As with others who have posted, I'm inclined to be glad that XP isn't awarded for combat: It means that there isn't incentive to opt for combat over other approaches (and conversely--I would hope, at least--that it doesn't matter how you achieve a given quest goal--only that you do achieve it); and that there isn't the temptation to grind.

I do wonder how it will affect the progression of levelling.

(I very much hope that wizards are reasonably powerful in the final product...)

I pledged for a GOG key, so I would say yes.

Hating aggro has become a trendy thing to do. I don't see why, since that paragraph you wrote pretty well mirrors what everyone says, and also happens to be completely, tautologically self-defeating.

When you attack the thing that is holding aggro, you *are* attacking the strongest/most vulnerable target. Aggro has been a concept for a really long time. Some guy named Tzu wrote about it two and a half thousand years ago, and it's a core part of military tactics education in the modern day. If you have to fight, don't go all late middle ages Europe style about it. That's plain stupid. Be the threat, make your enemy turn its focus on you, and then have your buddy stab him right in the back. Once you've won, feel free to edit history to make yourself sound more honorable.

Are they still accepting pre orders?

EDIT: I know that this sounds dumb BTW.

SInce they are delaying it i imagine they will. But i cant see it being available by their website at this point...
https://eternity.obsidian.net/buy

+1. Also, if his mage were actually raining meteors on the enemies, the mage would be generating threat and drawing aggro.

I love the threat/aggro system in DA:O. Battles actually make sense. Much more so than in the IE games at least.

I would love to see Dragon Age Origins on GOG.com with its toolset :)

Taunting is psychological manipulation. Shouts, threats, insults, gestures, distractions, etc. Makes sense that both humanoids and animals would be affected. Heck, even the undead often respond to people making a racket in movies and other fiction. And if significant threat is generated by another party member, an enemy might ignore the taunting character and attack the greater threat.

The threat/aggro system itself is fantastic. Sometimes the balance is off, but that doesn't invalidate the basic mechanics.

That is a well-known strategy or exploit (called differently depending on who you ask). It doesn't invalidate the basic mechanics of the game.

Bioware probably should have made Force Field reduce the threat generated by the target by half or perhaps cause its threat to lower gradually over time while the spell is active (simulating enemies coming to realize the target is invulnerable after a few hits). That aside, one can create/download a mod to change the spell or simply choose not to use the strategy (or to use it only in dire need, against dragons, etc).

Hmm... Perhaps. I'll concede that a "taunt" feature can be implemented well--but I do think that it's something to be careful with, because a poor implementation can, as stated, end up looking somewhat silly. (Whether that silliness is bad will likely depend on the game, of course.)

Note, however, that my previous post was, I believe, primarily clarifying Tallima's, and adding a point against OneFiercePuppy's post, which indicated that "aggro" involved the AI "attacking the strongest/most vulnerable target" (and went on to say (emphasis mine) "Be the threat, make your enemy turn its focus on you, and then have your buddy stab him right in the back")--which is not necessarily the case with "taunt" abilities (as my example illustrated).

(As to your suggestion regarding the Force Field spell, I think that a lot may depend on just how the relevant components were designed and implemented, and what other components they may interact with. What you suggest may be a good suggestion; it may also have been feasible to simply adjust the amount of AI focus gained by "taunting", or how quickly the effect drains, especially since an active warrior would presumably generate focus by virtue of fighting, while an inactive one presumably wouldn't.)

That a given mechanic can be patched or modded out, or that a given strategy is optional, does not invalidate criticism of the design of that mechanic or strategy.

Right, but that's exactly the point of the taunt ability: to divert an enemy's attention away from actual threats and vulnerable allies. It's silly in your example only because a particular spell was somewhat poorly designed.

Agreed, but my point was that the issue is limited to the way one specific spell interacts with the system and not a problem with the system itself.

