EPTCan't wait for more of those pre-rendered backgrounds, soo good. I'm not really sold by the monk mechanics, seems similar to WoW monk? 0o
Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian Isometric RPG Kickstarter) -…
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Andre
Slovenia3523 Posts
Can't wait for more of those pre-rendered backgrounds, soo good. I'm not really sold by the monk mechanics, seems similar to WoW monk? 0o | ||
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GizmoPT
Portugal3040 Posts
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karazax
United States3737 Posts
![[image loading]](http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0051/pe-village-580.jpg) Larger picture Last month we finished our prototype 1 build. In Update # 47, Josh outlined our goals for the first prototype, which focused on establishing "that IE feel". Not only did we hit that mark with the look of our characters and environments, but we also hit our target with movement, combat, and gameplay systems. Core basics that you all expect from Project Eternity such as party movement, melee and ranged combat attacks, containers (with loot!), doors, using special class abilities and spell casting, area transitions, inventory and equipment are all in the game and functioning. We also established working character and environment pipelines - the art team is now able to create beautiful rendered areas, and we can model armor sets for all of our uniquely proportioned races. Additionally, we've established that we can efficiently concept, model and animate creatures for our soon to be growing bestiary. The creature we built for the first prototype is the Skuldr. ![[image loading]](http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0051/pe-skuldr-ingame-580.jpg) Larger version Skuldr have poor vision, but they use a form of echolocation to perceive the spirit world. This allows them to “see” souls, making it difficult to use stealth to avoid them. After the prototype 1 audit meeting, Josh and I came up with a plan for what we would like to see the team tackle in prototype 2. Josh has previously mentioned a few of the goals for prototype 2 which include fog of war, character voice sets, crafting, stores, AI patrols, and the melee engagement system. Besides the expanded feature implementation, we are going to put our pipelines to the test on another set of new environments and creatures before moving into production. The plan for prototype 2 is to create a small village with a handful of buildings to enter, including a shop and inn. To the east of the village is a medium sized wilderness area with access to a small cave dungeon interior. The prototype also includes a large dungeon (I won't spoil the contents of the dungeon, because some of the ideas in the prototype will eventually make their way into the shipped game). All of these areas are connected by a complex multi-stage quest with several objectives (some optional) and with many different ways of completing it. The team has been working on a second prototype for the past two weeks now. Here's a sample on what each department has been working on. Art
• Dungeon - Our goal for the dungeon is to make an interior area that lives up to the IE games. The dungeon has a variety of rooms that are unique and organic. • New Monster - One of the new monsters we are creating for prototype 2 is an Ogre. He has already gone through the concept and modeling stage and now is off to be animated. ![[image loading]](http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0051/pe-ogre-concept-580.jpg) Larger version Design
• Class Abilities for the Monk and Ranger - The Monk's "wounds" resource is in, and next up is the mechanics for the Ranger's animal companion. The class progression for the Monk and Ranger has been designed out to level 12. Programming
• Fancy Material Shaders - We now have fancy materials for creating shiny armor and translucent ghost skin. Another set of shaders are "Tint maps" materials that enable the customization of skin and clothing colors just like in the IE games. In the future we will go into details into the design and implementation of the systems and features. Is there a particular feature that you would like to know more about? Tell us what you would like to see us talk about in future updates on our Forums. | ||
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jeeeeohn
United States1343 Posts
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
On May 23 2013 05:31 jeeeeohn wrote: Can't wait! I'm really excited. Project Eternity, the new Torment game, and Lord British's project have gotten me back into video games. Hell yeah. Also check out Metro Last Light if you haven't already btw. Yeah I know it's not a kickstarter game or even an RPG but it's utterly brilliant. Definitely restored some of my faith in gaming. | ||
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karazax
United States3737 Posts
