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Everything posted by nipsen
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It's because it's a next generation game. People can be dumber than dirt but still talk up a pretty good speech. You know, like well trained parrots with script-writers. Very modern.
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Difficult to pronounce Names / Places / Races distracting
nipsen replied to Koth's topic in Backer Beta Discussion
I tend to agree and the problem I have with it is the following. Obsidian is trying to create an entirely new world and part of a world are, of course, the languages. However, also part of the world is the character we play, who is supposed to feel at home there. But we as players do not if can't pronounce half of the stuff that is said to us. ...it's not entirely without any foundation, though. They've said a few times that names and places are placed in a world inspired by middle-European names and cultures. For example, "biawacs", or bivuakk maybe, likely sounds familiar to a lot of people in Europe. Because this word comes from some sort of german offshoot of a word that means "byguard". Or maybe "border guard" or scout, if you're reaching a bit. ... makes sense when we see the use it has it the game, no? -
Difficult to pronounce Names / Places / Races distracting
nipsen replied to Koth's topic in Backer Beta Discussion
But since they use a few of the same sounds with the same weird spelling and accents and so on. And they seem.. more or less completely made up.. And they don't keep strictly to a particular set of romanisation that should be familiar to english-speakers, and so on. It would really surprise me if they didn't introduce the words with voice-acting early on in the game. Brîshalgwin, for example. Is it Brae-shalg-hwenn, or is it Bree-shalg-win? No way to tell until you hear the local language. Brisslagwen! Bressleggen! Could be practically anything. -
Best thread so far in the beta ..good idea to use the screenshot facility to bug-report as well..
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:D ..but guessing that even if the game keeps track of which way your face keeps turning, the game very deliberately won't comment on your reputation directly. I'd probably let the player open up extra dialogue eventually, for example. That you've grown so comfortable being a tremendous law-abiding zealot, that you can make great speeches about purifying unbelievers and sinners, while alluding to past events and very, very large piles of white ash, without falling over on the ground from laughing fits - that sort of thing.
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...so.. to sum up: more Halo and more Michael Bay? Seriously, though - did someone actually complain about how the feet of the models kind of disappear when they walk in tall grass? Or did I just go mad again?
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Free gum for Backers?
nipsen replied to wolfdyne's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Yes, I agree completely! But pitchforks sound like a lot of work, so I'm just going to type down my displeasure on the internet instead. -
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...can't really discount either that a lot of the coverage for titles like this won't be surrounded by massive promotion efforts. So people on youtube who rely on traffic, people who write and base income off clicks.. which is all of them now.. won't really pay it much attention. Doing something with Obsidian here is probably seen as charity. And Kickstarter is evil according to Eurogamer, and the games Obsidian makes are difficult and have no inherent appeal, and so on. Just saying that you can't discount that a lot of people involved in the industry on this level are incredibly vapid people. And that this is likely not going to change.
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Good point, of course. Which is why they shouldn't have used, or shouldn't use, the same "sell" as other "early access" projects. And maybe going for, for example, saying that anyone above a certain pledge limit would have the opportunity to help Obsidian test abilities and skills in a sandbox area, to help shape how that part of the game will play, and to help them iron out animation/interaction problems, graphical glitches, etc. Instead of saying: "gain access to the beta-test for $25". And then getting into a sort of obligation problem where they have to specifically draw up areas for people who don't want to be spoiled story-wise and in perhaps some sense have to warn people about the high-level spells not being shown (and are those not going to be tested, since people might not want to show - or be shown - all the abilities before the game is released). Because it really becomes a paid sandbox area with a separate branch of the game, that may or may not be useful in the end for Obsidian as a beta-test. That also may very well have cost more work hours than it's worth in terms of actual output to the final product... I mean, I'm being overly critical and cynical - and I don't think the "beta" will be useless. But there are ways this could have been done that could have allowed structured and useful testing of the game for practically no money whatsoever. I know lots of people here would have appreciated that as well, even if they "paid" a sum for it initially (i.e., you'd get the beta-access together with any extra merchandise on the site). Not just because there'd be no reverse obligation for Obsidian to present the snapshot perfectly. But also because structured/boring testing doesn't spoil you as much in terms of figuring out the mechanics. Leveling up and actually playing, instead of just having the entire tree and testing things systematically is very different. And I think that if they thought about it a bit more initially, the type of beta that seems to be shaping up now - where Obsidian obviously is very worried that unpolished footage of the game will come out, etc. - wouldn't have happened.
