Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Grunker]

D&D-like

This can't be stressed enough. Siege of Crägholdt is a completely indulgent stroll down memory lane for anyone who has played an AD&D module. It's fantastic. A pity grognards hate Pillars so much, they would love all the awesome callback fluff that White March has for those of us who like pre-3rd edition fluff much more than modern fantasy.

 

[Sizzle]

The best parts is the wizard's dungeon and the epilogue quest following the siege itself.

The game really is at its best when it doesn't try to flaunt how much more serious and clever it is than the IE games (all the while having a main story twist that, ironically, makes it less compelling), but instead revels in its D&D roots.

TWM is where they genuinely started getting it, how they could combine classic D&D scenarios (and use the uniqueness of their new setting to give a different spin to them): jealous archmages, legendary places that only you, brave adventurer Watcher, can open and plunder explore, a simple murder mystery that thrusts you to not-Ust Natha, etc. - with the systems they have in place. It's still far from perfect, but it's a lot more fun and cohesive, and bodes well for PoE2.

 

[Tigranes]

The White March was definitely better in many ways, though we've often seen that big main campaigns have a lot of pressure and management hell riding on them, and expansion packs tend to be more focused, mature affairs fondly remembered.

 

[Prime Junta]

I still think it's remarkable how good the OC turned out, when you take into consideration everything they had to do and the quite limited time and resources they had to do it.

They had to create an entire setting from scratch.
They had to create an entire ruleset from scratch.
They had to create an entire bestiary from scratch.
They had to create an entire cRPG engine from scr... okay, on top of a clunky, cheap general-purpose game engine they had no experience developing on.
They had to create three different sets of spells... from scratch.
They had to fulfil a shitload of ill-considered Kickstarter promises: a 15-level dungeon, 11 character classes, a stronghold, so many companions, and so on and so forth.

And then they had to find time to write and script a story, companions (with personal quests), masses of locations and encounters, CYOAs, and so on and so forth.

Sure the story feels awkward, rushed, and tryhard in places. It's the one area where (IMO always) the game falls far short of its Kickstarter promise -- they did cite Planescape: Torment as their standard for story and writing, and while competent enough by vidya standards, this is no Planescape: Torment, not even close.

(Seriously, I wish devs would stop name-dropping PS:T. Citing it will only invite comparisons that aren't gonna make you look good no matter what. If your writing really is PS:T calibre, people will notice. Those who care about such things anyway.)

It'll be really interesting to see what they came up with for PE2, not having their hands tied by the Kickstarter, with the groundwork already present, and with all the time they wanted to come up with a good story. I just hope the gameplay holds up.

 

[adddeed]

Well said. All things considered PoE is a very strong effort and Obsidian deserve respect for pulling it off. I think PoE 2 will be amazing.

 

[Sentinel]

What's the excuse for Tyranny then? "Oh, but it was rushed!", "oh, it changed directors, it's not a fair comparison!", "oh, Paradox fucked everything up!", "it was made by their B-team!"
It's time to stop making excuses, jesus christ. Stop being such a retarded drone. Everyone works with budgets and with restrictive time limits, it's not just Obsidian.

 

[Sentinel]

I still think it's remarkable how good the OC turned out, when you take into consideration everything they had to do and the quite limited time and resources they had to do it.

They had to create an entire setting from scratch.
They had to create an entire ruleset from scratch.
They had to create an entire bestiary from scratch.
They had to create an entire cRPG engine from scr... okay, on top of a clunky, cheap general-purpose game engine they had no experience developing on.
They had to create three different sets of spells... from scratch.
They had to fulfil a shitload of ill-considered Kickstarter promises: a 15-level dungeon, 11 character classes, a stronghold, so many companions, and so on and so forth.

And then they had to find time to write and script a story, companions (with personal quests), masses of locations and encounters, CYOAs, and so on and so forth.

Sure the story feels awkward, rushed, and tryhard in places. It's the one area where (IMO always) the game falls far short of its Kickstarter promise -- they did cite Planescape: Torment as their standard for story and writing, and while competent enough by vidya standards, this is no Planescape: Torment, not even close.

(Seriously, I wish devs would stop name-dropping PS:T. Citing it will only invite comparisons that aren't gonna make you look good no matter what. If your writing really is PS:T calibre, people will notice. Those who care about such things anyway.)

