Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Crooked Bee]

Sensuki

Brandon Cole ‏@superblindman 21m
@RPGCodex The voice I did in the E3 demo is a companion.

 

[Sensuki]

As far as I know that guy isn't a voice actor. I did listen to some of his audio samples on his site, which are just muck around recordings, he can manipulate his voice ... but to get someone like that for a companion is a surprise move indeed. I assume they might know the guy already.

 

[Duraframe300]

Edited: Nuthing here.

Edit2: Brandon is a fantastic choice. Nuff said.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Even if they do know him, could he be just a temporary companion voice actor for E3, to be replaced by someone else later? He did specify "in the E3 demo" in response to my question, though I simply asked "who are you voicing in the game?"

That could also mean he's doing someone other character(s) in addition to the one he did for the E3 demo, of course.

 

[Sensuki]

No I think he's actually doing a companion for the full game. If you check his other tweet.

Duraframe300 did you listen to his audio stuff?

 

[Abelian]

Why do I have the feeling that he was the one that pressed the idea for Fallout to be real time in the wake of Diablo?

And by the way, nothing beats the "Veil of steel" as an item name in quality.

How about Gotterdamerung?

 

[Zed]

That must be their version of the BG2 health display, I'll ask on SA about it

Probably something like a Health bar over their heads from mobas etc, except incremental (Uninjured, Barely Injured, Injured, Badly Injured etc)

I had a feeling they'd do something like that, but I hope we can disable the fuck out of all of that shit.

It's just these little things that are kind of annoying. I really like the BG2 parchment mouse over.

https://twitter.com/adam_brennecke/status/477100429911019521

@austinat @dphanto ah! We have the option to toggle the dots off and have old school "injured" text instead. 5 Dots are tied to these states

 

[Sensuki]

 

[Blaine]

Sounds like the alpha's winding down and we'll be heading into beta soon.

I might have to give my beta key away, if feasible. I'm too selfish to help bugtest until the game goes gold.

 

[Athelas]

The beta (which is supposed to be more of a demo) will probably serve more for balancing the combat mechanics than bugtesting.

 

[Blaine]

Pre-order canceled—I was promised a beta key, not a demo.

 

[Athelas]

Well, I'm not sure how extensive it'll be, but they are very wary about spoiling anything about the game.

Your last two posts completely contradict each other, by the way.

 

[Sensuki]

A few areas.

 

[Arkeus]

Well, I'm not sure how extensive it'll be, but they are very wary about spoiling anything about the game.

Iirc, Josh did say something about the Beta being similar to the BG demo that went around or so years ago. I might misremember.

Your last two posts completely contradict each other, by the way.

That's the joke

 

[Sensuki]

I didn't hear anything about that (I'm usually pretty bang on with the rope kid quots) but is that BG demo you're referring to called "Baldur's Gate: Chapter I & II" ?

 

[Arkeus]

I didn't hear anything about that (I'm usually pretty bang on with the rope kid quots) but is that BG demo you're referring to called "Baldur's Gate: Chapter I & II" ?

Well... i remember it being about that big, yeah.

With a lot more companion in places the shouldn't be, too.

 

[Sensuki]

 

[Sensuki]

 

[Blaine]

It's called Pillars of Eternity as a reference to what the erectile tissues in our bodies will be doing come release.

 

[Answermancer]

WTF at some of these backer item names

Dandy Hat of the Diseased Yak

Hey my item is in there! Wooo! >_>

 

[Blaine]

Dandy Hat of the Diseased Yak

An old tongue-in-cheek insult from the early 1990s here in the US: "May the pus from the balls of an AIDS-infected yak drip in your corn flakes."

 

[Excidium]

I like "The Disappointer"

 

[Arkadin]

Hey my item is in there! Wooo! >_>

Which is yours, sir?

 

[Answermancer]

Which is yours, sir?

Aww man, you open me up to ridicule D:

The Cape of Many Feathers, although I said they should translate the name into some appropriate conlang based on lore (which I gave some rough ideas for but left mostly to them so that they could make it fit into the world in a way that made sense). Who knows if they did or not.

Edit: I just checked and I'd actually called it Cloak of Many Feathers in my submission and based on that screenshot it looks like there are now 2 'capes' and 2 'cloaks'. Are those separate slots somehow or is it just a way for them to vary the names of cloaks? Interesting.

I thought it was funny that after my submission someone linked Sawyer's twitter and he said that cloaks were the most-submitted item (looks like 4 of them), but I for one went with a cloak since they had said they hoped everyone didn't end up making swords.

 

[Sensuki]

A post by Roby Atadero (PE Programmer) on Multi-Threading in relation to PE

The majority of AAA games use threading in some way shape or form. It doesn't necessarily need to be used for the core systems (AI, pathfinding, detection) but, you can always use threads to start a load of something (like data for a new level for example) and then let the main thread continue running the primary portion of the game. Most games also have one thread handling the rendering side of the game while the main thread handles all the computation for everything else.

If done in the right places and the right way, threads can be be pretty helpful without adding much programming time or effort. Yes, threads can cause bugs and locks, but, the way we typically use them they aren't that much of a problem given the benefits.

Because of the scope of Eternity, this game won't require threads as much as other games. But just as a tidbit of info, one thing in Eternity that uses another thread is the fog of war processing (determining if a given spot is revealed [clear], explored [transparent black], or unexplored [black]). All that can be done while updating everything else in the game and keep it running smooth. Doesn't require much thread management either since that system works on its own for the most part from the rest of the game logic.

Josh was on GiantBomb chat earlier: http://www.giantbomb.com/chat/

They didn't really let him speak much, they love the sound of their own voices and were too busy talking about Lord of the Rings Shadow of Mordor. He did get to talk about the press reception to PE, he said that there were two distinct groups, one who loved it - who were Baldur's Gate fans and/or backers themselves and the other was like "hey this is quaint, so why am I looking at a game like this in 2014?" (You can just see those metacritic reviews, right)

The other bit was about Alpha Protocol's dialogue stuff and Fallout: New Vegas on consoles in relation to which retailer customers bought from.