Sep 25, 2015

Pillars of Eternity - mdowling

Hey, everyone!

The Patch Beta for Update 2.02 is now live on Steam!

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82319-update-202-beta-is-live/#entry1735325

If you'd like to sign up for Patch Betas, you can find out how to do so here:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76849-patch-betas-on-steam

For what has changed in this patch you can check out the thread on our forums here:

http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-188-update-notes-202-beta

Though for your convenience, the notes are also here!

Major Fixes:

- GOG Galaxy achievements now work.
- A party member using a movement speed modifying item now should walk at the same speed as the rest of the party outside of combat.
- Added more optimizations for save and load.
- Fixed an issue where some players were not able to talk to the Steward of Caed Nua to start The White March quest lines.
- Fixed issues with Respec not working correctly with some edge case abilities and talents.
- Fixed some problems that were being reported with self-targeting abilities (Like Frenzy).

Abilities:

- All Summoned weapons are now considered universal weapon type.
- Fixed a number of issues with Nature's Bounty.

Items:

- Soulbound weapons are properly unbound when the bound soul dies.
- Fixed issue where weapon switching recovery could go negative.
- Draining Item Mod should only drain 15% attack speed now.
- Shadowflame from Ninguath's Grimiore is now 4th level.
- Removed enchantment cost of the Cumbersome item mod.
- Lowered the enchantment cost for Spellstriking Confuse and Spellstriking Thrust of Tattered Veil.

Quests:

- Small Balance changes to the Alpine and Sky Dragon attacks.
- Fixed a number of issues with the Devil of Caroc's reactivity in the soul awakening quest.
- The Hunter's Favor should properly resolve if Thyrsc and Suldrun are killed before completion.
- Stronghold attacks can now happen if the player level is over 13.
- Caroc and Zahua now have a place in the stronghold.
- Alpine Dragon is now set to never gib.
- Vamrel's conversation will only fire once now.

Miscellaneous Notes:

- Quick items on the ability bar are now sorted by slot.
- Afflictions display like other status effects on the party bar.
- Fix a number of hotkey binding issues and bugs.
- Accuracy for Bestiary entries now account for stances and shields.
- Fixed a problem with Accuracy being reported incorrectly until the party enters combat.

Sep 25, 2015

Patch Beta for Update 2.02 now live!

Pillars of Eternity - oei_mdowling

Aug 28, 2015

Pillars of Eternity Releases its First Expansion, 'The White March: Part I'

Pillars of Eternity - [Pdx] Escher

IRVINE, Calif – Aug. 25, 2015 — Obsidian Entertainment and Paradox Interactive have released the first of a two-part expansion to Pillars of Eternity, the role-playing game (RPG) phenomenon funded by over 70 thousand backers. The award-winning recipient for the Best Indy RPG at E3 2015 from MMORPG.com, “The White March: Part I” is the first addition to the critically acclaimed game, and includes an extensive array of new dynamic content for both Pillars of Eternity veterans and newcomers.

White March expands the story and experience of the original game, adding new locations, quests, and companions to the world of Eora, as well as new gameplay features such as multi-class abilities, soul-bound weapons, and a higher level cap, allowing players new ways to play in all areas of the game. The White March: Part I is available today as an add-on to Pillars of Eternity for Windows, Mac, and Linux PC for $14.99. A bundle with Parts I and II is available for $24.99, which will grant owners the second installment immediately upon its release.

View Eora in a way not yet seen before in a new launch trailer for The White March: Part I, available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1bOqWRjOBw

In The White March: Part I, Obsidian Entertainment continues the tale of Pillars of Eternity, an RPG inspired by classics of the computer RPG genre. Featuring an expertly crafted story from Carrie Patel, author of the Recoletta series and writer on the original Pillars of Eternity, and Eric Fenstermaker, lead writer on Pillars of Eternity and one of the co-writers of South Park: The Stick of Truth alongside show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the new expansion has new lore and challenges to explore.

Set during the middle of the original game similar to the classic Tales of the Sword Coast, the new expansion can be experienced regardless if players have completed the core game or not. Players will venture into a new setting inspired by the snowy environments of Icewind Dale, and meet new companions including The Devil of Caroc, a construct rogue, and the scarred monk Zahua. Additionally, players can make use of new advanced party-based AI during combat and other adventuring challenges.

Aug 28, 2015

Pillars of Eternity Releases its First Expansion, 'The White March: Part I'

Pillars of Eternity - Graham

Aug 5, 2015

Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 1 Release Date and Update 2.0 Patch Beta!

Pillars of Eternity - mdowling

Hey, everyone!

We are really excited to announce the release date for the first part of the Pillars of Eternity expansion, The White March: August 25th! That's right, 20 days from now you'll be able to head back to Eora!

But that's not all!

We are also happy to announce that the Patch Beta for Update 2.0 has gone live!

You can check out how to get set up with the Patch Beta here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76849-patch-betas-on-steam/

We'll also follow that up with the patch notes (in progress) for the new patch:

NOTE: Backups of 1.06 saves are created in your Saved Games folder. 2.0+ saves may not be used in 1.06 and earlier builds.

Major Known Issues

- After long period of playing audio can start to cut out erratically. It is being investigated and should be fixed before the next beta patch.
- Some recipes were not intended to be released and will not show in the UI correctly. They will be removed in the next Update beta release.

