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Tags: Brandon Adler; J.E. Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity
This week's Project Eternity Kickstarter update is a report on the game's "Production 01" milestone. The folks at Obsidian have been working their asses off on creating the game's first city, Defiance Bay, which I assume will be the setting for the game's upcoming vertical slice demonstration. New employees have been hired, new art assets have been created and new features have been programmed. I'll quote the part about the features, since it's the most interesting:
This week's Project Eternity Kickstarter update is a report on the game's "Production 01" milestone. The folks at Obsidian have been working their asses off on creating the game's first city, Defiance Bay, which I assume will be the setting for the game's upcoming vertical slice demonstration. New employees have been hired, new art assets have been created and new features have been programmed. I'll quote the part about the features, since it's the most interesting:
Journal
We now have a fully functional quest journal in place that allows players to see their quest progress. The UI is currently being implemented, but it is looking great.
Conversations
While we have been getting more and more Alpha UI into the game, I was particularly happy with how the conversation UI came out. Take a look for yourself, though. Even though this is still a work in progress, I think everyone did a great job. Let us know what you think of the conversation UI in our forums.
Stronghold
Tim went on a tear and got most of the backend systems for the player stronghold in place. There are a ton of really fun things you can do with your stronghold like sending companions on missions, buying rare loot off of merchants, building upgrades, and even purchasing hirelings to defend your keep from attack. Watching Tim's stronghold get robbed blind because he has low security and high prestige never gets old.
World Map
Eternity now has a fully functional world map. When the party enters a qualifying transition, the world map appears. Players can then select to travel to a location by selecting that icon on the map.
Fog of War
One focus for this milestone was to get our Fog of War system in place. Beyond a few tweaks, Adam is pretty close to slaying that beast. It's a really robust system he created that takes some inspiration from rogue-like games. Using Adam's tool, designers can quickly create a fog map, edit it, and set locations that should only be revealed at specific times.
AI
Steve, our AI Programmer, has been putting work into spellcasting AI this milestone and it is coming out nicely. Enemies are more crafty than they were now that they are casting spells intelligently. There's going to be even more AI work - roles for our enemy AIs, for example - put into our next milestone.
There's also some concept art of a new monster, the wicht. Wichts are described by Josh Sawyer as "the bodies of children that were born without souls, grew to adolescence, and were then possessed by a malevolent lost soul or soul fragment that has been artificially inserted through animancy". I can see the quest hook already...We now have a fully functional quest journal in place that allows players to see their quest progress. The UI is currently being implemented, but it is looking great.
Conversations
While we have been getting more and more Alpha UI into the game, I was particularly happy with how the conversation UI came out. Take a look for yourself, though. Even though this is still a work in progress, I think everyone did a great job. Let us know what you think of the conversation UI in our forums.
Stronghold
Tim went on a tear and got most of the backend systems for the player stronghold in place. There are a ton of really fun things you can do with your stronghold like sending companions on missions, buying rare loot off of merchants, building upgrades, and even purchasing hirelings to defend your keep from attack. Watching Tim's stronghold get robbed blind because he has low security and high prestige never gets old.
World Map
Eternity now has a fully functional world map. When the party enters a qualifying transition, the world map appears. Players can then select to travel to a location by selecting that icon on the map.
Fog of War
One focus for this milestone was to get our Fog of War system in place. Beyond a few tweaks, Adam is pretty close to slaying that beast. It's a really robust system he created that takes some inspiration from rogue-like games. Using Adam's tool, designers can quickly create a fog map, edit it, and set locations that should only be revealed at specific times.
AI
Steve, our AI Programmer, has been putting work into spellcasting AI this milestone and it is coming out nicely. Enemies are more crafty than they were now that they are casting spells intelligently. There's going to be even more AI work - roles for our enemy AIs, for example - put into our next milestone.
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