Sensuki's Email / Interview over at the Codex

[anameforobsidian]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9547

 

Nicely done!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Thumbs up, Sensuki! I love how you're dogged. You're not satisfied until a max amount of details have been spilled.

[Stun]

Ugh... Can the Codex peeps do some edit work on that page?? It's a mess. Aside from the very first question, we don't know who's talking, or when. There's random italization, and bolding from top to bottom. And the ego tripping level is absurd. Is this an interview or a message board debate?

[archangel979]

I just wish you asked them about pathfinding issues from the demo. 

[Ark Evensong]

Considering Sensuki sent those questions over a month ago, asking about pathfinding issues in the demo would've been pretty ... remarkable prescient? 

[Quadrone]

Nice Interview, as I've come to expect from the Codex.

 

This answer has me a bit concerned/puzzled though:

 

Regarding encounter design, is there anything in Pillars of Eternity that rivals or surpasses the complexity of some of the encounters in Icewind Dale 2 (Orc Shamans beating War Drums to summon reinforcements, Goblins falling off Worgs)? Will there be pre-stealthed enemies? Are there any new scripting features that were built for PE that made things possible you couldn't do in the IE games?

Honestly, I think it will take us a while to exceed the complexity of IWD2 fights. IWD2 and BG2 were built with a lot of tried-and-true scripting functions that programmers and designers developed over previous titles and expansions. Like any other feature, AI in PoE is being built from the ground up, so we have to add layers of complexity over time.

 

The answer doesn't give any examples, so where exactly does that leave us? Should I deduce from this that we're only left with simple Fighters front, Archers in the back, attack-move scenarios or just that there are no/very few/few heavily scripted encounters i.e. beating war drums, reenforcements arriving after enemy X is slain, exploding barrels, etc...?

Edited July 31, 2014 by Quadrone

[Stun]

That's a good question. Sawyer has stated before how the more familiar with an engine the dev team is, the fancier they can be with the scripting. And we see that this was true with the IE games. Only time and experience made the scripting better. So I'd imagine, scripting wise, PoE won't begin where IWD2 left off. But it might build up to it. And the evolution might come about quicker. (The scripting in the IE games took years to evolve.)

 

BG1 - was Very basic. Enemies didn't really do anything outside of their strict offensive combat roles. Then came IWD1 - Enemies now did things like Drink potions and cast healing spells on themselves. BG2 came next - enemies now call for help when they're hurt. They try to search for you when you turn invisible etc. And then, we got Icewind Dale 2. The last of the IE games. That got us the war drums, and enemies igniting barrels, and enemies casting the right protection spells in response to what they just got hit with (if you nail an enemy cleric with a fireball, they will cast protection from fire as a response.)

[Sensuki]

And the ego tripping level is absurd. Is this an interview or a message board debate?

Not sure what you mean by that, but I included a few of my own comments for specific reasons. I counted the number of BG2 maps a while ago because I was talking to a member of this forum about the number of maps in the IE games as they said BG2 had more than I thought they had, and they were right. However a lot of these are very tiny maps, such as house interiors, some of the interior levels re-use area art, but are different levels.

I added my comment to the Spell FX question to clarify why I thought BG1 had RTS inspired Spell FX style, as it was not to do with opacity. I was just stating a fact when I said they were fairly opaque but I do also think that made them quite easy to identify.

The others were merely to add extra information.

 

I just wish you asked them about pathfinding issues from the demo.

I sent around 20 questions off, but did not get a reply to all of them. There was another question about AI that did not get a reply as it was a harder question to answer, and probably needed actual checking of some stuff either in the code or in game. Josh answered these in his own time, so that would have made that difficult. There were some other technical questions, some questions that were made irrelevant by the release of the Gameplay video, and a couple on "future" stuff, which they probably aren't ready to talk about yet.

 

I am merely thankful that I am actually able to get an interview back as I am no journalist, especially during such a busy time of the year of the dev team, as the last month has been pretty full on for Josh and Brandon.

[Nonek]

Much obliged Mr Sensuki, as good if not better than many of the professional interviews i've read, with a refreshingly different and pertinent set of questions.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Sounds like the encounters will be around IWD1 or maybe BG2 complexity. I liked both games, so I'm okay with that.

[Silent Winter]

Ugh... Can the Codex peeps do some edit work on that page?? It's a mess. Aside from the very first question, we don't know who's talking, or when. There's random italization, and bolding from top to bottom.

Bold is the question - regular text is the reply - italics is the additional comments from Sensuki.