Update by Rob Nesler, Art Director ![[image loading]](http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0054/pe-hud-wip.580.jpg) Larger Version- Above is a UI mockup that Kaz has put over the original Kickstarter image. What do you think? I know what you are thinking. What the hell have the artists been doing?? The art in this game should be half done by now! Right? That's what I want to know! Why isn't the game half-done already? Well, as I've said before we're "professionals." We proceed in a highly-complex collaboration/iteration loop of blending design wants and dos, programming cans, think-they-cans and dos and artist wants, cans, can-but-don't-know-how-longs and dos. As you can see - and please don't get angry - this is all very technical. Know that: work is progressing. Yeeeargh! Enough with your silly stupid words, Rob!! What the hell does that mean?? Uhh... not sure, but I'll tell you what I think it means: You've read about Prototype 1 and then prototype 2. Those were efforts to implement features that represent the functional and playable standard of our goal: an Infinity Engine style of game. Those efforts were focused collaborations of designing, programming and art-ing things, trying them out, addressing problems as they came up (visual, functional or otherwise failing to live up to our standard) and repeating. The art goals were held to an 80-90% complete (aka: unpolished). The remaining 10-20% of work will be left toward the end of the "next phase," as always there will be edits and modifications after initial implementation of art. The basic truth of this interactive artistic endeavor that we are involved in is that you can't know it's a worthwhile experience, until you make it, people play it, and then provide feedback. We adjust our work to that feedback - a feedback loop. Boom! Consider yourself educated. The "next phase" is a Vertical Slice. This is a goal in which we focus on one part of the game within a shell of what is essentially the fully-featured game - relying on the things developed in the prototypes, as well as implementing a fully-functional UI, attempting to finalize all art and gameplay to a more polished standard, and accommodate design changes that are required to make the player experience more complete - as if this part were a finalized, short game in itself. Environment Artists Hector - Wilderness Areas Our Lead Environment Artist has been developing a couple of our larger external landscapes. He's doing this on the basis of a designer's block-out: a crude-but-playable space. This includes the sculpting of terrain geometry in Z brush, application of grass and dirt via mesh painting and masking in Maya, placement of objects such as structures, trees, and rocks, etc., lighting and rendering the scene, which generates our super-cool depth info. He imports all those results into the game, and then Design says: "Hey, something has come up and we need a temple in the village." So, Hector moves and massages the scene around to accommodate the change and steps through the process again. In the prototype, iteration of the village, a temple wasn't required. For the Vertical Slice, having a place where one can get quests and learn some spiritual-magicky stuff, is an important feature to include. So, we find a way to happily put it in. Sean - Dungeon/Crypt and village interiors Our other Environment Artist has been working on interiors of village structures and dungeons! He uses Z brush less for his environments as a whole, and more as a means of creating smaller natural-looking rocky things and dungeon walls. Beyond that the techniques for implementing his work are the same. The feedback and iteration with design usually yields similar tweaks and modifications. Changes like: "Uhh...we can't have a door here, anymore. Can we make it a pile of collapsed rocks, instead?" Of course the answer is "Yes!" The answer has to be "yes," because the game is worthless if the gameplay isn't worthwhile. It could be that an important critical path encounter needs to occur, maybe because the story evolved or it’s just too good an experience to allow an alternate route to exist. Ultimately, we trust our designers to wrestle with these issues and come to us with changes that matter. So if they come to us with a change, and the adjustment is reasonable and the time exists to make it, we will do it. Animators Mark - Principle Animation of All Things with Arms and Legs Our Lead Animator has been handling much of the animation requirements for the playable races. This process is also an iterative one. Design has ideas about how they want playable characters to interact with the world and enemies, and Mark then creates a set of individual animations that then blend into each other as needed, in Unity. In addition, he has created essential animations for the Skuldr and the Ogre. Essential animations are typically basic locomotion (including: walk, run and at least one idle) attacks (melee and ranged, if applicable) getting hit and dying. There are others. He blocks them in (a term for making things functional fast), puts them in the game, then he refines them. As team members playtest the game, they provide feedback. Mark continues refining until everybody is happy or the game ships - whichever comes first. No, no, no, just kidding! Mark will work tirelessly through endless nights to make certain everybody is happy with the animation. Antonio - Technical Problem Solving of Physical Things and Process Improvement I told you all you needed to know about Antonio in my last update. I showed you the rigs and rigs in rigs. These things take a while to refine, as he makes them and then people (Dimitri and Mark) have to use them. As they use the tools, they discover issues and then Antonio has to fix the issues and the process repeats itself until there are fewer and fewer issues to fix. Lately he has been working on a means of batch processing all the animations that Mark creates and efficiently exports them into the game. Mark says it's "awesome." (This is making Dimitri mad. I'll tell you why in a bit.) In addition, he has been developing some cool experiments with cloth and hair. Hopefully, in some near-future update we can show you how great it looks. Character Artists Dimitri - Skaen and Visual Differences Between Playable Characters (Races, Males and Females) Dimitri has been modeling and texturing the dirty, bloody and villainous Skaen Cultists. In-between that he has been re-exporting our characters, as new attachments, bones, weapon attachments, etc. are added