nipsen

..I think afflicted characters are supposed to be attacking/disengaging/engaging randomly every few rounds.

Yeah, good read. Several good ideas for the extra talents Josh wanted. But I kind of think most of the talents should be a bit more ..unique? ..More PoE and narratively consistent within that setting? Just without sounding like it's pulled out of an anime, I guess. "Soul Edge" could lower the damage threshold but do less damage, maybe. ..too anime already?

Yeah. I'll admit it for your amusement. You genuinely surprised me. Cynical bastard me. And made my character happily do terrible things that I normally wouldn't approve of. Thank you. I didn't realize how much I've missed the writing in Obsidian's games until right now.

[Description of the issue] (Visual/animation problem) If you have a greatsword(1) and an estoc(2) equipped in different weapon sets, when switching between them during combat the slashing animation and the ..plough-ish ;p stance continues when the main weapon changes. The ox stance and the stabbing and so on begins if you disengage from combat and engage again. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] 1. Equip greatsword in one set, Estoc in the other. 2. Engage combat. 3. Switch weapon sets. 4. Damage type switches (presumably the rolls are correct). Animation doesn't switch. 5. Disengage combat. 6. Engage again. Animation seems correct. [Expected behaviour] ...not sure. I guess the animation is determined when entering combat. Ideally, maybe the character would do a flourish or a step back, lowering the sword, etc (to hide it when magically switching weapons) and then engage the next stance. But probably complicates things too much. So I'm thinking just an arm transition between the resting stances for the two weapons (specially the two-handed ones) would look really neat. Maybe that could be done relatively easily when switching between other weapons as well? Basically tying it to the resting animation, and giving the switching a little bit movement after the pause ends. So.. switching the weapon instantly like it is now, but then playing the transition into the next swing. Or possibly switching the weapon in the menu. But making the switch during the small transition animation at the next resting state. [Other remarks / Comments] Not sure if this applies to any other weapons in the entire game.. Could be it's only the same major types with different stances? (Sorry about being lazy. I don't have that many different weapons to test with yet ).

Well, I used "respect", not gratefulness, very deliberately. No matter what the circumstances - we're not the ones writing the game. Even if we thought in a way that set us up as producers for Obsidian's project (..which is absurd), we're still not writing and putting up the designs. And I think we owe Obsidian for being as open as they have been with presenting these to us. ..honestly, I just don't want to see some overentitled brat manage to inoculate Obsidian from having the same open approach with future games. It would be annoying if that happened. I mean... look. We have chosen to help fund Obsidian's project. We haven't hired Obsidian as outside expertise to make a game we have designed. Obviously as backers we are in a position where we can pressure the developers more effectively than otherwise. They have to listen to us whether they want to or not. They can't say: "We have your money now, **** off!". And they can't say: "We're making the game, you provide the funds!". Even if that's closer to the truth here. But regardless of how that dynamic works -- we're not the ones writing the designs or creating the game. We're looking at something they created and providing feedback. So for the feedback to be useful, it has to exist in that context: you provide your perspective and your observations about what you see as a player.

..actually, it seems that if you play a complete brute, you have a couple of role-playing options that are exclusive to you, and favor the stats you've picked. (By the way - have had some success with that dex/int/perception based fighter build. Has a laughably high critical range, and can entertain 4 enemies at a time with superior dodge and resistance with the talents and so on. Plus that he interrupts spells, and stabs (and hits) things trying to get past him. So, traded base damage and damage treshold for higher critical range, better dodge, and increased attack speed/recovery, extra skills, different dialogue options, and so on. Only problem seems to be that the game tends to teleport enemies behind me if I haven't actively engaged them when they arrive. Pretty sure there's something going on there that complicates things for soak-builds as well. In that you're probably not actually meant to be pounded for a full round before hitting back.)

