Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting

[Child of Malkav]

Uhhhhh......so this is a thing.....
https://www.pcgamesn.com/avowed/future-dlc-sequel-hint

"Due to its solid reception and seemingly strong sales too, it sounds like more Avowed could be on the way.
“Now that we’ve built this wonderful world, and also built this team strength and muscle memory around the content and gameplay in this world, I’d love to see us do more with it,” she tells Schreier.
While this is absolutely not confirmation, it does seem likely now that Obsidian could cook up some Avowed DLC."

 

[Orange Clock]

I thought we were over with this whole Avowed has ZERO interactivity stuff already.
It’s interactivity comes from interacting with environment, be it parkouring, using spells/abilities to get to a specific place or breaking objects. Sure it has almost none NPC reactions, and one can argue that $70 game should have them, but that’s the problem with a lot of games then, not only with Avowed. Sure compare the game with Skyrim if you want, but don’t forget to mention all the things and neat details, gameplay mechanics and systems that Avowed have and Skyrim doesn’t.
“Look Avowed doesn’t have arrow physics, Skyrim has it”
Cool, but can you dual wield pistols in Skyrim?
“See, then I hit table with my sword the spoons and plates all fly in different directions”
Great, but can you break some wooden boxes and ceramic pots?
“Notice how I can hit any NPCs in Skyrim?(half of them immortal, but who cares)”
Amazing, but can you climb inside a building through a back wall or a roof?
“Etc”
etc
And even then such comparisons will be retarded.
Does it mean that the Avowed is a great game? Ofc, not. It’s story sucks, companions are obnoxious fags you can’t get rid off, exploration is halted via equipment requirements, you can’t sequence break most of the quest, dialogues are boring. These are all valid criticisms, hell even saying that the game was made by wokesidian lesbofags is more substantial than comparing it with Oblivion

If Skyrim had pistols you would implicitly be able to dual wield them. Also surface level shit.

Being able to parkour into the designated one building you can enter with it's designated parkour entry point is great and all, but it's still just the theme park ride: Now if you could parkour into all those buildings that don't exist, that might be something.

The problem I have here is that they didn't design a world - They designed a bunch of sets. And then expect the player to follow the script religiously, because no-one was given instructions on how to deal with improv.

On a world design level, Avowed is the same as Call of Duty.

You can parkour into every building. Or at least onto. It’s on the same level as in Ass Creed games.
And it’s definitely not a CoD linear level design, I’d say it’s in the level of Dishonored but with a bigger zones

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

You can parkour into every building. Or at least onto. It’s on the same level as in Ass Creed games.
And it’s definitely not a CoD linear level design, I’d say it’s in the level of Dishonored but with a bigger zones

About as good as Assassin's Creed and not as linear as Call of Duty. That is fucking amazing.

 

[Ismaul]

Still Mostly Positive on Steam.

I keep seeing that argument, not just in relation to Avowed, but all media.

Positive player/viewer reviews don't mean much other than those who elected to buy it liked it. But for such a product, many have already opted not to buy it at all because they can already tell it's going to be unenjoyable. These days there is so much "content" that people only select what they think will be good. We have rating inflation because of that. And overall bad reviews means the content was shit in the eyes of people who thought it would be good, which is a way bigger fail than back in the day when there was little choice and everyone played the same few games / watched the same movies.

What you have to look at is the absolute number of reviews. Saying 3000/4000 people thought it was ok, like in the case of Avowed, even if you assume that only say 10% of early buyers/superfans rate the games they play, just shows that not many people even considered it good enough to buy.

So positive reviews are not a sufficient indicator of reception.

 

[Elttharion]

Uhhhhh......so this is a thing.....
https://www.pcgamesn.com/avowed/future-dlc-sequel-hint

"Due to its solid reception and seemingly strong sales too, it sounds like more Avowed could be on the way.
“Now that we’ve built this wonderful world, and also built this team strength and muscle memory around the content and gameplay in this world, I’d love to see us do more with it,” she tells Schreier.
While this is absolutely not confirmation, it does seem likely now that Obsidian could cook up some Avowed DLC."

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Good old Schreier. Turning "I hope I'll have a job tomorrow" into "Great success!" like it's nothing. Truly a master of his craft.

 

[-M-]

So going into the weekend they're actually at around 1k fewer players on Steam as the same time Thursday night (00:00 UTC).