Major New Features

- Companion AI - You may now set your companions to use AI. For those of you that do not want to micromanage your party, you may now choose to have the AI perform basic commands for you. You can activate and deactivate the AI control at any time, so you can still have ultimate party control when you need it. Each class has specialized AI packages and we will be adding more in the future.
- Improved Creature AI - Creatures and NPCs will now act more intelligently and make better use of their abilities and spells.
- Character Retraining - You may now retrain your character and modify their stats for a small fee.
- Individual Stealth - You may now place individual party members into scouting mode. If some of your party enters combat you will no longer have your entire party leave stealth.
- Range Indicators - There are now range indicators to let you know the casting range of spells and abilities. Now you will know if your wizard is going to move before he casts that Fireball. =)
- Accuracy Indicators - You are now shown the chance to hit on all attacks, abilities, and spells by mousing-over a potential target.

Fixed Issues

Areas:
- Fixed issue where Calisca was not being teleported after resting in the Ruin Interior.

Attributes, Abilities, Spells, and Skills:
- Changed Perception bonus from Deflection to Accuracy.
- Fixed crash that could happen if a Wizard had the Blast ability and targeting many targets.
- Increased Constitution bonus to Endurance and Health from 3% to 5%.
- Changed lockpicking so that it now uses three lockpicks if the lock is above your level, one lockpick if the lock is equal to your level, and no lockpicks if the lock is below your level.

Audio:
- Polished many sound effects around the game.
- Fixed weapon ineffective voice over that was playing at incorrect times.
- Fixed a problem where pausing the game could cause VO and/or barkstrings to finish early.

Gameplay:
- Fixed a problem where friendly auras could grow in size after a save and load.
- Fixed an issue where chant effects were considered item effects for stacking purposes. This was causing incorrect bonus calculation.
- Suppressed "Target Destroyed" autopausing if target was the last target in the combat. This will prevent automatic pauses at the end of combat.
- Figurines now have summon durations.
- Chanter invocations now have durations.
- Speed item mod now works correctly.
- Improved resting bonuses from the Stronghold.
- Noble's Rest Intelligence bonus lowered to +2.
- Scroll of Missile Barrage to be combat only.
- Fixed a problem where stealing part of a stack wasn't registered as stealing.
- Stealing now only loses reputation once per container.
- We now have immunities in the game. Some creatures have been updated to make use of them. I'm looking at you blights and dragons...
- Changed amount of Health that are healed with Wound Binding and Field Triage.
- Looting equipment off of enemies unequips it from their dead body.
- Autosave system now uses 3 rolling autosaves instead of one.
- Improved quality of font text when the game is at a higher resolution than 1920x1200.

Korean:
- The Korean font was changed to something more legible.

OSX:
- Fixed issue where switching resolutions in windowed mode on the Mac was not working properly.
- Attempted fix for Mac where game crashes on saves at times.

UI:
- Fixed issue where spells with summons could display incorrect info at times.
- Fixed issue where sorting depth of some UI elements were being changed over time. This was causing some UI screens (like tooltips) to render under active UI screens.
- Changed formatting of item mods to remove the item mod title and only list the effect. This was to clean up the UI.
- Added range indicators for Wizard's Blast.
- Added range indicators for Paladin auras.
- Added range indicators for Barbarian's Carnage.
- Fixed a problem where the spell casting cursor didn't refesh its image at times.
- Fixed issue where inspecting ingredients when crafting could show improper descriptions and icons.
- Fixed issue where Party Formation UI could overlap with Looting UI.
- Level up screen background has been updated.
- Resting bonuses from inns now display the length of time they are active.
- Moved Skills before Active Effects in character sheet.
- Stopped scroll position from reseting when changing characters in the character sheet.
- Made options in the language dropdown always use their native font instead of the font for the current language.
- Fixed an issue where it was possible to mess up spell selection in Character Creation by moving between stages.
- Fixed issue where secondary AoE effects were not properly displaying qualifiers. For example, Holy Radiance's Burn AoE only affects vessels, but the description made it appear as if it damaged all enemies.
- Fixed UI issue where all chants were being labeled "A" after a save and load.
- Fixed issue where chants could get moved out of order after loading a saved game.
- Examinable descriptions will no longer disappear while the game is paused
- Fixed checkbox and numeric widgets on message boxes sometimes showing for a frame
- Fixed problems where sometimes UI wouldn't differentiate between auras and hardards in descriptions.
- Fixed a problem where some long titles were being cut off in the UI.
- Fixed stuttering issues with scrolling text.
- Fixed an issue where status effects applied by enemy equipment wasn't being shown in the UI

The thread for the patch notes can be found here: http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/7/entry-186-update-notes-20-in-progress/

Aug 5, 2015

Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 1 Release Date and Update 2.0 Patch Beta!

Pillars of Eternity - oei_mdowling

Jun 30, 2015

Pillars News Blast!

Pillars of Eternity - mdowling

Hey all, it's been a bit since we've done one of these, but there is a lot of fun news that has been coming out about Pillars of Eternity!

First up, be sure to check out Backer Update #99 for news about the expansion and the upcoming update 2.0!

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80445-update-99-announcing-the-expansion-and-update-20/

If you just want to see what we have in the works for update 2.0, check out this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0GvsA6exuY&feature=youtu.be

There are also some previews of the first part of the expansion, The White March, that we showed off at E3:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/90162/e3-2015-exploring-the-snowy-tundra-of-pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march

http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/23/8824667/pillars-eternity-white-march-part-1-expansion-impressions-e3-2015

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/1029/feature/9807/Pillars-of-Eternity-E3-2015-The-White-March-Part-One-Preview.html

Speaking of E3, mmorpg.com named Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 1 as the best Indie RPG of E3 2015!

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/9814/MMORPGs-Best-of-E3-2015-Awards.html

Also make sure to check out the wallpapers section on the Pillars of Eternity site for two new wallpapers we put up for The White March.

https://eternity.obsidian.net/media/wallpapers

That's all for now, but we will continue to update you all as news comes along!

Jun 30, 2015

Pillars News Blast!

Pillars of Eternity - oei_mdowling