whitethatwends-deactivated20220 asked:

how come it's possible to play a noble from the White that Wends given the lifestyle there is said to be nomadic and clan-based? is it related to bloodlines or only something seen in the coastal settlements that are moving away from the traditional way of life?

My stance with “weird” or “impossible” combinations of backgrounds/regions/whatever is that these are the players’ stories about their characters. They are stories within a world I helped create, but I have to let players use those building blocks in the way they want to. Maybe their character is from an unusual or unique community of pale elves. Maybe their character is from a displaced group of ocean folk who have lived in an isolated village for generations, maintaining their old ways and customs.

Anyway, it’s not my business. I try to provide the building blocks and make them mechanically appealing. That way if a player finds some combination they really like, I’m not standing in the way of them building the character they want.

texaschainsawgerrera asked:

has the bike market improved at all recently?

Slightly. That is to say that parts availability has improved a little and complete bikes/frames seem to be more available. That said, I ordered a set of spokes like two weeks ago and I still haven’t received them or even gotten a shipping notification so it’s not great.

I ordered Velocity Quill rims a year ago. One rim was backordered for six months. When I got the rims, I couldn’t order spokes or nipples, so I couldn’t build them myself. I had to have a shop build them up, which I hate doing because a) it’s expensive b) I’ve had many store-built wheels break spokes (or just straight up be laced wrong) - only once has a spoke broken on a wheel I built myself.

Anyway, eight months later (accounting for the delay at the shop), I got them. Still kind of grim.

yellowthirteen asked:

Hey Josh, long time fan. I've been replaying New Vegas (wait wait don't delete this!) and I was reading some of your old formspring questions to get some insight into your mindset during that dev time. One recurring theme is your desire to make a low fantasy medieval game. Do you think Pentiment is a fulfillment of that goal? I know it's not quite "Darklands 2" but is the setting and gameplay style going to scratch that itch for you?

I always wanted to make a historical game of some kind and I think something Darklands 2-ish was what I had in mind, but obviously Pentiment is quite different in almost every way.

It’s definitely fulfilling the dream I had of making something historical, though I certainly wouldn’t object to making something more Darklandsish in the future.

kureiois asked:

Hi Josh! What was your career pathway to where you are now?

When I was in college, one of the few productive things I did was teach myself HTML, Photoshop (already kind of knew it), Illustrator, and Flash 3.0. I did a few professional website jobs, including the site for Steve’s Tattoo in Madison, Wisconsin.

When I was about to graduate from college with a degree in history and no real idea what to do with it (I thought I was going to do web design and maybe become an apprentice at a tattoo parlor), my friend Michael told me there was an opening for a webmaster at Black Isle Studios in Irvine, CA.

I applied with an excessively long cover letter. Of the 62 candidates who applied, 3 knew Flash. Their first choice declined the position and moved to Seattle to be with his girlfriend. Thanks, dude.

I started at Black Isle in March of 1999 and my first job was to design the website for Planescape: Torment. By around November of that year, I had convinced Feargus Urquhart, head of Black Isle Studios (and still my boss at Obsidian), to let me work half time as a designer on Icewind Dale.

I eventually transitioned out of web (my last site design was the original website for BioWare’s Neverwinter Nights) and worked as a designer full time on Icewind Dale. I was also a designer on the expansions, Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster. I was the lead designer on Icewind Dale II.

In 2003, as Interplay was imploding, I went to work for about a year and a half at Midway San Diego (on Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows). That didn’t work out, so I got a job at Obsidian as a senior designer on Neverwinter Nights 2. I eventually took over as lead following the departure of that team’s original lead.

After that, I worked on Aliens: Crucible (canceled), then directed Fallout: New Vegas, then a project for Microsoft called Stormlands (canceled), then Pillars of Eternity, then Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Around that time, I was promoted to Studio Design Director. And I’m currently also the game director on Pentiment…

… coming November 2022.

historydebuff asked:

It seems that the Glanfathans are portrayed as alternative universe Indians, who unlike their real-life counterpart, only suffered from slavery, but didn't practice it themselves, didn't practice human sacrifices, ritualistic cannibalism and weren't in a constant state of war with their neighbors. Aren't they being unrealistically peaceful? How are they "good at math" while being SEMI-NOMADIC? Math has very objective roots and origins - it comes from sedentary life and high productivity.

