Is it already known how large the game world will be? For example, does it stretch over a whole planet with different climate zones? Or is it set in a specific continent? I'm afraid that I'm not that well informed about the specifics of PoE.
If you click on the picture at the top right of that article you'll see a map of the area where most of PoE will be taking place.
It's... it's smaller than I hoped for. Judging from this single map, the implemented game world will be merely the pennisula of an subcontinent-ish landmass. Or something along those lines. I kind of hoped to see a complete world map with all continents on it.
Or just stop discussing that topic:) Let's instead discuss the delay news.
Personally, I'm hugely relieved. The worst thing that could happen is them releasing the game, considered to "continue the classical RPGs", in a non-ready state. It would shift the focus of players completely, forcing them to bring negativity of titanic sizes. PoE, along with Numenera, just ought to be polished. Only the best state that can be is a guarantee we will focus on gameplay, quests and features. The story of BGEE (1 and 2) releases shows just how it's important to ship a game in an appropriate state.
And basing my view on the Beta I think PoE is in fact far from that. They still change basic features of the game, try different approaches to skills and classes. Combining that and fixing bugs is a very hard work.
This is the very situation when " it will be out only when it's ready" concept suits so much. Just as with IWDEE.
So, I'll gladly wait for not only "early 2015" but also"middle 2015" and eve "late 2015" if in the end they release the real quality.
Based on what I read here, delaying seems to be a good choice. But delaying also costs money and they don't have much for spare (personal guess). I don't think they can afford to ship it "out only when it's ready", I think they have a limit.
@Kamigoroshi the area is described as being roughly (or slightly smaller than) the size of Spain... I think it looks reasonably sized and packed with areas. I guess we'd all like more areas of course, I'm looking forward to a nice expansion and a sequel that's larger than the first installment.
Based on what I read here, delaying seems to be a good choice. But delaying also costs money and they don't have much for spare (personal guess). I don't think they can afford to ship it "out only when it's ready", I think they have a limit.
In fact, they don't.
Feargus Urquhart, CEO Obsidian: "Since the very beginning of this project we promised our fans and ourselves that we would release this game only when we knew it would be absolutely ready for the best experience possible. We're very close to that point, but not quite there yet. The feedback we have received through our playtest process has been invaluable to us. We are coming into the home stretch but are pushing the release out just a bit to make sure we honor that promise we made originally. Thanks for your patience and support, it will be worth the wait."
As a side note, the announcement has already recieved 75 likes (!) on their forum - these figures say people, in general, support this decision.
And it's quite understandable, just check this list complied by Sensuki, one of the most active forumite...
Areas that need an improvement:
Performance Pathfinding - nuff said AI - nuff said Fog of War Persistence / Save Load Combat Feedback - is a mess / lacking Melee Engagement - is a mess User Interface Screens (most of them, excluding dialogue and scripted interaction) UI Options (things need to be toggleable, extra granularity, sliders implemented) More & Better Animations Spell FX - too flashy most of the time Attribute System (design/balancing) Recovery Time - needs a look Combat Speed & Pacing - too much pausing at the moment Health System - need to get adventuring day right in relation to game difficulty Movement Speed - too fast Weapon Balance - low dmg weapons suck unless you're a rogue Weapon Style balance - shields are bad on most classes, two weapon fighting is broken Ability & Spell Balance - some abilities and spells are garbage, some are OP Class Balance Creature Balance Area Navmesh issues - Dyrford Crossing has several navmesh issues Player Race Character Art - proportions, quality, visual recognition needs work Player Race Armor & Proportions - no uniformity yet Player Race Heads - a lot of them are unfinished Character Portraits - need more Sound Design - missing a lot of sounds Area Design (Mostly related to Dyrford Crossing, I have not spent time in Stormwall Gorge yet - one at a time) Controls - control schemes need work, functions need addition / splitting Graphical Issues - occlusion and sorting are big problems at the moment Environment and Character Colors - too washed out Talent System Character Creation / Leveling Up - need more stuff, change UI, change order Looting - not all characters drop their gear
I think they have a room for making some delays, but I just meant that they can't postpone the release too much, because eventually they would run out of money. I believe it won't happen though.
I watched a gameplay trailer of Tides of Numenera, the "next" Planescape game.
I think Obsidian should take a lesson from them in animation and character graphics, to be honest.
Their environment art was beautiful in Pillars, but character and animation wise... below average.