..still don't want to start a huge thing. But I think people should have a little bit of respect for how open Obsidian, specially Sawyer, have been with how the mechanics work, and how it's /supposed/ to hang together. Aside from that, we haven't been part of the discussions leading towards the design-choices and the goals they've set either. Or have access to any compacts or documents describing that. So we're missing some of the insight into why certain things matter, why particular details would work against the design-goals, how it would help the developers create diverse gameplay, and so on. And we need to have respect for that. In the sense that we're offering a point of view from the outside, that if described well could be valuable to the developers. Or, that we need to respect that some viewpoints and ideas must be described completely for it to be possible to look at it and see where it's coming from. "I know what works".. maybe, I don't know. It's difficult to tell sometimes. Between the huge sweeping narratives that draw wide implications for overall game-design. And the specific concerns that evidently have design-implications but are said to not have any, etc. But have to say - with some of the issues, I think you're doing extremely well Arriving at identifying how it's a question about what sort of design should be chosen, instead of simply about some favorite feature being ignored. If I was a developer, that would be encouraging to me. And you really shouldn't short-change how useful that type of feedback can be. But we really need to respect that we haven't been part of the discussions that created the game-design. That we don't know exactly the reason for picking such and such all the time. I guess I'm missing a little bit like: "If this is what they wanted to accomplish, what I take from it and what happens when I play is...". Or "I've found a way to do such and such.. was that intended to be possible? Why doesn't this and that work? Why do I have to rely on such and such to get past this encounter? Here's what I think this does to the length of the "day", and this is how I end up playing", etc. I mean, a lot of the time when I see people pick up some problem or other -- I've no idea what sort of party they're using, how many times they've scraped through an encounter and reloaded before the attack "succeeded", how likely that was to happen, how reliant that was on spamming abilities and being lucky, etc. Take the crystal spiders, for example. They can easily take out one character with each attack. And from what I can see in the logs, the probability of that happening is incredibly high. It's possible to get past - but you need to know the weaknesses, and maximize the chance you have, and then be lucky a couple of times in a row. Same with beetles and poison - they'll take chunks off your health and ignore stamina if you don't resist it every round (and if you do resist it, they're pushovers). So when people describe scenarios where they think they're losing too much health compared to stamina, and that this is forcing them to play in a certain way -- how specifically did that happen? Usually we don't know. And people are forced to speculate -- shouldn't need to do that if the feedback is written well. Maybe the problem just was lack of obvious feedback to the player. But we don't know most of the time. That's really the challenge for writing good feedback in a nutshell - you need to tie your specific observations somehow to an overall design decision. But.. we can't always do that, and we need to respect that we might really not know enough to be able to do that when viewing the game from an outside point of view. We're guessing, right..? And then just describing what happened, describing how you play, how you expect things to happen, and then asking a question about is so much more polite, and much more valuable to the devs. After that, there could maybe be a.. good discussion.. about how much Obsidian demands of the players for them to "adjust" to their design. That maybe they demand too much. As opposed to that people have become used to relying on mechanics that are counter-intuitive. And maybe end up with suggestions on how to tweak variables to make it very easy and obvious to pick the approach the design prefers. But not until people describe what they're actually doing first. ....Other than that, though -- have to admit I thought the "degenerative gameplay" thing was pretty perceptive. Just as taking a holistic approach to improving it, by providing a real system that makes sense, so you can get good results with a different approach that makes narrative sense in the game -- rather than demanding of the players to simply choose the less favorable style of playing the game to make the game look better, or for the design to succeed -- that was well done. Thought that deserved praise and respect, not snark.

Real cute. Then tell me why would you use something like the Trollhide belt? To... suck it up and move on?

There's actually some real cool outcomes for the Ogre quest that are not available in the beta I hope, so very much, that I can convince it to eat the entire f'n town. And that I can feed the nobleman with a slow burning cave-fungus poison so the Ogre dies in the end.

