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Hello, as a passionate Linux user i have to wait 'a few weeks' until i can play the beta. Luckily i have other stuff to do at the moment, so there is little time to get jealous over the Windows beta Well, Steam seems to have this 'Library Sharing' feature for sharing games with family and friends. And i also know this fellow Backer who would test the Beta on Windows - and a little later on, when the Linux Beta goes live, i really would like to help find and fix Bugs in the Linux version of the game. Would it work to share my Beta-access via Steam, and would it work cross-platform? And what do the developers think of this? I am also really interested in the Linux and Mac part of the development process. Will the devs share details on this? Maybe in an update or in the documentary? (Train of thought is: does Unity do all the cross-platform work? If yes, why the delayed Linux&Mac Beta? If no, what are the encountered problems? Will those problems lead to Linux/Mac specific bugs? Yay, more testing needed on the platforms with smaller userbase!)

http://www.twitch.tv/pwootage Added in custom portraits and just now added in new dialogue.

Running windowed 1920x1080 and the screen blacked out departing the broken tower. I could ESC to get to the menu -- sort of -- to quit out normally, and the pointer occasionally showed up, but the screen was black. Hardware: SLi 2x GTX 560 Ti with 340.43 drivers installed. SLi disabled for the duration of Beta operation.

Yesterday I went and checked, if I could purchase backer beta access on the Eternity's backer site. The good news is, that beta access can be bought for $25, but the very bad is, that one still has to purchase a separate backing tier before having an option to do so. I thought you've said that this is going to get fixed and you've said that months ago. My suggestion would be to fix this before the launch of beta.

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. ---

Update by Brandon Adler, Lead Producer Hey, everyone. Due to E3 crunch we are going to push off Josh's next class update for a couple of weeks. Instead, I will give an update about the general state of affairs for each department on the project now that we are getting ready to head into our Beta period. The next update will feature Josh's final class update along with info from the Eternity E3 presentation. Let's get into it. Status Area Design All of the areas have been in the game for about a month now, and the area designers have been revisiting each area to make sure everything is in order. They're using specially crafted Alpha checklists to make sure that none of the major items are missed. For example, designers are checking that the area has a proper navigation mesh, ambient sound effects are placed, and scene transitions are working as intended. Josh (Project Director) and Bobby (Area Design Lead) are heading up meetings to review all of the quests in the game. Each quest is played through by the team and analyzed. We ask basic questions like "Why is this quest fun?", "Does the player care about this quest?", and "What hooks the player into starting the quest?" If anything is lacking, the design team spruces the quest up to make it a memorable one. Over the Beta period the designers will continue fixing bugs and polishing content. Environment Art Much like our area designers, our environment artists have been revisiting all of the areas of the game and performing their Alpha checklists to make sure all of the areas pass art Alpha. In addition to the checklists, they are performing polish work that had been identified previously by Bobby and Rob (Art Director) on areas. Currently, the environment artists have done a pass on all of our critical path areas and they will be moving onto our side content once we enter Beta. Take a look at one of the areas that has gone through Alpha polish without a paint-over pass: Systems Design Now that our systems are all in place, Josh has been focused on balance and polish bugs that have piled up over the course of the project. For me, this is one of the more exciting times in the project because the game really starts to take shape and become fun. Game balance will continue throughout our Beta period, right up to our release. UI Kaz (Concept and UI Artist) has been finishing up the last remaining UI screens. He is now working on Scripted Interaction images, icons, area paint-overs, and portraits and will be doing so for the foreseeable future. Animation The animation team has been wrapping up the last B priority items and will moving into full-time polish until the end of the project. B priority animations are things like special creature attacks, class-specific spell casts, or animations for minor creatures (animal critters, for example). Once the animation team has finished up creating the animations, they will be focused on animation polish. Character Art Our character artists have completed all of the creatures and creature variants we planned for the game (and even a few that we hadn't planned on). They have also created all of the base weapon and armor variants, and now character art is focused on finishing up all of the unique armors and weapons. Once they complete the last bit of gear, they will move onto creating a few additional head and hair variants for each race. Like the rest of the team, they will also be polishing content for the remainder of the project. Have a peek at one of our unique armors: Narrative The narrative team finished up the critical path a few weeks ago and now they have their focus on completing side content in our various regions. Eric (Lead Narrative Designer) has been tweaking and polishing the E3 demo areas, while Carrie (Narrative Designer) has been hard at work finishing up some of our companions. Narrative is also polishing up the areas that will be used in for our Backer Beta. Over the next few months narrative will finish our companions, and we are going to start finalizing and locking down on the writing to prepare for localization and voice over. Programming At this point, the project is completely feature locked. The programmers are fully focused on fixing the mountain of bugs that have built up over the course of the project. There are still some items that need to be finished (installers, for example), but the majority of the work will be put towards fixing and polishing existing systems. This is where the build (that may have been unstable throughout development) really starts to come together. VFX The team is continuing to crank away at VFX. It is one of the areas of the game (along with narrative and audio) that are not at an Alpha level, which is intentional. The later on the project that you can bring the VFX team on, the lower the amount of rework that they will have to do on assets that may get changed. We have added VFX on a little less than half of the spells and abilities, on all of our VFX creatures (creatures that are VFX driven instead of our normal creature pipeline), and on all of the critical path areas. We are scheduled to be finished with VFX in a couple of months. Audio Much like VFX, audio usually comes onto our projects a bit later than other departments. Many of our areas have had an ambience pass and are sounding really good. Same goes for our creatures - more and more of their SFX are being hooked up every day. We have also completed our initial pass on things like UI sounds, and very shortly, our audio team will create sounds for our spells and abilities. Justin (Audio Director) has been working on finishing all of the music tracks for the game. In fact, he just finished composing our main theme. Much like VFX, this audio team is scheduled to finish in a couple of months. Overall Overall, the project is coming together nicely. We have a ton of work that still needs to be done, but the team is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are no major roadblocks ahead of us at this point and now it's a focus on getting as much polish done as we can before our final release candidate. That's it for this update. Let us know what you think in our forums. Kickin' It Forward - Witchmarsh From time to time we like to spread the word about interesting Kickstarter Projects that catch our eye. This time around, it's a project called Witchmarsh - a story-driven action RPG set in 1920s Massachusetts with a supernatural flair. Here is a quick summary taken from their Kickstarter page: "It's the Roaring Twenties! Join an unlikely team of detectives as they charge headlong into the darkest corners of rural America. Their mission: find and return twelve missing townsfolk who vanished under mysterious circumstances. A handsome reward is in store should they succeed, but with the supernatural lurking around every corner, will any of them live long enough to collect it?" Take a look and if you like what you see, show them your support! There's only a short time left before their campaign ends.