No, they’re not. They’re largely based on the Gauls, who were also semi-nomadic but had large fortified permanent settlements. Even in the 2nd century, Gauls had a fairly sophisticated understanding of lunar astronomy from what we can see in the Coligny Calendar.

Anyway, in our world, some of the greatest advancements in mathematics in the middle ages came from Arab regions containing both large permanent settlements and nomadic tribes. This is not weird or incompatible.

And some Glanfathans do perform kith sacrifice. The Ethik Nôl very obviously practice kith sacrifice, not in the distant past, but in Pillars of Eternity (Blood Sands). Also Aedyrans and Dyrwoodans practice kith sacrifice within Skaen cults.

The Glanfathans are also not, broadly speaking, even characterized as being peaceful. They defended Engwithan ruins with violence and were largely the instigators of widespread violence at the start of both the Broken Stone War and the War of Black Trees.

historydebuff asked:

The Aedyr Empire functions as a Western European feudal society, yet the concept of "citizenship" is constantly brought up. They are pretty much irreconcilable. If you were going for some irregular type of feudalism, why not explain and rationalize it in the lore?

They are absolutely not irreconcilable because they coexisted in our own history.

Citizenship existed within, notably, the Holy Roman Empire. Individuals could be properly classed as Bürger within free imperial cities that had limited autonomy but were still subject to imperial rule.

There were also residents of free imperial cities who were not Bürger and were subject to the authority of territorial lords. Ausbürger and Pfahlbürger were the opposite: legal citizens of free imperial cities who resided outside of the boundaries of the cities where they held citizenship. They had the rights of citizens but were subject vassals of territorial lords.

The executioner Franz Schmidt is a notable example of a non-citizen residing and working in free imperial city (Nuremberg). He spent his entire life trying to earn citizenship to restore the honor of his family.

I would have to look to see how often “citizenship” is actually brought up in Pillars in the context of Aedyr; I suspect it is used casually and not rigorously. But, to your core assertion, I disagree that citizenship is irreconcilable with historical feudalism/vassalage. Reconciliation of these competing statuses was absolutely an ordinary part of life for these people.

pinkkitsune asked:

Hi Josh! A friend of mine is a huge fan of the Pillars of Eternity series, he even calls Deadfire the best pirate game ever. Can you send him a little message?

I don’t really think of/didn’t intend Deadfire to be considered a pirate game, but I’m glad your friend likes it. Thank you.

shorste asked:

Hi Josh! Big fan of the POE games here. I really like the Godlike, and played a fire one for my first playthru of both games. We only see 6 gods use Godlike in the games, and I was wondering if the remaining gods have their own Godlike, and we just don't see them in the games because of their rarity, or whether the other 5 gods just don't use them? Thanks!

Godlike are supposed to be numerous in appearance and overall variety. The ones that we show in Pillars and Deadfire are the only ones we show for practical (modeling/texturing/ability creation) reasons.

sergeantaegis asked:

Do foreign localization/translation teams ever call the developers to ask for clarification on certain terms or phrases before releasing their translation? Because I know a few cases where the translation team should have done that.

Yes. It depends on the loc team and individual translator, but it’s not uncommon to get questions for clarification. We’ve actually started incorporating some contextual information proactively because many terms (often found as standalone strings in a UI table) are really unclear.

trickyulysses asked:

Hello, Josh! Really excited about Pentiment! After watching the trailer and some images from the game, I feel like it’s in part inspired by Umberto Eco’s novels - Baudolino and The Name of the Rose in particular (different time periods, but a murder mystery set in a monastery and somehow connected to books will always remind me of these). I’ve also heard you praising The Faithful Executioner by Joel Harrington as a great example of a fascinating book on history - it feels like it could be a great source for information about the times the Pentiment is set in. I was wondering if I am right about these books being a source of inspiration/research for the game and if you can name other books you and your team were using during development? Thank you for your work and can’t wait for the game to come out!

Thank you. All three of those books were inspirational for Pentiment. Eco’s novels are, well, novels, and Joel Harrington’s is a history book, but they have all been helpful and informative for us.

We have a full bibliography we plan to publish in some form after the game has been released, but I realized that distributing it prematurely might spoil some aspects of the story. Sorry.

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