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In what order will you play the upcoming 3 rpgs
nipsen replied to Sammael7's topic in Computer and Console
I don't know. First I'm going to play Pillars. Then.. I think I'm going to play Pillars. And then I think I'm going to play Pillars. -
As long as we're airing shameful and curious opinions about everything anyway - I genuinely hoped Annah in Planescape Torment would end up having a strip-show for you in one of the sidequests, if I just explored the game thoroughly enough.
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You mean the service that CD Project is in the small beginnings of testing right now, that they announced a couple of months ago, and would make massive headlines with if any gaming magazine out there had any interest in informing their readers rather than advertise for their partners? Never heard of it! We all hope it disappears, so the peasant masses won't start to get a taste of anything other than the normal soylent green feed.
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^in case you didn't know. If you spend any amount of time on the bioware boards, no matter how intelligent or erudite you were at one point - you quickly start to believe that everything said on the intertron is actually important. Fables and myths about communities and how majorities agreeing on things create reality also seep in and take hold over your thoughtpatterns: "Everyone loves Mariokart! Therefore the Mako is awesome!". It's quite fascinating. But we are all very sorry, and hope you recover from your bout of mental illness soon.
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... okay, I've finished rolling my eyes now. It's a very good question, zersus. Valve is in a unique situation because they are, unlike every other company in the computer world, at least marginally registering the fact that the entire PC market, like any other luxury good market, is built on consumer choice. And that the bottom of the market will fall out, as it has in the past, when that choice is deliberately removed, or the product is not good enough. When the consumer choice is limited to which company you should go to, rather than picking the product you want, that does what you wish it will do. Valve are of course bound by industry tropes, and they are in this way required to spend a large amount of money on making sure evil Pirates will not make a certain segment of their customers feel bad about spending money, when others get the same product for free. This is a commonly known situation, where the most shrill proponents of harsh piracy countermeasures are the kind of users who will shamelessly torrent a game themselves. Because they're weak-minded ****s - like most people allegedly are. Hence, pirating a game should be difficult, or else it's always pirated in massive, unstoppable frequency, and the market dies, etc. This idea is a pure invention of larger publishers and their **** partners in the anti-piracy industry. Which they use to drive on the one hand monopoly over distribution channels via exclusively limited deployment (such as consoles or Origin, Uplay), and on the other the development of expensive anti-piracy software, or simply anti-piracy "activity". Of course, it doesn't prevent any person who wishes it to circumvent the DRM. But what it frequently does do is make sure that people who might have been open to purchasing the game - just will pass on it and the entire list of opening user-accounts, registering your e-mail, sending your computer information, etc. All that signing up on a portal, or being locked into a specific console, etc - is limiting. And Valve is marginally aware of this, responding to the PC market in the least disastrous way so far. But what Steam does provide outside of the platform "security" requirement is: -cloud saves. -patching facility. -access to download your games online. -adding dvd-media titles to the library. -an overlay with semi-useful functions. -competitive pricing. Now, if any company would offer those same options in an online client. And allowing you to play your games independently of the client software. You own a game, you simply add it to the overlay, and use the overlay's community functionality for text and voice-chat, etc. Then that would instantly outcompete Steam. There are also many ways those functions could be instantly improved over what Steam provides. In terms of network code, overlay quality, the way the patching facility works (what are you actually downloading? Do you really want the patch? What is put in upstream and when? Can you for example read the notes from the developer and decide to wait until the next stable version? None of that exists in Steam). Such a service could also have better options for tracking how people actually use the service, since if the use of the platform typically is required when you purchase something on that platform, the purchases done on other services or through other channels won't be registered. There will be a confirmation bias involved that favors the platform itself. And that idea will always be maintained on these distribution locked channels, no matter how much the CEO is actually not a complete dreg of a person, etc. In addition, the audience you might be able to reach with a platform-independent, non-channel locked overlay will be bigger. So there's also marketing and PR reasons to choose a solution like that. Problem being, of course, that such a service doesn't exist. And in the meantime, should you: 1. Buy as many programs as you can, and have them locked to a specific service, so no amount of competition can make you switch over? or. 2. Prepare for a competing service by buying drm-independent packages. That also can be saved on your backup hdd, so you don't have to download 20Gb over again every time you do a reinstall, etc. I mean, I realize that some people genuinely believe that unless they essentially do whatever EA says, and pay any amount of money for a product - then the industry will implode, and the CEO-santa will take all your toys away, and so on. But there could be a reason to pick options that might in the long run benefit you as a consumer. Rather than force yourself to pay insane amounts of money for a product, as well as accept a bad sub-par service for it (servers that don't work, filtering options that are non-existent, online high-score tables that fall off the grid during peak hours, etc), allow it to become unavailable the instant the company decides it no longer earns any money on keeping it alive, and generally open your computer up to any whim the company will come up with at any time. Including, but not limited to such things as selling your credit card information, selling your personal details, randomly raising prices, randomly locking out content as extra payable content. Just saying that there might be reasons to pick an option that will make that scenario impossible. When one is actually presented to you, and the product indeed is identical to the other option beside it when it comes to ease of use. Or when it's even easier to use than the other, which does require you to confirm your account, create an account, and will prevent you from ever making a backup, always force patches on you, etc., etc.