I have been staying away from my PE emails mostly because I want everything to be fresh and surprising. I really don't need to be updated, but caught that I hadn't finalized my pledge. Anyway...through the process I noticed that I could get access to the beta...for additional funds ($25). "Can't wait to play Pillars of Eternity? No problem - add on the early access beta key and you can play it before everyone else! The beta key is digital only." Now...I like the idea behind Kickstarter and getting companies setup while taking out the middle man, but really. Besides Horse Armor has there been a more obvious attempt at sucking as many dollars out of the customers before? 4 million dollars from the Kickstarter alone, and god knows how much more from other sources and future sales, and Obsidian is looking to hit us up for additional dollars? I was slightly disgusted by this. The business decision is almost EA like. If people are willing to pay that's one thing, but does everything need a price tag? The sale of beta keys is an evil practice. The purpose of public beta testing is that people are willing to give you their time, something more valuable than $25, in order to help you finalize your product. I remember beta testing previous games and companies sending me a final copy of the game, for free, along with other cool things...like t-shirts and whatnot. How has this role been reversed into a developer, not a publisher, hitting me up for additional funds to aid in fixing their mistakes? Give it away for free to the people willing to give you their time. It's extremely unflattering Obsidian to immediately become the beast developers have been blaming for many years (the evil publishers). The community has fixed your problems before (KOTOR2) for free, maybe rethink this one. For those willing to justify a price tag on bandwidth and whatnot? It's nowhere near $25.

Hey, you! Yes you! The guy/girl reading this thread! Do you own a PC/Mac/Linux Thing? Do you like RPGs? Do you like H.P. Loveraft? Horror genre? Adventure games? Well, it just so happens that my team and I have been making an RPG-Adventure game over the past year or so, and we've been in beta testing for about... a while. We're just now waiting on all our VO to get in. When you are not paying anyone, people tend to take their time. It's not a Cthulhu Dating Sim. Don't listen to those that say it is. Anyhow. The good news is that the gameplay is 99%. All of the functions and mechanics are in. Art is 99% (UIs and title). I just need a courageous band of brothers for the final round of beta. I also have a few rules that I would be giving you, some would be following X in the story and others Y. You get the idea. Any takers?

I can't wait to start playing the game. I thought it was a fabulous idea from the start. Is there a time frame for when the beta will begin?

Hi! This is related to the Development Process and it is more of a question about Beta Testing than a suggestion (although I think it looks like a wise thing to do). This came across my feed somehow, between 2:00-2:30: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/08/21/exploring-the-world-of-dragon-age-inquisition.aspx The question to Obsidian is, does Obsidian plan on doing something similar for Project Eternity with their play/beta/early-access testers? I think personally that it looks healthy for both the developers for the sake of development (getting a better game) and, of course, the players can directly communicate in-game matters with the developers more in-depth about what's going on around them. Not fishing for a beta-access (Though I might buy an Early-Access copy if it ever appears on Steam at whatever stage it is in, Alpha or Beta doesn't matter~ in whatever way I can help ^^), but I just think that getting raw data from the Player decision in-game might help out Obsidian a lot in terms of physical development Members: Thoughts? Obsidian: Possible answer?

Well, i can only see advantages on this, for gamers and for the Obsidian team. 1- The user imput We all now that one of the major problems with obsidian games are the horrible bugs their games have (its true, sorry mates haha). Same with some mecanics that are not fully tested because of either lack of time or the tester team wasn't really good (i heard somewhere that it wasn't obsidian who did the testing for KOTOR, not sure if true). If all the backers have access to the beta i believe the game we bough could be so much better... 2- Much more early access to the game = more backers Many people don't like to give 100 euros for a game and have to wait 2 years to play it. Ok, we love you guys and we trust you but if we got early access we would be much more happy! It would be also a appealing thing to new backers who are insecure either to buy the game or not. If they have to pay 140 just to see if they really want it, i doubt any sane person would do it. Now 20$... That's much more easy. I'm sure there are many more advantages other people would like to suggest, right guys? haha now, the cons... I can only see history spoiler as a con. But, we don't have to play the beta, its a player choice, so it isn't really a con.