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

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Rake
I didn't know that so many people were butthurt over the spirit meter.

Hated it with passion to the point I dropped the game after half an hour of playing with that shit. Rediscovered the true greatness of MotB only after I decided to try it again with "turn off spirit meter" console command. But at the start this feature alone ruined first expression.

With Satiate some xp loss (or -ve levels for some time if low xp) allows you to survive as a last ditch. The gameplay urgency meshes nicely with the narrative of impeding doom. Most other games with a race against time to cure some deadly curse usually feels as you can larp around for hundreds of hours. Also i quite liked how resting was restricted, so you know you actually had to think and use consumables if you played a caster.

Buzzword: Absence of Spirit Meter would cause a lot of ludo-narrative dissonance

 

[Athelas]

Audio logs are one of the most mind-boggingly stupid ways to handle storytelling. It implies a world where people routinely record a dozen of lines of dialogue for no reason on the equivalent of an audio USB device and just leave it lying around.

 

[Infinitron]

OK, theory.

The Bioshock "B-Studio", 2K Marin, the guys that made Bioshock 2, is apparently shut down or in the process of being shut down.

Obsidian's secret project? Bioshock spin-off game.

 

[The Great Deceiver]

Notice the aureola surrounding Avellone

Yeah, corona is a much better word that doesn't get confused with tits (areola).

I believe the most appropriate term in this case would be "halo", despite its popamole connotations.

Also ban Space Satan, etc.

On the contrary, aureola most accurately describes the phenomenon that envelops Avellone.

FFS, learn Latin philistines.

 

[tuluse]

It's like a time limit in Fallout 1 or time limit in Dead Rising 2. Or like playing a Super Meat Boy level where wall of saws is moving behind you. Absolutely kills any motivation to pay attention to the real RPG elements, writing and other truly valuable aspects of the game for me. After turning it off I enjoyed the game to the fullest.

It's nowhere near that restrictive.

Anyways, Vince D Weller explains it better than I ever could: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=159

 

[Rake]

OK, theory.

The Bioshock "B-Studio", 2K Marin, the guys that made Bioshock 2, is apparently shut down or in the process of being shut down.

Obsidian's secret project? Bioshock spin-off game.

Good. So he can make all the enviromental storyteling he wants to get it out of his system in a game i care nothing about.

 

[tuluse]

It's funny because Obsidian's game actually such at environmental storytelling, New Vegas is probably the only one to use it to any effect.

(I've never played NWN2 OC or DS3, so they could be environmental storytelling masterpieces for all I know)

 

[Space Satan]

It's no where near that restrictive.
Anyways, Vince D Weller explains it better than I ever could: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=159

It's not a matter of how restrictive it is, it's more about the fact that the timer is there. Like BG2 thieves guild you got. It was easier to say "to hell with that!" than go back on regular basis just to click on that NPC to give him money. I would rather suffer 50% stat penalty as a curse effect right from the start and till the end of the game rather than play with 100% stats but with that timer ticking.

 

[Infinitron]

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[PlanHex]

Has everyone forgotten about Vault 11 already?

 

[Lhynn]

Has everyone forgotten about Vault 11 already?

Never will, that was art.

 

[tuluse]

It's not a matter of how restrictive it is, it's more about the fact that the timer is there. Like BG2 thieves guild you got. It was easier to say "to hell with that!" than go back on regular basis just to click on that NPC to give him money. I would rather suffer 50% stat penalty as a curse effect right from the start and till the end of the game rather than play with 100% stats but with that timer ticking.

That's a really unfortunate personality quirk you have.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

my hype train is pumping out massive steam; really like what i see so far.

also, you jaded niggers shouldn't hate on BioShock: Infinite so much...aside from being yet another popamole shooter it does have a kewl story, better than most you'll find in any modern AAAAAAAA budget game.

you shouldn't slut shame games that try, you should gay bash the shit that doesn't.

 

[Grunker]

my hype train is pumping out massive steam; really like what i see so far.

also, you jaded niggers shouldn't hate on BioShock: Infinite so much...aside from being yet another popamole shooter it does have a kewl story, better than most you'll find in any modern AAAAAAAA budget game.

you shouldn't slut shame games that try, you should gay bash the shit that doesn't.

Well, yes and no. Infinite cuts way to many gameplay-corners for me to agree with that shit.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Chris is certainly a smooth talker. No wonder Codex forgives him everything.

 

[Lancehead]

OK, theory.

The Bioshock "B-Studio", 2K Marin, the guys that made Bioshock 2, is apparently shut down or in the process of being shut down.

Obsidian's secret project? Bioshock spin-off game.

Good. So he can make all the enviromental storyteling he wants to get it out of his system in a game i care nothing about.

When you examine something in Fallout to get a description, it's a form of environmental story-telling. In tpp/fpp games, this is generally done through visual communication (e.g. Half-Life). I imagine this visual aspect of it is what MCA is fascinated with.

So, yeah, it's not some popamole thing to be treated as taboo.

 

[tuluse]

Fallout is one of the best environmental storytelling games ever. Basically every visual in the game reinforces the themes or adds detail to the setting or characters.

 

[AN4RCHID]

my hype train is pumping out massive steam; really like what i see so far.

also, you jaded niggers shouldn't hate on BioShock: Infinite so much...aside from being yet another popamole shooter it does have a kewl story, better than most you'll find in any modern AAAAAAAA budget game.

you shouldn't slut shame games that try, you should gay bash the shit that doesn't.

But Infinite was even a decline within the Bioshock series. More boring world, less exploration and therefore poorer environmental storytelling, greater segregation of gameplay and story, etc... Not to mention the gameplay was severely dumbed down from the previous two games, and those games already weren't the most intellectually stimulating FPSes around.

As far as MCA praising Binfinite, that's just what game devs do when a game gets that much commercial and critical success. Brian Fargo said he was impressed with that game as well. Ken Levine is doing everything right, if judged on the metrics that AAA developers and publishers look at: huge profits, 95+ metacritic... Avellone and Fargo probably do see the glaring flaws, but the mass market doesn't seem to care or even notice, so who are they to say it's anything but a smashing success?

 

[Ninjerk]

For those who didn't watch the video: Final Fantasy 7 directly influenced PS:T. TAKE THAT MOTHERFUCKERS

 

[Grunker]

As far as MCA praising Binfinite, that's just what game devs do when a game gets that much commercial and critical success.

You realize PS:T and BioShock: Infinite are pretty comparable right? I'm pretty sure Chris loved Infinite very much. The only reason I give PS:T a pass gameplay-wise is that it tried and failed and contains a reactivity layer, and combat is a much bigger part of Infinite. Infinite doesn't even try. The rest I agree with.

 

[tuluse]

PST only forces you to do 3 fights I believe, and the conclusion of the story makes sense.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Torment was a long, complicated story about an ugly, morally gray protagonist in a grotesque and bizarre world. Infinite is an interactive action movie about rescuing a princess from a themepark in the sky.

Neither game had good combat, but Infinite is like 80% bad combat, whereas that's only a small part of Torment.

I don't really see how they're comparable.

 

[Grunker]

PST only forces you to do 3 fights

Neither game had good combat, but Infinite is like 80% bad combat, whereas that's only a small part of Torment.

Which is, like I said, why I give it a pass. Doesn't change the fact that Chris probably loves Infinite for those reasons.

 

[Zed]

PST only forces you to do 3 fights

well he's right. I ran past almost every encounter when I played it.

 

[Bilgefar]

PST only forces you to do 3 fights

Keyword: forces. You can stealth past, run through, or otherwise skip every fight in the game except for the Zombie in the first room of the mortuary, Ravel, and Trias.