Game News Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter Update #90: Post-PDXCon Preview Blitz + New Screenshots

[Infinitron]

Tags: Brandon Adler; J.E. Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity

Okay, so the new Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter update is actually just about the results of the physical disc poll from last week (the first option won by a large margin), plus some information on the game's Prima strategy guide. But I'd rather tell you about the profusion of Pillars of Eternity previews that appeared across the web today, a week after it was demonstrated at Paradox Interactive's PDXCon conference by Josh Sawyer. Here's a list of them:

English

TheSixthAxis: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2015/02/20/trying-to-improve-upon-greatness-in-pillars-of-eternity/
Digital Spy: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/...of-eternity-to-be-optional-says-obsidian.html
PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2886...ds-pc-first-focus-big-head-mode-and-more.html

German

Gamona: http://www.gamona.de/games/pillars-of-eternity,vorschau-pc:article,2601939.html
GamersGlobal: http://www.gamersglobal.de/preview/pillars-of-eternity-1
Hooked: http://www.hookedmagazin.de/2015/02/pillars-of-eternity-preview-icewind-gate-torment/

Italian

SpazioGames: http://www.spaziogames.it/recensioni_videogiochi/console_pc/17460/pillars-of-eternity.aspx
Multiplayer.it: http://multiplayer.it/articoli/145549-pillars-of-eternity-a-un-passo-dalleternita.html
Everyeye.it: http://www.everyeye.it/pc/articoli/pillars-of-eternity_anteprima_24972
Mauxa: http://www.mauxa.com/news/20864-pillars-of-eternity-per-pc-il-game-ispirato-ai-classici-rpg
​

The longest and most comprehensive English preview by far is the PCWorld one, which could actually serve as a fine introduction to the game for Infinity Engine fans who haven't followed any news about it. If that's too tl;dr for you, excerpts are available in GameBanshee's round-up post, and in our own Pillars of Eternity thread. But wait, that's not all! Obsidian also released a few new screenshots for this round of publicity:

​

There'll be more in a couple of weeks, when Pillars of Eternity is exhibited at PAX East. They're certainly going all-out with the publicity for this game. It'll be interesting to see how well it pays off.

 

[Cosmo]

The areas look fucking gorgeous, but isn't there a lack of shadow around some characters in the first pic ?

Also :

You might say, "Dude, why should Might affect the damage of my pistol?" and I say, "Shut the $#&^#& up."

And felipepepe :

Contrary to what someone interpreted what our CEO said, we're not working on a sequel at all yet.

 

[nihil]

Different difficulty levels, what we do is actually change the composition of fights. Instead of just scaling stats, which is kind of boring, we say "Now when you come in here the creatures are moved around and there are different creatures present." That's true of the whole game.

It's still in. Fuck yeah.

I hope the hardest setting is really difficult, for a good challenge in subsequent runs.

 

[Supernomz]

Intellect increases the area of effect and duration of any ability you use. You don't need to be a wizard or anything like that.

Being able to increase AoE for two hand doom sticks. Oh baby.

 

[Ramireza]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

 

[kain30]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

the dumbing down has commenced

 

[J_C]

Reading the PCWorld article made me go . Despite all the problems, there a big possibility for the game to be fucking great!

 

[J_C]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

And thank god for that. I hate that in BG and BG2 I basicly can't use the evil characters, because they leave me if I do good stuff. I like doing good stuff in RPGs, so my reputation is high. Sure, I can mod this out, but the vanilla game had strict restricition in this regard.

 

[FeelTheRads]

You like to do good stuff then don't use evil characters. It would makes sense, wouldn't you say?

Maybe not the typical Bioware "you helped an old lady cross the road, I can't stand by this!" stuff, but still, Obsidian fanboys would expect more from them, no? Well, apparently not, that's why they're fanboys.

 

[CyberWhale]

J_C Or you could just use the good ones, and save the evil characters for an evil run?

 

[FeelTheRads]

J_C Or you could just use the good ones, and save the evil characters for an evil run?

"I want C&C! I want my choices to matter!" roughly translates to "all I want is different dialog lines and ending slides".

 

[ZagorTeNej]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

Really don't like that, a big charm of BG series' party interaction was them objecting to your hero/evil scumbag reputation (sure it was simplistic and could be improved upon but it worked) and eventually coming into blows with another party member if they had radically different viewpoints. They dropped the ball on this one and catered to casuals, hopefully that isn't a trend throughout the whole game.

 

[Athelas]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

That sounds worrying. Could you quote the relevant passage?

 

[Cosmo]

J_C Or you could just use the good ones, and save the evil characters for an evil run?

So you admit that people leaving the party in BG2 was the consequence of AD&D's stupid black and white morality system.
Thank god there's no good vs evil in PoE, but only a whole range of people, whose opinions will reflect an aspect of the world : and how will you able to explore these aspects if you're stuck with bitchy drama queens ?