Don't want to start a huge thing. But on combat/xp - it fits with making different characters, and sticking to role-playing them, doesn't it.. I mean, when you come from a role-playing background, this stuff always annoys you in crpgs. In a game, an actual Druid, or true neutral characters, would hardly gain any experience at all, for example. They would never resolve any conflicts on their own, they would avoid combat, they would talk a lot and discover secrets - but never actually use them for anything. A good wizard would collect the hidden scroll - and.. teleport back to the library, and stay there for a month, and mechanically gain nothing. Unfortunately, the thief always is a mass-murderer, no matter how skilled, etc. So in games, you don't play a neutral character. You choose one because of alignment restrictions. And then the game requires the Druid of the hidden leaf to murder thousands of critters for no reason, etc. And the design simply allows you to add small "alignment" addons in conversations, but not really let people role-play them. Even if you managed to sneak past everyone, the xp penalty is crippling. I'm just thinking that I'm sure Obsidian simply choose this because it broadens the role-playing options they can put into the game. Now the pirate can sneak into the stronghold, hold up the boss, and resolve the situation without bloodshed - and that's a good solution to the quest, like any other. The Druid can avoid exterminating the spiders and ruining the ecosystem forever - and sympathetically confront the Ogre as a fellow creature deserving of life no less than anything else.. without having to wash off the spider-goo from the armor first, etc. ..No one ever reacted to that in an rpg, by the way? The story demands that there's a crazed druid with a scar in his soul running around killing people. And you sort of want to tell the guy that: yeah, but that's all right. I've killed 100000 people so far, and it doesn't bother me at all! You should really just stop worrying so much! And then the game has you bash the guy's head in, after your animal companion rips his arms off, for the good of nature's balance. Crpgs as they are usually done aren't very deep. It's usually one type of character, just with different labels. And they shouldn't be like that. There's just no reason for it, right..? Unless you somehow want to make the point that having less role-playing options, makes the game more "accessible". Or something of that sort.

Not on topic but what exactly are you smoking, because I want some ..it's pretty common that you get developers, or community managers with unimpeded authority to interpret everything into their own bs, divining that their beta-test population is a perfect cut of the demography that will play the final game. So that the interpreted forum wisdom is going to be the same opinion everyone else will have. The worst failures I've ever seen have come from betas like that. Expensive titles or cheap titles, there's nothing worse. The testers are convinced that the game will be a complete failure. Or worse, they're convinced it will be a monstrous hit. And when it hits the shelves, the opposite of the expectation happens.

..I'm afraid it could easily be the other way around. When you're comfortable with the mechanics, you will overlook or work around all kinds of problems that new players will run into. Feedback in general around here seems unusually level-headed and useful to me as well. No one has threatened to sue if the main character isn't predetermined to be a white, privileged, suburban boy with blue jeans and a white shirt. Few are going into 3000 post spamming-sprees over a semantic construction they are convinced everyone else are too dumb to see through. No signature campaigns have been started to remove foreign-sounding names and places. We don't have in-house testers commanding people to start agitating for "twitch-mode", hardcore controls that only use keyboard shortcuts and macros - that then everyone has to use if they want the game to be playable. We haven't had people write novels about how the addition of snap-to and guided cursor controls (along with gamepad support), as well as an "easy mode" with predetermined dialogues and party formations, guided combat and so on.. will make the game "accessible for all users", which is the only way that the game will be a success, etc. I've seen several actual discussions where people have argued themselves back and forth and changed their opinion based on facts and reasonable observation. That's practically unheard of in a normal beta. And I've actually not seen anyone insist that the game should be renamed to "Pillars of Mass Effect Destiny" yet. So I don't think it's going to be much of a problem. Paradox will likely have, like expected, a pretty easy sell in their lineup compared to their earlier games.