Well Tides of Numenera has the benefit of the deal they made with Obsidian in which Obsidian is letting them use the PoE engine (as in, any of the changes they made to the Unity engine that Tides of Numenera could benefit from) as well as other resources Obsidian has developed for PoE. I'm not sure about the details of the deal, but I have to imagine that InXile is spending less licensing them from Obsidian than Obsidian did in creating them. Also, Tides of Numenera has a larger budget and the advantage of the team having spent the last several years creating another isometric, party-based RPG in the Unity engine.
I agree that some of the graphics and animations seemed better than in PoE, but that's sort of expected given all the above factors. PoE has a good look of its own, though, and who knows how much effect the polish between now and release will have on the animations and character graphics.
So, any delay with the PoE release, if it means the better quality, may also mean the better quality for Torment.
When comparing the two games we should remember these words by Chris Avellone, the developer playing a part in PoE and Torment: "Numenera is much more free flowing, much more story-focused, and Eternity is stuff like dungeon exploration, party team, how do you approach a problem, how do you approach an encounter". (http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/10/4210278/chris-avellone-project-eternity-torment-tides-of-numenera/)
Thus I think the games will be different and will feel differently but it doesn't necessarily mean one of them will be better than the other: I guess some will like one of them more while others will prefer another game. I hope I will both games though
In short: Additional talents and abilities available as you level up your characters Improved UI and more customizable UI Cleaned up combat and more sweet IE-class combat feedback functionality
In details: "One of the major focuses for the team over the past few weeks was adding in additional character progression options and cleaning up UI to make combat a little less chaotic.
You can expect everything from additional Talents and Ability selection choices to UI and HUD improvements in our next update. We are also very close to getting the Mac and Linux versions of the Backer Beta to you guys. It may even make it into the next Beta update.
In fact, here is one of the Backer Beta requested UI changes - Infinity Engine-style targeting reticles."
Many of our Italian-speaking backers asked for us to include them in the list of languages we were localizing for the game. After speaking with Paradox about the issue it was decided that we would include Italian localizations. For those folks that have access to the Backer Beta, they should see Italian languages options (and corresponding translations) as soon as our next update.
TLDR: Massive number of new talents, general combat and pathfinding fixes, and adjustments to core abilities.
Yeah, everyone, check the update. It's mind-blowing:
- over a hundred (!!!) Talents have been added to allow more options for class customization during the level up process.
- you can no longer spend points to upgrade skills during level up. All skill advancement is now done through Talents, and thematically grouped Talents will award additional skill points if chosen during level up. Your background choice during character creation will also reward additional skill points.
- they decided to add a few more ways to gain experience points to increase the regularity that XP is rewarded throughout the game: minor bestiary, exploration, lock, and trap XP rewards. Bestiary XP is rewarded when new entries are unlocked in the Bestiary page in the Journal, and will stop being rewarded if the entry is complete. Exploration XP is given out when new areas and landmarks are discovered in the world.
Keep in mind it contains spoilers for the early sections of the game (though details of the plot are still kept under wraps). Lots of locations are visible on the world map, @Kamigoroshi , it may be interesting especially for you since you asked about it in the past.
But if...if you want to see it, this twitch stream is amazing. Lots and lots of new details: companions have a talk button, a non-hostile NPC in a wilderness area, a new Aumaua head, the list can go on and on.
The host (the man who plays, YouTuber Jesse Cox) can be a little bit annoying but the game looks superb.
Here is a sampling of the new icons that have been going in for various treasure and quest items:
They conducted an internal play week so the developers could get a good feeling for how the game felt from start to finish (or at least as far as they could get).
What they learned:
- Pillars of Eternity is a big game. Only two of our developers managed to finish. One was a designer who developed a lot of the crit path and sprinted straight for the end. The other found an early ending and decided to wrap his story up there. About half of the developers had not yet made it to Defiance Bay (the first big city). Most of the devs had a lot of fun playing the game. The players ranged from hardened IE veterans to fresh newcomers. There was enough challenge for the old guard but none of the new players were so overwhelmed that they couldn't learn as they went along. - Even so, tutorial tips and the Glossary can go a long way. While some of the players picked things up quickly, most found the learning curve to be difficult. We're addressing the major points with tutorial messages, clearer and more descriptive Glossary entries, and refinements to the UI. - Despite our bug fixes to animation and Recovery times, combat was still too fast. We increased the Recovery of most creatures and tuned the global Recovery factor to slow down combat overall. Movement speed was also tuned down for a large number of creatures (specifically, spiders, beetles, many spirits, and other creatures). - Melee Engagement needs to be communicated more clearly. The arrows we currently use are really a secondary piece of information, who is Engaging whom. We will be modifying the selection circle itself when someone is Engaged to make the state very obvious at a glance. Additionally, we still need a visual effect to indicate when a Disengagement Attack is occurring. - We also found that the standard casting and Recovery times were too long. People felt that they could not respond to threats quickly enough. The standard casting time was adjusted down to make casting feel less sluggish. Hiring adventurers, buying items, crafting, and enchanting were all much too expensive. These have all been made more affordable, especially crafting and enchanting. - All classes need a per encounter ability to use at 1st level. Early in the game, it's easy to run completely out of per rest abilities and you may have few or no companions. Per encounter abilities ensure that every class has something to do other than auto-attack at low levels.