This isn't typical, but the same thing happened for Indiana Jones which also released on Gamepass.

The (coordinated?) proclamation from mainstream media that these games are resounding successes while peaking at ~15k players on the largest market is baffling. Clearly unless they drive subscriptions, no one is going to consider these games successful. And popular games typically don't lose player count like this. (Also KCD2 has about 9x the player count and 3x the viewers on Twitch - absolutely mopping the floor with Avowed).

 

[Orange Clock]

You can parkour into every building. Or at least onto. It’s on the same level as in Ass Creed games.
And it’s definitely not a CoD linear level design, I’d say it’s in the level of Dishonored but with a bigger zones

About as good as Assassin's Creed and not as linear as Call of Duty. That is fucking amazing.

Please, learn to read before replying

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

You can parkour into every building. Or at least onto. It’s on the same level as in Ass Creed games.
And it’s definitely not a CoD linear level design, I’d say it’s in the level of Dishonored but with a bigger zones

About as good as Assassin's Creed and not as linear as Call of Duty. That is fucking amazing.

Please, learn to read before replying

I understood your message perfectly. Do you not know what you said?

 

[Maldoror]

Awowed xisters! Give me your updated shilling scripts! How to defend the honor of Carrie Patel, Matt Hansen and Avowed now?

At 1:18 in the video, the guy he's shooting looks like he's rapping. I guess freestyling is big in the Pillars world now.

 

[Skinwalker]

"Due to its solid reception and seemingly strong sales too, it sounds like more Avowed could be on the way.
“Now that we’ve built this wonderful world, and also built this team strength and muscle memory around the content and gameplay in this world, I’d love to see us do more with it,” she tells Schreier.
While this is absolutely not confirmation, it does seem likely now that Obsidian could cook up some Avowed DLC."

What have we done to be punished so?

 

[JarlFrank]

Still Mostly Positive on Steam.

I keep seeing that argument, not just in relation to Avowed, but all media.

Positive player/viewer reviews don't mean much other than those who elected to buy it liked it. But for such a product, many have already opted not to buy it at all because they can already tell it's going to be unenjoyable. These days there is so much "content" that people only select what they think will be good. We have rating inflation because of that. And overall bad reviews means the content was shit in the eyes of people who thought it would be good, which is a way bigger fail than back in the day when there was little choice and everyone played the same few games / watched the same movies.

What you have to look at is the absolute number of reviews. Saying 3000/4000 people thought it was ok, like in the case of Avowed, even if you assume that only say 10% of early buyers/superfans rate the games they play, just shows that not many people even considered it good enough to buy.

So positive reviews are not a sufficient indicator of reception.

Also, "mostly positive" is honestly not a very good score to be at.
Mostly positive means 70-79% positive. At 80% you get very positive. That means anywhere from 21-30% negative reviews.

Most good games that don't have any controversies around them or very obvious flaws sit at very positive. I've worked with indie devs and publishers who said that it's very, very important for a game to get at least 80% positive reviews to hit that "very positive" score, because "mostly positive" is already a red flag raiser for many potential players.

If a high profile game like Avowed is stuck in the "mostly positive" range, it means the game has problems.
It means that 30% of people who decided to purchase the game ended up not liking it, which is a significant chunk, especially when we consider that the people who already decided it's not for them by watching previews or looking at the store page screenshots can't leave reviews as they haven't bought it (duh).

Stuck at mostly positive this soon after launch is bad.

 

[Roguey]

Still Mostly Positive on Steam.

I keep seeing that argument, not just in relation to Avowed, but all media.

Positive player/viewer reviews don't mean much other than those who elected to buy it liked it. But for such a product, many have already opted not to buy it at all because they can already tell it's going to be unenjoyable. These days there is so much "content" that people only select what they think will be good. We have rating inflation because of that. And overall bad reviews means the content was shit in the eyes of people who thought it would be good, which is a way bigger fail than back in the day when there was little choice and everyone played the same few games / watched the same movies.

What you have to look at is the absolute number of reviews. Saying 3000/4000 people thought it was ok, like in the case of Avowed, even if you assume that only say 10% of early buyers/superfans rate the games they play, just shows that not many people even considered it good enough to buy.

So positive reviews are not a sufficient indicator of reception.