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..is this a serious post?
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Mm, well, I think that if the people who do the pre-rendered segments with the dragon-fire send the footage around, maybe they could get a job in an effect studio. Of course, unless the dragon-fire and the pre-rendered cutscenes were done by an external effect studio. Dang...
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Probably the most interesting thing about the combat - that blows are force-fields pushing at the model meshes, are deflected by parry to a degree, that hits are registered at the actual impact and direction of the weapon, instead of being a swing-animation in thin air that applies damage if performed close enough to the other character, etc. - isn't shown in that video. I mean, the animation looks like ass. But the idea is really good, and there's no reason why this can't be used - really well - with more interesting animation.
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..maybe they could hire the Dragon Age and ME3 writers to do it. And tell them they want serious and intellectually challenging dialogue, that both entices the heart as well as grips the soul of the audience. They'd have it done in three weeks, and it would sound exactly like what we're missing for the int:4 dialogue.
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So now you have to make every mistake you've done up until this point in reverse. Until, obviously, the real battle starts again. But till then... till then.. Really like this game.
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Easiest game ever! Just press a button to win! And then.. oops, everything disappears into a singularity and there's nothing.
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Are graphics features set?
nipsen replied to Malignacious's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Always impressed by what people think "good graphics" is. For example - I played Lair on the ps3. The way they use the reduction algorithms to determine the detail of the models, dragons, etc., makes what you see in any screen in that game more or less science fiction in the PC world. Same with large structures with the same technique: instead of being skyboxes or very detailed textures from one particular angle, it's actually the object, and you can fly around it - in smooth curves with velvet wingflaps. Again, science fiction. First time I played it, I was grinning in the way I don't normally do when entertained by non-living things. First review I read knocked it for bad graphics and bad animation. Same magazine with Gears of War - a corridor-shooter, broken up by on-rails elements and boss-fights that are at best homage to fmv games from the 90s. 10/10. Incredible graphics, etc. My god, look at the shiny pixels. Would you look at that shiny pixel! So in PoE, they've essentially made a monster-resolution version of Icewind Dale, with 3d models for characters to get around the dynamic effect limitation with 2d. While still retaining enough detail to make it blend with the impossibly smooth and detailed backgrounds. Essentially succeeding at avoiding the "3d" pixelated look, while still exploiting the advantages of having 3d elements. So it's Baldur's Gate "remastered" - except it's in actual HD, with dynamic lighting effects, 3d animation and shadow treatment. And the graphics are apparently "bad". *shrug* ...what to say? Just please don't come back after the beta with some sort of cloud of dust and pebbles stalking the characters whenever they move around.. Or some unclean pile of green stink hovering over the battlefield after the first spell fires off. -
Beta Testing and You!
