Project Eternity Update #36: Off to our elfhomes, but first...

[Malekith]

Yeah.. it could help if you could give an example of a game that had somthing similar with what you propose. Because in my mind it sounds like Wicher 2 or Dark Souls crap and not like IE games

[Falkon Swiftblade]

just curious is update 37 tomorrow?

[Sannom]

They said there would be a two-weeks pause, so I would say 'no'.

[rjshae]

"Pause".

[rjshae]

Hmmmmm back on to the topic of Elves...

are Elves going to be unique? Or just the same ol' classical elves?

I don't think they have mentioned any specifics.

[mstark]

If you use the low-res environments and UI, any resolution above the base (1280x720) will reveal more of the environment. If you use the high-res environment, you will never be "zoomed in" more than what you would normally see at the base resolution of 1280x720, but you have 4x as many pixels.

Thanks for making it abundantly clear what the intention of the team is, this is exactly what I've been asking/arguing for .

 

Could you clarify whether we get to choose which set to use, and if it can be toggled on the fly during gameplay? Or will the game check the resolution of the monitor and choose for us when we install? Would be nice to have manual control over it!

[J.E. Sawyer]

Yes, you will be able to choose what set of assets you want to use and what resolution.

[NOK222]

Hmmmmm back on to the topic of Elves...

are Elves going to be unique? Or just the same ol' classical elves?

I don't think they have mentioned any specifics.

 

One of the devs mentioned barbarian elves

[Winter Wolf]

Very much looking forward to the next update. I have been busily playing through BG:EE (with a dabbling of FTL). I've missed PC gaming and can't wait to get my hands on Project Eternity. Keep up the great work!

 

~WW

[Necx]

UI Design - Tim and I have been talking about our user interfaces recently. We want to make sure that we improve the functionality of the original designs without completely losing the feeling of those interfaces. One thing we want to avoid is making the UI too "minimalist". We don't want it to feel bloated, of course, but we also recognize that the IE games had "solid" interfaces. They looked like they were made of materials -- wood, stone, and metal -- and had substance to them. When you look at the interfaces for the IE games, they help immerse you in each setting. We'd like to do the same for Project Eternity.

 

Functionally, we're using Icewind Dale II as our starting point. We've been looking at inventory recently. Tim and I have designed a system that uses three types of gear storage: equipment, top of pack (this name may change!), and stash. Equipment is what your characters are currently using and have ready to use. This includes weapon sets that you can swap between during combat. "Top of pack" is a finite amount of gear that you can access outside of combat for a variety of purposes: replenishing consumables, checking out a shiny new sword you picked up a while back, etc. The top of pack cannot be accessed during combat, but is present as a strategic pool of items that you can access while exploring. The stash is where all of the "other stuff" goes: things you aren't using, items you want to sell, and various doo-dads you'll be looking at later.

 

When you find gear, you have the option of placing it wherever you'd like as long as there's room for it. You can use it immediately, put it in your top of pack, or just chuck it in the stash. Once an object is in the stash, you can access it at camps, your home, and similar locations. We've created this division of inventory space to add strategy to your gear loadout decisions instead of having a weight limit, while also allowing flexibility for backup equipment. Most importantly, it doesn't prevent you from doing what adventurers love to do most: loot everything they find that isn't bolted down.

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to look at the UI.. Some games I won't mention names that came out in 2012 really took step's back in the UI dept. Also dig Inventory part as well!

[TrashMan]

HMmmm...one little nitpick regarding weapons - some weapons can deliver more than 1 type of damage. For example, greatswords would be used to pierce agaisnt armor...you can even use them as blunt weapons.

[TrashMan]

So we will be able to loot everythnig that isn't bolted down wihout any problems? No weight/volume limits?

 

I am dissapoint.

[Stun]

Yeah, something sounds wonky with the inventory system they've described. It could be that I just don't understand it, or it could just be too convoluted for my tastes.

 

I'll ask again: what was so wrong with IWD2's inventory system, that they felt the need to utterly redesign a brand new system for PE?

 

Other than that, everything else in this update sounds great.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Stun

[Sannom]

I'll ask again: what was so wrong with IWD2's inventory system, that they felt the need to utterly redesign a brand new system for PE?

 

Nothing wrong with it, but for PE they decided to not limit the player in the amount of loot they can hoard, while still limiting their equipment options while their party is in the wild. Hence the creation of that third layer, the 'stash', on top of what seems to be the classical inventory as used in the IE games.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Sannom

[Lephys]

Yeah, they're basically trading "How much can I carry without moving like a snail" for "How much can I access out of what I pick up, until I make it to the next safe camp area or a town?"

 

The more crap you pick up, the more you have to manage. But they don't want to discourage picking up "too much" stuff simply by allowing it and making it ludicrously annoying.

 

The encumbrance penalties, while they make sense from a "that would really happen" standpoint, are kind of like the ability to resurrect yourself after waiting an hour after your whole party has died. Pretty much everyone would just take the alternative of reloading the game and trying again over the 1-hour wait, just as people typically just take the most valuable stuff they can while still moving at full speed, then come back for the rest.

