Biz Advice for Obsidian

[st2988]

Obsidian Entertainment:

 

1) PoE's frame rates are playable on an Intel HD 4000 Core i5 Processor, but only with anti-aliasing turned off. The game still looks pretty damn good with anti-aliasing turned off. Given that you are marketing this game to Mac users, most of whom own laptops without dedicated GPUs, you should probably include the option to turn off anti-aliasing to improve performance. This will lead to a much warmer reception from a lot of Macbook owners or PCs with integrated GPUs (i.e. most laptops and desktops / the semi-casual gamer market).

 

2) PoE needs to have a gamma and brightness slider in the graphics settings. If someone is playing on a screen that is calibrated poorly for your game, the game is too dark to play comfortably, which will lead to poor customer reviews. This oversight forces the gamer to have sufficient knowledge of their GPU driver tools to adjust the brightness and gamma manually.

 

Both of these options are fairly standard features and should be included as soon after release as possible if they are not already included in the Day 1 patch or the pre-release build. If they have been included, please disregard this message.

[Darren Monahan]

Hi St2988, thanks! I completely agree on both of those. I know #2 has been discussed a couple times internally too, just not exactly sure where it is yet on the patch schedule (but it's important for sure.) Passing this along to our internal QA!

[AndreaColombo]

st2988—to turn off anti-aliasing, bring up the console and type

 

msaa 0

[BAdler]

Obsidian Entertainment:

 

1) PoE's frame rates are playable on an Intel HD 4000 Core i5 Processor, but only with anti-aliasing turned off. The game still looks pretty damn good with anti-aliasing turned off. Given that you are marketing this game to Mac users, most of whom own laptops without dedicated GPUs, you should probably include the option to turn off anti-aliasing to improve performance. This will lead to a much warmer reception from a lot of Macbook owners or PCs with integrated GPUs (i.e. most laptops and desktops / the semi-casual gamer market).

 

2) PoE needs to have a gamma and brightness slider in the graphics settings. If someone is playing on a screen that is calibrated poorly for your game, the game is too dark to play comfortably, which will lead to poor customer reviews. This oversight forces the gamer to have sufficient knowledge of their GPU driver tools to adjust the brightness and gamma manually.

 

Both of these options are fairly standard features and should be included as soon after release as possible if they are not already included in the Day 1 patch or the pre-release build. If they have been included, please disregard this message.

 

1) We should be able to expose anti-aliasing in our options menu. It was an oversight on our part.

 

2) Darren didn't know this but we were able to sneak in a gamma slider into the reviewer and day one patches. You should see it when we release the game later today.

[Luckmann]

 

Obsidian Entertainment:

 

1) PoE's frame rates are playable on an Intel HD 4000 Core i5 Processor, but only with anti-aliasing turned off. The game still looks pretty damn good with anti-aliasing turned off. Given that you are marketing this game to Mac users, most of whom own laptops without dedicated GPUs, you should probably include the option to turn off anti-aliasing to improve performance. This will lead to a much warmer reception from a lot of Macbook owners or PCs with integrated GPUs (i.e. most laptops and desktops / the semi-casual gamer market).

 

2) PoE needs to have a gamma and brightness slider in the graphics settings. If someone is playing on a screen that is calibrated poorly for your game, the game is too dark to play comfortably, which will lead to poor customer reviews. This oversight forces the gamer to have sufficient knowledge of their GPU driver tools to adjust the brightness and gamma manually.

 

Both of these options are fairly standard features and should be included as soon after release as possible if they are not already included in the Day 1 patch or the pre-release build. If they have been included, please disregard this message.

 

1) We should be able to expose anti-aliasing in our options menu. It was an oversight on our part.

 

2) Darren didn't know this but we were able to sneak in a gamma slider into the reviewer and day one patches. You should see it when we release the game later today.

 

 

Hahaha, this is so funny, because I wanted to make a post where I insinuated that Monahan was just going like "Oh shi.. uh.. is there no.. uhm.. did we forget that?" and then getting on the phone with QA right away, because you just forgot to add it, a complete oversight, like "Oh schnaps". I didn't, because I felt it would be a bit out of place or could be taken the wrong way.

 

And now you say I was right?

 

That being said, I want to say thank you all for all the hard work, and thanks for really working on this all the way up until release. I'm not sure what state you people are in at the moment, but at the very least you're conveying the feeling like you're spit-polishing it all the way out the door. Truly inspiring, and I hope you all get an opportunity to just sit down and relax together very soon.

[Kordanor]

 

1) We should be able to expose anti-aliasing in our options menu. It was an oversight on our part.

 

2) Darren didn't know this but we were able to sneak in a gamma slider into the reviewer and day one patches. You should see it when we release the game later today.

 

 

When and where can we expect to see the patch notes?

[LadyCrimson]

st2988—to turn off anti-aliasing, bring up the console and type

 

msaa 0

Since it's a console command, would it disable Steam Achievements? eg, some games on Steam using cheats/console etc. may disable Steam achievements.

 

Not that I personally care about Achievements, but some do, so might be good to know?

[AndreaColombo]

 

Since it's a console command, would it disable Steam Achievements? eg, some games on Steam using cheats/console etc. may disable Steam achievements.

 

Not that I personally care about Achievements, but some do, so might be good to know?

 

 

I honestly do not know. I think it does disable achievements (as in, you must first type "IRoll20s" and then use it) but only BMac would know for sure (he implemented this particular console command).

[Ark Evensong]

Eh, pretty sure it works without the Iroll20s cheat, so your Achievements should be safe. 

 

Uh, if it works at all, because I'm not sure I see a difference? (Er, maybe a little ?)

 

Anyway, gameplay changing console commands are locked behind the iroll20s command. Engine related stuff is (or should) not, and will work without enabling cheats.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Ark Evensong