Original Sin - Post-Funding Update #46

Couchpotato

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Larian Studios has released an interesting post-funding update talking about DOS editor news, 10 interesting things about Orcs, and a new stats screen preview.

The impact of Kickstarter: An example

For the first time in the history of Larian, we have people who are dedicated to making character development really fun. In the past, we always had the problem that we were spread too thin, and so the design and balancing of the character development systems were done almost between the soup and the potatoes. This may surprise you, but there are many many moving systems in an RPG and when you make them with a small team, you can't afford to have too much specialisation.

But now, thanks to your generous contributions, we can afford to have a team that is focussed on balancing our combat systems and tweaking the formulas that affect character development. It's a very big improvement ;).

Part of the job of our shiny new "stats team" is playtesting and adjusting the rule set that drives things behind the scenes. You know, stuff like "will constitution affect some resistances?", "What about initiative, does stuff in your inventory affect it?" etc… But they also decide whether or not strength affects the initial opinion somebody has about the player's avatar. After many discussions, the team came up with the following set of primary and secondary stats. We also have a list of abilities, traits and talents that go with it, but we’ll leave those for another update, because we’re interested in hearing what properties you think should be associated with each of these stats.

A picture tells a thousand words, so here's that picture :) Let us know your thoughts! (Here's a bigger version)
More information.
 
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I've enjoyed all of the Laurian updates thus far; they're good at it. Good news about the editor as well. and the stats interface has that nice DD look about it. The element I found interesting about the latter is that they're including weapon durability. (Remember the big ruccus they had on the P:E forums about weapon repair? Yeesh.) :)
 
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Well on my purely egotist point of view, I'm feeling more and more badly this game. I pledged because of a Mac release and seeing what's happening for their RTS I smell it will be an "arlesienne" like Torchlight 2 Mac release has became. :mad:
 
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What does "arlesienne" mean ?
 
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What does "arlesienne" mean ?

It means "woman from Arles". Its use outside of French is most familiar in the name of a series of paintings done of by Van Gogh. In that case "L'Arlésienne" referred to a Madame Ginoux whom both Van Gogh and Gauguin painted as the particular woman from Arles.

Next most common as far as I can tell is its use in the name of a play by Alphonse Daudet titled simply "L'Arlésienne." The play and the events surrouding it seem to have significantly more cultural relevance and familiarity within France. Otherwise the name as referring to the music written for the play, composed by Bizet, eclipses actual awareness of the play itself at least as far as I can tell.

The less than glorious history of that play relates to its use as part of a particular French idiom "jouer l'arlésienne" which literally translates to "to play the girl from Arles." It's used to refer to something that fails to materialize, similar to the expression "vapor ware" in English. That's probably what they meant, they just said it in a way which almost guaranteed most non-french speakers would have no idea what they were saying. The only reason I knew is because someone tricked me into studying French for 9 years and it came up in a trivia game we played as a way to help study.
 
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After indifferent 2013, it looks like 2014 will a great year for CRPGs.
 
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After indifferent 2013, it looks like 2014 will a great year for CRPGs.

The (hopefully) best of 2013 (hopefully) is yet to come when WL2 arrives. If it does arrive this year is maybe a bit more doubtful.
 
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That's a hell of a good explanation, Jhwisner. Someone tricked you into studying French for 9 years? Thats a hell of a good trick… :)
 
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He was probably hoping to snare some French girl :lol:
 
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