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

I didn't know Sawyer liked the teletubbies though. Tells you where this Project: Eternity game is going to go. Could be worse than DA2 and ME3 combined.

 

Amusingly enough, while he spent some time ranting about KOTORII and whining about FO:NV, he didn't say anything about NWN2 and their expansions at all beyond them happening.

 

Somebody on Kotaku said something retarded!! WHOA

 

There I fixed it. A small group of people really like Alpha Protocol because of that whole narrative reactivity thing.

 

I enjoyed Alpha Protocol, even tho it didn´t make much sense story wise and the pacing was off. But NW2, well... i don´t think anyone can defend the game, expansions not whitstanding.

 

Welcome to the Codex. We quite like Mask of the Betrayer here.

(I'm not actually immensely fond of it myself as a game, but it's quite well-liked here)

 

Alpha Protocol's speech mechanics were pretty good. I'd like to see the idea of exploration, info gathering (using skills like sabotage, hacking) offering new options in dialogue expanded in Eternity.

 

I really disliked the OC, i´m not sure if it was down to the story itself or the bugs and technical problems, i didn´t replay it and it was a long time ago.

Mask of the Betrayer tho was pretty good, especially the pacing and how you ended the game, made it feel like i was replaying ToB. Still think that the best experience you can have with an Obsidian game is Fallout New Vegas, i loved everything in it... except maybe for the bugs.

 

...and that was kindda it.

 

There was some other good stuff. Like mentioned above, the narrative reactivity, even though the narrative wasn't memorable at all. I like Heck and Sis; I think they're well done.

There's also some potential in the "hive" quest structure. In each of the hubs you can tackle the missions available in any order, and get the necessary info (without needing to complete all the missions) to unlock the main mission. Stuff you do in these missions can affect the main missions, like sabotaging so that the resistance is reduced in the main mission. Nothing ground-breaking, but potential there for non-linearity with decent amount of focus.

 

Eh? The staff breakdown posted as an early update implies there's a team of 28 working on PE (assuming the smallest pie chart segment corresponds to single dev). I've seen the cost of a developer-year estimated as $100k all-in, and 28 devs for 18 months is $4.2 million, which is in the right ballpark for their ~$4 million funding. It's also equivalent to ~80k man-hours of devtime, which again is in the same ballpark as BG2 (whose post-mortem claimed it had 90k man-hours sunk into it).

woo maths

 

I can defend it quite easily. Keeping in mind the context of the brand and franchise, NWN2 brought back the return of the classic fully controllable adventuring party and companion system. Unless you were a fan of the bioware model, playing a single PC with an idiotic "Expert Hirling" tagging along. You mentioned the expansions not withstanding, but each one made significant advancements in bringing the D&D computer gaming experience back to its roots. Culminating in Storm of Zehir with its open exploration, bleeding and death system, and party customization. This was all possible because of NWN2. The other developer would have never taken the game in this direction.

 

Considering the unsalvageable beginning of NWN2's OC, it's difficult to fathom how anyone could suffer through it to reach the "good" parts. Some of you poor bastards must have been ravenous for any kind of cRPG at all. The engine was shit; the art direction (not the graphics, the ART DIRECTION) was shit; the bloom and saturation (or whatever) were fucking atrocious; the scenery, setting and characters were painfully generic; and the characters were shallow stereotypes. I did find the writing surprisingly inoffensive, if generic and crammed full of the usual fantasy tropes.

It's all well and good that they "brought old-school back" in some respects and managed to release some great expansions, but that's like adding glaze and sprinkles to a turd doughnut.

Of course I've come to realize that the Codex is willing to relish that turd for just the smallest taste of glaze and sprinkles, a depressing reality I may never come to terms with.

 

It was standard Dungeons & Dragons fare. If that isn't one's thing, that's fine. But the OC pretty much did what it set out to do. I didn't like the companions much, either. Khelgar was all right, but he's a dwarf so that's expected. Persoanlly, I enjoyed the SoZ campaign best of all.

edit: For those being overly critical of the OC story line, bear in mind that Obsidian had the unfortunate baggage of a bioware fanbase to cater too, in the beginning.

 

Blaine

Can you tell me one game you like so that I can ridicule your tastes?

 

Standard D&D fare? The scenarios I imagined in my brain as a ten-year-old child reading Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks in 1993 were less generic than that crap. Perhaps that's what D&D is to manboons with sub-100 IQs.

And that's why I don't play tabletop RPGs anymore. My standards are too high. I expect every player to avoid creating/rolling a Mary Sue character (or frivolous crap like weed-smoking Rastafarian druids), to take the setting seriously, to treat each campaign as a group effort, and I expect them to have some understanding of the setting and a modicum of sophistication when it comes to the fantasy and/or science fiction genres.

But no, it's elves with magical hair that undulates in an unseen breeze and piercing purple eyes who came from wealthy, noble families and have a pet miniature dragon named Foofie. Having created these abominations, the players then engage in stupid frivolities based upon their own shortsighted whims rather than concentrating on building a narrative, on building a world. That's your standard fantasy fare.

I need to be alone for a while with my bookshelf full of mostly unused broken dreams. I assure you I'm not the "Internet tabletop gamer" who only reads books and posts on forums either, I've run and played in groups over periods of years. It's always the same. I need to fucking clone myself.

 

Arcanum.

 

Fixed.

 

Wait... you were ten years old in 1993? Thanks for sharing your "experiences", junior.