to the skeletons. This is a manual process hell that eats at his soul and to see Mark enjoying the fruits of batch process heaven that Antonio has provided him, makes him think of terrible things. One of two things will happen: Dimitri will get over it, or Antonio will help him out soon. He has also been working with our graphics programmer in developing the masking system for how we can increase variety in our characters via color changes on various elements of each. We intend this ability to be passed on to the player, so that they can customize their party's colors. James - Creatures And Colors James has been focusing on modeling and texturing a ton of critters, including wurms! - not: worms, nor wyrms, or wirms, but WURMs! That is what we call our baby dragons! He's also been tasked with making certain, that via the tinting and masking that Dimitri worked on, we can generate an infinite variety of People and Monsters, and nobody will know better. Shhhhhh...Wink Wink! Concept Artists ![[image loading]](http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0054/pe-lizardlikecreature-wip.580.jpg) Polina's concept of lizard-creature-to-be-named-later. Polina - Drawerings And More Drawerings Polina has been all over the place since the presentation of the God-like Concept. She's done a bunch of interior concepts, some really cool malevolent spirit-like concepts, the lizard-like creature (below) and more! Polina takes concept development and collaboration very seriously. If I'm not paying attention, or give her a specific number, she will draw variants upon variants of thumbnails and roughs until...I think...forever. So we've restricted her to a certain number of thumbnails before a review. Otherwise we'll have to buy her a new tablet, and that is NOT in the budget! Kaz - Drawerings And User Experience As you've seen in recent updates Kaz has been tasked with coming up with cultural differences in in terms of skin color and style of clothing for the various cultural groups that we find in Project Eternity. With this and other concept-y things, he also has been tasked with developing and implementing the look of the UI and the presentation for "scripted events." Note: Regarding the image with the menubar at the start of the update, as well as the image below. You will notice that they state: "Work In Progress." In fact, the images are screen caps of the source art file for the UI that is being developed for P.E. It represents stylistic choices meant to feel very Infinity Engine-ish. We're a little curious what you might think about it. Let us know. ![[image loading]](http://media.obsidian.net/eternity/media/updates/0054/pe-scriptedevent-wip.580.jpg) Larger Version - Scripted event image by Kaz. Me??? - What have I been doing? I don't know. I just run around and say some stuff, point to something and say "eww," or "nice," or grab a bunch of people to say stuff like "Yay!" or "boo" at something, draw some stuff, and try to direct stuff, repeat. I am hopeful that these efforts keep people motivated, aware and engaged. That's it. Update Over. Now talk amongst yourselves...or use ALL CAPS, if you are feeling particularly passionate. - Rob Nesler, Art Director, Obsidian Entertainment. PS - Let’s Play Arcanum with Mr. Avellone is coming back soon to an update near you! Kickin' It Forward: HEX MMO Trading Card Game Article by Darren Monahan, operations guy ![[image loading]](http://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/443855/photo-main.jpg?1363299806) In this update's Kickin' it Forward segment, we're featuring the Hex MMO Trading Card Game from friends and neighbors over at Cryptozoic Entertainment. If you're a fan of trading card games and MMO's, HEX looks like a great game to bring these two types of games together in a unique and original fantasy world. They've got nine days left, and plenty of really cool rewards. Check it out! Care to comment? View this update on Kickstarter → | ||
BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50584 Posts
anyways Update #55 | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50584 Posts
interesting approach to the paladin. | ||
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
45 mins presentation with Avellone. pictures + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/448482projecteternity7.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/803257projecteternity6.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/968224projecteternity4.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/969394projecteternity2.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/128360projecteternity1.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/705928projecteternity11.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/595334projecteternity10.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/850815projecteternity8.jpg) Pre-rendered backgrounds with dynamic lights looks pretty. | ||
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Merany
France890 Posts
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
