Eternity Josh Sawyer reflects on his failures with Pillars of Eternity

[Nahel]

The posts commenting about the journey have the main point. When I finished Kingmaker I felt something. Like you finished a great adventure with your bros and with great moments. Like the coronation, you finally feel your efforts have paid off after all the shit your kingdom has suffered for several chapters. Same thing with the main female antagonist. My loyal good character was so pissed at her character he wanted to just chop her head off after all she had made the party suffer.

Its similar in BG2 in the elven city when your companions speak with you before confronting Irenicus. You feel like a great adventure with emotional impact is ending. With fun and powerful items, crazy mages etc. The most recent one is Disco Elysium.
In POE the only thing I felt was boredom and disappointment. And yes the gameplay was boring. But it was not that awful. But with the shitty story and terrible companions, nothing remained. An exceptional combat system could have saved the game. It was just average, serviceable. So for most people POE is associated with boredom. That is why you don't have so many negatives review. People don't care enough for it. Take Anomen in BG2 or Aerie. Many people hate them. But at least they made you feel something. They were decently written.

And POE2 had the same problem. It was not outstanding enough on its merits, according to people who played it (I did not). Average story or even bad, terrible companions. And please fuck balance. Its a single player RPG. If that boss raped me on first playthrough its a pleasure to crush him on another one. And with enough variety most builds can be countered. And if they can't? Who cares. Just add some minimal balance for build variety. Its not a MMO.

 

[user]

Hmmm I kind of remember another version of the story...

Which one?

Ah nevermind, got him confused with another person.

 

[Tigranes]

It's actually very surprising why he's even complaining. Just to start (and I'm talking about release-time PoE1, since I had zero compunction to buy Dumpsterfire or re-start the game apparently after some problems were 'fixed') :
- He took our money to make the game that HE likes, not what they promised and what people wanted (there wasn't a serious D&D game in a decade at the point when PoE released)
- He used that money to fuel his D&D hate-driven system that basically made the role-playing component pointless and useless (first impression that I got when I started PoE1 was how little reactivity and C&C there was and how counter-intuitive everything was (on purpose, of course))
- Game obviously suffered from the checkbox design and WL2 inspired management method that split the plot between numerous cheap and inexperienced writers (with a lot of self-importance and "I'm better than GRRM / JRRT" attitude that is befit a Literature/English major)
- Last two issues made the game absolutely boring and uniteresting to play - I stopped after I cleaned out the mad paladin castle (don't remember the name).

People like to shit on NWN2 for inane plot and criticise the combat system in DoS2 (and I partially agree with that in regards with the broken initiative that was not fixed when I was playing it), but at least there was something good in both (3.5e in NWN2, also MoTB and SoZ later, DoS2 sense of adventure and memorable companions + long-reaching reactivity, combat was challenging but also fun if you are into chess or something like that). PoE1 was neither and I got quickly bored and disappointed in it (and I had to scrounge my last $30 or $40 to kickstart it back when it began, so it'd stung especially hard), so I didn't even follow PoE2's development and never considered buying it before hearing the other 'dexers' opinions. On the other hand, I never even heard of PF:KM before it was released, but was pleasantly surprised by it and sank 260+ hrs in one playthrough.

Dude isn't "complaining". If there is one thing Sawyer does well, it is to sit down and say "did I make mistakes / did my game have flaws, how can I rectify them?" without being a whiny ass that blames everyone else except the great genius auteur.

One might argue that he then fails to come to the right conclusions. Or that in listening to feedback, he listens to the wrong feedback and casualises his games stupidly. Or that he's just a bad designer. I can see how all of those could be argued. Notably, that is what your own complaints are actually about. But I think the attitude of being willingly to publicly ask & discuss what was wrong with his games is a good one to have.

 

[Tenebris]

he listens to the wrong feedback and casualises his games stupidly

You're telling me that spending the entire development cycle talking to SA and having the rest of the team in some Fan Discord was a bad idea?! Seriously though. Did Josh spend any time on the Obsidian beta feedback forum? I don't recall him showing up there at all.

