Incline An excerpt from a writing about Elves by Chris Avellone (A reminder that he is with us).

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Elven Sculpture (sometimes called Elven Carpentry) does not always refer to statues and reliefs, but in the past, actual carving of elves. First, they must be caught, then made human, which is the worst humiliation that one can do. It heralded back to the hatred that the settlers bore the Glanfathans, and marked one of the worst crimes of the war. The war is over, yet the crimes remain, not solely confined to history. These “hunting” crimes were sometimes attributed unfairly to Galawain, god of the hunt, but for every Glanfathan caught, a Dyrwood settler often fell victim to the same, their corpses found with their faces painted crudely, as if marking them as children.

 

[Chippy]

Is this from POE?. I thought he only wrote x2 characters and most of his writing was cut out or something?.

I'm asking because I only played the game for half a day, didn't bother with the second, and am wondering what long-term brain damage I'd be looking at if I played POE1 with his writing in it alongside the other writers Obsidian brought in. From what I can remember the overall writing quality was like reading the glossary section of a Tolkien novel. Repeatedly.

 

[Infinitron]

It's from The House of Wael, Avellone's PoE short story.

 

[Swigen]

 

[Delterius]

i don't know which is worse, disfiguring someone's ear or making doodles on their face

 

[S.torch]

Is this from POE?. I thought he only wrote x2 characters and most of his writing was cut out or something?.

I'm asking because I only played the game for half a day, didn't bother with the second, and am wondering what long-term brain damage I'd be looking at if I played POE1 with his writing in it alongside the other writers Obsidian brought in. From what I can remember the overall writing quality was like reading the glossary section of a Tolkien novel. Repeatedly.

Awesome then?

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Is this from POE?. I thought he only wrote x2 characters and most of his writing was cut out or something?.

I'm asking because I only played the game for half a day, didn't bother with the second, and am wondering what long-term brain damage I'd be looking at if I played POE1 with his writing in it alongside the other writers Obsidian brought in. From what I can remember the overall writing quality was like reading the glossary section of a Tolkien novel. Repeatedly.

Yeah they decided to go down the prose route for the first game and that obviously divides people. Personally, i hated it at first. After playing Deadfire (which does not use prose btw), i decided to go back to the first game and i have a 180 degree different opinion now.

 

[Delterius]

also wat tae fek both sides of the wars were elves and humans

 

[Chippy]

Is this from POE?. I thought he only wrote x2 characters and most of his writing was cut out or something?.

I'm asking because I only played the game for half a day, didn't bother with the second, and am wondering what long-term brain damage I'd be looking at if I played POE1 with his writing in it alongside the other writers Obsidian brought in. From what I can remember the overall writing quality was like reading the glossary section of a Tolkien novel. Repeatedly.

Awesome then?

It was awesome if you read the history and lore of middle-earth first, and if you knew you were a reading a book that set out to build an entire world. Then you could relate the glossary to the history and lore. POE1 was an RPG and thought it was great to dump huge amounts of text on you for almost every interaction.

What was that crap in the first village when you clicked on a character and got a wall of text describing their memories? Was it relevant to my character? Where was the incentive to read all of that random shit?. In PST you have an intrinsic & extrinsic incentive/motivation. Maybe one was given later in the game, but I didn't play that far.

I'm not being an ass here, but if you reply it will be for the benefit of another player, as now that Infinitron has answered my question - I see no reason to change my mind about that game.

 

[S.torch]

...

You didn't needed to read the memories of the villagers, they were written by gold kickstater backers of the game. They were totally optional.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Is this from POE?. I thought he only wrote x2 characters and most of his writing was cut out or something?.

I'm asking because I only played the game for half a day, didn't bother with the second, and am wondering what long-term brain damage I'd be looking at if I played POE1 with his writing in it alongside the other writers Obsidian brought in. From what I can remember the overall writing quality was like reading the glossary section of a Tolkien novel. Repeatedly.

Awesome then?

It was awesome if you read the history and lore of middle-earth first, and if you knew you were a reading a book that set out to build an entire world. Then you could relate the glossary to the history and lore. POE1 was an RPG and thought it was great to dump huge amounts of text on you for almost every interaction.

What was that crap in the first village when you clicked on a character and got a wall of text describing their memories? Was it relevant to my character? Where was the incentive to read all of that random shit?. In PST you have an intrinsic & extrinsic incentive/motivation. Maybe one was given later in the game, but I didn't play that far.

I'm not being an ass here, but if you reply it will be for the benefit of another player, as now that Infinitron has answered my question - I see no reason to change my mind about that game.

Yeah sadly this was very poorly communicated. All those NPCs with the gold name tags are written by backers. They are entirely insignificant and just there for flavor. I made a mistake of thinking them essential my first playthrough of the game. The flow of the lore and knowledge in the game is much better if you just ignore all of them.

Nobody is trying to get you to change you opinion of the game, but there is a totally unfounded bias against the game as having "bad" narrative and story. This can't be further from the truth. You have to invest in what's actually being said, and you'll quickly realize how brilliant the writing is across the board.

 

[Delterius]

Yeah sadly this was very poorly communicated. All those NPCs with the gold name tags are written by backers. They are entirely insignificant and just there for flavor. I made a mistake of thinking them essential my first playthrough of the game. The flow of the lore and knowledge in the game is much better if you just ignore all of them.