It'll be really interesting to see what they came up with for PE2, not having their hands tied by the Kickstarter, with the groundwork already present, and with all the time they wanted to come up with a good story. I just hope the gameplay holds up.

PoE1 lacked companions, idk what you're going on about with "so many companions".

Also they will be tied by Kickstarter, since PoE2 is coming to fig/kickstarter in Q1 2017. Since the lead writer left, it'll be a shitshow in the story department, almost guaranteed.

 

[Sizzle]

Since the lead writer left, it'll be a shitshow in the story department, almost guaranteed.

It's not like PoE1's (main) story was all that good.

Even though Fenstermaker will be missed, they can easily come up with a better (or at least - a better executed) story than "OMG, da Godz r feyk!"

 

[Infinitron]

People forget that the original Fallout didn't exactly have stellar writing. Its storyline was conceived by a programmer and was at its core a rehash of Wasteland with mutants instead of robots. But the ideas and execution were solid.

I think the kind of talent a guy like Fenstermaker brings to the table is something that's more important at the micro level of writing individual scenes and characters than the high level of coming up with a good overarching storyline.

 

[Excidium II]

People forget that the original Fallout didn't exactly have stellar writing. Its storyline was conceived by a programmer and was at its core a rehash of Wasteland with mutant instead of robots.

^ Part of why it's good. Simple scenarios work better in CRPGs, let the player take the reins and go places and make stuff happen.

 

[Prime Junta]

Everyone works with budgets and with restrictive time limits

Good thing they're making all these fantastic games for us, innit?

 

[Sentinel]

Everyone works with budgets and with restrictive time limits

Good thing they're making all these fantastic games for us, innit?

Who? Obsidian or the other devs?
I'd have trouble naming a fantastic Obsidian game that isn't FNV.

Since the lead writer left, it'll be a shitshow in the story department, almost guaranteed.

It's not like PoE1's (main) story was all that good.

Even though Fenstermaker will be missed, they can easily come up with a better (or at least - a better executed) story than "OMG, da Godz r feyk!"

That's not what the story is about at all. No wonder you thought it was shit.

 

[Prime Junta]

Other devs, of course. We're drowning in big, well-crafted, replayable old-school cRPGs, aren't we?

 

[Sentinel]

Other devs, of course. We're drowning in big, well-crafted, replayable old-school cRPGs, aren't we?

We never were.

 

[Volrath]

Did anyone eventually come up with a solid UI mod to deshitify the current made-for-tablets one?

 

[Grunker]

People forget that the original Fallout didn't exactly have stellar writing.

Not sure they're forgetting, more like they're being apologetic (like Junta is here, to a degree). One of the first things that earned me the ire of the Codex was saying in a few debates that I thought Fallout had fairly stock writing, and I spent post-upon-post arguing with 'dexers who thought the ending with The Master was, well, masterfully written.

 

[Sizzle]

That's not what the story is about at all. No wonder you thought it was shit.

Never said I thought it was shit, just that it could have been much better.

There are many narrative problems with it:

- An antagonist who seldom shows up (contrast that to Sarevok and Irenicus, who make many appearances across the entire game) and isn't in direct opposition to the main character. He isn't hunting you, doesn't even really care about you.

- The PC's Watcher powers supposedly driving him insane (apart from some companion comments about how the PC isn't getting enough sleep - this has absolutely no effect on the game, and the PC is getting stronger through the course of the game, not weaker).

- The reveal about the true nature of the Gods being presented as something shocking (totally irrelevant - even if they are man kith-made, they are still essentially gods in every other possible way).

- The hint that the struggle between Thaos and the PC is cyclical and has been repeated many times before (a very PS:T-ish idea, that, unfortunately, isn't explored at all).

TL;DR the antagonist isn't very antagonisty, the PC's primary motivation for stopping him isn't presented clearly enough, the main story's twist is almost BioWareian - silly, yet presented as earth-shattering in its importance.

 

[Infinitron]

- An antagonist who seldom shows up (contrast that to Sarevok

Sarevok - appears in the prologue, at an importing meeting at the ducal palace, and in the endgame.
Thaos - same.

It's why I believed they were meant to be analogous.

But of course he appears many more times if you include Watcher visions. Maybe even more than Irenicus if you include those.

EDIT: You could also count the time you encounter him in somebody else's body at the Sanitarium.

