my reasoning is that players should be able to customize the game as they like best, not shoehorn to a specific model that only a certain player enjoy best. That way ALL players get to enjoy what they like best. If I and a number of people love reading a book by tearing 100 pages from it, then me and like minded people enjoy the reading so such book and will be very happy. Other people who enjoy reading a book without tearing 100 pages from it can choose NOT TO DO SO and get the full enjoyment. The end result, both group of people will be very happy. Yes the game is not obligated to design these feature that I or a certain group of people want, that's why we are discussing it here. The game is already all set to implement a slow down option, how difficult it is to implement a speed up option? I don't think sneaking is boring, it is just a response to your previous post that stated people can cheat the system by speeding up while sneaking. Sorry if I get your meaning wrong. Regarding to cheating the system, what is wrong if you can have fun cheating the system? After all a game sole purpose is to make it FUN to the players. As long as cheating such system does not break the game that make it not fun, why it is not allow? Yes there are other means to make traveling time less boring, it is specifically your previous post that make me think speeding up may be fun in other ways. As for the "no enemies!" toggle, for people who hate enemies. You find a auto-resolve option in games HoMM, Age of Wonder, Galactic Civilization and such. Players have the freedom do that so both group of players that like enemies and hate enemies are happy. A "no story!" option, for people who hate stories. You realize most of the game give you the option to skip the text and get to the next text or be done with it and jump back to the game. Players that like the lore can continue reading and all players are happy. In fact I am sure that Eternity will have the option to fast forward / skip the text. A "text-based" option for people who hate graphics! I have yet to come over people like only text instead of graphic, but I know there are people who do not like lengthy / repetitive animation. You can skip the cut scene! Seen that attack animation for the 100th time? Want to skip it and know the results? There are many a game that let you do that. Turn Base game especially favor that function. Hey, are you a secret advocator of of player customization? you seems to bring up reason why player customization should be supported

Fair enough. I just don't really agree on how much easier it's making anything, I suppose. It just feels like deciding that fast-forwarding is warranted, the "how much?" question obviously comes into play, which is then answered by "obviously stop at a reasonable limit," but then... that's what the initial design was doing. You can ALWAYS make your way through an area more slowly, even if everything around you isn't slow. And, in combat, for example, you can pause it to "slow down" the overall pace of the action (I guess you could pause outside of combat, technically? Maybe to look over terrain without having patrols move around and stuff while you're there? *shrug*). So, the only thing being provided is "make things go faster." It feels a little like skipping the game. Even if the hard-coded movement speed for your party was stupidly slow, I wouldn't say it warrants some kind of option. I'd just say it was bad design, and it should've been a reasonably faster speed. As for the mechanics I've described, they're not meant to solve any problem in an easier fashion. They're simply meant to actually provide a purpose for things like movement speed options. There are plenty of games in which you get a run/walk toggle that affects absolutely nothing except whether or not your character moves faster or slower. It'd be nice if that actually mattered, if it's going to exist. And, honestly, I'd much rather have the option to run in lieu of the option to double the game speed. I'd just set everyone to Stealth mode and increase the game speed to make up for lost movement speed, then "run" around whilst still detecting traps and secret doors in a fraction of the time it would normally have taken. Thus, nothing in the game would actually require "care" on my part, since I could just bypass it with time control. Trying to sneak past those patrolling guards? Who needs to wait for their patrol to pass by again when you can just fast forward until they do! 8D. Got a sequence-based puzzle you didn't pay attention to the lore enough to know how to solve? Just max out time speed and "run" around trying all the sequences in one-tenth the time! 8D Just... if it's such an obviously problem-free, nothing-but-good feature, why doesn't every game ever made have a game speed setting? If walking faster is going to break game, how about town portals? Or you can click anywhere you already explored on the map and be instantly trans-located there? As for your example of allowing speeding the game up when in stealth mode to make a pseudo run, how is that a disadvantage? It is an advantage as I will be forwarding the less interesting parts of the game. The enemy is also faster so there will be no breaking of balance. And the other example of speeding up while waiting for patrol guards, seriously you think this is an disadvantage? Is waiting for patrol guards to make a mistake fun? It will be more fun to speed it up and get to the fun part. You will not be missing out the test to your intelligence as you still have to analyze the behavior of the guards to exploit their loophole. For speeding up to get random tries at the puzzle without reading the lore, is that a problem with a badly design puzzle rather than the speed option? People can do random tries too with slower speed. Actually your post make me look at speeding up option more favorably as I not only get to fast forward the useless traveling time, I also get to fast forward the boring parts of the game. This is why player customization is generally good as they can choose to enjoy what part of the game and skip the un-enjoyable parts for them which may be enjoyable for others. One shoe size fit all approach make it only enjoyable to a narrower range of people

I beg to differ regarding there is no disadvantage to be in the Early Access. Steam Early Access is a presentation of your product to the public Thus any flaws in your product is scrutinized and if you make one mistake too many you will get stuck with the negative review and require a uphill battle to restore your reputation. Even if you manage to clear your name in the end, you may lose some sales and your next kick starter may lose some backer. That said Steam Early Access is not a place to use the public to help find bugs and iron them out. It should be a place for you to show your DEMO, you want your demo to be as little bugs as possible so not to give the public a chance to give negative review! Yes you may use Early Access to test the balance of the game, the flow of the game play, 1/10 or more of the story, but never a place to iron out bugs. The public will not give you positive review if your demo crash now and then, have character stuck somewhere, dumb path finding and such. Think Steam Early Access as a place to release your full game, episode 1, and it will work in your advantage for you to get more positive review, sales and future backers.

