Pillars of Eternity - Post-Funding Update # 85

[Couchpotato]

Obsidian posted the latest update for Pillars of Eternity with new information on backer fulfillment, Beta feedback, and talk about wrapping the game up.

Update #85: Hunkerin' Down and Hey, Wasteland 2 is Out!

With the backer beta out now, and the *con season (Gamescom, PAX, Gen Con, et al.) coming to a close for the year, we wanted to give you an update on what we've been up to. We’re busy working on three big things: 1) getting everything on the fulfillment side ready to go, 2) working through many changes and improvements based on feedback from folks playing the backer beta, and 3) wrapping up the game proper.

As of this week, we’re busy finishing and/or approving all of the final designs for nearly all of the physical rewards so production can begin. It’s very exciting to see this all coming together and often isn't part of the process we get to be involved in at such a deep level on our other projects. It’s one thing to have a playable game here in the studio that we continually maintain – it’s another to be able to really help design the look, feel, and content of every little bit of what comprises a game that ultimately will ship out to you.

Here’s a sample of what the collector’s edition box is going to look like for backers:

In future updates we’ll show some of the other goodies.

We’ve been working really closely with the great folks at Dark Horse who are putting together the finishing touches on the amazing Collector’s Book for the game, and the equally great folks at Prima are busy working on the strategy guide. We’re working with the same author from the Fallout: New Vegas strategy guide, which we’re very excited about!


A very big THANK YOU to all of those playing the backer beta and providing feedback on our forums! We’re focusing on a lot of changes right now based on your feedback – big improvements to pathfinding and combat, some significant changes to scouting and stealth and how they work, and we’re doing a lot of reviews on the game’s UI and overall presentation to improve the experience. Expect to see a lot of changes coming in on the beta over the coming weeks. Again, thank you to all of you providing feedback – we really appreciate it. We have folks internally who are scouring every single post and thread daily to move bugs and other feedback into our bug tracking system internally.


Over the next several weeks, the team is focusing on a couple key things: area and quest finalization and plowing through the many final tasks and bugs. To keep things “old school”, we’re even employing the Quest Whiteboard of Baldur’s Gate 2 and Icewind Dale fame, where all of the quests in the game are posted on a very visible whiteboard in the office, and designers and QA fight (to the death?!) to certify that quests are 100% done and clean, by removing the evil X’s in their respective department columns. In this case, two X’s enter, ZERO X’s leave. That’s the goal anyway. Here it is as it was finished being set up - note, each item on this board can have many steps and states that all have to be checked before the X can come off for the entire thing.

More information.

 

[Aubrielle]

I wish I'd caught the Kickstarter for this and gotten the collector's edition.

 

[Voqar]

It's somewhat unfortunate that they have to waste time and resources on nonsense like boxes, box art, and gimmicks that take away from development when there is zero point in producing boxes anymore, but that's just part of the fallout of having to fund via kickstarter I guess.

 

[TomRon]

It's somewhat unfortunate that they have to waste time and resources on nonsense like boxes, box art, and gimmicks that take away from development when there is zero point in producing boxes anymore, but that's just part of the fallout of having to fund via kickstarter I guess.

Alot of people like physical goods, and they got even better funding because of it. Personally I only want digital goodies, so I pretty much agree with you. I know there are several members of the Watch anticipating their boxed goods though.

 

[azarhal]

I want my CE box!!!!

Also, I believe that Obsidian's deal with Paradox include retails in Europe (where people still buy physical PC games).

 

[Pessimeister]

I updated my pledge to the collectors edition towards the end of the campaign and so naturally, also anticipate my box full of goodies.

The game is certainly receiving some stern critique on many forums in the light of the backer beta (which I did not participate in…) yet I have strong faith in Obsidian to deliver good on their original promise and that the game overall, will be all the better for it.