 

[ZagorTeNej]

So you admit that people leaving the party in BG2 was the consequence of AD&D's stupid morality system.
Thank god there's no good vs evil in PoE, but only a whole range of people, whose opinions will reflect an aspect of the world : and how will you able to explore these aspects if you're stuck with bitchy drama queens ?

So instead of improving/expanding just cut it out? Some (even flawed) C&C regarding party members is better than none. Binary good vs evil aside, people will often come into conflict because of different beliefs, moral compass etc. leaving out that aspect entirely is just as unrealistic/stupid as D&D alignment system and far less fun gameplay wise.

 

[FeelTheRads]

J_C Or you could just use the good ones, and save the evil characters for an evil run?

So you admit that people leaving the party in BG2 was the consequence of AD&D's stupid black and white morality system.

Interesting deduction. I don't see any "admission".
And it's more like Bioware's stupid black & white system. And in this case is Obsidian's inability to do something better or simply unwillingness to "punish" players (ie: never have any actual consequences on how the game plays, only in differently worded dialogue lines)

But of course fanboys will go and say they're doing some great innovation nobody ever did, or EVEN TRIED EVER BEFORE, thank god for that.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I'm guessing there will be no class-specific and party members sidequests either, can't have players missing content that devs worked so hard on. Gotta love the modern school of gaming design.

 

[hiver]

JS: We really put a lot of effort into our stat spread. We've tweaked and tweaked and retweaked this over time. For instance, the Might score increases damage and healing for everything. You might say, "Dude, why should Might affect the damage of my pistol?" and I say, "Shut the $#&^#& up." The point is that it's good for any class that wants to focus on that.

Intellect increases the area of effect and duration of any ability you use. You don't need to be a wizard or anything like that.

It's not a perfect 1-to-1 where you can build whatever you want and there's no trade-off, but if you want to build an idiot muscle-wizard, which is very important to me, you can. If you want to build a brilliant fighter, that's also a very viable character. If you have an idea for a cool character we don't want to say "No, that's unrealistic." We want to say "What's a way we can support that and make it fun?"

Thats all nice and all, but if you try to do that by using a notion that something as "might" should affect damage done by pistols then you are creating a fourth wall break on a basic mechanic level.

What you should do in a case like this is make an exemption for those weapons and make them reliant on something else, much more fitting for such a character.
Intelligence doesnt sound like a bad bet in that case, combining naturally with perception of course. What else would you choose for a gun wielding build anyway?

 

[Athelas]

I'm guessing there will be no class-specific and party members sidequests either, can't have players missing content that devs worked so hard on. Gotta love the modern school of gaming design.

Bioware still has party member side quests. But no, there is class-specific content in the beta and they said companions will have their own quests in the final game.

 

[Ramireza]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

That sounds worrying. Could you quote the relevant passage?

Sorry, german :

"Ein Aspekt, der unserer Meinung nach nicht ganz so gut umgesetzt wurde wie in den vorbildhaften Klassikern, sind die Persönlichkeiten der Gruppenmitglieder und die Beziehungen untereinander. Zwar kann es vorkommen, dass sich bestimmte NPCs nicht recht miteinander vertragen. Mitunter beklagt sich auch mal ein Gefährte, wenn ihm unsere Vorgehensweise nicht passt. Das führt aber nie so weit, dass wie beispielsweise bei Baldur's Gate die Party auseinanderbricht, wenn wir gegen die Interessen unserer Begleiter agieren. „Wir wollten damit dem Spieler mehr Freiheiten lassen“, erklärt Josh Sawyer die Entscheidung. „Man soll wirklich ohne Hindernisse entscheiden können, wie man vorgeht. Ob man den strahlenden Helden spielt oder einen Tunichtgut, der eben keinen alten Omas über die Straße hilft, sondern vor allem auf den eigenen Vorteil bedacht ist.“ Das klingt dann schon ganz anders als das, was uns Producer Adam Brennecke auf Nachfrage bei der E3-Präsentation im vergangenen Jahr sagte (zur damaligen Preview) und bedeutet eben auch, dass sich unsere Verbündeten seltener zu Wort melden (ähnlich wie früher werden nicht alle Konversationen per Sprache ausgegeben, sondern nur die wichtigsten) und weniger miteinander interagieren. Freilich ist die Geschichte trotzdem ein wichtiger Faktor bei Pillars of Eternity. Es gibt abertausende Dialogzeilen und Beschreibungen. Zwischensequenzen sind eher selten, stattdessen werden Ereignisse primär in Textbildschirmen geschildert, die (in der englischen Fassung) wirklich stilvoll und atmosphärisch geschrieben sind."