...er..I mean, the mechanics are very simple, and they don't need any analysis at all, do they... What's interesting is what the writers do with it throughout the game. Even if it seems pretty obvious, even from the little we see in the beta, that they're not treating this as a Bioware "reputation" stat. That you walk up to a character and they say: "Hi, mr [reputation alignment] guy!". Or that you get a "Only you can save the world" prompt every now and again. Instead, the "reputation" is an internal tally that shows the tendency of the character you're roleplaying as. And when you gain enough points, the character feels confident enough to attempt more audacious lies, or string together more complex reasoning, use threats more effectively, etc. Without that really guaranteeing success, more than just giving you an option to choose a different path, or to figure out more about the characters in the quest, and so on. And the dialogue really does read completely different depending on what sort of character you are. The flow between a might-build and a perception/intelligence build is well written as well. ..I'm liking the entire approach. Set your character abilities and the direction of it early. Then find your alignment and focus later. Makes a lot of sense.

We really just can't do enough for old Yeller, can we..

Mm. I never actually owned a ps2 until recently, so I never got to play Okami and Shadow of the Colossus all that much. Apart from stealing the ds2 pad at a friend's house for ten minutes, I basically got to play SotC for the first time on my ps3. After still burning through all the new games first, because I was sure it was all nostalgia anyway. So... yeah.. I can say with confidence that new games suck ass, with some few exceptions. Just like most games made around 1990-2002 were absolute ****. But there are a few games that still are fun to play. Some of the games never looked great, sure, some of the games had good tech at the time. But when you load up something like Lander3d (Psygnosis' Glide experiment), Tie Fighter (the collector's cd-rom with glorious 640x480 HD ), Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Rocket Jockey, Independence War, Battlezone 2, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Dungeon Keeper, lots of games, really.. they still sort of hold up. At least on the original hardware (glide wrappers don't really work). And no one remembers how awful all the Hexen clones were. So the solution the games-industry has for that now is to make prettier and more expensive Hexen clones, I guess. I mean, it works, doesn't it? No one remembers stuff like Resonance of Fate. But everyone remembers FF13, even though it is a tremendously boring game that.. is one of the few games I never managed to complete. Still bought FF13-2.. that I also didn't complete. But don't pass up on the hd versions of SotC and Okami (same with the Sly trilogy.. last game isn't very good). They were excellent, in spite of trash reviews. And prominent and widely quoted bs tech-review from Richard Leadbetter over at Eurogamer. On SotC they basically run the actual code, and use inserts to make all the vector-based effect algorithms run with higher density, with the right aspects, all the reduction algorithms work great, no corners cut on how the bosses work, none of the animation has been motion-capified, etc. So there's no upscaling going on, even at the very low level. Which is not how you normally do it. Most PC "hd" versions just up the resolution and leave the resources intact. And that scales as well as you'd expect. The vector engine based drawing on the ps2 does scale. In addition, the game actually runs in stable 30fps. So it's probably better than the original. Absolutely worth owning. Specially considering the fact that hardware with a setup similar to the ps3 will probably not ever be seen again until Intel goes bankrupt, their patents expire, and IBM has nothing else to do but make a new Cell-based design, and things like that..

Finally caved and bought beta access as well. And really agree with the first post in the thread. It's not the saddest beta I've ever seen - but sorting out some of this stuff to the point where it's merely feels "raw" is going to take lots and lots of work. Honestly would not be unhappy in any way if they delayed the release till next year - for example until after Dragon Age: All Over Again - and went through the.. obscene amount of absolute references that should never have been there in the first place, stocky animation playback, transparency effect problems, lack of moving objects in the scenery, lack of general feedback when playing, the mess of the spell effects, the haphazard UI implementation, etc. But yes, good luck. Good luck indeed. The writing and the dialogue seems mostly very good, though. Even if we're missing dynamic escapes from the conversations, and half the quests seem bugged, and so on. But it's definitely true that a still-shot or a video of this doesn't do it justice. There are good elements here. Very good elements. Everything underneath other than the coding seems solid. But good grief. It's like looking at a pile of expensive porcelain dolls that fell down a bit too fast. Good looking pieces, but it's a mess, and it gives off the impression that something very nasty is going to happen once you start pulling the broken bits away.

