PoE Reviews

[Mazisky]

I don't like Angry Joe but this is much better review than others.

 

[agentorange]

so much pathetic fanboyism going on in this thread. "how dare they give the game lower than a 9 out of 10!" just the same as the whiny teenagers who throw a fit every time the newest Halo, CoD, or Zelda game doesn't get a perfect score.

 

[leferd]

Angry Joe knows what he's doing. Sure, he plays up his over-the-top shtick --but it works for him. We get good reviews and he gets a massive following and influence points.

The video already has 300,000 views after 17 hours.

 

[KK1001]

All this hype is disgusting. The game is mediocre on all fronts, add the bugs and all you have is an exercise in frustration. Oh, you want to enter another area, let me crash to desktop again even after a patch. Because OBSHITIAN only makes shit. Buying a copy of this game would only serve one purpose, stomping on the fucking box until it becomes dust. Gonna finish the game as quickly as i can and forget it ever existed. Hoping Torment: Tides of Numenera is a better experience but after Wasteland 2, i doubt that....

I don't want to jinx it, but there are far fewer moving parts in Torment. The game will succeed on the strength of its narrative, C&C, writing, atmosphere, and characters. The fact that it is turn-based and all of the encounters will be hand-designed sounds promising.

Everyone working on it seems way more excited about the project than Josh and company were about PoE, which seemed like a desperate gamble to rake it some nostalgia cash and get a new IP and some of that delicious table top money. The team is more experienced, too. McComb gets what made Torment great on a level that Sawyer, Fenstermaker, and the rest of Obsidian don't. Saunders and Ziets both played a crucial rule in MotB. Outside of bringing on Avellone as design lead, I don't think you could ask for a better team.

The game could still be crap. But here's hoping it can match or possibly - gasp - exceed PS:T.

 

[Haba]

No pressure tho.

 

[J_C]

All this hype is disgusting. The game is mediocre on all fronts, add the bugs and all you have is an exercise in frustration. Oh, you want to enter another area, let me crash to desktop again even after a patch. Because OBSHITIAN only makes shit. Buying a copy of this game would only serve one purpose, stomping on the fucking box until it becomes dust. Gonna finish the game as quickly as i can and forget it ever existed. Hoping Torment: Tides of Numenera is a better experience but after Wasteland 2, i doubt that....

Oh, the game is a pile of shit, an awful game. But wait, I go and finish it anyway because I like to play crappy, frustrating games.

Also, upgrade you crappy PC so the game won't crash that much.

 

[Volrath]

All this hype is disgusting. The game is mediocre on all fronts, add the bugs and all you have is an exercise in frustration. Oh, you want to enter another area, let me crash to desktop again even after a patch. Because OBSHITIAN only makes shit. Buying a copy of this game would only serve one purpose, stomping on the fucking box until it becomes dust. Gonna finish the game as quickly as i can and forget it ever existed. Hoping Torment: Tides of Numenera is a better experience but after Wasteland 2, i doubt that....

I don't want to jinx it, but there are far fewer moving parts in Torment. The game will succeed on the strength of its narrative, C&C, writing, atmosphere, and characters. The fact that it is turn-based and all of the encounters will be hand-designed sounds promising.

Everyone working on it seems way more excited about the project than Josh and company were about PoE, which seemed like a desperate gamble to rake it some nostalgia cash and get a new IP and some of that delicious table top money. The team is more experienced, too. McComb gets what made Torment great on a level that Sawyer, Fenstermaker, and the rest of Obsidian don't. Saunders and Ziets both played a crucial rule in MotB. Outside of bringing on Avellone as design lead, I don't think you could ask for a better team.

The game could still be crap. But here's hoping it can match or possibly - gasp - exceed PS:T.

You're going to get bamboozeled by Torment, it's inevitable. Too many cooks, not enought chefs on that project. I expect it to be even more disjointed then PoE.

 

[Sensuki]

if Pillars of Eternity is any indication, you may be right.

 

[Rake]

if Pillars of Eternity is any indication, you may be right.

I don't think PoE's problems are a result of "Too many cooks, not enought chefs on that Project". If anything it's the opposite. Most of PoE problems can be tracked back to Sawyer and his ideas about what is fun gameplay. Or staff being underdeveloped because they didn't have the people to make them.
So it's more "to few cooks led by a shity chef"

 

[Ellef]

PoE had too many Sushi chefs who vehemently dislike rice.

 

[Sensuki]

The issues with the narrative aren't because of Sawyer. It's hard to pinpoint the cause of the problem. There's one guy that thinks it's Fenstermaker. It could also be bad editing (Avellone coming in and making edits and fucking other stuff up). I have no idea to be honest.

 

[Athelas]

These theories might be a bit too far-fetched. Most of PoE's budget went to the graphics and engine development. I suspect this will be much less for T:ToN on account of using pre-developed technology and having fewer areas.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The issues with the narrative aren't because of Sawyer. It's hard to pinpoint the cause of the problem. There's one guy that thinks it's Fenstermaker. It could also be bad editing (Avellone coming in and making edits and fucking other stuff up). I have no idea to be honest.

Just look at the credits to get the answer.