Nobody is trying to get you to change you opinion of the game, but there is a totally unfounded bias against the game as having "bad" narrative and story. This can't be further from the truth. You have to invest in what's actually being said, and you'll quickly realize how brilliant the writing is across the board.

they are in fact hallucinations and you should kill them all to maintain your sanity

 

[Fedora Master]

Around elves, relax yourselves.

 

[deuxhero]

Why the fuck does the kid have a cactus next to him when writing?

 

[santino27]

Why the fuck does the kid have a cactus next to him when writing?

Classic education technique. He writes the words gud or he gets the pain.

 

[thesecret1]

Nobody is trying to get you to change you opinion of the game, but there is a totally unfounded bias against the game as having "bad" narrative and story. This can't be further from the truth. You have to invest in what's actually being said, and you'll quickly realize how brilliant the writing is across the board.

This better be a joke. PoE's writing is purple prose all across the board, on par with a high school tryhard. Literally - purple prose all over the place is amateur mistake in writing. There's also the matter of it being wordy as fuck – there were entire paragraphs that could be easily condensed to a sentence of two without any loss of information. Also an amateur mistake. So that's an F for style. Then comes the actual content, which is just as bad. Plotholes all over the place, garbage quests and story, and nearly no memorable characters. If you claim PoE's writing is brilliant, then you are either a liar or have an absolutely horrible taste in literature.

 

[Swigen]

Why the fuck does the kid have a cactus next to him when writing?

For ambiance. I have an Ash on my writing desk.

 

[Mastermind]

PoE1 is pretty good after all the patches and dlcs. It never rises to the level of bg2 or torment but it's on about the same level as IWD. Some things are done better, some worse. As long as you're not a disgusting storyfag (the story in the main game is terrible) or a low IQ turn based purist (but I repeat myself) you'll probably enjoy it.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

I deleted what i wrote because i don't want this to devolve into another autistic debate over the merits and demerits of PoE's writing. You decide what you like or hate.

 

[Roguey]

Around elves, relax yourselves.

What's this from?

 

[Fedora Master]

Around elves, relax yourselves.

What's this from?

 

[Delterius]

Around elves, relax yourselves.

What's this from?

this series caught my heart when it said gnomes are boiled in urine

 

[Chippy]

Yeah sadly this was very poorly communicated. All those NPCs with the gold name tags are written by backers. They are entirely insignificant and just there for flavor. I made a mistake of thinking them essential my first playthrough of the game. The flow of the lore and knowledge in the game is much better if you just ignore all of them.

Nobody is trying to get you to change you opinion of the game, but there is a totally unfounded bias against the game as having "bad" narrative and story. This can't be further from the truth. You have to invest in what's actually being said, and you'll quickly realize how brilliant the writing is across the board.

they are in fact hallucinations and you should kill them all to maintain your sanity

Feargus Urquhart: "Ok, today's meeting is about how we introduce the gold backers into the game."
Eric Fasterbator: "Lets just give the write-up to Carrie Patel and lets her assign them as memories to all of the NPCs in the first town. Carrie - how does that sound?"
Carrie Patel: Easy for backers like this Chippy guy - he just told me to re-write his shit lore for his shit item however I liked so it fit the game, but what about other backers that have written their own?".
Competant Member of Staff: "I have a concern...considering the tone of the start of the game, and having too many writers..."
Feargus Urquhart: "I have a meeting with the wife high-ups: please get to the point".
Competant Member of Staff: "In PST..."
20 Year old Obsidian Staff: "Whats PST?".
Competant Member of Staff: "Ohhh shit...ummm, well, err you start off in a mortuary, you're dead, you need to gather information, later on you gain the ability to speak with the dead - so you come back to the mortuary - and you can talk to every corpse. One of them may have been a party member in your previous..."
Feargus Urguhart: "Whats the point!?".
Competant Member of Staff: "Well we're setting up our old fans to talk to all these NPCs like they might be important to who they are, the word count might be higher, it might also be written in a differant tone, and...".
Feargus Urguhart: "AND THE POINT IS???".
Competant Member of Staff: "What if we just tuck them away in a tomb, somewhere else, with a subtle hint of who they are?. With a gold inscription over the entrance saying "Here lie those who helped lay the foundations of our new property, their names forever laid in gold, their memories never forgotten...".
Feargus Urguhart: "Shit! I've gotta go! Fasterbator; you take care of this and implement it in whatever way".
Eric Fasterbator: "My surname is not...".
Josh Sawyer: "Carrie, if we balance the word count of the NPCs with the total amount of steps the party members take in the first area - do you think there will be enough of a gap balancing the two? And lessening the impact of the word count?".

 

[Raghar]

I deleted what i wrote because i don't want this to devolve into another autistic debate over the merits and demerits of PoE's writing. You decide what you like or hate.

We fucking like to read. And when there is not enough proper text writen in games, we are reading intelligent/totaly horrible bitching from internet users.

 

[Swigen]

I’m currently reading...

It’s a smorgasbord of weird horror and demented sci-fi. It’s got cucks and yucks, and it was less than a buck. It’s ahead of it’s time and worth every dime. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys bizarre fiction that takes you to places you can’t even imagine.