Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

It could, it would just be a much more boring game.

Anyway, they said Eternity can be solo'd meaning that companions are not a big deal in it, and are more for optional fun --- in the vein of BG 2. If it fits that mold, then having an optional "make your own" party or even making most of your own party but taking on NPCs as well.

In BG 1 or 2 I would usually make 3 chars and take on NPCs to do their quests as I went.

Draq, you're an intelligent person, just apply a basic level of logic to my post. One of Torment's strong points was the NPCs, so if this is Torment 2 or Mask of the Betrayer 2 then yeah, soloing or making your own party potentially deprives you of some or all of that goodness, but it also means you can play the game however the hell you want. Clearly if you can make your own char then they have a working char generation system and so allowing an extra option of "make your own party" is not that hard.

 

What part doesn't make sense?

 

All but the latter ("We make it like Infinity, people liked that combat" - okay, fair enough).
One can't just compare RTwP to RTS, because of different scale and pace. In RTS, combat areas are massive, troops are numerious, and the life of single trooper does't mean much. And if there are special characters, they can be revived without effort in some time, usually. It's basically your resourse bloat vs. enemy resourse, and APS capability. So, if you made a mistake in, say, Star Craft and siege tank wiped your ten hydralisks, you just make more of them. If you made a mistake in RPG and your cleric got down, you can't make five more in your barracks.
Usually, the whole "mastery" of RTS is about APS anyway... and you know what, RTS does not *usually* have pause!
Then he goes authority and all, like, he played a lot. Well, so did we. Would be nice to hear some examples, because I can't name any party-based RTwP game which is more tactical and difficult than turn-based ones.

For the second part, he just says - you will have a lot of options, and classes will be cool. How does that answer question of "what exactly are you going to do to RTwP so it would be tactically interesting?". Or rather, that just does't answer what is their system *exact* advantage over any other. You would have a lot of options and would need to use positioning. Cool, more time in pause mode. There will be more and more options opened, and you have to combine them with basic ones. Cool, even more time in pause mode. You will have to use every combat skill to make it to the end of the game... which is *exactly* the reason why overcomplicated systems like D&D3 work so bad in RTwP.

What I really want to know, is what is that thing that would make PE combat worth it to actually be in real time from the start. Just randomly out of my head - if he'd say "Well, if turn-based games when spell is cast, you can't do anything to it to react, but in our system, you can react to enemy spells when they fly, counter-spelling them or even make them change their direction or targets".
You know, something like that. Design features which make continious combat in real time with pause better for that game than turn-based.

 

Did you expect his interview, which is as much marketing as it is information, to actually go into depth on the merits of one system over another? People don't want to hear that shit, they want to hear "more good stuff, less bad stuff".

 

I don't have enough Psionic ranks either, and my Knowledge(GoodRTSwithPauseWhichActuallyWorked) is very low.

I was just answering that troll over there is a sudden gust of passion. But it would be good to get some information on their "Well all THOSE games in RTwP sucked because they were made from turn-based pnp, but OURS won't be, so it would be cool!".

 

Ugh, I didn't really want to get into this anymore, but since everyone seems to keep bringing it up xD

How does that look like World of Warcraft? I don't particularly like those exaggerated, pointy, spiked etc. armors either but I don't see any of that here.

I also don't really get some of the complaints of something not being "realistic" enough when they are making a fantasy world where there likely will be fire-spitting giant lizards, orcs, walking dead, the concept of "magic" and magic items etc. in this particular instance apparently people can draw power from a concept like "souls" and they know they'll be reborn, ignoring and rationalizing all of that, but then complain about small things in otherwise completely functional armor design. I can't really help myself but think that it still stems back to the sexual nature and perceived "social justice" more often than not.

In regards to the "realism", I'd rather this not be a "middle ages" simulator, if they were actually going for the middle ages there wouldn't be much fighting womenfolk at all and minorities would either not exist or be in chains in the first place, but they wouldn't want that.

I'd rather they use their brains and think of new cultures and concepts they can use instead of what we've already had and seen a few hundred times before. For instance I don't think the same armor design or weapons that were used in the middle ages would be very helpful in killing some fantasy beasts and would quickly lose their purpose against them since they were largely designed for human on human combat with sharp pointy things. It would for instance likely be retarded to fight dragons with a sword and shield in full armor and depending on what other kind of creatures can do and magic they encounter there'd likely be different ways of fighting those.