The important thing is this :

"Man soll wirklich ohne Hindernisse entscheiden können, wie man vorgeht. Ob man den strahlenden Helden spielt oder einen Tunichtgut, der eben keinen alten Omas über die Straße hilft, sondern vor allem auf den eigenen Vorteil bedacht ist.“

And :

„Wir wollten damit dem Spieler mehr Freiheiten lassen“

Lets hope that the guy who did the interview is just a retard that didnt understand josh properly.

Also the thing about the playtime heavily conerns me. If dev talks says that the main story could be done in 15 - 20 hours, then its only 5 - 10 hours in reality.

Well, maybe i just overdo this whole thing...

 

[CyberWhale]

I'm guessing there will be no class-specific and party members sidequests either, can't have players missing content that devs worked so hard on. Gotta love the modern school of gaming design.

Bioware still has party member side quests. But no, there is class-specific content in the beta and they said companions will have their own quests in the final game.

They also had party members arguing between themselves even in Mass Effect 2 (the chick fight) and leaving your party altogether in DA:O (pissing on sacred ashes).
When modern BioWare does C&C better than Obsidian does - it's time to get concerned.

I mean, have people forgotten Marcus not being able to enter Vault City?
Sulik running away if you started digging around Den graveyard?
Or heck, Boone automatically opening fire on Legion whenever he sees one of their members?

No one is asking them to adopt the stupid and simple moral dualism of BioWare games but rather to acknowledge different party members and their various worldviews.

P.S. I would rather take whiny bitches than spineless jellyfish any day.

 

[Athelas]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

That sounds worrying. Could you quote the relevant passage?

Sorry, german :

"Ein Aspekt, der unserer Meinung nach nicht ganz so gut umgesetzt wurde wie in den vorbildhaften Klassikern, sind die Persönlichkeiten der Gruppenmitglieder und die Beziehungen untereinander. Zwar kann es vorkommen, dass sich bestimmte NPCs nicht recht miteinander vertragen. Mitunter beklagt sich auch mal ein Gefährte, wenn ihm unsere Vorgehensweise nicht passt. Das führt aber nie so weit, dass wie beispielsweise bei Baldur's Gate die Party auseinanderbricht, wenn wir gegen die Interessen unserer Begleiter agieren. „Wir wollten damit dem Spieler mehr Freiheiten lassen“, erklärt Josh Sawyer die Entscheidung. „Man soll wirklich ohne Hindernisse entscheiden können, wie man vorgeht. Ob man den strahlenden Helden spielt oder einen Tunichtgut, der eben keinen alten Omas über die Straße hilft, sondern vor allem auf den eigenen Vorteil bedacht ist.“ Das klingt dann schon ganz anders als das, was uns Producer Adam Brennecke auf Nachfrage bei der E3-Präsentation im vergangenen Jahr sagte (zur damaligen Preview) und bedeutet eben auch, dass sich unsere Verbündeten seltener zu Wort melden (ähnlich wie früher werden nicht alle Konversationen per Sprache ausgegeben, sondern nur die wichtigsten) und weniger miteinander interagieren. Freilich ist die Geschichte trotzdem ein wichtiger Faktor bei Pillars of Eternity. Es gibt abertausende Dialogzeilen und Beschreibungen. Zwischensequenzen sind eher selten, stattdessen werden Ereignisse primär in Textbildschirmen geschildert, die (in der englischen Fassung) wirklich stilvoll und atmosphärisch geschrieben sind."

The important thing is this :

"Man soll wirklich ohne Hindernisse entscheiden können, wie man vorgeht. Ob man den strahlenden Helden spielt oder einen Tunichtgut, der eben keinen alten Omas über die Straße hilft, sondern vor allem auf den eigenen Vorteil bedacht ist.“

I fed it through Google Translate and it said it's not as punishing as Baldur's Gate, not that party members can't possibly leave. So maybe there's still hope.

 

[l3loodAngel]

In the german "GamersGlobal" arcticle Josh said that the Main storyline would be last 15 - 20 hours. Further he said that the companions arent that reactive : Its not possible that one member would leave your party cause of your actions. Josh didnt want to punish the player for (possible) "wrong" decisions.

Very sad. I don't remember the last time when the news about POE got me excited. However, I am sure that I would not have backed this game if I would have known all of this prior...

Dunno. Show us!

 

[Duraframe300]

Its assumptions out of his ass. Basically Josh said that theres more freedom. Most likely in the sense that just because you have the wrong alignment or stick two wrong people in a party they won't automatically split up.

That of course doesn't mean they don't have agendas, react to each other, *betray* and so on

The previewer however took it to mean all of that without sourcing shit.

 

[Ramireza]

Ah, one thing to add :

"GamersGlobal" rated DA:I with a 9.5 out of 10. Maybe we should just ignore their opintions