Seems like you may have had a kneejerk reaction to this sentence so I'll repost the rest of it.

The core Obsidian demographic is happy as they usually are. They're admittedly not a very large bunch, maybe a few hundred thousand at most. Bioware Jr never got anywhere close to a Bioware-sized audience, much less Bethesda.

 

[aweigh]

 

[Orange Clock]

You can parkour into every building. Or at least onto. It’s on the same level as in Ass Creed games.
And it’s definitely not a CoD linear level design, I’d say it’s in the level of Dishonored but with a bigger zones

About as good as Assassin's Creed and not as linear as Call of Duty. That is fucking amazing.

Please, learn to read before replying

I understood your message perfectly. Do you not know what you said?

I said that the parkour in Avowed is implemented on the same level as in Ass Creed(ie you can practically climb whenever you want, and there its logically possible); and that it’s level design is not linear, like in CoD.
I wrote about game mechanics, you replied about game qualities, you just saw familiar buzzwords “Ass Creed, CoD” (BAD!!!) and lash out into them without thinking.

 

[Maldoror]

Mass Effect, a legendary RPG

 

[Ismaul]

Seems like you may have had a kneejerk reaction

Nah, just made an observation of general relevance.

Also, you say that the "core Obsidian demographic is happy as they usually are", but that's not true. RPG Codex is their core demo, or rather, was. The site was home to mainly Black Isle fanboys, who were critical of Bioware and Bethesda's games. I was one of those. Obsidian fucked up so much even their core demo shrunk. That's not just being unhappy compared to usual, it's going from fanboy attitude to indifference and even contempt.

 

[Child of Malkav]

What have we done to be punished so?

I'll tell you but only if you take me off the vtmb2 list.

 

[Skinwalker]

What have we done to be punished so?

I'll tell you but only if you take me off the vtmb2 list.

Are you... going to play VTMB2?

 

[Roguey]

Seems like you may have had a kneejerk reaction

Nah, just made an observation of general relevance.

Also, you say that the "core Obsidian demographic is happy as they usually are", but that's not true. RPG Codex is their core demo, or rather, was. The site was home to mainly Black Isle fanboys, who were critical of Bioware and Bethesda's games. I was one of those. Obsidian fucked up so much even their core demo shrunk. That's not just being unhappy compared to usual, it's going from fanboy attitude to indifference and even contempt.

This was never an Obsidian fan site. Full of people who hated kotor 2, NWN2, Alpha Protocol, and New Vegas on release. On the edge, not quite the core. Look at Avowed's Steam numbers and how they stack up to Tyranny and Deadfire, that's their core, Obsidiots who will happily pay $90 for a new Obsidian game, the ones who will consistently show up. https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=362960,560130,2457220

 

[-M-]

Look at Avowed's Steam numbers and how they stack up to Tyranny and Deadfire

Those numbers are extra hilarious when you remember that Avowed had a massive animated billboard in the middle of Times Square.

 

[Ismaul]

This was never an Obsidian fan site.

We came from the Interplay/Black Isle forums, in 2002. Black Isle was the standard, Obsidian was the hope along with Troika, Bioware was the laughing stock. But you weren't there at that time.

I'm not saying all codexers had the same opinion, but that was largely the base, despite disagreements.

 

[Roguey]

We came from the Interplay/Black Isle forums, in 2002. Black Isle was the standard, Obsidian was the hope, Bioware was the laughing stock. But you weren't there at that time.

Always coming up short https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/more-kotor2-speculation.2378/post-24514

I consider the core the Ride or Die fans, not the "Give us what we want to our specifications and maybe we'll like you" group.

 

[Ismaul]

I consider the core the Ride or Die fans, not the "Give us what we want to our specifications and maybe we'll like you" group.

mythical creatures, then


Edit: Nobody is a "ride or die fan" of a company out of nowhere. People become such fans when the company gives them what they want.

 

[BrainMuncher]

Table clutter is just the easiest aspect and a telltale sign of minimum effort. If a game doesn't even bother with clutter the chances of bothering with anything more interesting related to physics are pretty much zero.

They did bother with clutter though, they modelled, textured, and carefully placed thousands of clutter objects everywhere, just purely for visuals. I don't think it would take much extra effort to assign colliders and enable physics for each item type, I think they chose not to for some reason. Probably like you said they just skipped physics in general altogether.