 

[Prime Junta]

One of the first things that earned me the ire of the Codex was saying in a few debates that I thought Fallout had fairly stock writing, and I spent post-upon-post arguing with 'dexers who thought the ending with The Master was, well, masterfully written

The difficulty is that 'good writing' can mean many things, especially as writing for a game is so different from writing for most other media.

There is the text itself: how well it flows, how different characters have (or don't have) their individual voices, how enjoyable it is to read line-by-line.
There is the structure, stuff Sizzle is talking about above: how the story is constructed overall, how it hangs together with the possible different twists it might take through player actions, how consistent, fleshed-out, interesting, believable the setting is, and so on.
There is the way it's integrated with the gameplay: how your story choices affect the way the game plays (or not).
And then there is the way it supports player agency (or not): how much freedom it permits you, how your choices play out in the story, and how the whole thing hangs together with all that.

Unless you specify what you mean by "good" or "bad" writing -- in these terms or others -- there isn't much of a conversation to be had.

(Fallout's prose wasn't anything special, true, and in terms of story arc it's fairly basic. However it's really fucking brilliant by the last two criteria: the writing allows you masses of agency, and the stuff plays out naturally as you go through it, including the various ways you can deal with the Master.)

 

[Tigranes]

Thaos' problem isn't the lack of appearances, it's that until the end he is just as one-dimension as Sarevok but in a much more serious and complicated plot, while his writing, voice acting and scenes are nowhere as punchy and cool as Irenicus. So he's not a supercool villain, he's not a complex and fleshed out villain for most of the campaign, and neither him nor his leaden key affiliates really get that much screentime. Thus: nobody gives a shit about this dude.

 

[Grunker]

One of the first things that earned me the ire of the Codex was saying in a few debates that I thought Fallout had fairly stock writing, and I spent post-upon-post arguing with 'dexers who thought the ending with The Master was, well, masterfully written

The difficulty is that 'good writing' can mean many things, especially as writing for a game is so different from writing for most other media.

There is the text itself: how well it flows, how different characters have (or don't have) their individual voices, how enjoyable it is to read line-by-line.
There is the structure, stuff Sizzle is talking about above: how the story is constructed overall, how it hangs together with the possible different twists it might take through player actions, how consistent, fleshed-out, interesting, believable the setting is, and so on.
There is the way it's integrated with the gameplay: how your story choices affect the way the game plays (or not).
And then there is the way it supports player agency (or not): how much freedom it permits you, how your choices play out in the story, and how the whole thing hangs together with all that.

Unless you specify what you mean by "good" or "bad" writing -- in these terms or others -- there isn't much of a conversation to be had.

(Fallout's prose wasn't anything special, true, and in terms of story arc it's fairly basic. However it's really fucking brilliant by the last two criteria: the writing allows you masses of agency, and the stuff plays out naturally as you go through it, including the various ways you can deal with the Master.)

Notice that I didn't say "good" or "bad", I said "stock." As in "banal; commonplace." Mechanically, yes, it functioned perfectly, but everything from substance (motive of villian, interaction with random NPCs) to aesthetics (originality, flow, character) is pretty unassuming. Which is why it succeeds I think. After all, most video games from that period which try to be... "writerly", fails spectacularly.

The setting is superbly written, of course. That goes without saying. Everything that "works" in Fallout is anchored in it.

 

[Ziggy]

every thread becomes a pillars thread, except for the pillars thread, which is about fallout

 

[Grunker]

Autist rant inc.:

- An antagonist who seldom shows up (contrast that to Sarevok

Sarevok - appears in the prologue, at an importing meeting at the ducal palace, and in the endgame.
Thaos - same.

It's why I believed they were meant to be analogous.

But of course he appears many more times if you include Watcher visions. Maybe even more than Irenicus if you include those.

EDIT: You could also count the time you encounter him in somebody else's body at the Sanitarium.

Sarevok is a menacing dude that killed just about the only character we have a connection with at that point. Our foster father, who took us in and awaits our preparations. There's even a bit of (admittedly shallow) mechanical relation there as he heals us. Then as Sarevok kills him there is dialogue that foreshadows the rest of the game and invests us with motive: he mentions us, so we're the reason Gorion bites the dust. Learning about this obviously evil man's real ambitions doesn't change anything: our cause to chase him down is the same both before and after we learn of the relation and God-thing, those are just additions to an already existing motive.