Q&A with Sawyer. The "stealth" question is quite interesting... would be great to play as a thief like in the old 2D infiltration games (Commando 1&2, Desperados etc...) Lancehead: I believe you said sneaking will be a little more involved than select skill -> chart a course with mouse-clicking; can you tell how you plan to make stealth (more) involving mechanics-wise? What kinds of feedback will the player receive while sneaking? Do enemies have multiple alert levels? If you alert an enemy, is the whole room/area alerted, or is it a viable tactic to pick off one by one (or at least in small groups)? Does stealth have any application outside of combat zones, scripted or otherwise? Right now our basic implementation is more involved than what was in the Infinity Engine games. Party members have a radius around them (based on their individual Stealth skills) that represents the range at which a creature's perception radius can notice them. This radius can grow larger based on the character's actions, so if you're sneaking around and you start casting a spell, it will bump up considerably. Creatures do have two detection states (other than not detecting anything): investigation and alert. If you just "bump" the edge of a creature's detection radius, it will typically move to investigate. If it gets close enough, it will switch over to an alert state. If the creature is already hostile toward the party, it will attack and "call for help" (to use an Infinity Engine term), potentially alerting its nearby allies. | ||
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dOnvWjS.jpg) Looks pretty good although except for the lack of shadows on the characters. | ||
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chaos021
United States258 Posts
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adwodon
United Kingdom592 Posts
On August 10 2013 14:34 chaos021 wrote: I am so very sad. I just discovered this yesterday, and I don't see how I can buy in =/ You can get a 'slacker backer' buy in for $29 which just has a GOG or Steam key with an exclusive badge. I missed the Kickstarter campaign due to lack of funds at the time (had just graduated with no job ¬_¬) and I'm pretty disappointed I can't see any way of pre-ordering or backing to get a collectors edition or any kind of physical boxed copy. Normally I'm totally fine with steam keys but in this instance a boxed copy would be spot on so I'm hoping they announce some boxed versions for launch. | ||
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carraway
264 Posts
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Amaril
Germany105 Posts
On August 10 2013 14:34 chaos021 wrote: I am so very sad. I just discovered this yesterday, and I don't see how I can buy in =/ Just wait until its released, read/watch reviews and buy if you like. I would be very very careful with Kickstarter Games. No good examples until now. | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50584 Posts
On August 10 2013 18:37 Amaril wrote: Just wait until its released, read/watch reviews and buy if you like. I would be very very careful with Kickstarter Games. No good examples until now. FTL is a kickstarter game is it not? Shadowrun returns has also done fairly well. | ||
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carraway
264 Posts
On August 10 2013 18:37 Amaril wrote: Just wait until its released, read/watch reviews and buy if you like. I would be very very careful with Kickstarter Games. No good examples until now. Of the successful Kickstarter game projects, I would argue that FTL and Strike Suit Zero probably delivered on all of their promises/potential. Most of the large-budget projects haven't come to fruition due to long dev cycles. A lot of people liked Shadowrun Returns (I think it's seriously flawed, but it was fun). The difference between most games that go to Kickstarter and Project Eternity (along with Wasteland 2/Torment) is the pedigree of the devs involved. The bullshit factor doesn't seem to be present. From the rpgcodex Q&A: Mindx2 seeks to crowdfund this question: Based on the recent problems Double Fine has had managing their Kickstarter project, what precautions/ steps/ safeguards/ etc. have you put into place? What major problems/ issues do you most fear and want to avoid? How do you make sure your team can/ will avoid these pitfalls since Kickstarter money is finite (unless you go all Tim Schafer and scrounge for money through Humble Bundles/ Steam/ pre-sales/ episodic releases)? We have consistently tried to focus on the specific features we told players and backers we would provide. Projecting the specifics of such a large game is not exact, but we can always look at the list of things we need to provide: 11 classes, 6 races, two big cities, a 15-level mega-dungeon, etc. The most resource-intensive element of the game is, unsurprisingly, the creation of environment art. We have known this from the beginning and have been watching our development pipelines closely all the way through our vertical slice. We're continuing to look for ways to improve our efficiency to make sure our areas meet the visual quality standards we and players expect but don't prevent us from making a large game. So, yeah, buyer beware, but I don't think early faith is misplaced in these guys. | ||
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Amaril
Germany105 Posts
On August 10 2013 18:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: FTL is a kickstarter game is it not? Shadowrun returns has also done fairly well. Shadowrun ...well, not really that good. And FTL was way before the Kickstarter Hype. But even if you count it you have 1/100. There is exactly no reason to buy it now instead of waiting for its release. | ||
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Conti
Germany2516 Posts
On August 10 2013 19:53 Amaril wrote: Shadowrun ...well, not really that good. And FTL was way before the Kickstarter Hype. But even if you count it you have 1/100. There is exactly no reason to buy it now instead of waiting for its release. It's perfectly reasonable to wait until release/reviews are out before you buy a game, of course. But if everyone would have that opinion, those kickstarters would never have happened in the first place, and there would be no "wait until release" option for you. Having some trust in the developers is the very basic idea of a kickstarter. | ||
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