Eternity Obsidian willing to pimp out Pillars of Eternity like the cheap whore it is.

[AwesomeButton]

Just designing a city with the surrounding countryside, its factions, notable people, local economy, drawing a map of the region and town, it's quite a bit of thinking if you want to make it convincing to a band of intelligent players, and that's if you have stuff like races and world already established.

 

[Theldaran]

There's not a coherent continuity between Acts in POE and its cities and hubs. Some places probably were redone several times over, or rushed in. That spells disaster.

 

[Life of the Party]

I'd like to remind everyone that the first Project Eternity map had rivers all messed up so they had to change it after a day or two.

 

[Roguey]

"I have modded a lot of party-based fantasy role-playing games".

Fixed.

Would you say every same-engine sequel/spin-off is a mod?

 

[Lilura]

In general, in gaming journalism, never trust anything that isn't a direct quote.

Double lol.

 

[DalekFlay]

Got to agree with those saying Pillars isn't unique enough to garner this kind of treatment. Any studio could make a similar IP without much time investment and Pillars doesn't have the cultural cache to make it worth it. I do think Obsidian designed some things hoping it would take off and they could make a more "AAA" game set in the same world someday. There's a region of the world they reference in PoE1 where there's a lot of different environments in a small space... wending woods or something like that. Always seemed to me that was a tease for a different kind of game down the line where it's all a cohesive single "zone." Anyway, who knows, but I don't see it happening because there's not enough there there.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I agree, you can't say in 2015, we're making this generic fantasy setting with a twist, but wait, it also has other wackier regions, but we're not exploring them yet. You've already created the first impression. And then in 2018 hope that your generic fantasy setting will be seen as interesting by other companies.

I do think Obsidian designed some things hoping it would take off and they could make a more "AAA" game set in the same world someday.

Based on what I saw in the interview, what if we owe PoE in part to Josh "conning" Feargus into agreeing to make an old-school game which will later supposedly be turned into a AAA game?

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

“Personally, I want to work on something different because I’ve been working on Pillars for about six years now, which is kind of a while,” Sawyer says. “I have made a lot of party-based fantasy role-playing games. They’re a lot of fun to make, but I’m burned out for now on this. I have other game ideas that are actually even smaller in scope than something like Pillars or Deadfire.”

The part right before this were he says that he'd "like to keep making games for the hardcore crowd, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut" he'd also like to make games for more mainstream audiences was telling. Get ready for an Obsidian platformer or FPS.

I think they are basically at their limit with this franchise. POE1 wasn't exactly brimming with creativity as it was. They were apparently so bored by POE2 that they made it a pirate game for no reason. Will POE3 be set in space? They seem to have run out of ideas.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

PoE's world isn't particularly interesting enough to justify spin-off games.

Unless... we got a game revolving around that one backer from PoE1 who pissed off a lot of trannies with his tombstone engraving. The Life & Crimes of Firedorn.

 

[Flou]

citing a hypothetical Pillars of Eternity tactics-based game as an idea that Obsidian might not have the interest in or means to produce itself.

So Feargus is still stubbornly refusing to make a turn-based game when Deadfire is struggling (still sitting somewhere in the 100-200k range), while the likes of Darkest Dungeon and Divinity: Original Sin sell millions of copies.

Feargus will never allow anyone at Obsidian to make a turn-based game. Even if it would save them from the brink of destruction. He probably hates turn-based games.

 

[Neanderthal]

When designing Pillars of Eternity’s narrative, Sawyer says one of their main objectives was to make the adventure “feel epic but not too epic.”

So killing Giants, Dragons, Archmages and whatnot while discovering the secret of the gods, and manipulating the souls of an entire nation is not too epic?

Absolute horseshit, one o reasons why I found Poe so dull and mediocre is because o usual epic shit you see from piss poor GMs.

 

[Jenkem]

someone get grape ocean on the phone

 

[Commissar Draco]

The setting about welsh speaking black Elves is not interesting enough; if the Bethesda allowed other companies to make let say turn based strategy about Conquest of Reman or classic RPG about Saint Allessia for example...

 

[aweigh]

I would actually fucking LOVE a space opera-themed cyber-PoE, full of laser swords, robotic and transhuman (not trannies) races and fighting off weird and exotic aliens. The semi-recent StarCrawlers, while not entirely successful in being a good 'crawler, does actually succeed in atmosphere and music and presentation; cues from there would be best.

