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Jeff Vogel vs Pillars of Eternity

Sizzle

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Feb 17, 2012
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So what does "pulling a sensuki" mean? I only remember him from superficially browsing Obs forums during PoE1 development. Did flew to California and attempt assassinations? Or is there a gold mine of melt down posts in the depths of the codex?

He spent a lot of time (as in - making YT videos, detailed analysis where he explained how the attribute system should be overhauled, etc.) on PoE during its beta. Then, shortly after the game was released, he played a bit of it, proclaimed it was shit (mostly on account of the writing and engagement system), and never played it again.

Now, according to what you think of PoE, he's regarded either as:

- A guy who tried to help Obs. make a better game and wisely gave up when he saw there's no hope for them.

or

- Someone who obsessively played the beta until he got burned out, and then flip-flopped to the "PoE is absolute shit, can't believe I ever thought otherwise" camp, who still, even though he claims to care nothing about the game - let alone its sequel - hangs around PoE topics.
 

Sizzle

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I care nothing about PoE, let alone its sequel, but i still hang out in PoE topics because a bunch of retarded shit is said here and i enjoy abusing people.

Yeah, but you don't have the need to convince people of just how much you don't care about PoE, while still fervently talking about it.

Therein lies the difference :D
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
It looks like at this point everyone is willing to admit that PoE sold because it was marketed as BG3, and the story/setting had nothing to do with it? Hurrah.
I just watched some of Sawyer's stream of PoE from January 2015, it's on the Paradox Extra yt channel. My line of thought was basically:
1. This game was a complete wreck on release, obviously released prematurely, by about six months, even just to fix balance, interface and gameplay issues, to speak nothing of the writing (same thing I've also written in my impressions of TWM thread here).
2. It only got good critical reception because it was pronounced to be an IE games clone. The talentless and useless people with dyed hair and genders varying by what day of the week it is, who write PR articles for "gamer media" outlets, have heard the IE games were good, so they pronounced PoE good in order to appear knowledgeable, and also because it has beautiful backgrounds.
3. The other reason for the good critical reception was that PoE allowed those amoebas to go through the game in a weekend or so, by a) sticking to the crit path, b) playing on Easy, and c) Lasso-Select All > right click on target. Tank and spank was considered high grade tactics.
4. The game became playable with patch 2.0 and WM1, where you can see the first batch of high quality content, besides Raedeic's Hold. By then it had got good sales and word of mouth, so it was impossible to screw up by competent patching and adding superior content through expansions.

explained how the attribute system should be overhauled, etc.
Fun fact - in the end, in one patch (it may have been 1.7, should be listed in the PoE wiki), Josh adopted what Sensuki had proposed for the attribute system. I think without Sensuki's and other people's feedback the game would have been significantly worse at release, and Obsidian recognized his role by sending him a review copy.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
There was a gamebreaking bug on release as well, you couldn't leave the interior of Raedric's Hold. I don't remember if it crashed the game or the background was black, but you couldn't continue. You had to use the console to teleport yourself to Magran's Fork. I don't think it deserved the good critical reception it got, but, like you said, people who hadn't even played the IE games proclaimed it is good to appear a gaming buff. I won't be surprised if not only critics, but normal gamers did that as well, to be "cool" in front of their friends, so the thing spread like wildfire. I am somewhat enjoying my current playthrough, but with sufficient foreknowledge of what to expect. No companions, just skimming through the dialogue, if I see even a hint of descriptive text I skip it, pretty much perma-Fast-mode for walking around (due to the complete lack of "atmosphere"), Slow mode is a must in combat. So many compromises just to make it bearable. I'm glad they are doing PoE2, though, if only to see if this genre can continue to be marketable and profitable, I'm wary of the per encounter bullshit, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.
 

Sizzle

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explained how the attribute system should be overhauled, etc.
Fun fact - in the end, in one patch (it may have been 1.7, should be listed in the PoE wiki), Josh adopted what Sensuki had proposed for the attribute system. I think without Sensuki's and other people's feedback the game would have been significantly worse at release, and Obsidian recognized his role by sending him a review copy.

Yeah, Sawyer's response in the topic where Sensuki proposed his attribute changes was hilarious, it was something like: "Yes, I was also thinking of changing the attributes along those lines... even before Sensuki's suggestions. Honest." :D

I mean, it's possible that's what happened, Sawyer always struck me as someone who openly admitted to where he got his inspiration stole shit from, but it would be amusing if he only said that because he didn't want to give Sensuki his due. I seem to remember it was implied somewhere that he disliked him, but can't remember where exactly. Infinitron, Roguey, do you guys remember something like that?
 

AwesomeButton

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My review copy was actually given to me by the Codex, it was given to mindx2, and then powers that be gave it to me. Obsidian were very surprised that I ended up with it.
Lol, I thought they were in contact with you about the review copy.

Oh, I doubt Sawyer is capable of having emotions for any particular player.
 

Roguey

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Yeah, Sawyer's response in the topic where Sensuki proposed his attribute changes was hilarious, it was something like: "Yes, I was also thinking of changing the attributes along those lines... even before Sensuki's suggestions. Honest." :D

I mean, it's possible that's what happened, Sawyer always struck me as someone who openly admitted to where he got his inspiration stole shit from, but it would be amusing if he only said that because he didn't want to give Sensuki his due. I seem to remember it was implied somewhere that he disliked him, but can't remember where exactly. Infinitron, Roguey, do you guys remember something like that?

You're remembering that worse than it was http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68...gn-in-pillars-of-eternity/page-3#entry1508219

Josh has never disparaged Sensuki and in fact went to bat for him once when goons were mocking him.
 

AwesomeButton

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At one point I said he is probably a very boring DM. Now, I'm not that sure. He is one of the few people who know what they are talking about when discussing systems, and one of the few who actually discuss them with players. I think PoE's ruleset produced a game that was hard for a player to read, but then the overall balance of the game produced a game that doesn't really need to be read to win in it, unless you are soloing or playing with 4 characters on the highest difficulty. That's ultimately bad, but like I said, passed over the heads of the "game critics" and of the majority of players. So, the main goal was achieved. Now we get to see if he can improve.
 

Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Personally I found the release version pretty good. Of course it only improved from there.
It helped that I was never in love with the IE games. I respected them for their scope and was really impressed by the magic systems, but still my most beloved IE engine game was Planescape Torment. I also valued Fallout way higher then BG or BG2. So I wasn't as attached to the old formula.
For me the engine bar to exceed was rather NWN. Even it's clean GUI I liked way more.

PoE did make a very good impression on me. Very varied classes, with actual different gameplay mechanics. Lots of active skills and modals. Actual build variety. Extremely good system for a first try, that was my impression.
More interesting and dynamic combat then in the old titles.

However this also led to my pretty much only reservation. Too high magic, too intense skill spam, too many fireworks. After level 12, the characters already felt like demi-gods. And often too difficult to read clusterfucks.
 

Iznaliu

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2. It only got good critical reception because it was pronounced to be an IE games clone. The talentless and useless people with dyed hair and genders varying by what day of the week it is, who write PR articles for "gamer media" outlets, have heard the IE games were good, so they pronounced PoE good in order to appear knowledgeable, and also because it has beautiful backgrounds.

While mainstream game reviews are bad, they aren't that bad.
 

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