 

[Desiderius]

he listens to the wrong feedback and casualises his games stupidly

You're telling me that spending the entire development cycle talking to SA and having the rest of the team in some Fan Discord was a bad idea?! Seriously though. Did Josh spend any time on the Obsidian beta feedback forum? I don't recall him showing up there at all.

The Cool Mom is a bad parent*. If you’re sucking up, you’re fucking up. Make the game that made you play too much at U. Don’t dumb down and pander.

* - yes, a dev is not only an authority figure, he’s an author.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Another thing nobody mentioned is that many people (me included) bought POE1 because it had Chris Avellone's name attached to it. Also POE's settings selling point was focus on souls so I thought that despite looking like a BG1 clone the game will actually feel like more adventurous Torment with good combat. When the sequel came out I was already disillusioned by POA1, and MCA didn't work on POE2 so I skipped it.
POE1 wasn't bought only by BGII/IE fans but also by Obsidian fans who wanted their favorite company to spread their wings without publishers looking over their shoulder all the time. After I finished POE1 it was clear to me that I can't expect another KoTOR2 or MOTB from them.

 

[Flou]

Wouldn't be surprised if DLC's had negative profits too

Hollywood accounting. If Feargus is even moderately good at his job, he made sure some of the cost for the DLCs were paid from the Deadfire budget and put underneath that budget from the get go.

 

[Riddler]

Another thing nobody mentioned is that many people (me included) bought POE1 because it had Chris Avellone's name attached to it. Also POE's settings selling point was focus on souls so I thought that despite looking like a BG1 clone the game will actually feel like more adventurous Torment with good combat. When the sequel came out I was already disillusioned by POA1, and MCA didn't work on POE2 so I skipped it.
POE1 wasn't bought only by BGII/IE fans but also by Obsidian fans who wanted their favorite company to spread their wings without publishers looking over their shoulder all the time. After I finished POE1 it was clear to me that I can't expect another KoTOR2 or MOTB from them.

They use him heavily in their pitch and then almost completely sideline him during development. They sideline both him and Ziets for what? A Fenstermaker maker than doesn't even wanna be there? Someone had not been narrative lead on anything good and whose greatest claim to fame is designing one competent location among many in NV. A guy who is actively driving their other talent away.

I mean, wtf!?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Like what you did with the Souls in the end of the first game. If I recall right the only options that had any even if minor affect was Galawain

In what way?

 

[Prime Junta]

They use him heavily in their pitch and then almost completely sideline him during development. They sideline both him and Ziets for what? A Fenstermaker maker than doesn't even wanna be there? Someone had not been narrative lead on anything good and whose greatest claim to fame is designing one competent location among many in NV. A guy who is actively driving their other talent away.

Dude. Have you even followed MCA's antics lately? It's obvious he'd become an embittered recluse at Obsidian well before Pillars. He wasn't sidelined, he sidelined himself, locking himself in a room with a brief and a word count and coming up with three times the requested amount of text and two characters completely out of tune with the rest of the game.

The man's a burnout. Durance is a self-portrait. It's completely clear that he is no longer capable of taking creative control of anything at the scale of an entire game. He needs a complete reset to get back there, if he even wants to, which I doubt: more likely he's just ready to cruise on to an early grave on his reputation and by pimping his name to kickstarters.

Edit: relevant

Nearly all game devs start out excited and passionate about what they do. Some people lose their excitement as they age – maybe they get burned out, maybe their tastes change, it varies. Some leave the industry at that point, but others stay – they’ve built up a career, and they don’t want to throw it away. Unfortunately, that can lead to (often senior) people who aren’t genuinely excited about the products they’re making.

 

[Riddler]

They use him heavily in their pitch and then almost completely sideline him during development. They sideline both him and Ziets for what? A Fenstermaker maker than doesn't even wanna be there? Someone had not been narrative lead on anything good and whose greatest claim to fame is designing one competent location among many in NV. A guy who is actively driving their other talent away.

Dude. Have you even followed MCA's antics lately? It's obvious he'd become an embittered recluse at Obsidian well before Pillars. He wasn't sidelined, he sidelined himself, locking himself in a room with a brief and a word count and coming up with three times the requested amount of text and two characters completely out of tune with the rest of the game.