The far greater problem in DA:O is that Scattershot doesn't cause friendly fire and thus more-or-less breaks the entire combat system when fighting groups with archers. ;)

True--but again, my post was more in answer to OneFiercePuppy, who answered a post that seemed to be about "taunting" with an answer about aggression accruing to the most damaging target.

That's fair enough, although I do think that it's a good example of how a taunt mechanic can go wrong: you don't need the spell interaction to get an effect similar to that, just that "taunt" be overpowered. Of course, as you say, this doesn't indict the entire mechanic--just, as I said, indicate how it can go wrong. It may not have been the best example, but it's the one that came to mind.

Again, I'm not saying that "taunting" is an unusable, inherently flawed mechanic, only that it's something that I think calls for rather careful balancing.

Honestly, I don't recall to what degree I actually used archers in Dragon Age: I'm very much a mage player myself, and my party tended to include my own mage character, Morrigan and Alistair. I forget how many companions one could take (it's been a while since last I played), but I recall taking along Wynn and Sten at times. On top of that, Zevran was one the characters that I least enjoyed, so I tended to leave him behind...

(Were there ever enemy archers with that ability? I forget...)

Of course, if you want "overpowered" there's also the mages (especially two mages working together), but I don't intend to complain about that because it was so very, very fun... ;P

(Consider, for example, my tactic of using dual staggered Cons of Cold to stun-lock revenants while a warrior slowly whittled them down.)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/1107338


Final Sprint and... Release Date!
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Update by Brandon Adler, Lead Producer

Hello, everyone. As most of you know, the Eternity team has been hard at work squashing bugs and polishing the game for release. Every day the build is getting better and we are inching closer to when we can share the full game with you. We have some important information for you, such as the...
... Release Date!

If you have been waiting for word on a release date, the Pillars of Eternity team has some exciting news for you. The final game will be released on March 26th, 2015! At that time you will be able to purchase it "for reals" on Steam, GOG, and other online retailers.

This is also when we will be posting information about how you can redeem your game (and other backer rewards) on our Backer Portal.

If you’d like to make sure your order is correct, you can visit the Orders tab in your Account Profile. Any order there listed as “confirmed” is what we currently have confirmed for you. You can click on orders specifically to get more detail about your completed pledge.

If you’re a backer getting physical goods, we’ll be sending an e-mail around the end of February that will ask you to confirm your shipping address for us. You can verify and edit your address now if you’ve recently moved. We’ll keep you posted on when we’ll need final address edits!
Leads Meeting

Our Executive Producer and Lead Programmer, Adam Brennecke, shot some footage of our leads meeting yesterday. We thought you guys might get a kick out of seeing one of our daily meetings. I can't promise the most riveting 20 minutes, but it will give you a bit of insight into what we do every morning.
Sprint to the Finish

In these last few months the team is laser-focused on a few keys areas:

Polishing and Bugs. The entire team is busy fixing as many bugs as possible. We are also going through the existing content and polishing it up – check out the brigandine!

Finalization of... Everything. We are also in the process of finalizing everything from backer reward items to game boxes. It is quite a bit of stuff, but we are making great progress and everything is on track for the release date.
Showing Off the Game. In addition to finishing up the game and everything else surrounding it, we are also going to be showing off the game. We will be doing a live stream tomorrow at 1pm PST (21:00 GMT), on Paradox's Twitch page. Also look for us at PAX South later this month and PAX East in March (PAX East isn't confirmed yet) where some of the Pillars team will be giving a preview of the game and answering panel questions. It may even be live streamed!

That's it for now, be on the lookout for our next update where we go over backer rewards (including redemption on our Backer Portal).

Asked again how exactly things work with extras you've backed but aren't in the Edition you'll probably get on GOG. Hope I'll get an answer.


Good news for backers:

Releasing 3 days before GTAV. Not sure if that's the wisest of ideas in regards to sales especially on the steam front. Of course when POE releases, it'll be top priority for me while GTAV will be in the backlog. That doesn't run true for most people I assume though.