Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming February 18th

[Zeriel]

I honestly expect the same exact scenario with DA4 as what happened with Starfield.

Game launches, fanboys and many journos (game will be packed to the gills with The Message) will be waxing lyrically, but already dark reality starts creeping into the candy Barbie world of "wooow this game is amaaazing" and soon the whole edifice comes crashing down and the game ends up sitting at Mixed of Mostly Negative on Steam.

Unless the action gameplay hits some massive improvement between the leak and launch I don’t expect any lyrical waxing to be going on. Not unless there’s some unknown aspect of the game for them to do that over.

They’re throwing their hat in the arena of action gameplay, melee action gameplay, and it looked terrible in the leak. Dragon Age 4 is going to be judged against all the various Hack & Slash games on the market, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to come out looking good if the bit of leaked gameplay we saw last year is any indication.

After what dragon's dogma 2 has been showing in gameplay videos, bioware and Obsidian should be ashamed by the shit they are peddling as "action rpg combat" in their next AAA RPGs.

Forget Dragon’s Dogma 2, the first game was 11 years ago now and they still can’t touch it.

I do find it kind of interesting that Ubisoft kind of seems like they’re trying to do it in their most recent Assassin’s Creed games. But the combat in something like Valhalla is so far behind Dragon’s Dogma it’s not even comparable.

Egypt/Odyssey/Valhalla was trying to copy Witcher 3, maybe Arkham, not Dragon's Dogma. Completely different style of combat based on infinite counters & brawling god-mode.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I honestly expect the same exact scenario with DA4 as what happened with Starfield.

Game launches, fanboys and many journos (game will be packed to the gills with The Message) will be waxing lyrically, but already dark reality starts creeping into the candy Barbie world of "wooow this game is amaaazing" and soon the whole edifice comes crashing down and the game ends up sitting at Mixed of Mostly Negative on Steam.

Unless the action gameplay hits some massive improvement between the leak and launch I don’t expect any lyrical waxing to be going on. Not unless there’s some unknown aspect of the game for them to do that over.

They’re throwing their hat in the arena of action gameplay, melee action gameplay, and it looked terrible in the leak. Dragon Age 4 is going to be judged against all the various Hack & Slash games on the market, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to come out looking good if the bit of leaked gameplay we saw last year is any indication.

After what dragon's dogma 2 has been showing in gameplay videos, bioware and Obsidian should be ashamed by the shit they are peddling as "action rpg combat" in their next AAA RPGs.

Forget Dragon’s Dogma 2, the first game was 11 years ago now and they still can’t touch it.

I do find it kind of interesting that Ubisoft kind of seems like they’re trying to do it in their most recent Assassin’s Creed games. But the combat in something like Valhalla is so far behind Dragon’s Dogma it’s not even comparable.

Egypt/Odyssey/Valhalla was trying to copy Witcher 3, maybe Arkham, not Dragon's Dogma. Completely different style of combat based on infinite counters & brawling god-mode.

Assassin’s Creed did Arkham style combat before Arkham did. That was essentially the series original combat system...which came from the original combat system they were going to use in Splinter Cell: Conviction. I suspect they got the idea from a Kill Bill inspired combat system Peter Molyneux outlined at a GDC talk he did, if I remember right it was a preposed combat system for Fable 2 that never got used.

I’ve never played Witcher 3. But Witcher 3 combat looks pretty similar to Witcher 2 combat, and I have played Witcher 2, and Valhalla combat wasn’t anything like what I remember of Witcher 2 where you’re just rolling around enemies. I played one of those other two Assassin’s Creed games at a friend’s place, and whichever one it was, it seemed pretty different from Valhalla too.

Valhalla isn’t one to one following Dragon’s Dogma. But it seems like it’s big influences are things taken from Dragon’s Dogma, and maybe even Devil May Cry with how the special button works. Although the controller button place for light and heavy attacks is Dark Souls as opposed to Dragon’s Dogma. Even something like enemy weak points when you’re using the bow could be something taken from Resident Evil 4 and needing to shoot the weak points on the Regenerator...which my sound like a reach, but Harpooning in Black Flag was very clearly inspired by the Del Lago boss fight in RE4.