Baldur's Gate did it very simple, which is why it works.

It's the same with Irenicus - he tortured us, kidnapped our sibling and though his personal tale could have been explored more earlier on (his love story with Ellesime and ambitions within the elves are actually quite rushed, well-told as they are), it's not complex or ambitious enough that the last chapter fails to fill us in. Even if some parts feel rushed, we have decent foreshadowing; like Ellesime's room in the opening dungeon. And like with BG1, the final revelations are simply additions to our real motives for hunting him down. We have reasons to chase Irenicus all along; the final act just makes us understand why he gave us those reasons, they make him more sympathetic.

Baldur's Gate II did it slightly more complex, but still gives us plenty of clear, unquestionable reasons to track down the villain.

Thaos is a much more ambitious character than these two, and that's exactly why many people feel dissatisfied with him despite the excellent portrayal of him in PoE's final hour. Despite the ambition to write a sympathetic villain, Obsidian doesn't explore Thaos' motives in the slightest let alone make them clear until the very final part of the final act, during which we learn 97% of everything we end up knowing about him. As the main, supporting pillar (no pun intended) of the game's story, this essentially means that we don't know what the story of PoE is about until it's about to end. The rest of the time we're just chasing a ghost because of a vague connection to an event we didn't understand that had an effect on us we don't understand either. We are randomly present at a random man's random ritual, which bestows us with random abilities and kills random characters that we aren't even supposed to care about. Really, we're not. A random guide? If anything is bad about Gorian, it's that the game just tells us "this is your foster father, care about him", but PoE doesn't even give us that. What about the beginning of PoE is supposed to motivate us to chase the man? NOTHING, except that the game tells us we must or we die or go insane or whatever for... some reason. The game literally has to tell us "you must make it your main objective to chase this man." And when characters in the game ask us "why are you chasing this man," the writers are stumped at what dialogue options we should be given. So mostly, the player can just respond with variations of "he is clearly evil", but in actuallity, well, we don't really know, because we know nothing about him. When was it necessary for BG1 or BG2 to flat-out tell us: "chase the bad guy"? Did you need Elminster to say "you should really go look for this Sarevok guy"? Whenever the BGs had something like that, it felt superflous because it was.

Furthermore, so what if Thaos or our place in the events aren't actually random? We're not even given a hint that this is the case until much later, and even then we're just told "you knew Thaos in a past life, so please care about this." We're not given a reason to care, we just get random visions of random people stirring up trouble within a random organisation. Because of the nature of the ending's twist, the writers can't fill us in on any of this till the very, very end, but the game knows it can't just let us play through 60 hours with no story, so it gives vagueness instead. And it ends up being worse than nothing. I am at my most bored during PoE when I'm clicking through those Watcher Past Life(tm) dialogues, being told a story about how I did something in the past using placeholder expressions like "The Inquisition" or "The Woman." Because the game can't tell us even slight details about what's going on, it has to invent a new language to tell us the story, without actually telling us the story. And holy shit is it boring! I don't know why I'm supposed to care about any of it.

I appreciate ambition, but when you try complex things the chances that you fail are higher. And that's exactly what happened here. I don't give a rat's ass about PoE's main plot until someone bothers to give me a reason to care during the last 12th of the game. At which point it's too little too late.

If you really want to make comparisons, don't compare the story to BG1 or 2, compare it to Planescape. The two are similar in that they attempt to ask questions about humanity and use their settings to do so. Almost every single encounter in PS:T - even banal subquests - explores themes central to the main plot. We're not introduced to villains until the game is ready to make at least part of their purpose relevant to us. Even though Planescape's ending is filled with revelations and twists, there's never a moment where any of the characters we know or the secrets we hunt are just vaguely out of reach with no compelling reason to motivate us to progress. Planescape has all the revelationary goodness that PoE has, but it doesn't achieve it by hiding the reason for our immortality until the end. It doesn't hide the central questions it wants us to ponder, so when we're faced with the realization of our past, we know enough to grasp it. The game is a monster of complexity and ambition, so it has to weave its themes into every bit of dialogue it has and dole out revelations as breadcrumps each step you take - to make sure you have a reason to be intrigued and "keep asking questions", as it were. When you're at the very end of the game, the important questions have been asked multiple times. At this point, you know, and it's easy to understand the motives of your past selves and The Transcedent One, even though just the concept of these characters is stupefying at face value. That's why Planescape is so hard to explain to others, yet so easy to talk about with someone who has played it.

