Game looks great, but...

[Panteleimon]

D:OS had an extremely bad color palette, and the graphics were too cartoonish for me.

 

 

Absolutely, yes.

[neo6874]

 

 

They could go WL2 route and have backer beta before and after that early access beta with prepurchase on steam.

And how much would this end up costing someone who wasn't a backer on or before 22 August?

 

Remember -- the current backer portal is giving "discounted" prices for a digital download copy, and it's a $25 addon to get a beta key.

 

 

You'd have to set the price pretty high to avoid people picking it up and expecting a completed game that just happens to be labelled "BETA".

 

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of current backers getting upset -- I mean it's $55 or something to get the game + Beta key as it stands right now ... and if the "Early Access" key was cheaper than that (or hell, even that cheap), well, I think people would riot since OE has stated the "discounted" prices stop on the 22nd.

 

EDIT --> and that's not even considering the fact that the "Backer Beta" and "Full Game" keys are not the same (i.e. BB is forced on steam, because "easy updates", but it will apparently get wiped, and a new round of keys sent out for the Release version so you can choose GoG or Steam for it).

Edited August 18, 2014 by neo6874

[Allbrother]

 

4 million euros is about 5.3 million dollars.

 

 

But PE is accepting pledges to this day and for DOS the 4m was the final number.

[NWN_babaYaga]

For DOS 4m was the number but the number for X is less then Y so what does Z has to do with DOS or PoE ?

 

And let me tell you. Dont trust the numbers ! bad number ....

 

An old saying says : "a number can be all. So if all is number but is not number of this so that number can mean .. no. not that number"

Edited August 19, 2014 by NWN_babaYaga

[Elerond]

 

 

4 million euros is about 5.3 million dollars.

 

 

But PE is accepting pledges to this day and for DOS the 4m was the final number.

 

 

You should also take in consideration that from that original 4 million about 500k goes to KS+Amazon+Paypal fees and to pay physical rewards for backers (although Paradox deal changed this somewhat). And PoE's budget has been locked already for several months (in my understanding, as they have mostly locked release date) and currently money from new pledges goes towards expansion.

 

But as I don't know how much PoE's pledge total is, as it isn't at least currently public knowledge so I can't say is it lower, same or higher than D:OS's budget. My message was only to remind people that 4 million euros is quite lot more than 4 million dollars if they had made assumption D:OS budget is about same as PoE's by reading that budget for both games is about 4 million.  

[Lephys]

You'd have to set the price pretty high to avoid people picking it up and expecting a completed game that just happens to be labelled "BETA".

No price will ever prevent a human being from opting to assume something based on zero information.

[Zwiebelchen]

After watching some videos on the backer Beta, I feel that the problem has only gotten worse, now that I've seen more of the character creation.

 

The proportions of the characters are horrible. The heads are way too big for their bodies, the legs are too short, some textures aren't only blurry, they are basicly non-existant, especially for the feet.

 

The character models imho need a severe makeover; I really hope they are going to do something about this for the final release.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[NWN_babaYaga]

I think the models look very good and balanced. They design them to 99 % for the ingame view... that in mind the models rock !

 

But people focus on only one thing, pick that out and judge it without it in full context of the game... nothing new to me....

Edited August 21, 2014 by NWN_babaYaga

[Lekian]

Yes they are some aspects to improve but ...

 

IMHO, the game looks great for a Beta Build!!!

[Zwiebelchen]

I think the models look very good and balanced. They design them to 99 % for the ingame view... that in mind the models rock !

 

But people focus on only one thing, pick that out and judge it without it in full context of the game... nothing new to me....

 

I know they look good from above. I can also see why the exxagerated features actually make them look *better* ingame than they would look with realistic proportions. However, when viewing the character from the front, it looks horribly comic-esque and imho something should be done about that.

 

The character creation is an important aspect (for some people, it's the only aspect) of cRPGs. And keep in my the first impression of a game matters. Showing off graphical flaws right at the beginning is not going to do the game any favor - especially if it isn't actually needed to show the character up-close (they could just re-arrange the character creation UI and make the preview window show the character in ingame perspective).

Edited August 21, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[kurosawa]

Game looks great but ...

 

... I would wish that they add some shader to the grass and the trees to make them look more 'in motion' (works fine for the rivers). At the moment it looks very static.

 

 

artistically this game looks amazing.

Edited August 21, 2014 by kurosawa

[NWN_babaYaga]

@Zwiebelchen

 

I understand your point but doesnt share it at all. People play PoE with more in mind then just the the optics of charakter creation. I think barbers suck in games, i think that make up stuff sucks even more. Not that i think the models can be improved. Everything can be maxed out. Even poser 5 Victoria model can be upgraded to 2 million tris. That said, the impression of the model you created will be forgotten very quickly once you entered the game world. Your focus will just shift into what the game is designed to be. You are very manipulated by other games, thats why you think the "models" should be like this or that. You are biased because of stuff from others, not letting the devs do what they have in mind imo.

 

Thats why there are so many comparisons.

[kurosawa]

Game looks great but ...

... I would wish that they add some shader to the grass and the trees to make them look more 'in motion' (works fine for the rivers). At the moment it looks very static.

artistically this game looks amazing.