The man's a burnout. Durance is a self-portrait. It's completely clear that he is no longer capable of taking creative control of anything at the scale of an entire game. He needs a complete reset to get back there, if he even wants to, which I doubt: more likely he's just ready to cruise on to an early grave on his reputation and by pimping his name to kickstarters.

Edit: relevant

Nearly all game devs start out excited and passionate about what they do. Some people lose their excitement as they age – maybe they get burned out, maybe their tastes change, it varies. Some leave the industry at that point, but others stay – they’ve built up a career, and they don’t want to throw it away. Unfortunately, that can lead to (often senior) people who aren’t genuinely excited about the products they’re making.

Be that as it may, he locked himself into a room and wrote the only thing worthwhile in PoE.

He didn't seem burned out by the time of PoE but became so during it and Tyranny's development.

Going into the Kickstarter Avellone just came off leading the development of the very well received DLCs of New Vegas, hardly the work of some burned out has been. He was certainly not the bloated husk he seemed during Prey's development.

 

[Cross]

Dude. Have you even followed MCA's antics lately? It's obvious he'd become an embittered recluse at Obsidian well before Pillars. He wasn't sidelined, he sidelined himself, locking himself in a room with a brief and a word count and coming up with three times the requested amount of text and two characters completely out of tune with the rest of the game.

He wrote the only two characters in the entire game that have significant ties to the setting and story.

But sure, let's pretend that Pallegina's companion quest about trade conflicts is the best way to showcase the unique aspects of your new setting.

 

[Lacrymas]

Pallegina isn't a bad character, she just, you know, has nothing to do with the setting or story we are in. But that can be said about everyone tbh, with the possible exception of GM (it's possible because the story isn't really about the dead children). Durance told a cool tale about other people and another time which made us wish we were playing then instead of this stupid narrative we are forced to deal with, but it still had nothing to do with what we are doing.

 

[Prime Junta]

Be that as it may, he locked himself into a room and wrote the only thing worthwhile in PoE.

Bollocks. Both Durance and GM are overwritten and purple AF. Cool ideas, shit writing. “Stone is cold comfort” LOL.

Making a game is a collaborative project and MCA clearly can’t or won’t or isn’t interested in collaborating with anyone anymore.

 

[Prime Junta]

He wrote the only two characters in the entire game that have significant ties to the setting and story.

Also bollocks. Remember Edér’s brother? Aloth’s involvement with the Leaden Key?

Stop jacking off MCA already, he prolly can’t even get it up anymore.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Be that as it may, he locked himself into a room and wrote the only thing worthwhile in PoE.

Bollocks. Both Durance and GM are overwritten and purple AF. Cool ideas, shit writing. “Stone is cold comfort” LOL.

Making a game is a collaborative project and MCA clearly can’t or won’t or isn’t interested in collaborating with anyone anymore.

Durance was alright, but I agree with you on GM. Overwritten purple prose about a 'tragic' story that I couldn't care less about. Mechanical consequences aside, she was my designated sacrifice to Skaen every time just because of how boring of a character she was.

 

[Lacrymas]

Also bollocks. Remember Edér’s brother? Aloth’s involvement with the Leaden Key?

To answer the first question - no. As for the second, I don't think the Leaden Key was characterized well and Aloth's involvement was vestigial at best. What this game would've benefited from (besides everything else) is actually playing through key moments in the companions' lives through the soul reading thing (if we had to use this). A good additional theme would've been "the sins of the past/fathers" or something like that, and how they haunt the future. They tried to do this with the PC's soul guilt, but it was so incompetent and mangled it went nowhere and failed to present a theme.

It would also be a cool challenge - solo fights with you controlling only the companion you are soul reading. It would showcase not only their narrative competence, but also mechanical usefulness while still being grounded in the usual gameplay.

 

[Prime Junta]

Also bollocks. Remember Edér’s brother? Aloth’s involvement with the Leaden Key?

To answer the first question - no. As for the second, I don't think the Leaden Key was characterized well and Aloth's involvement was vestigial at best. What this game would've benefited from (besides everything else) is actually playing through key moments in the companions' lives through the soul reading thing (if we had to use this). A good additional theme would've been "the sins of the past/fathers" or something like that, and how they haunt the future. They tried to do this with the PC's soul guilt, but it was so incompetent and mangled it went nowhere and failed to present a theme.