There's a nice BBC documentary called "Human Planet" going into a lot of different cultures and hunting that even still exist today on earth, and depending on where they live, what they hunt and how far along technologically they are there are still to date lots of different ways of going about it. From bush people ingesting drugs to make them faster and sharpen their senses and then going hunting with 2m blow-pipes using frog poison, others that are employing trained eagles and other animals to hunt or cultures that are almost exclusively hunting and eating whales with big spears the year over.

Heck go crazy, your fantasy world doesn't even have to have basic minerals or resources available on earth like iron or gold and metallurgy might be a secretly coveted craft.

They basically and practically have every possibility to follow their imagination and create an all new fantasy world and somehow what they come up with is yet again, hey lets recreate the middle-ages but with social justice and stuff and while we're at it lets put some Tolkien in there, Planescape was a rather fresh different kind of world and did this rather well with a variety of new factions, concepts and other things I wasn't familiar with before playing it. It was fun exploring and "discovering" that and certain philosophies, there will be none or a lot less of that if they just try to replicate the "middle ages" down to the last armor design like some people apparently want them to yet again. Oh look... it's the church, oh look, the inquisition etc.

Getting back to female armors, even the US army by now recognized that women appear to indeed be different than men and also have a different body-build, after years of studious research they apparently also found out that most women have tits and want to make more form-fitting armor, resident expert opinion seems to agree with lots of documented proof.

And regarding "realism", many aristocrats and royals did custom build their armors in places like Augsburg, Vienna or Milano and almost all of them let the blacksmiths custom-design them to better their physique and come off as more imposing (bigger than they are, more musculous, and as I was saying before many of them even felt the need to highlight their amazing manlihood with cock-armor), there's a great many different ones displayed in the royal armory in Madrid.
Who's to say how they'd have designed female armor if they actually got to have any say in the process? The few women who did wear armor were never in the position to make any demands, so we wouldn't know.

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So, is Josh sawyer gay? I just read a thread on /v/ with quote from a guy named "rope kid" that they said its him
the quote is:
"This is extremely important to me and I still push for it(sometimes literally yelling at people) whenever it comes up"
it's a response to a guy saying that he wants the most LGBT friendly game ever made
this is the pic:

 

"most LGBT friendly RPG"...

Do gays and lesbians really need recognition through video games ? Should disabled ask for a companion in wheelchair ? Maybe we could make sure there is a deaf and a mute character also, and a blind one maybe.

 

There should also have recognition and equal rights to the pedophiles and zoophiles and necrophiles and woodphiles or w/e there is out there, all sexual orientations should be in the game if they are going to do something about equality

 

It does't, I was making a general statement about "fantasy should have style, even if it's style over all laws of physics and plausibility".

This argument is shit, go read all the analytics based on famous Tolkien's "...if you have green sun in your world" and that.

No they don't, the idea of souls is there, but it is also said that in PE setting, gods spread lies about souls and keep people in the dark, so we don't know that.
Also, if she'd know she will reborn, she would be a barbarian fighting naked (which actually would make a bit sense even when it comes to real history and religion). But she is't. Cadegunde is a character who went all the way to get that heavy plate do defend herself, has clear european design and a gun. So for her, it does not make sense to have booplate, opened belly, and badly drawn mail.
And she is not "Lady Cadegunde" or "Baroness Cadegunde". Just Cadegunde.

Imagination draws from real world. The reason while Planescape is cool is not because it was made out of nothing. It did't just pop out with it's philosophy and amazing environments. It has factions which mimic real philosophical schools. It has worlds in which greek gods are effortlessly fit into D&D alighment system and exist with elves. It has Hercules as a cleric-proxy of his father, and Dante's Nine Hells.
Real, living myth reborn by author in his own fashion - this is what resonates within the audience.

