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Does anybody know if we can expect a sort of parallax effect for the environments of Pillars of Eternity to illustrate depth when panning? Something to the effect of parallax scrolling, but with a technology perhaps more like parallax mapping? We've seen some pretty neat tricks that Obsidian employed with dynamic lighting and even water depth effects using normal mapping to immitate 3D space in a 2D image. Do you think it'd be possible that they could (or already have) also imitate parallax effects using the same (or similar) tech? I suspect that the constraits of a fixed camera angle might make this possible, but have no experience with graphic design from which to draw any real insight. Anybody with a knowledged or insightful thought on the matter?

Dear Obsidianites! For people whose first reaction would be "TL;DR": please developers, make the game sound immersive with regards to effects, environmental and positional audio. Draw us in, let us truly *feel* the world you create for us. Use IWD or PS:T as examples, or, beyond our RPG-ers' noses, Prey or Battlefield 2. For people with enough time to read: Parts of what made the IE games, most notable the Black Isle ones, so immersive and rich in atmosphere was sound. And by sound I'm not only referring to the soundtrack, voice acting and spell effects, I'm mainly talking about the environment. If your characters walk on snow, you want to hear that. If a town is quiet and friendly, you want to hear that. Dripping water and steps echoing in caves, howling winds and cracking branches, rustling leaves and barely audible breathing in a forest at night, the single candle lighting a room. Listen to Icewind Dale with EAX enabled, or to Prey, to take a different genre, with OpenAL at full level - it just sounds beautiful and sets the player right into the world. Environmental audio quality is currently on a steep decline, worst current example (not counting console ports) is Endless Space: As soon as the CPU is busy, sound stutters. There are only five or so concurrent layers of sound and as soon as there are more, there's audible popping and distortion or sound effects just not being rendered. Or compare Battlefield 3 with Battlefield 2 - worlds of difference in sound quality! The many layers and clear positioning is gone, replaced by some lackluster software solution from the shelf in the hopes that users of onboard sound will not notice that anyway and the graphics will distract from sound. Let me tell you: They don't distract sufficiently, the hearing sense is left wanting more. So my plea to the developers: Please respect the capability of current hardware, use OpenAL for example if you need to decouple things from the CPU if the gamers' hardware allows for it, I don't care for the actual technology you use but: *please* make us feel right in the game, at home and comfortable, afraid, tense, relaxed, connected to the game's individual sound signature (think Planescape's spell learining sound effect) - immersed.

A poll putting dangerous ground to the question. A related topic. http://forums.obsidi...errain-effects/

One of the things i believe felt artificial in games like Baldur's Gate II was how all the people in the town was standing still (except for moving a few feet once in a while). In a big city I expect there to be much more people in the streets and i expect most of them to be moving from some point to another. So my idea was to always have a random amount of people walking (maybe some even running) around from one end of the party's field of vision to the other end, possible stopping a minute at the local merchant. This would really make the big cities feel authentic for me. Still I know this might take some work and compared to the gain it might not be worth it. So what do people think?

I like urban environments. Big, detailed, characterful cities. New Crobuzon and Armada, Camorr, the Londons of Neverwhere and Kraken. Sigil. I like cities with the depth and colour to leave grand impressions, to spark ideas for a hundred other stories that could be told in them. Big trading cities, bringing NPCs in from every culture of the world. The map we've seen, which I believe I read somewhere here is part of a much larger map, suggests a lot of thought has gone into the world-at-large, but I'd rather have a plot - a personal, non world-saving-plot if possible - that revolves around just a handful of fully fleshed out locations, really rich with lore and flavour. Who's with me? Who wants a sprawling metropolis full of guilds and gangs, a place where building a reputation can really mean something? Who wants something else? Maybe you'd rather be wanting to explore the world, vast mountainscapes, abandoned castles and - dare I say it - the odd Dwarven mine. You're the kind of person who wants variety. I can respect that, it's just not for me. If we get that two million, I'd want my house somewhere I'd be excited to call home.