Lead wroitung - Fenstermaker
Writing - NoName_01, NoName_02
Additional Writing - People you might know

In other words, this game was written by Obsidian's B-Team. Probably designed by the B-Team as well. Because assigning B-Teams to your supposed flagship titles is a great business practice.

 

[Haba]

Well, you also need to cultivate new talent.

 

[Sensuki]

Brian Menze wasn't even on the project

Well, you also need to cultivate new talent.

Yes this whole project seems to have been a testing ground for new talent.

 

[Athelas]

The issues with the narrative aren't because of Sawyer. It's hard to pinpoint the cause of the problem. There's one guy that thinks it's Fenstermaker. It could also be bad editing (Avellone coming in and making edits and fucking other stuff up). I have no idea to be honest.

Sawyer did create the setting.

flagship titles

I'm afraid that Obsidian might consider this more of a flagship title:

 

[Sensuki]

I don't have too much of an issue with the setting. I'm not the type of person that doesn't play stuff because of setting. It's the narrative that's the problem, not the setting.

 

[Athelas]

I don't have too much of an issue with the setting. I'm not the type of person that doesn't play stuff because of setting. It's the narrative that's the problem, not the setting.

It can be an issue when the setting is not fully developed before the writing began, as was likely the case with this game.

Or if the setting is just plain bad.

Though I'm not sure if the setting is the issue. These things are hard to view in isolation.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Writing is enjoyable, setting is interesting, but the plot itself is mediocre, has bad pacing and poorly developed threats to the player and the world.

It ends up lacking agency and gravitas

 

[Rake]

The issues with the narrative aren't because of Sawyer. It's hard to pinpoint the cause of the problem. There's one guy that thinks it's Fenstermaker. It could also be bad editing (Avellone coming in and making edits and fucking other stuff up). I have no idea to be honest.

Some of it i put on Sawyer. I was wary of PoE since i learned that Sawyer was the Project Lead. I don't know why, but i didn't like any of the games he lead as far as narrative goes. IWD2, FNV all suffered from this. FNV DLCs (at least BM,OWB and somewhat LR) were better. And from what i read, Avellone's companions were stripped down to 1/4 of their original content, and there is this quote from Sawyer that he tries to force designers to avoid sequences that require too much scripting and just use the core gameplay when designing. Also the PC being bland and lack motivation and involvment to the story is a common problem in his games.

I'm not absolving Festermaker of blame, he clerly isn't up to the level to be a Creative Lead, not mentioning their other nobodys that they used as writers for this game (i realy don't have a problem with unknown designers getting their chance, but when they fail they are fair game to critisism).
PoE's main problem seems to be that the only veteran, experienced designer to work on it was Sawyer and the rest of his team were new talent. Given Sawyer's terrible preferences, combined with the rest of the teams lack of experience it this kind of game, the original pitch was misleading to say the least.

 

[Roguey]

In other words, this game was written by Obsidian's B-Team.

If Avellone, Cain, Sawyer, and Fenstermaker are the B-team, who's A?

(Obsidian doesn't have anyone competent working for them, just like every other RPG developer)

 

[Rake]

In other words, this game was written by Obsidian's B-Team.

If Avellone, Cain, Sawyer, and Fenstermaker are the B-team, who's A?

(Obsidian doesn't have anyone competent working for them, just like every other RPG developer)

Avellone and Cain weren't involved much in the game. Avellone surely wasn't, and Cain didn't did much besides programing. Agree with the rest though.
It seems Feargus should have lay off Sawyer instead of Kevin Saunders and Ziets.

 

[Roguey]

Avellone and Cain weren't involved much in the game. Avellone surely wasn't, and Cain didn't did much besides programing. Agree with the rest though.

Avellone's the creative director and co-owner, he does what he wants. He didn't want to be involved too much with Pillars.

Cain designed the crafting and stronghold systems, among other things. He gets co-systems credit with Sawyer.

It seems Feargus should have lay off Sawyer instead of Kevin Saunders and Ziets.

Ziets hates writing dialogue and very few people talk up the awesome writing of Dungeon Siege III. Saunders botched kotor2 and SoZ.

 

[Sensuki]

One of the things I've been quite disappointed by is the quest design. They have years and years of collective experience in quest design, but most of the actual quests are very simple quests with multiple resolutions.

There are good things about the quest design - they're passable narratively and they usually have some C&C, but most of them are very very straightforward - go to point A, go to point B and make a decision.

Baldur's Gate 2 had way better quests than the best quests in Pillars of Eternity. The Witcher games also have some pretty awesome quests as well.

 

[Rake]

Ziets hates writing dialogue and very few people talk up the awesome writing of Dungeon Siege III. Saunders botched kotor2 and SoZ.

Who said anything about writing dialogue? I'm talking about working as Creative Lead in Avellone's absence. If he doesn't want to write companions, so be it. And KotoR 2 wasn't Obsidian's fault (while still being a better game than New Vegas)

One of the things I've been quite disappointed by is the quest design. They have years and years of collective experience in quest design, but most of the actual quests are very simple quests with multiple resolutions.

There are good things about the quest design - they're passable narratively and they usually have some C&C, but most of them are very very straightforward - go to point A, go to point B and make a decision.

So bad, eh? I was confident that PoE would had better Quest design than BG2 at least (which never was Bioware's strong point)