"You just had to be there, to experience it, man" *huge puff*

Pillars of Eternity has similar amibitions to Planescape but fails utterly at letting the player in on its thoughts and ideas. Most of those are rolled out during a hectic final act, and the questions that are supposedly the backbone of the story - and the villain who is supposed to represent the extreme answer to that question - aren't even slightly known to us until the last part of that last act. As much as the game acts like we should know the guy from our "past lives", the game fails completely at telling - much less "showing", in the story-telling sense of the word - us about him and about the dillemas he struggles with. As such, you go through 95% of the game knowing even less about Thaos than you do about Sarevok, yet he is an infinitely more complex character, and the game is trying to be about the very logic that drives him.

Planescape is like high class prostitute; it slowly undresses, shedding stockings and ear-rings and high heels bit by bit while we clench our cocks in agonizing expectation. PoE is a boring prude hidden beneath layers of wool and cotton. When it finally rips apart its clothes and reveals a pair of fairly nice tits, we're like "that's cool, but did you have to wear a snowsuit at the restaurant?" Our date is a silent, frigid companion until we get home - then she suddenly wants to give us a sloppy blowjob.

Honestly, I think the above is sort of obvious and you'd no doubt agree I have overexplained it with a sense of desperate, autistic fevor. The evident point is that during most of Pillars of Eternity, you're exploring a bog standard fantasy setting with a soul gimmick as its sole original concept. During the final half hour, the game unravels a political plot, a philosphical dillemma and a question about the religious nature of man and how to best consolidate that nature with a grim and careless world. As such, the game breaks every rule of story-telling by thinking it can "be about something" that it is really only about during the rushed events of its final minutes.

There's nothing wrong with the ambition - just the execution.

 

[Lacrymas]

You forgot to add that the PoE prostitute turns out to be a man in the end.

 

[Sizzle]

You could also count the time you encounter him in somebody else's body at the Sanitarium.

The first time I played PoE, that quest ("The Man Who Waits") is the first one I did right after getting the info from the Leaden Key in the sewers.

I was pleasantly surprised by its resolution, because it seemed to me that Thaos would, in one way or another, pop up in all three of those Leaden Key-related quests. But what we got instead was: you fuck up his plans at the sanatorium, he attacks you, you defeat his possessed puppets, and he... leaves you alone after that. Seriously, if it wasn't for the occasional LK assassin squad at night, you would think they don't care about you at all - even though you're directly interfering in their affairs, and it's been stated they kill for less than that.

Thaos, and by extension the Leaden Key, is not a proactive antagonist. He doesn't scheme or work against you, you are beneath his notice. Sarevok and Irenicus, even when they're not present in the game, work behind the scenes so they can trap/kill you. That's why the Eyeless from TWM are much better as antagonists - because if you don't stop them, they will eventually track you down and kill you when you don't expect it.

I am at my most bored during PoE when I'm clicking through those Watcher Past Life(tm) dialogues, being told a story about how I did something in the past using placeholder expressions like "The Inquisition" or "The Woman." Because the game can't tell us even slight details about what's going on, it has to invent a new language to tell us the story, without actually telling us the story. And holy shit is it boring! I don't know why I'm supposed to care about any of it.

Perfectly said. Those parts of the story fail - both from a story, as well as from a gameplay side - because they're ultimately about a predetermined person who's not really you (no matter what the game tries to tell us), told in a dull, expository way, and you don't get any gameplay benefits (apart from those mostly crappy per-rest abilities you gain after major flashbacks) from it.

As such, you go through 95% of the game knowing even less about Thaos than you do about Sarevok, yet he is an infinitely more complex character, and the game is trying to be about the very logic that drives him.

I get the feeling that no one, not Fenstermaker, certainly not MCA, was all that thrilled about the choice of main story. In almost every other aspect of the game you can see the passion that went into it, but the main story itself is muddled and jarring when compared to the rest of it.

Some of the elements work (Woedica vs Eothas, Thaos (at the very end), the Hollowborn Crisis), but almost nothing about the Watcher's player agency and motivation come across as compelling.