Long Version Of course they can delay the game to 2015 or even 2016. I am not EA or some big bad publisher that rush the release date that the final product is lackluster and disappointing. I want to maximize the awesomeness of the game rather than maximize profit. Remember why we crowd fund games in the first place? What is the point of being able to play the game if it is buggy or missing much core feature / polish? They can do a steam early access or another kick starter if they really need funds to polish the game. I only want the end product to be amazing, and I don’t care if they are not being fair by selling the game at a cheaper price for non-backers. What’s the point for being “Fair” to me if they do not have enough funds realize a new gamming history? Maximize my gaming experience is and always is the priority, not profit nor so call “fairness to me”. That said, they have to take care of their reputation and not follow the negative reputation of Wasteland 2 Early access nor Planetary Annihilation that come to steam that charge $90 for the alpha of the game, $60 for beta and $40 for the final game. That will give then some money in the short term but may hurt their reputation in the long run. I am a Torment à Wasteland 2 backer so my criticism of them should hold more weight. What they should do is release both the Deluxe Edition with a Basic Preorder edition which does not have the beta access. They can put in some flowery language to sweeten the deal, like “Although the Wasteland 2 Preorder is enough have the full experience of the game, gamers can also get the deluxe edition to help in the development of the game and gain a little extra as a thank you from us.” That way nobody have the right to criticize them for ripping gamers off for the beta, as both option is presented to them, I think the little visibility for the Basic Preorder edition in Inxile store cause the knee jerk reaction because the gamers think Inxile only sell the Deluxe edition and want to rip off gamers. Also don’t think Steam Early Access is good for beta testing to find bugs, it is a PRESENTATION OF YOUR PRODUCT TO THE PUBLIC. Hence is should be a place for you to show your DEMO, you want your demo to be as little bugs as possible so not to give the public a chance to give negative review!!!!!!! Yes you may use Early Access to test the balance of the game, the flow of the game play, 1/10 or more of the story, but NEVER a place to iron out bugs. The public will not give you positive review if your DEMO crash now and then, have character stuck somewhere, dumb path finding and such. Short Version: Obsidian can take as long as they want to create the “Bestest” game in history. Careful of how you sell it as Steam Early Access as it is a PRESENTATION OF YOUR PRODUCT TO THE PUBLIC.

Why would I pay more money for the game to be availiable in other platform? Especialy that on the android the performance of the game may be less enticing Because other people play other platforms, and it also only makes sense financially to port it to other platforms. I hate to repeat myself but Obsidian has fans on other platforms, too. Just because PoE is primarily a PC games doesn't mean it would stay that way. They plan on making a sequel and an expansion. They just have the luxury right now, because of the Kickstarter funds, to make a primarily PC version. Gnostic's question isn't so much what he wrote -- but more the question of "why should I spend more money, with the end result of making PE worse?" If you dig around a bit (I forget which thread it was, sorry) -- even Obsidian has stated that a "controller UI" would force them to make sacrifices to the UI code that will result in two "okay" interfaces instead of one good one. As for the expansions and sequels and whatnot -- well, if the first game is good, they probably don't have too much to worry about... True, if I throw more money at it, it has to make the game better, not worst because of it. If obsidian think they can earn more money by porting the game to console, do it at the expense of their own earnings, not the exspense of my money that I give in good faith that they can improve the game. They can develop a new UI for console, not half bake UI for both like what microsoft is doing with window 8 metro.

As of now the developers is implementing a slow down option. Thus they can implement a speed up option with minimum hassle. Why we need speed up? Moving the party from location X to location Y will be less of an hassle. Hearing "You must gather your party before venturing forth" because not all your party have the boots of speed is annoying. Running here and there for quest, merchants, may generate too much idle time waiting for the party to get there that it breaks the mood. Waiting the party to get to the armor / spell / potion/ craft / gem merchmants to buy / sell loots for the hundredth time can be annoying. Waiting for the party to move to the hundredth quest NPC is no fun. If we feel the attack, move and spell animation too lengthy for normal game speed. If we play the game for N number of times that every combat is a sure win even with insane difficulty, have to introduce some other "Hellish" difficulty.

If there is a slow button, then will there be a speed up button? In case the game normal speed is too slow for me waiting party to move from location X to Y, attack / spell animation too slow etc.

It is very simple, will it add to the fun factor in the game? If not the developers efforts are best diverted elsewhere. For example a talking cursed sword that can eat / destoy some other items to gain some of their attribute literally and figuratively a double edge sword. Maybe some morning the PC will wake up and find some of his items is missing with the "acursed" sword whistling in the background, then some NPC accuse another NPC thief for theft with the cursed sword acting innocently. If it is just a money sink, don't bother. What? Want to make crafting a viable skill? There are so many option like crafting can make the most badass item, or crafted items is better then the usual vendor items, or some attribute is rare enough that you can only consistently get it through crafting. For example to introduce vamparic life / mana sucking abilities in an item rare enough for the store items. You get a level 5 item in store with vamparic ability, then when you are level 9 you cannot find other vamparic items and other level 9 items are superior in stats that your vamparic level 5 items get outdated the only way to get a comparable level 9 items with vamparic is with crafting....... Or something like attack speed, attack range, spell power.........

Why would I pay more money for the game to be availiable in other platform? Especialy that on the android the performance of the game may be less enticing

Why are we even having this poll? Implement everything stated. BG2 have most of it. I cannot wait to see something like the mis-adventure of edwin / edwina and how everyone interect with him