Also, preemptive inb4 robo-Xaurips.

 

[Lurker47]

Inb4 Bethesda buys it and makes the entire game nukable in Fallout 76.

 

[fantadomat]

I fully agree with Kit Walker and i am little bit pissed that he was first saying it . PoE's world is pretty dead by now,there is hardly anything interesting left to explore,we already untangled the greatest mystery in the world. Knowing that the gods are buggy software makes everything else in the world insignificant. Another thing that kills the world is the endless amount of plotholes and lore rapes. Ohh engwithans are just a bunch of normal tribals that could do some crazy shit with the souls and created the gods,ohhh no they are super advanced creatures that could create mech dragons now. Ohhh the wheel is a magical mystery that even the gods don't know fully how it works,scratch this shit it is a big machine. That world is so much fucked by the terrible writing that i can't see any future for it. The world is not interesting to read about let alone to create in. Sawyer's bad writing,misconjectures and theme skipping just killed the whole franchise.

J_C It really depends on the person,some people have a lot more powerful imagination. I personally caught my self coming up with an interesting world with different nations,races mountains and swaps,battles fought in them,different kinds of magic and a few more things,while reading the thread. To me coming up with worlds and settings is not hard,of course it takes time make it a fully living world and create all the history and shit. I can tell you that the PoE world is pretty generic and bland in all possible aspects. Where are the great cities under the deep desert filled with crystals and demons of old? Where are the gods that desire the eyes of their followers in exchange for magic? Where are the stories of thieves stealing and killing for the heart of their demon lover? There are none,it is just plain and generic.

AwesomeButton on the topic of the city creation i agree with you. Still this is kind of different from creating a world. When you create a world you do try to cover the basics,you don't go and write a 500 page history book of every nation/power/faction. You create world and its basic form,then you choose an interesting part of it for the story and then you focus on it,expanding any connect to it parts. Good example for it is Dragon Age:Origins. In that game you only care about Ferelden,all the rest is mentioned in passing and reference. The other countries are not deeply explored,while not being neglected.

 

[aweigh]

the problem with PoE setting is that it's just a 2nd-rate version of DnD settings. There's no way to get around this. It's the equivalent of a dime-bag store fantasy novel from a 5th rung author who's main goal is to emulate the authors he reads, who themselves are emulations of someone else, etc.

 

[Ellef]

Who would want to make anything in the junk bland universe of PoE lmao

 

[aweigh]

I would play the shit out of a PoE-themed arcade beat'em up.

EDIT: In the PoE-version of the above thumbnail all four boxes would say: "Does exactly the same shit the others do", topkek

 

[Lurker47]

the problem with PoE setting is that it's just a 2nd-rate version of DnD settings. There's no way to get around this. It's the equivalent of a dime-bag store fantasy novel from a 5th rung author who's main goal is to emulate the authors he reads, who themselves are emulations of someone else, etc.

They should add something new like orcs.

 

[Trashos]

This would be a good idea, if Deadfire's sales were better. But they aren't. So it isn't.

 

[Urthor]

This would be a good idea, if Deadfire's sales were better. But they aren't. So it isn't.

They wouldn't do this at all if Deadfire was selling enough to make Pillars 3 pretty sure, or if Josh Sawyer wasn't' imminently leaving the company from the looks of everything.

 

[Lilura]

the problem with PoE setting is that it's just a 2nd-rate version of DnD settings. There's no way to get around this. It's the equivalent of a dime-bag store fantasy novel from a 5th rung author who's main goal is to emulate the authors he reads, who themselves are emulations of someone else, etc.

Nailed it.

 

[Sacred82]

the problem with PoE setting is that it's just a 2nd-rate version of DnD settings. There's no way to get around this. It's the equivalent of a dime-bag store fantasy novel from a 5th rung author who's main goal is to emulate the authors he reads, who themselves are emulations of someone else, etc.

uh

a downgraded/ dumbed down DnD setting would indeed be horrible. I'll just assume you don't want to pretend that DnD settings are great.

The whole frontier setting in Pillars e.g. makes more sense than the ultra high fantasy FR/ Greyhawk bullshit ever has, where you have these extremely prosperous kingdoms with incredibly powerful people in it, but there are loads of monster lairs all around and a tower built by any old lich every two steps. And all of that without even a permanent state of all out war to at least superficially try and explain it.

 

[Lilura]

FR/ Greyhawk bullshit

Equating FR with Greyhawk. 'Tard detected.