Comments
Personally, I'm hugely relieved. The worst thing that could happen is them releasing the game, considered to "continue the classical RPGs", in a non-ready state. It would shift the focus of players completely, forcing them to bring negativity of titanic sizes. PoE, along with Numenera, just ought to be polished. Only the best state that can be is a guarantee we will focus on gameplay, quests and features. The story of BGEE (1 and 2) releases shows just how it's important to ship a game in an appropriate state.
And basing my view on the Beta I think PoE is in fact far from that. They still change basic features of the game, try different approaches to skills and classes. Combining that and fixing bugs is a very hard work.
This is the very situation when " it will be out only when it's ready" concept suits so much. Just as with IWDEE.
So, I'll gladly wait for not only "early 2015" but also"middle 2015" and eve "late 2015" if in the end they release the real quality.
Feargus Urquhart, CEO Obsidian: "Since the very beginning of this project we promised our fans and ourselves that we would release this game only when we knew it would be absolutely ready for the best experience possible. We're very close to that point, but not quite there yet. The feedback we have received through our playtest process has been invaluable to us. We are coming into the home stretch but are pushing the release out just a bit to make sure we honor that promise we made originally. Thanks for your patience and support, it will be worth the wait."
As a side note, the announcement has already recieved 75 likes (!) on their forum - these figures say people, in general, support this decision.
And it's quite understandable, just check this list complied by Sensuki, one of the most active forumite...
Areas that need an improvement:
Performance
Pathfinding - nuff said
AI - nuff said
Fog of War
Persistence / Save Load
Combat Feedback - is a mess / lacking
Melee Engagement - is a mess
User Interface Screens (most of them, excluding dialogue and scripted interaction)
UI Options (things need to be toggleable, extra granularity, sliders implemented)
More & Better Animations
Spell FX - too flashy most of the time
Attribute System (design/balancing)
Recovery Time - needs a look
Combat Speed & Pacing - too much pausing at the moment
Health System - need to get adventuring day right in relation to game difficulty
Movement Speed - too fast
Weapon Balance - low dmg weapons suck unless you're a rogue
Weapon Style balance - shields are bad on most classes, two weapon fighting is broken
Ability & Spell Balance - some abilities and spells are garbage, some are OP
Class Balance
Creature Balance
Area Navmesh issues - Dyrford Crossing has several navmesh issues
Player Race Character Art - proportions, quality, visual recognition needs work
Player Race Armor & Proportions - no uniformity yet
Player Race Heads - a lot of them are unfinished
Character Portraits - need more
Sound Design - missing a lot of sounds
Area Design (Mostly related to Dyrford Crossing, I have not spent time in Stormwall Gorge yet - one at a time)
Controls - control schemes need work, functions need addition / splitting
Graphical Issues - occlusion and sorting are big problems at the moment
Environment and Character Colors - too washed out
Talent System
Character Creation / Leveling Up - need more stuff, change UI, change order
Looting - not all characters drop their gear
I think Obsidian should take a lesson from them in animation and character graphics, to be honest.
Their environment art was beautiful in Pillars, but character and animation wise... below average.
I agree that some of the graphics and animations seemed better than in PoE, but that's sort of expected given all the above factors. PoE has a good look of its own, though, and who knows how much effect the polish between now and release will have on the animations and character graphics.
So, any delay with the PoE release, if it means the better quality, may also mean the better quality for Torment.
When comparing the two games we should remember these words by Chris Avellone, the developer playing a part in PoE and Torment: "Numenera is much more free flowing, much more story-focused, and Eternity is stuff like dungeon exploration, party team, how do you approach a problem, how do you approach an encounter". (http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/10/4210278/chris-avellone-project-eternity-torment-tides-of-numenera/)
Thus I think the games will be different and will feel differently but it doesn't necessarily mean one of them will be better than the other: I guess some will like one of them more while others will prefer another game. I hope I will both games though
In short:
Additional talents and abilities available as you level up your characters
Improved UI and more customizable UI
Cleaned up combat and more sweet IE-class combat feedback functionality
In details:
"One of the major focuses for the team over the past few weeks was adding in additional character progression options and cleaning up UI to make combat a little less chaotic.