 

Of course, I think they're probably gonna work on that whole need-to-loot-everything bit anyway, because looting infinite things isn't exactly boosting the fun of the game. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to loot everything that's available, but the game should be designed well enough, at the very least, that 7,358 things aren't available. Going through all that to sell back at town is no fun at all. You just want the money value of those things, at that point, and sorting through that much stuff is just a chore of getting that money. It's very similar to the "junk" category of items in many RPGs. The items are never useful for anything other than monetary value, and they typically don't even contribute any weight to inventory, so you end up having to pick through your inventory to sell all the junk (or you get the super convenient "sell junk" button), when all of that is STILL a pointless extra step versus just having looted straight-up currency in the first place.

 

There might be different, better ways to handle such things, but between the choices of encumbrance/junk or nothing, the "nothing" option is better.

Edited January 13, 2013 by Lephys

[Adhin]

Yeah it's also one of those easily hand wavy things in a PnP setting you just don't have access to in cRPG's. I mean the DM can't just show up and go 'ok you put all that crap in your cart and your at town and you sold it all and its worth blah blah blah'. A computer game is literally made up of all the moments movies, books and PnP often glaze over because no one generally wants to deal with it one by one.

 

I prefer it being kept to a minimum, though I do like the little 'junk' stuff you'd get in DAO (with the sell all junk button). Added a bit of flavor outside of just bonus gold. But bonus golds a hell of a lot easier to deal with then having to shift through it to find out whats worth selling. Really do love there shared pack and stash idea.

 

Also, I really hope animals don't drop anything. Unless its a pelt of body parts or something your taking from them. Odd copper from the belly or ring I could see if they where into eating people. Some animals will eat bizar things for no good reason but... getting swords and 'random gold pile' always kinda breaks me outa things. Infinity games didn't do that though, extremely unlikely PE will either.

 

Still... bleh.

[Lephys]

I prefer it being kept to a minimum, though I do like the little 'junk' stuff you'd get in DAO (with the sell all junk button). Added a bit of flavor outside of just bonus gold. But bonus golds a hell of a lot easier to deal with then having to shift through it to find out whats worth selling. Really do love there shared pack and stash idea.

 

Yeah, I get the original idea behind "junk" stuff. But, it loses almost everything in translation into a video game. I guess I just wish it had more than one use (selling for gold.) Because, mechanically, it literally just becomes a delayed tiny pile of gold. That "tarnished candlestick (junk)" is literally just an IOU for 1 silver, 3 copper, with a name that helps you pretend you found an actual part of the game world that just happens to be worth a little money and nothing else.

 

I don't mind the situation of finding tons of herbs (that are all usable crafting components) and those herbs actually having a sell value. Maybe you have no interest in crafting, so you just sell them all, as they're useful to someone. Of course, thinking about that, how often do random people know exactly what herbs are what out in the world? Really, only certain people (who learned how to identify those herbs for a reason) would even know what they were. So, one way to handle the "this only has one use to me, and that is sell value" items might be to only allow your party to "find" herbs, for example, if someone in the party has enough skill to identify them (could be tied directly to Apothecary or Survival or something...).

 

What I mean by this is, even if some chest in a dungeon has 17 useful Apothecary herbs in it, is your group of 6 Barbarians who don't even know the difference between mushrooms and grass REALLY going to go "Oh, hey, this is a potential thing for us to take that will be worth 7 silver a piece!"?

 

Hmmm... I hadn't really thought of this before. I mean, who's to say you know exactly what everything you see/find is, and its worth? Maybe you open a chest, and you find some junk in it (a broken pocketwatch or something.) The fact that it's listed in the loot interface suggests that your character(s) know it's worth "2 copper" or whatever. But, why don't they take the chest, itself (it's a small wooden box that probably isn't welded to the floor)? It's worth a lot more than a broken pocketwatch. And who's to say there isn't stuff in the chest that just wasn't of enough significance to list in the loot interface?

 

What if all the "junk" that was readily identifiable displayed no monetary value until you found a value for it (such as some person in a town saying "I lost my family's old pocketwatch... it was looted by bandits", or some smith saying "I'm in the market for any metal scrap things"? And things like specific herbs wouldn't even show up in the loot interface (much less have a value listed) unless someone in your party KNEW "Hey, that's a meelodinus flower, and I can make a potion with that!". i.e., they open the chest and say "Hmm, a nice sword, an ornate flask (worth money because I can see gold and gems on it), and... some random plant? It looks like a dandelion... those are literally everywhere. Why would I loot that?"

 

Any thoughts? Crap, I should really put this in one of the recent economy/loot threads...

[Triple G]

 

For our higher resolution, we are likely going to render out to a ~2560x1440 screen size, as we did with our environment during the Kickstarter campaign.

 

We will likely downsample these to run at 1920x1080.

No 16:10?.. Please, please do somthing for 1920x1200.

And 1440x900!