Curious about things before buying~

[Esper_Magicite]

Hello, I do apologize if any of this was asked before on the forums. I did a search, nothing came up with clear info I was seeking.

Before I go and buy this game~ am just curious on a few things.

 

1. Hairstyles  Since its an rpg game and one of those that looks like you can spend many hours playing. Any chance the elf females can have long hair? or is it the generic shoulder styles named "long" ?

2. Armor Have only seen a few videos, but looked like every single class was in chainmail or plate armor..there are no robes or clothing you can wear? Had hoped to make a healing focus druidess in a robe or dress.. backline support type.

3. Combat This one has me excited a bit! if what I saw was right.. in one of the videos I saw the game looked like it auto paused after all the characters did their action. so you could re que up actions and hit play.... Is this one of the options you can have the game do?  cause I would just.. hug the dev team forever if thats the case.

4. Respawns Here is a huge one for me..I like to take my time in rpgs and not just feel like a drone stuck in forward mode. Will monsters in the world and dungeons (aside from bosses) respawn?  if no.. well that is a huge deal breaker for me..sorry, Don't like rushing to the end and walking through blank maps.

5. Romance Is there any of this in the game? if yes.. can the female main character interact with male npcs? or is it the typical male protagonist focus.

6. Modding Will it be moddable? Easily or steep learning curve?

Thanks to anyone whom can shed some light on these things ^_^ visually the game looks neat.

[TheisEjsing]

1: Kinda

 

2: yes, robes n stuff are plenty.

 

3: Yes.

 

4: No monster respawn.

 

5: No romance in this first game at least. Not enough money, but buy the game, and the sequal might have some.

 

6: yes, there is already modders working hard.

Edited March 4, 2015 by TheisEjsing

[Gromnir]

hairstyles: at least three... maybe four?

robes: a garment you wear after getting out of the shower?  sadly, there are robes. ascots will be dlc.

combat: am considering linking the kickstarter page for poe 'cause this is kinda fundamental.  *shrug*  there are numerous auto-pause features you are able to select, but otherwise, combat can be paused at anytime, much like all the infinity engine games.  the ability to pause combat was part of the obsidian sales pitch for poe.

respawns:  am not understanding how respawns allow you to take your time, but sorry, your deal is broken.  should we bother addressing the last few?

romance: the story is about a boy's love for his sled... oh crap, did Gromnir spoil the ending?

modding: modders will be free to mod, but obsidian is not supporting mods.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity

 

you will likely get better answers from the link.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Valsuelm]

5: No romance in this first game at least. Not enough money...

 

 

LOL

Edited March 4, 2015 by Valsuelm

[TheisEjsing]

What is fun about that? Obsidian has said so several times. 

Edited March 4, 2015 by TheisEjsing

[Gromnir]

What is fun about that? Obsidian has said so several times. 

some folks like to quibble over nomenclature.  obsidnaties spoke more than once o' not having the resources to create quality romances in poe.  is not, strictly speaking, the same as saying they didn't have enough money.  

 

josh sawyer is writing pallegina.  now don't take this the wrong way, but based on josh's writing contributions in past obsidian games, we wouldn't want him to write a romance arc.  (sorry josh)  give obsidian an extra $100,000 in kickstarter funds and that won't make josh more capable o' writing a romance for pallegina.  so, do you hire somebody else to do pallegina?  does that make sense?  hire a dedicated romance writer to help obsidian writers with their romance characters? how much time do you lose hiring a romance writer or do you have a capable obsidian writer take josh's character from him?  the hypothetical obsidian writer who takes over for josh is now doubling-up his/her workload? obsidian no doubt recognized the writing talents they had available as well as the man-hour limitations they were facing in their attempt to release the game by end of 2014.  obsidian reflected and realized that they couldn't do quality romances with their resources.  call it money v. resources is hardly important, but somebody wants to have a laugh at your expense... somebody not Gromnir.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps perhaps josh is a closet jane austen or emily brontë. if that is the case, we apologize for our implication that mr. sawyer is not an ideal romance writer.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Gromnir

[Zwiebelchen]

What is fun about that? Obsidian has said so several times. 

 

I guess it wasn't about the point of that answer, but the indirect implications that can be associated with it. You know ... women are expensive and stuff.

[Lephys]

It's okay Gromnir. You're only suggesting that it seems as though Josh shouldn't write any romances. So, you wouldn't really be wrong if it turns out he's a romance master.

 

Of course, around here it seems to be customary to pretend like I can't deduce that, and insist that you change your word usage until it's perfectly correct and can't be taken the wrong way in the slightest, u_u...

 

 

I guess it wasn't about the point of that answer, but the indirect implications that can be associated with it. You know ... women are expensive and stuff.