nipsen posted a topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
On the occasion of the beta-test opening for external testers soon, some of you may wonder what a beta-test actually is. Or, you may not, I do not know. There are some common misunderstandings surrounding beta-tests lately though, that I do know. And perhaps the misunderstanding is mine, that is certainly possible, as the evolution of the games-industry naturally evolves to develop one curious survival trait after another. Is the beta-test an early look at how the game plays for promotion purposes, or is it a test to figure out where the breakage is? Is the beta-test a way to help fine-tune the mechanics, or is it a way to get free focus-group feedback? Perhaps a little bit of all of that? But questions that may or may not be known on beforehand, even in the most structured tests. So after somehow ending up being part of some ten-fifteen beta-tests (closed and open) for games in the last few years, I'll here present a list of things that would have helped immensely for all participants to be aware of before they started, in each one of them. Perhaps this will be useful for the upcoming Pillars of Eternity beta as well. I know a lot of people who will be in the test has a lot of experience with testing, or at least are reasonable people. But this might help the rest not scoff about elitist entitlement princesses stealing their thunder - or try to compete for attention in the wrong way later. 1. The developers are actual human beings. -that the people sitting behind the curtain make mistakes, have expectations and wishes, etc., came as a tremendous shock in some of the tests. In one case when solutions they were extremely proud of got completely overlooked, this actually helped scuttle implementation variants over other less experimental and more straightforward (and boring) ones. It happened when the negative feedback was more frequent with the alternative than the safer solution. And the developers didn't have the guts to fish for feedback from people who actually enjoyed the experimental implementation, even though they favoured the alternative themselves. And the silent failure of the alternative had huge implications for the depth of the game when it came out. After the beta-test, it turned out that many people enjoyed it, and said, frequently, that they expected it would be in the final build simply because it worked so well. This feedback never reached the devs. And how could it have? They wished and looked for it - but the situation really had no possibility where that feedback would actually have turned up. So that the solution didn't have obvious issues to be worked out, but caused certain people to dislike it, made it fall off the map. Failure by the developers to explain what they were looking for and how much time they had actually spent polishing the solution they wanted was one problem. While the absence of a context given by the developers for the feedback was another. The developers let the most engaged feedback dictate what was focused on. And essentially believed blindly that the beta-test audience that provided the most feedback completely described the focus-group - as well as the complete audience. What really happened was that each tester had their own context for their feedback. Which then the developer mistranslated into their own larger one. The breakage simply happened because the testers never were properly primed about what they were supposed to be looking for, and what the devs specifically would have liked to hear about. And I've actually seen this happen with fairly experienced developers, when they have had community managers gather feedback and put it into a compact. The developers just never had a chance to understand the context of the actual feedback, and had to extrapolate. Which they did. As testers, consider that when providing general feedback. That it's allowed and maybe required to ask questions about the intention behind a certain solution. And gear the feedback into that very specifically. To avoid having your opinions misinterpreted, but also to get something useful back to the devs. 2. Your opinion doesn't have weight without a real explanation. -since we're all here on the intertron in the first place, that is obviously a very unorthodox idea. Opinion typed down! Level UP! But the biggest failures in the beta-tests I've been part of have turned up because there's no discussion involved with the opinions that are stated often. And "popular" opinions are determined by how many ditto-thumbs the opinion gets. We have the same tendency with video-game reviews. An explanation and a set of discernible reasoning invites criticism and uncomfortable challenges. That in turn is difficult for commenters and writers to engage with, since reasonable people naturally want to avoid intertron entertainment like that. While just a statement without reasoning is unassailable. So you like Rhianna. No comments, fifty likes from people who also like Rhianna. We can therefore deduce that Rhianna rules the world for this focus group. In turn, this encourages lots of people favour simply stating their opinion and focusing on having it sound palatable (when pushed to have one), instead of explaining why they like or dislike something. In beta-tests, the problems turn up in the form that people might like Rhianna - but testers fail to explain that they like it because everyone else seem to like it, and that other people say that it's really good. It might be great for all we know. But we don't really know why, or even what exactly snuck in as being obviously gratifying to the tester when seeing what they reacted to. Even in closed betas, this happened several times because testers weren't completely comfortable typing down explanations, or were very bad at being concise, or simply didn't think about what they were doing. The ones that were fond of typing down their thoughts flooded the feedback loop with bs. Keep in mind that when the first inevitable, but always unexpected, situation comes up when some feature or other appears to cause a problem for several users at the same time. And therefore might very