For instance, here's the main thread on the official forums with feedback/analysis on the attribute system: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68526-how-to-fix-the-attribute-design-in-pillars-of-eternity/
(Well done to both Sensuki and Matt516 for their efforts here and kudos to Josh Sawyer for responding positively in kind.)

Edit: I was well aware of the other thread; just thought a little more coverage wouldn't hurt given the topic relevance.

 

[Couchpotato]

For instance, here's the main thread on the official forums with feedback/analysis on the attribute system: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68526-how-to-fix-the-attribute-design-in-pillars-of-eternity/(Well done to both Sensuki and Matt516 for their efforts here and kudos to Josh Sawyer for responding positively in kind.)

I had a news-bit with the link a few days back, and there was some good feedback from a few members of our site also. Here is the link with more information.

Link - http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25667

 

[Aubrielle]

I was a little worried when people were saying that the devs weren't listening to any feedback or suggestions at all, but I think overall I'm still optimistic about this one.

 

[forgottenlor]

I was a little worried when people were saying that the devs weren't listening to any feedback or suggestions at all, but I think overall I'm still optimistic about this one.

I hate to say it, but that's hogwash. These are the same people who are upset when Josh Sawyer doesn't respond to their complaints on Saturday and Sunday. He responds quite often on the forums and I am sure that the developers are reading the various topics. One can't expect that the developers come and respond to every single thread. I was on the early access forums for Might & Magic X and the developers almost never responded, but took a lot of complaints on the forums to heart when improving the final version, and I am sure that Obsidian reads the forums, but they just don't have time to respond to the vast majority of things. They do respond quite often I find, especially considering all the other kickstarter/early access games I've taken part in. Granted I wasn't part of D:OS, and a lot of people hold that up as an example of a stellar campaign, but if the developers did such a good job there with communication, they are the exception to the rule.

 

[azarhal]

I was a little worried when people were saying that the devs weren't listening to any feedback or suggestions at all, but I think overall I'm still optimistic about this one.

Like forgottenlor said, that's hogwash.

Josh participated in threads asking people their opinion about attributes, classes, etc. He even mentioned some of the changes they are planning for the next patches.

The problem is that some people think that all their suggestions needs to be put into the game, when in reality they do not fit it. Swen Vincke (of Larian) wrote a blog post about it a few days ago:

Listen to your community, but be aggressive in your triage and remember that game development requires enlightened despotism, not democracy. Communities are diverse and as such you’ll get conflicting opinions. You need a strong core vision to guide you through their feedback, and you need to stick to that vision, no matter how vocal they become. But you do need to listen and recognize the underlying causes of problems being reported. Often communities will complain about the symptoms of something that’s wrong and it’s not always easy to discover what the root cause is.

Also remember that the vocal minority does not represent the majority, no matter how hard their claims. The majority doesn’t have time to write thousands of posts. And if you encounter some uncivilized people on a forum, ignore them. They’re not worth the emotional stress they may cause. You wouldn’t deal with them in real life either.

 

[TheMadGamer]

It's somewhat unfortunate that they have to waste time and resources on nonsense like boxes, box art, and gimmicks that take away from development when there is zero point in producing boxes anymore, but that's just part of the fallout of having to fund via kickstarter I guess.

Not to dog pile on you or anything, but just to chime in that I too like the physical boxed games. But I think sooner rather than later, you'll be happy enough as all digital-only looms out just over the horizon.

 

[rjshae]

It's somewhat unfortunate that they have to waste time and resources on nonsense like boxes, box art, and gimmicks that take away from development when there is zero point in producing boxes anymore, but that's just part of the fallout of having to fund via kickstarter I guess.

You're mistaken if you think there was development 'waste' involved: the physical goods cost the donors extra and their implementation was outsourced. If Obsidian hadn't offered the physical goods then they wouldn't have received as much money. Presumably the cost of the physical goods cost less to create and deliver than the extra funds they asked for. Otherwise, Obsidian would have made a poor business decision.

 

[rune_74]

Lookin forward to adding this to my extensive backlog...