Wow... so women are the only ones that can constitute romance?!!!!!! O_O?!!!!!!

 

I joke, . Just wanted to get that exaggerated joke response in before a real one showed up.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Lephys

[PBJam]

My romance is that I'm in love with this game

[Karkarov]

ps perhaps josh is a closet jane austen or emily brontë. if that is the case, we apologize for our implication that mr. sawyer is not an ideal romance writer.

There is also the fact that various Obsidian staff have gone on record saying they don't like writing Romance, Sawyer is one of them.  Even if they had a mil more than they did, there was still going to be no romance in game 1.  They decided that in the planning stages themselves I wager.

 

To respond to OP:

 

1. There are plenty of hairstyles, yes female elves can have long hair.
2. There are plenty of armors including robes, plain old rags, tatty animal hides, cultist robes, regular peasant clothing, simple tunics, etc etc.
3. Combat is real time but you can pause it whenever you want and you can also set up a number of auto pause clauses such as pause when an enemy is sighted.
4. Guess you don't want to buy the game then.  There is no respawn, but there is also very little if any reason to revisit a place once you clear it out since your inventory is infinite so you have no excuse to not do everything in one go short of running out of camping supplies and being forced to return to town.
5. There is no romance in Pillars of Eternity.
6. It will be moddable, some mods already exist, it will not be easy.

[Gairnulf]

I remember a question on the bioware forums way back, before NWN was released. Someone was asking one of the most regularly asked questions:

 

"Will there be mounts in this game?"

And the answer that I remember word for word, because of how hard I laughed:

 

I plan to mount many a elf maiden during my travels.

So, yeah, anout those romances, I'm sure I read somewhere there will be prostitutes. You can always develop a one-sided romance with one. Even Peter Dinklage did... Edited March 5, 2015 by Gairnulf

[Infinitron]

https://forums.swordcoast.com/index.php?/topic/298-a-few-basic-questions-character-creation-and-such/?p=3251 O_o

[WorstUsernameEver]

https://forums.swordcoast.com/index.php?/topic/298-a-few-basic-questions-character-creation-and-such/?p=3251 O_o

What's weird about that? Person cares about certain things in videogames and asks about them for two different titles that largely cover the same niche.

[Ark Evensong]

I'm going to be contrary and say no, no Long Hair - nothing past the shoulders. There are, I think, two ponytail variants that would be longer, but they're tied up pretty high.

 

As far as respawns are concerned - as already said, no respawns, but considering about 2/3 to 3/4 of the game's content is optional, I don't see how you'd ever be in a mad rush to the finish line.

[Karkarov]

I'm going to be contrary and say no, no Long Hair - nothing past the shoulders. There are, I think, two ponytail variants that would be longer, but they're tied up pretty high.

 

As far as respawns are concerned - as already said, no respawns, but considering about 2/3 to 3/4 of the game's content is optional, I don't see how you'd ever be in a mad rush to the finish line.

Okay to be fair he has a point.  If it has to be all the way down to someones butt or rivaling Rapunzel before you consider it to be "long" then no, there is no long hair in game.  If you consider top of shoulders a teensy bit past that to be long, then yes.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Karkarov

[Lephys]

The "long" hair that's only a foot long always bugs me, from a "I want to customize my character" standpoint. BUT, I get that hair past that inherently creates all kinds of clipping problems that must be solved. So... *shrug*. All things considered, I don't mind.

 

But, in a game like Fallout: NV, for example... it ends up being that all the options are so similar, everyone kinda looks "the same." You never really have drastically different head silhouettes, etc. Hair's one of the few things you can actually go pretty wild with in that regard, because it's hard to allow a ton of facial/head variance without things looking reallllllly wonky.

[Dimitri Berman]

Long hair is really, really difficult to do in games, which is why you don't see it often. Not in any game where you can customize from many hair options. If it's part of the character that is never customizable, a special dynamic rig can be created, so something like Tomb Raider can do it, and do it well. But an RPG with many hair variants spread across many body proportions, spread across many armor types, it is not feasible given a production schedule. On one outfit the hair will be inside the body, on another it will float off the body, it will look terrible - so we just avoid it. 

[Lephys]

Yeah, I didn't know all the specifics, as I am but a fledgling when it comes to game development, but I realize it's not easy at all. That's why I don't hold it against any dev team that puts out a game with hair only ranging from short to less-short.

 

It's just one of those things... in a perfect world, it would be so great to have customizeable luscious locks.

 

For what it's worth, I really like the variety you guys have put into the hairstyles in this game.

[Suhiir]

4. Respawns Here is a huge one for me..I like to take my time in rpgs and not just feel like a drone stuck in forward mode. Will monsters in the world and dungeons (aside from bosses) respawn?  if no.. well that is a huge deal breaker for me..sorry, Don't like rushing to the end and walking through blank maps.