well be universally hated or loved. Why does it engage the specific person who has the opinion? That's what we want to know. Does the tester really believe it's great because they expect /other people who are not testers/ to like it? If you can find out, there's suddenly value to even the most idiotic and egotistical opinion, as well as the most utterly obvious and flat observation. This also goes back to #1, in the sense that actually figuring out why people think what they do avoids filtering ambiguous feedback into the expectations the developers and their community people had on beforehand. ("Yes, it seems that there's a tendency here that suggests..." - it's very easy for that to happen, even for clever, critical and intelligent developers. You don't need to look further away than Broken Age to get a great example of it - focus groups allegedly uniformly reported that puzzles were difficult, and stumped players at several points. But no one could actually explain how that was technically possible in 99% of the game, or where it actually happened. Devs then overlooked finicky parts that really were there, that fresh eyes discovered very quickly. And they axed challenging elements they knew /might/ cause .. some imagined group.. of people to throw something at the screen and stop playing. Since those parts were the only elements they knew about that could cause people to pause on beforehand. Purists in turn defended finicky parts that should have been looked at again, believing they were defending something else). 3. Reproduce your bug before reporting it (or explain what you attempted when failing to reproduce it). -technical stuff -- if Obsidian is interested in this, or if the beta hasn't progressed further than normal tests. I realise that people have paid for early access and don't have any obligations to do any work when playing through the test. But everyone sees the difference between: "The fighting animation looks weird". And between: "The fighting animation when clicking a second target after a triggered effect, wielding these two weapons, has a hiccup". It's also useful if you can say: "I used the soul siphon and there was a misstep in the animation that I couldn't reproduce afterwards". Or even "Is the character supposed to take a step back when triggering such and such effect?". "Why is the wizzard turning before casting the actual spell? Does he turn twice? Is he supposed to? I think this looks... because.." and so on. Since then this is the kind of thing that leads to figuring out how maybe targeting moving objects suddenly breaks a set of animations, for example. I'm imagining that when adding the perks during the beta, things like that might turn up - triggers that have stalling animations but a target afterwards, etc. 4. A picture says more than a blog-post, at least. -get some sort of screencap tool. Or maybe Obsidian has designed a way to dump a screencap along with the state information at the time? "I saw a glitch in the floor of the dungeon". Worst thing you can possibly read when trying to actually find bugs. 5. Discuss things with the devs? -what is supposed to happen? What actually happens? How did this ability actually end up being used? How was it imagined by the devs it would be used? Is it as self-explanatory as it looks? Does the explanation depend on knowing how it works on beforehand? Are you forced to choose something and not see the impact of it until you can't make an informed guess any longer? Does choosing an attribute over another impact this or that - can you spot the ruleset as you play, or when does it make sense? Are the explanations both technically and narratively sound? When did the explanations make sense to you? When could you use the explanations to make informed choices? 6. Avoid becoming starstruck. -also see #1. One beta effectively ended when a developer started to explain what they wished to hear. But the setup to that situation only worked because everyone in the beta wanted to elevate the person to godhood on beforehand. Other betas have had invisible devs simply because they want to avoid tainting the feedback. But also because they can't really participate comfortably. Be respectful even if the other people are complete idiots. Work towards making the environment comfortable as testers. For the other testers, and for the devs in turn. And a good sideeffect of that is that people who otherwise might not have participated with feedback actually will. And frankly, those guys - the guys who don't really want anything to do with the test and the feedback on the annoying forums, etc. - those are the ones you always want to get in. ---- 19 replies
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Point light shadows?
nipsen replied to Zeckul's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
I'm pretty sure they're just limiting the light sources that cast shadows in real-time, or avoid using real-time shadowing completely, to not get into any huge slowdown problems whenever you get more than three mobs on the screen at the same time, and so on. I haven't looked that much at unity, but I'm imagining that mixing real-time and pre-computed lightmaps - and making it actually look good - would be difficult. Not impossible, but probably would take some serious voodoo and handcrafting per scenario to shave off the rough edges, and so on. But yes.. I was wondering about this as well. If we didn't really care all that much about the Infinity Engine look, and the solid, 2d-like object surfaces that look fixed like on a table, and so on -- would it be possible to add a low-res "flicker" shadow from any "sharp" lightsources? I mean, you can see it, right? You have a board with pieces lighted by a dim overhead ..bulb.. And there's a candle making the shadows on the models flicker back and forth over by the village that's burning down. *shrug* Definitely something I hope they put on the Unicorns&Rainbow list of wishes for the game, at least. -
Game looks great, but...
nipsen replied to Zwiebelchen's topic in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Good point, that. ..still think some emboss or engraving filter was a good idea, though.