Update #62: Production 01 - State of the Project

[Fearabbit]

Hiro, your argument is all over the place. I can't even tell if you're against visualized emphasis in general, the use of asterisks in general or simply against this one specific example from IWD 2 where (I agree) the emphasis did not add anything to the sentence.

 

For what it's worth, I don't like asterisks either. And I don't like the overuse of emphasis if it doesn't add anything. I do think visualizing emphasis in some way (preferably by using italics) is very important, however.

 

In your IWD 2 example, it doesn't matter whether it's "Hey, *I* could stay here and *you*..." or "Hey, I could stay here and you...", the emphasis doesn't add anything. But like Lephys said, there are other examples where emphasis can be important - and I would hope that in such cases, it will be present in P:E and not dismissed completely just because we don't want to use a visualization that still stems from game resolutions that were too small to have italics or bold text.

 

Asterisks are outdated, italics and bold text is the way to go.

[Morgulon the Wise]

The odd emphasis on I and you in this particular screenshot example is part of Oswalds habits. He always speaks to the party as if they were deaf or not intelligent enough to understand him. Therefore the pronounciation.

 

You didn't like Oswald, Hiro, didn't you?

[Ieo]

For the record, I once took a graduate-level applied linguistics course for kicks and wrote about typographical paralanguage in CMC text and its relation to passing the conversational "floor" among multiple speakers.

 

Hiro, you're wrong about the value of typographical paralanguage (use of emphatic formatting in this case). Well, it's just your personal preference, but prosody and kinesics are important for "listener" interpretation when the bulk of the text interaction is "voice" (dialogue), and there are only so many tools at our disposal within two-dimensional text. There's obviously a gradient as to what's acceptable versus overkill among different people, but that doesn't seem to be the gist of this little side discussion.

 

Specifically.... who said that the presentation of text in Project Eternity would be a novel? It's a role-playing game. The majority of text is dialogic in nature. These verbal units are chopped up throughout our fictional social interactions with NPCs in the game and certainly aren't presented anywhere near a linear novelization format.

 

When nuance in meaning is sought in dialogue form, the words and word order are certainly critical for proper interpretation, but when paralanguage isn't part of two-dimensional text, we naturally try to represent it to mimic that third dimension of "meaning." This is exactly why "sarcasm" and other jokey bits are so often misinterpreted online. 

Edited August 29, 2013 by Ieo

[cdx]

Well, we have a whole week to wait for a new update, so... any chance we could get a little bit of each of the new gals and guys?

 

Like a couple of tiny art assets from April and Holly, an example loot bag from Matt, a two-line conversation from Ryan and three lines of code from Brian?

 

A big HI and Welcome to you five! (to everyone else in the team: do not worry, we still love you just as much )

[Archmage Silver]

Since inXile is actually making the Wasteland 2 GUI customizable, maybe Obsidian should consider it too? Fonts, colors, and so on.

[C2B]

Since inXile is actually making the Wasteland 2 GUI customizable, maybe Obsidian should consider it too? Fonts, colors, and so on.

 

Wasteland 2 GUI also has a bit different design goals.

 

Though I imagine Fonts and colors should ber managable.

Edited August 29, 2013 by C2B

[Lephys]

Well, we have a whole week to wait for a new update, so... any chance we could get a little bit of each of the new gals and guys?

 

Like a couple of tiny art assets from April and Holly, an example loot bag from Matt, a two-line conversation from Ryan and three lines of code from Brian?

Dev team show and tell! I fully support this idea, ^_^

 

Even if it's just tiny snippets. "Here's a cool page of sketches of creature concepts." Or "Here's a little snippet of battle music concept." That would be pretty amazing.

[Morgulon the Wise]

Some music would be really good.

[lolaldanee]

noooooooo, i want to see the 3 lines of code

[Faerunner]

Oh, the game is coming along beautifully! Love the wicht designs (both story-wise and design-wise, as they look and sound so creative), and love some of the dialogue examples, and love everything else about this game. It all seems to be coming along quite nicely! Can't wait to view more progress! <3

[MCZ]

Hello, I do not mean to spam, but I just posted my own conversation UI concept here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64359-conversation-lightweight-ui-mockup/

[Magenti]

Damn that Timothy sure is a handsome guy I have to say.

 

So that stronghold.. lava pit right? Gotta have a lava pitt. how else would you intimidate and roast your enemies? An oven? Not even the same thing and not nearly as terrifying.

[Xachariah]

 

Nice update! Thx, Obsidian.

 

One question: how's the documentary going?

Going well. The crew stops by every few weeks to capture more footage. I think it is going to be a cool insight into how the game is being developed.

 

 

I hope the documentary is subtitled, that's the only way I'd understand it as a deaf person. If not, no big deal.