Since you don't really get XP for killing stuff in the game (you do to an extent, but once you learn all about them you get zip) I for one really hate the idea of endless respawns.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition they've made the respawns pretty darn fast and once you're three levels above them you get no XP.  So wadeing thru endless hordes of respawning stuff over-and-over-and-over is far more annoying then fun from my perspective.

[kryadan]

 

4. Respawns Here is a huge one for me..I like to take my time in rpgs and not just feel like a drone stuck in forward mode. Will monsters in the world and dungeons (aside from bosses) respawn?  if no.. well that is a huge deal breaker for me..sorry, Don't like rushing to the end and walking through blank maps.

Since you don't really get XP for killing stuff in the game (you do to an extent, but once you learn all about them you get zip) I for one really hate the idea of endless respawns.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition they've made the respawns pretty darn fast and once you're three levels above them you get no XP.  So wadeing thru endless hordes of respawning stuff over-and-over-and-over is far more annoying then fun from my perspective.

 

Respawns would be needed for crafting. Animals drop leather and hides etc etc that are needed

[cmergler]

Not in this game. The crafting does not allow you to take hides and/or leather to craft a new armor.

 

It allows to take an armor you already have and upgrade it to a higher quality, or give it an enchantment. No respawning means also you are not able to just farm the ingredients and money to make upgrades easily attainable.

[Cantousent]

I've seen other threads about the respawn issue.  I always want enough to make the world feel vibrant and alive, but not so much you feel like you haven't impacted anything.  If they just respawn the whole map all the time, that's just as offputting as clearing an area and never having anything there again.  A few respawns and a few random and set encounters for travel.

[Zwiebelchen]

Long hair is really, really difficult to do in games, which is why you don't see it often. Not in any game where you can customize from many hair options. If it's part of the character that is never customizable, a special dynamic rig can be created, so something like Tomb Raider can do it, and do it well. But an RPG with many hair variants spread across many body proportions, spread across many armor types, it is not feasible given a production schedule. On one outfit the hair will be inside the body, on another it will float off the body, it will look terrible - so we just avoid it. 

 

MMORPGs usually circumvent this problem by having two variations of each hair model:

The normal model and a "knotted" model which is used as soon as there's a model in place that the hair might clip through (like helmets or giant shoulder pads).

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n201/hk_2/GW2/collar_updo.jpg

 

Quite effective idea imho. It doubles the amount of required models but that's about it.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Stun]

4. Respawns Here is a huge one for me..I like to take my time in rpgs and not just feel like a drone stuck in forward mode. Will monsters in the world and dungeons (aside from bosses) respawn?  if no.. well that is a huge deal breaker for me..sorry, Don't like rushing to the end and walking through blank maps.

What do you mean by 'rushing to the end and walking through blank maps'?

 

The maps aren't blank. They're populated by monsters and other assorted challenges. The game then allows you to take your time and deal with those challenges as you see fit. And the design is non-linear in nature.

 

There's nothing that respawning adds to this formula except make all your time and effort worthless. "hey, you cleared that dungeon and made the nearby village safe! You're a hero! No wait.... everything you killed in that dungeon has just respawned.

 

 

Edit: and the "respawning keeps the world vibrant" point is little more than an argument in a vacuum. First off, Dungeons do not need to remain "vibrant" after the threat therein has been dealt with. And second, intelligent developers who wish to further the 'living world' feeling to a cleared map can easily do so without resorting to such artificial arcade-game methods like magically respawning what you previously killed there. They could, instead, place new, non-hostile set pieces in that map. For example, an abandoned warehouse is the home of a necromancer and his skeleton minions. So you go clear it out. A few days later, that warehouse is now populated by.... warehouse workers.

 

Or, the devs could do what we saw in last weekend's demo. Send you out to a map you already cleared, in order to deal with a Bounty encounter...which wasn't on that map before you got the quest.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Stun

[Cantousent]

The last part of your post is what I'd like to see.  There need not be a bunch of respawns.  Actually, no respawns are good.  Instead, new spawns in areas that make sense for new spawns.  If you help the town deal with all immediate threats, then it should be safe.  It can probably count on relatively clear sailing in the vicinity.  Remote areas you clear might have new spawns in them or even some set encounters placed just for the event that the area is clear.  Even then, it should be abandoned for a while and the new denizens who eventually come should be sensible.  I want the world to show the impact of your passage, but not look like this static place that only exists because the PC does.  Of course, the world only exists because it was created for the players, but that's different.  So, a few random or set encounters and some new spawns, used judiciously, make sense to me.  ...But if the choice is between every map completely respawning and staying completely cleared after we clear them, I'd rather they stay completely cleared.

 

EDIT:  Cleaned up a little.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Cantousent