P.S. I wholeheartly admit I am an armor/weapons freak and I want people who make RPG's love and respect the rich history of armor, it's natural beauty and style, and don't care for stylized fantasy armor, because real armor is more beautiful because it can be as shiny, engraved, but also can move and protect your body utilizing hundreds of years of weapon and armorsmith art and laws in making it, passing from generation to generation.
I also hate when women wear pants instead of skirts and dresses. That can be an important fact when I am angry about character concepts in RPGs for you.

 

No, he has a live-in girlfriend. Yes he's rope kid. Deal with it, 4chan misogynerds.

 

deal with what? I'm happy that he is hetero

 

Why?

(Wow, I accidentally brofisted that post. Some scary shit.)

 

I'm just curious about it, not saying he is gay, also he said he literally yells at people about the cis stuff, I think that such behaviour is more likely to be seen in LGBT people fighting for their rights!

 

Even if he does't actually care, he sells stuff. If you'd sell stuff, and gay said "Hey, you sell to us gay too", how would you respond?

 

haha sometimes I forget that, thanks for pointing it out man, now I'm going to bed, peace folks

 

What a fucking nightmare, give sawyer a modest budget and a carte blanche to make what he wants...and we end up with something could potentially make gaider and elton john scream "Ren-faire FAGGOTRY!"

I've found a whole new respect for publishers.

 

To be honest, they say a lot of good things, but they show too little. It's teasing done in a bad way. I mean: if Obsidian was a girl, the only end for this story would be a rape.

 

What do you think they have that they haven't shown at all (or are saving for future updates)?

 

To be honest, I was sort of having hopes about the game after some of the updates, but this last Reddit Q&A is so full of bullshit, I'm now certain that it will suck. I even thought of changing my stance and donating something to both Kickstarter and Codex, despite the Crap Time with Pause but this...

What a load of bullshit. No it's not. A "role" is a meeting point of abilities. A specific single role can be filled by a single character or several characters working together. You don't need classes to get "the best way". It's just one way of doing it and it's a way of doing it by imposing restrictions and prohibiting the potential of greater possibilities of a skilled-based system. This is why they made Fallout and Arcanum the way they were to begin with. So what, are the characters in Fallout and Arcanum not filling very specific roles? Did Virgil not fill the very specific role of a combat mage? So could not the player fill any role to any degree of ability that the player could desire? Yesand yes. But no, instead we are getting this bullshit marketing speech to justify their dumbed down bullshit game.

More bullshit. Going from past examples, the only reason you could tell what class a character was before they joined you was because IE games imposed silly paperdolls-per-classes. All classes had very distinctive looks while they were also devoid of the depth of finer interactions since the first game in the series, Baldur's Gate, was basically a last-minute RPG slamdunk that was initially designed to be a fantasy RTS adventure, and such it was so dumbed down, you didn't even need to do things like dressing up your characters with anything other than the best armor/cloak possible at any given time, eg. according to the weather or as disguises where their appearance could vary and blend. Even if not for that, you could tell what class a character was because the characters declared what they were like talking billboards.

In the end, you should be able to tell what any given character is generally capable of from the way they dress and from the tools that they carry and most importantly, their fucking skill sheet once you recruit them. And if you can not, that should be okay because this is supposed to be an old school game with complexities. Honestly, I would expect things like antagonist characters lying about their expertise to infiltrate or to join up your party for their own agenda. But suggesting class distinctions as a reason for being able to tell who is what is plain utter bullshit that you would expect from the likes of BioWare or Bethesda. Except they even Bethesda don't need that bullshit since there are no such bullshit restrictions in Bethesda's games. As it is now, the average Bethesda game has the potential to be a more mechanically complex game than this Project Eternal Crap.

Translation: we want this game to be moron-proof. Because only morons would need that kind of instant distinction. Any fucking one worth his shit would be able to figure out what any given character offered and how he could mix them up to get the optimum results he wanted oh but no, Obsidian wants to make it so that nobody will be confused. "I want to make a party of a thief, a mage and a fighter. Oh hey, this guy is a mage. And this guy a thief. And this, a fighter. SO OLD-FUCKING-SCHOOL! BEST GMAE EVAH!"

You know, this entire thing is screaming that they want to mimic Dragon Age. Simplistic classes with lots of cool-down abilities. Yet more next-gen crap in the disguise of old school. I'm so glad they did this Reddit shit. Everything has become clear now.