Stone pillar legs move after using skull key, party character located underneath the space where legs are, is now invisible and flat as a smear/stuck. How to reproduce: 1) Place character at space where stone statue legs will be placed after parchment scrolling scene. 2) Initiate parchment scrolling with other character, make the pillar move. 3) See example result in attached savegame. [Expected behaviour] *cough* ..a consistency check? Don't use (any) code (anywhere!) that override object limits like this? [Other remarks / Comments] Does this potentially affect any location/event with scripted&displaced scenery objects? [Files] http://www.upload.ee/files/4246388/b878ecebb2d046809435baad475dd3c5_DyrfordCrossing_7689066.savegame.html [special] Does not cause any hangs or slowdowns, no events in output.txt, no collision unraveled after loading the game, etc.

Its the problem of large numbers: They are pretty much useless and manage to spoil the feel of the game - as items have to scale ridiculously fast from +1 to +50. It is best to go the non-epic DnD way and stick with numbers in the range 0-20. Because that always makes more sense. Also, everything should be measured in yards and pounds. Because, really, who in the world doesn't find the fact that 14 pounds is one Stone - completely intuitive?

^nice, hadn't seen that one. This is pretty unique stuff The way the process works, how they approach projects, what to focus on, why pick a project over another..

Kannarazuuu. Weird how well it's kept. Okami, I mean. Neat to draw wolf-kanji with the move-thing as well. ..plenty of the best games on the ps3 still are the ps2 games, imo. Hd versions of Sly, Shadow of the Colossus, and Okami. Huntin' and killin'

Over-the-rainbow Ammy's adventures continue! (Freakiest scene in Okami... until the Dancing with Wolf Waltz scene right afterwards)

Dump stats?

I think maybe the world lore could be a little bit difficult to maintain as a game-master. Maybe it would be possible to let people play as one of the tribes in the setting, and limit it that way (I'm expecting that every kind of culture on the map has their own spin on soul magic. And that these are relatively short versions with a few set criteria). But the ruleset seems interesting, imo. And since you can make up all kinds of half-consistent conventions for how soul magic will work, there'd be all kinds of great ways to incorporate completely lopsided party setups without having to stretch the mechanics. Different wizard setups could make wizard duels actually be interesting, for example. Without having to make up new classes from scratch, disregard the ruleset completely, or invent templates that cheat with foreknowledge, and so on. You would just fill in the blanks and be creative with what is already there. I mean, I've played with some friends over the Swords&Wizardry setup. And we picked that because it had a simple ruleset that won't take ages to resolve, that still allows us to be creative with what happens in the world. But the fights are boring, and there's no real strategy to figuring out how things happen. You bash the creature, it may or may not kill you. Repeat. Cheat and give the party an advantage if they're breaking the rules creatively. Everything that isn't boring just borrows from the ruleset, but violates it completely. Which can be difficult since you have a discussion going on where players want bonuses and extra attacks instead of that they seek to do damage in this or that way, or set up this and that strategy in the game-world. So the way the character builds and abilities (possibly also the ones you make up) in PoE make instant narrative sense could make those stretches a lot less problematic, imo. You would let people pick something they want, play into the character, and adjust towards that. Instead of like you do in D&D types, when you steer people into picking a path and end up with a narratively interesting but mechanically hobbled character.. that you then have to adjust the ruleset towards on the fly, etc. No more "which armor should I wear to maximize my chances in every fight" either, at least from what I've seen so far. Players choose narratively sensible things, and number responsibility shifts to the game-master almost exclusively. So could be a very comfortable ruleset to use for very good role-playing sessions. It's not like you can't use a spreadsheet to calculate dodge and reaction bonuses either.

The idea that a paywall gives you "some means of protection" is amazing, though. Wonder where that came from.

Mm. But I love the garish, unnecessary and partially complete html-formatting that has no use of any kind in any program ever made. Only way to turn it off is to override the scripting engine.. or possibly create an escape script that wraps the text in the document, so that when you select and copy the text, there is no formatting to copy.