Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming Fall 2024

[Tyranicon]

*sniff sniff*

Anyone else smelling dumpster fire?

Yeah. Shouldn't we call the firefighters? This could be serious.

Nah, how else are we gonna cook our popcorn?

 

[santino27]

"One of the fun challenges with design, particularly around consequences or even sometimes around player options that are reactive to either the kind of character you've built or choices you've made earlier in the game is over the years I've learned that that stuff is always a lot less obvious to the player than to the designer," Patel said. "And so I think sometimes you have to be a bit more direct in tying those options and those consequences to content that's come before, because if it feels too natural and too understated, it feels like a thing that's happening, not a thing that's happening because of what you did."

This woman would make a great politician. That's 110 words for saying "player stoopid, game need to point out cool shit."

loool

I noticed that even in pillars & deadfire; whenever there is a reactivity or something, its way too deliberate, screaming: "HEY I AM REACTIVITY, I AM HERE BECAUSE YOU DID THIS REMEMBER, HOW REACTIVE THIS GAME IS! RIGHT? WINK WINK", subtlety goes out the window, a different version of Kojima-exposition/revelation dump but more often + repeated same expositions through different NPCs so dumbfuckest of us all shouldn't miss a thing. In the end it feels cringeworthy and that we're being treated like children yeah.

They need to shift-del their RPG writing guideline doc that has accumulated over the years; they may be thinking its sophisticated but its too stale and predictable at this point and didn't evolve for the better over the last 10 years. Quests in TOW plays out exactly the same as in pillarses, in terms of structure, I can recognize an Obs quest from a mile away

now they are tripling down on this way of design? ffs

It's a classic big-brain take. If players don't like something, it's not because the implementation was faulty, it's because the players just didn't grok the brilliance of your approach. You were TOO subtle in your clearly monocled design/narrative.

In other news, every quote from Carrie makes this trashfire of a game seem even less appealing.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not just an Obsidian thing. The first RPG I remember turning "clearly signposted C&C" into a major design pillar was Wasteland 3, as a lesson learned from Wasteland 2.

https://www.ign.com/articles/avowed...ame-has-multiple-endings-its-an-obsidian-game

Avowed Developers Confirm Game Has Multiple Endings: 'It's an Obsidian Game'​

"If everything plays out exactly as you expect, it could feel a little boring."​

During the recent Xbox Developer Direct, we were treated to a deeper look at how Obsidian's upcoming RPG, Avowed, will handle player choice via a close look at a certain sidequest. But that left us wondering: what's the natural endpoint of a game emphasizing choice? Will Avowed have multiple endings?

I was able to learn the answer to that by speaking to game director Carrie Patel not long after the direct, where she confirmed that yes, Avowed will indeed have multiple endings. Obviously! "I mean it's an Obsidian game," she said. "What else would we be if we didn't have a few different endings?"

Patel didn't specify further about how many endings there would be or how different they would be from one another, but we did talk further about how player choice could be expressed in the game, and how players will experience it. Patel tells me that it's not just about pushing dominos - one event happens somewhere every time the player does something. What matters more is player expression, and how the player understands and interprets the world reacting to them, especially in a game where parts of the world are open and players may not see every single reaction or interaction.

"You have to approach it with a degree of range, both in the spread and placement of those consequences and also the nature of those consequences," she says. "Some things need to have surprising but believable outcomes. If everything plays out exactly as you expect, it could feel a little boring. And at the same time, not every quest needs to have world-ending consequences. Some absolutely do have huge impacts for the characters in the world around you, but sometimes the story you're experiencing is just a very deeply personal one for the characters involved. And that's okay too.

"I think the great thing about RPGs is there's a lot of room for that spread in terms of the tone and type and scope and nature of content. And so you're giving players a big world where they can find a lot of very different experiences that all sort of add up to their experience as the protagonist of this game."

It won't be much longer before we'll get to see exactly what choices Obsidian has in store, as Avowed got a 2024 release window recently. It was first teased back in 2020 with more footage shown at a 2023 Xbox showcase. We also spoke to Patel about why Avowed is foregoing romances to focus on different kinds of companion relationships, and why players can only pick an elf or a human in the character creator.

 

[AwesomeButton]

You know, this is something I was wondering as well. I can't get over the irony of journos afraid to ask unscripted questions, even as simple as "will it have multiple endings" for fear of what the answer might be. Clown world.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah I vaguely remember Fargo talking in post-WL2 interviews that "subtle" reactivity doesn't work because it's just too low level to be interesting, so with WL3 they went with in-your-face approach and the game was better for it.

 

[Viata]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

 

[frajaq]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

holy shit what a massive fucking faggot

"Hmmm attractive young women? kinda weird, where are the used up hags/lesbians that TOW provided us?!?!"

 

[santino27]

Yeah I vaguely remember Fargo talking in post-WL2 interviews that "subtle" reactivity doesn't work because it's just too low level to be interesting, so with WL3 they went with in-your-face approach and the game was better for it.

The thing is, it's not necessarily untrue, not that their solution is an improvement imo. But they also use that sort of thing as an excuse for anything that doesn't land--oh, they didn't get it, we were too clever--when often the truth is something didn't land because it sucked.