Their involvement with the setting and the story is no less than Durance’s or the GM’s. What does the Pillars story have to do with the Godhammer anyway? Nothing really, neither the dead baby plague nor the Watcher thing had anything to do with it. Dyrwoodans just mistakenly made the connection because of the coincidental timing.

 

[Atchodas]

Both Durance and GM are overwritten and purple

I agree it was practically impossible to read all that GM and Durance dialogue and pay attention to it, most of it was just lunatic ramblings

 

[Jarpie]

They use him heavily in their pitch and then almost completely sideline him during development. They sideline both him and Ziets for what? A Fenstermaker maker than doesn't even wanna be there? Someone had not been narrative lead on anything good and whose greatest claim to fame is designing one competent location among many in NV. A guy who is actively driving their other talent away.

Dude. Have you even followed MCA's antics lately? It's obvious he'd become an embittered recluse at Obsidian well before Pillars. He wasn't sidelined, he sidelined himself, locking himself in a room with a brief and a word count and coming up with three times the requested amount of text and two characters completely out of tune with the rest of the game.

The man's a burnout. Durance is a self-portrait. It's completely clear that he is no longer capable of taking creative control of anything at the scale of an entire game. He needs a complete reset to get back there, if he even wants to, which I doubt: more likely he's just ready to cruise on to an early grave on his reputation and by pimping his name to kickstarters.

Edit: relevant

Nearly all game devs start out excited and passionate about what they do. Some people lose their excitement as they age – maybe they get burned out, maybe their tastes change, it varies. Some leave the industry at that point, but others stay – they’ve built up a career, and they don’t want to throw it away. Unfortunately, that can lead to (often senior) people who aren’t genuinely excited about the products they’re making.

From what I have followed different creative/artistic industries, I have come to a conclusion that most creartive types have 10-15 years to put out their best stuff, 20 if they are lucky. For example in film industry, a very very few directors managed to keep their output consistently at very high standard from decade to decade, such as Orson Welles, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick. Oliver Stone said in some interview or commentary track that he knew he had limited time to get his best stuff out so he made as many films as possible in the first 15 years.

 

[Efe]

it was so irrelevant they based the sequel on it?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Comments on the Eurogamer article for this:

I guess this explains the poor sales of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

 

[Alphard]

I dunno guys. poe was my first classical rpg, and altough i found it boring and flat and never finished it, the only characters i was remotely interested in were Durance and GM. Yes they were overwritten and at a certain point i skipped their dialogues, but they seemed the only ones "alive" in Poe.

 

[Cross]

He wrote the only two characters in the entire game that have significant ties to the setting and story.

Also bollocks. Remember Edér’s brother? Aloth’s involvement with the Leaden Key?

Remind me again what we get out of these stories. Eder's brother joined Waidwen's army...for reasons we don't ever get to know and that not even a cipher-assisted flashback can uncover. Aloth joined the Leaden Key...because they kept him in the dark and didn't inform him about their true agenda nor their immoral methods.

Noticing a pattern here? Either out of laziness or incompetence, the writers always conveniently have the characters be denied the opportunity to make an informed choice or experience some sort of crisis of faith. That also means these stories can't really intersect with the metaphysics of the Pillars' setting in any significant way. You could copy these stories over to any other setting with minimal changes.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

He wrote the only two characters in the entire game that have significant ties to the setting and story.

Also bollocks. Remember Edér’s brother? Aloth’s involvement with the Leaden Key?

Remind me again what we get out of these stories. Eder's brother joined Waidwen's army...for reasons we don't ever get to know and that not even a cipher-assisted flashback can uncover. Aloth joined the Leaden Key...because they kept him in the dark and didn't inform him about their true agenda nor their immoral methods.

Noticing a pattern here? Either out of laziness or incompetence, the writers always conveniently have the characters be denied the opportunity to make an informed choice or experience some sort of crisis of faith. That also means these stories can't really intersect with the metaphysics of the Pillars' setting in any significant way. You could copy these stories over to any other setting with minimal changes.

They hide their incompetence behind 'mystery' and retards gobble it up, thinking that the lack of catharsis makes a companion's quest deeper.