Seemed straightforward to me *shrug*

 

Edit: Oh, and good questions Sensuki

Edited August 1, 2014 by Silent Winter

[Hiro Protagonist II]

The format is a mess. Especially with the italics in the middle of Josh's comments or when the comments go off on a tangent which does on more than one occasion.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Sensuki]

The format is a mess. Especially with the italics in the middle of Josh's comments or when the comments go off on a tangent which does on more than one occasion.

I didn't format the interview, but the formatting is actually very logical, and the italics are not random.

 

My questions from the email

 

        Josh's answer to the email question

 

My comments on Josh's answer presenting some additional information such as facts, my opinion or the introduction of the below segment

 

        Other information from Josh that is not part of the email interview that provides additional information to the email reply

 

------

 

People often complain about how the Codex formats their interviews. The answer is that the codex simply does not scale to your level

 

Just for Hiro, here is how the comments relate to the questions:

 

Number of maps: Josh has said many times in past interviews that BG2 has 200 maps, PE has 140-150 maps (looks like it's over 150) and Icewind Dale has 80 maps. The BG2 number of maps is actually over 275+ BUT that does not necessarily mean that because 275 is a lot more than 150 that PE won't "feel" close to BG2.

 

Talent design: My comment separates Josh's email answer and information from one of his posts on the Obsidian forums the other day that was relevant to the question. I asked these questions about 6 weeks ago, when there was no information on any of the questions. Since that time, information has been provided on some of them.

 

Spell FX: Josh replied to my comment that the IE games Spell FX direction were RTS inspired because I mentioned opacity, however that was not what I was referring to, so I added a comment to explain what I meant, and why I meant it.

 

Combat stances: My first italic in this presents the similar answer to the tumblr question I asked Josh in May, both the email answer and the tumblr answer contain similar info, but both contain some different information.

 

The second italic is a comment on the actual combat stances that we saw in the Gameplay video. This question was asked BEFORE the E3 presentation and the gameplay video when we had only seen the Priest spells and the trailer. I give a summary of the style of stance and idle that PE uses and then provide a recording of the Baldur's Gate stance to show a comparison. 

 

My opinion is that characters in PE are too static in between attacks. I explain why, give an example and a comparison, and provide a summary.

 

Colors: As we did not know how many colors were present in the color palettes when I asked this question, and it is now irrelevant because we have seen them in the video, I state the factual information - 32 colors. Then I give my opinion (not quite enough) and answer the other part of the question that Josh didn't answer (about the character name colors in dialogue) because we saw how it worked in the video.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Sensuki

[BruceVC]

Much obliged Mr Sensuki, as good if not better than many of the professional interviews i've read, with a refreshingly different and pertinent set of questions.

 

I concur with the English gentlemen, you are an excellent ambassador and evangelist for PoE and its much appreciated the way you and others, like C2B,  provide us with relevant  information. Good work Sensuki

Edited August 1, 2014 by BruceVC

[Hiro Protagonist II]

roflmao @ sensuki. I never said I couldn't understand it. I said the format is a mess. I understand what you're doing but it doesn't mean that it's not a mess.

[Sensuki]

I was replying to this bit

 

the comments go off on a tangent which does on more than one occasion

People often complain about the codex formatting. That's just how they do it *shrug*. I've seen a lot worse though.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Sensuki

[Messier-31]

Format of the interview is quite clear, actually.

 

Thumbs up, Sens.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah, it did make Sens, really.

[BruceVC]

Yeah, it did make Sens, really.

 

I also found the questions and format  perfectly legible and I'm rather stupid, so you clever people should have had no problem

 

@ Hiro and Stun

 

I'm happy to explain anything in the interview you guys  didn't understand. And don't be embarrassed to ask, you guys  have often gone into great details when you explain your perspective. So its won't be an inconvenience from my side ?

[JFSOCC]

please please allow us to select colours from a colour wheel. It costs so very little extra to implement and it makes for so much customisability. As someone who sees a fairly high amount of colour depth, one purple just isn't the other. I'd like to get my colours right.

[Gorbag]

I wonder if these 150 areas include building interiors, floors and the like, because that would make the game considerably smaller than BG2. On the same tangent: I don't think anyone's said anything about interior areas. Are they going to create fewer unique ones or are they going to reuse some interiors like in BG/BG2 for stuff like non-mandatory houses, shops and inns?

Edited August 1, 2014 by Gorbag

[Sensuki]

Yes it probably includes interior areas. I'm not so sure Obsidian is as big on having as many smaller interiors as the IE games did.

 

I'm not 100% sure about "child areas" like the insides of houses and stuff, but I'd say they are probably counted as areas themselves.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Sensuki

[Gorbag]

I guess so too, but that would make the two big cities rather... small, or rather filled exclusively with places of importance.

[Aslinng]

I'm going to miss multi class option from Baldur's gate

[archangel979]

I am going to miss effects that last beyond resting.