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

holy shit what a massive fucking faggot

"Hmmm attractive young women? kinda weird, where are the used up hags/lesbians that TOW provided us?!?!"

That guy has issues. He's sperging about Stellar Blade a lot because the main character is too attractive.

Spoiler

 

[Tyranicon]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

How much money?

 

[SharkClub]

That guy has issues. He's sperging about Stellar Blade a lot because the main character is too attractive.

Spoiler

Meanwhile in the real world, western developers are doing the exact thing he's accusing the Stellar Blade devs of doing, with the notable difference of it being an effort to diminish the attractiveness of the models and enhance the ugliness.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think this has gone unnoticed since the 25th: https://open.spotify.com/episode/70HuWpNrwMYCJ5IsspYzbc?si=QBKrzDpSSOWKmThmdK2VjA

The new info:

Just as I wrote earlier, they are copying the Deadfire narrative structure:

With Avowed we wanted to take that same approach ... one of the things that's core to Pillars games is having a political story that's running alongside this very deep, divine, metaphysical story, all around the player who has one foot in both.

There isn't a real city hub of the size of cities in PoE/Deadfire:

And yes, there are towns as well.

Curious:

[Companions] are all either originally from, or they've lived in the Living Lands for a long time.

Companions do have individual personal quests, and they [companions] are also tied to specific points in the crit quest

The Carrie Patel school of RPG Design. It turns out games have this inherent major flaw of being interactive:

But one of the things that's very interesting and different about writing for an RPG like this is leaving room for the player character. You know, one of the things that can make writing books a little bit easier in some ways - and this is true of some games as well - when you know exactly who your protagonist is, and exactly what they are going to do, you can kind of craft a very specific journey around them, because you can anticipate in any moment what they are going to do. With RPGs like the kind that we develop, one of the things difficult but also very exciting, is wanting to leave this player-shaped hole in the story, so that there is still enough structure there, so that players are really experiencing a story and not just sort of muddling through a world, but also leaving enough room for players to express who they are, who their character is, what direction they are growing in, and just who they want to be.

According to Paramo's rambling answers (both of those people ramble constantly, it's so irritating), elemental lashes from PoE are back as weapon upgrades.

 

[Roguey]

one of the things that's core to Pillars games is having a political story that's running alongside this very deep, divine, metaphysical story, all around the player who has one foot in both.

How many times do they have to fail at this before realizing it doesn't work?

 

[Axel_am]

I finally found someone praising Avowed:

Twitter

Yeaaah, I get the feeling the youtube jew was paid to say shit like this.

 

[AwesomeButton]

one of the things that's core to Pillars games is having a political story that's running alongside this very deep, divine, metaphysical story, all around the player who has one foot in both.

How many times do they have to fail at this before realizing it doesn't work?

I also found it ironic that what Josh once called "lack of direction" after PoE, has been adopted as a core design pillar of the games in this setting.

Also playing Fallout style RPGs is "muddling through the story". This woman has no business making games, bless her heart.

 

[Roguey]

So PoE's three-pitches-stapled-together story wasn't all that good, and Deadfire's more-focused-take on that same concept wasn't any good either, and Carrie sees that and goes

 

[Lacrymas]

"Hmmm attractive young women? kinda weird, where are the used up hags/lesbians that TOW provided us?!?!"

Little girls aren't young attractive women.

 

[Vyvian]

"Hmmm attractive young women? kinda weird, where are the used up hags/lesbians that TOW provided us?!?!"

Little girls aren't young attractive women.

Did you see the body on the Stellar Blade protagonist? That is no little girl.

At any rate the more I see from them, especially Carrie fluffing up basic features as if she just invented them, the less confident I am in this game.

No romances? Okay fine but stop pretending it's anything but laziness.

Classless system? That's the worst to me. Has it EVER worked out in an RPG where you didn't just become a blob jack-of-all-trades even if you tried not to?

 

[Lacrymas]

I mean that the guy who said they look like little girls isn't shocked they are young attractive women in his games instead of butch lesbians. It's that they literally look like little girls to him who we are meant to find attractive and little girls definitely aren't attractive young women in any universe.

 

[jackofshadows]

Classless system? That's the worst to me. Has it EVER worked out in an RPG where you didn't just become a blob jack-of-all-trades even if you tried not to?

Ever heared of Fallout or Arcanum?

 

[Butter]

Classless system? That's the worst to me. Has it EVER worked out in an RPG where you didn't just become a blob jack-of-all-trades even if you tried not to?

 

[Velut]

Classless system? That's the worst to me. Has it EVER worked out in an RPG where you didn't just become a blob jack-of-all-trades even if you tried not to?

Ever heared of Fallout or Arcanum?

I don't think Fallout is a good example, considering that all you need to do is tag one weapon skill and speech since science and repair can be raised by books while others skills have no real use (although those two don't have much usage either).

 

[Yoomazir]

Fyi, if you wanna hear more rambling, Carrie's about to be live interviewed on CohhCarnage stream right now.

 

[Lacrymas]

I can't wait to hear more about what this game won't have.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I can't wait to hear more about what this game won't have.

Quality.
Fun.
Interesting gameplay.

 

[Quillon]

Carrie doesn't even understand what Cohh's asking lmao