You can expect everything from additional Talents and Ability selection choices to UI and HUD improvements in our next update. We are also very close to getting the Mac and Linux versions of the Backer Beta to you guys. It may even make it into the next Beta update.
In fact, here is one of the Backer Beta requested UI changes - Infinity Engine-style targeting reticles."
More can be read here: http://eternity.obsidian.net/news/update-86-polish-feedback-bugfixing-and-goodies
Stopped playing BG long time ago, and just getting started at DA:O..
Guess when im finished with it, its time for Pillars
http://eternity.obsidian.net/news/update-86-polish-feedback-bugfixing-and-goodies
Yeah, everyone, check the update. It's mind-blowing:
- over a hundred (!!!) Talents have been added to allow more options for class customization during the level up process.
- you can no longer spend points to upgrade skills during level up. All skill advancement is now done through Talents, and thematically grouped Talents will award additional skill points if chosen during level up. Your background choice during character creation will also reward additional skill points.
- they decided to add a few more ways to gain experience points to increase the regularity that XP is rewarded throughout the game: minor bestiary, exploration, lock, and trap XP rewards. Bestiary XP is rewarded when new entries are unlocked in the Bestiary page in the Journal, and will stop being rewarded if the entry is complete. Exploration XP is given out when new areas and landmarks are discovered in the world.
- lot's and lot's of other fixes.
Sounds more than promising. Details here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69054-backer-beta-build-333-is-live/
$45 to purchase
Preorder = 10% off for 2 weeks. Check the humble store, steam, or the teams website for details. Still slated for q1 2015
Yesterday they went and gave us 2 hours+ of live twitch stream of Pillars of Eternity!
With commentary offered by project director Josh Sawyer himself.
A recording of the stream is here:
http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/b/588477048
Keep in mind it contains spoilers for the early sections of the game (though details of the plot are still kept under wraps). Lots of locations are visible on the world map, @Kamigoroshi , it may be interesting especially for you since you asked about it in the past.
But if...if you want to see it, this twitch stream is amazing. Lots and lots of new details: companions have a talk button, a non-hostile NPC in a wilderness area, a new Aumaua head, the list can go on and on.
The host (the man who plays, YouTuber Jesse Cox) can be a little bit annoying but the game looks superb.
Companion voice over sample:
Here is a sampling of the new icons that have been going in for various treasure and quest items:
They conducted an internal play week so the developers could get a good feeling for how the game felt from start to finish (or at least as far as they could get).
What they learned:
- Pillars of Eternity is a big game. Only two of our developers managed to finish. One was a designer who developed a lot of the crit path and sprinted straight for the end. The other found an early ending and decided to wrap his story up there. About half of the developers had not yet made it to Defiance Bay (the first big city).
Most of the devs had a lot of fun playing the game. The players ranged from hardened IE veterans to fresh newcomers. There was enough challenge for the old guard but none of the new players were so overwhelmed that they couldn't learn as they went along.
- Even so, tutorial tips and the Glossary can go a long way. While some of the players picked things up quickly, most found the learning curve to be difficult. We're addressing the major points with tutorial messages, clearer and more descriptive Glossary entries, and refinements to the UI.
- Despite our bug fixes to animation and Recovery times, combat was still too fast. We increased the Recovery of most creatures and tuned the global Recovery factor to slow down combat overall. Movement speed was also tuned down for a large number of creatures (specifically, spiders, beetles, many spirits, and other creatures).
- Melee Engagement needs to be communicated more clearly. The arrows we currently use are really a secondary piece of information, who is Engaging whom. We will be modifying the selection circle itself when someone is Engaged to make the state very obvious at a glance. Additionally, we still need a visual effect to indicate when a Disengagement Attack is occurring.
- We also found that the standard casting and Recovery times were too long. People felt that they could not respond to threats quickly enough. The standard casting time was adjusted down to make casting feel less sluggish.
Hiring adventurers, buying items, crafting, and enchanting were all much too expensive. These have all been made more affordable, especially crafting and enchanting.
- All classes need a per encounter ability to use at 1st level. Early in the game, it's easy to run completely out of per rest abilities and you may have few or no companions. Per encounter abilities ensure that every class has something to do other than auto-attack at low levels.
http://eternity.obsidian.net/news/update-87-internal-play-testing-vo-performance-optimization-mac-build-and-more