Supplemental:

perhaps the tech wizards could add fog. Imagine the betas goblin cave with fog floating the ground.

This all is just cosmetics...but effective.

Edited August 21, 2014 by kurosawa

[Frusciante]

After watching some videos on the backer Beta, I feel that the problem has only gotten worse, now that I've seen more of the character creation.

 

The proportions of the characters are horrible. The heads are way too big for their bodies, the legs are too short, some textures aren't only blurry, they are basicly non-existant, especially for the feet.

 

The character models imho need a severe makeover; I really hope they are going to do something about this for the final release.

 

This is a known issue. I read somewhere that a developper is specifically looking into this.

[prodigydancer]

The proportions of the characters are horrible. The heads are way too big for their bodies, the legs are too short, some textures aren't only blurry, they are basicly non-existant, especially for the feet.

 

The character models imho need a severe makeover; I really hope they are going to do something about this for the final release.

 

Exactly my thougths. Proportions are way off, unfortunately.

 

However, there's something I definitely like about these models even now! Especially after bland, generic and lifeless look of D:OS models (D:OS is a very good game with nice visuals but character/NPC models really aren't its strongest point).

Edited August 21, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Sir Newbie]

Still bothers me a little that I won't be able to equip all party members 

 

 

Please tell me that isn't true. Damnit !

Please someone tell me if you can or cannot :

- fully equip your party members ;

- fully manage the level progression of your party (argh, Arcanum i detest you for that).

[PrimeJunta]

Yes on both counts. Full control over party inventory, full control on levelup.

 

I understand some members will join your party already at some level, so you won't be able to level them all the way from 1.

[Zwiebelchen]

@Zwiebelchen

 

I understand your point but doesnt share it at all. People play PoE with more in mind then just the the optics of charakter creation. I think barbers suck in games, i think that make up stuff sucks even more. Not that i think the models can be improved. Everything can be maxed out. Even poser 5 Victoria model can be upgraded to 2 million tris. That said, the impression of the model you created will be forgotten very quickly once you entered the game world. Your focus will just shift into what the game is designed to be. You are very manipulated by other games, thats why you think the "models" should be like this or that. You are biased because of stuff from others, not letting the devs do what they have in mind imo.

 

Thats why there are so many comparisons.

 

I know this isn't a gamebreaking issue. It's totally not!

But look at the clever decisions Obsidian made to make the most out of their limited budget so far:

 

1) instead of fully rendered backgrounds, use pre-rendered 2D backgrounds to give the game a much higher graphical fidelity

2) instead of using 3D videos for scripted events, they went for drawn 2D images that tell the story like a comic book

3) instead of adding a large amount of NPCs (and thus, even more written dialogue), they implemented the adventurer's hall to satisfy players who want to play with a certain party composition

 

All those things are neat little tricks that allow to game to "compete" with other modern games and hide the obvious disadvantages of the low game budget.

The game, when released, will obviously be judged by a jury that is used to triple-A games. And while they might go easy on some things knowing the kickstarter background of the game, the first impression still matters. Now they don't see the beautifully prerendered backgrounds right away. They start with a close-up on the characters. And they will immediately notice the weaknesses there - and that definitely will have an impact on all further judgement (again, because the first impression matters).

 

 

Of course, gameplay trumps optics. Minecraft has proven this. But the thing with minecraft is: the graphics are heavily stylized. You don't care about the pixel look of Minecraft because everything is in style. There is no high res background, no high res character model, everything is blocky. Heck, even the sun and animals are just huge blocks.

 

PoE has a style goal that (from my understanding) relies on the intimacy of drawings. You see that in the intermissions, you see that in the use of portraits, you see that in the background and even the UI is drawn. The 3D models on character creation feel out of place in that style.

 

A consistency of style is actually more important than the pure graphical fidelity. WoW is amazing at this. Every single object, every character, every monster in the game looks like it was made by the same designer, despite thousands of people working on this. And while the graphics are really aged, it still looks great because of that consistency. Look at Mass-Effect. Notice how every single vehicle, machine or spaceship has those giant blue lensflare effects? That, again, is consistency of style. You see a single screenshot of whatever is in the game and you instantly know "this is Mass effect". That is the power of style consistency.

 

I don't know; maybe I'm exagerating this. Maybe it doesn't matter. I don't care that much about the optics of the character creation, but I really wish for this game to be successful outside of the core indie game audience. Yes, the game is primarily for the backers. But the real success of the game is determined by how much the game appeals to customers that are only tangentially interested in this game.

You know, those people that played triple-A games like Dragon Age and just wished it would be more tactical. Players that played games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown and just wished the characters would be less interchangable. It's those people that will bring in the extra cash that Obsidian desperately needs to give us more quality content.

 

I think we can all agree on that we want the developers to generate a lot of profit out of this game. Profit that can flow directly into the sequel, addons or content updates. Maybe we can get full voice over at some place?

Getting good critics of the press is essential for success. Great screenshots are the best advertisement for a new game, especially, if the reviews point out fantastic gameplay.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[Zwiebelchen]

I think it's time to bump this back into consideration. There have been some great suggestions in this thread and I don't want them to be forgotten!

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Zwiebelchen, are you playing the beta?