 

[Zombra]

Wow, now it's about 3rd person fighting games apparently. What's your favorite?

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Wow, now it's about 3rd person fighting games apparently. What's your favorite?

I like For Honor's combat engine but dislike the 1v1 competitive multiplayer (because I suck)
Obsidian should stop doing whatever this is and use their Microsoft bucks to poach those Ubisoft Montreal guys and have them make a game instead, at least then we can finally add a title to the highly exclusive list.

 

[Justicar]

Niggered.

 

[jf8350143]

Wonder when they will start the market campaign. They are being awfully quiet for a game suppose to release this year.

I'm looking foward to this game. Hopefully they put some nice dungeons in it, first person dungen exploring is pretty fun, but not many games offer that kind of experience.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Egypt/Odyssey/Valhalla was trying to copy Witcher 3, maybe Arkham, not Dragon's Dogma.

They were trying to copy Candy Crush.

 

[StrongBelwas]

January 18th gameplay

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/01/09/xbox-developer-direct-2024/

You’re about to get an exciting look at some of the incredible games ahead with Xbox, as we present a new edition of Developer_Direct. On Thursday, January 18 at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK, fans will get an inside look at a selection of highly anticipated games coming to Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Game Pass. Shortly after, ZeniMax Online Studios will host The Elder Scrolls Online 2024 Global Reveal at 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm UK to preview 2024’s biggest update.

Presented by the game creators themselves, Developer_Direct offers an in-depth look at upcoming titles, how they’re being created, and who’s creating them. We’ll visit MachineGames in Sweden to check in on their Indiana Jones game, swing by Obsidian’s Irvine offices to see more from Avowed, head to Oxide Games’ Maryland home to learn about Ara: History Untold, and take a trip to Cambridge, England to see Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II from Ninja Theory. Please note that while this show won’t have updates on games from Activision Blizzard, you can look forward to news from those teams later this year.

The show will be a celebration of just a selection of our slate of upcoming games from Xbox. It’s also another part of our commitment to consistently bringing Xbox players can’t-miss experiences. 2024 kicked off with a bang for Game Pass members, and you can expect that line-up to include more incredible games from Xbox and our partners as the year goes on.

Fans should tune in on Xbox channels at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK, January 18 to see all the latest on:

• Indiana Jones game: MachineGames, the award-winning studio behind the recent Wolfenstein series, will reveal their upcoming Indiana Jones game, an action-adventure that puts players in the leather jacket of the legendary archaeologist. Developer_Direct will showcase more than 10 minutes of game and developer insights, including details about the game’s setting and story, how fans will actually play as Indy, additional details from his next globe-trotting adventure, and the premiere of the first gameplay trailer.
• Avowed: The team at Obsidian will share the first deep dive into the gameplay experience fans can expect in Avowed, their upcoming fantasy action RPG, set in the fantastical, vibrant Living Lands. Learn more about how Obsidian’s expertise in building worlds with deep themes, dynamic gameplay, and thoughtful reactivity come to life in Avowed where players will have agency to make choices to shape every step of their adventure.
• Ara: History Untold: Hear from the leads at Oxide Games – a studio founded by veterans of the strategy genre and the creators behind classic strategy titles including Civilization V – as they unveil exclusive new gameplay and share more details about the inspiration, key features, and road ahead for their upcoming historical grand strategy game.
• Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II: Ninja Theory take us behind the scenes at their studio in Cambridge to give us some insight on how they are crafting Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. The team will speak to the ambition and meticulous care involved in creating Senua’s journey of survival.

Shortly after Developer_Direct has concluded, ZeniMax Online Studios will host The Elder Scrolls Online 2024 Global Reveal at 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm UK, a standalone presentation where the development team will unveil the game’s next major Chapter, including the new zone, storyline, and other major features coming in the game’s biggest update this year.

Stay tuned to Xbox and Bethesda’s official social channels for more on Developer_Direct, coming on Thursday, January 18 at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm UK.

 

[Roguey]

Obsidian and The Chinese Room are going to compete to see which one reveals the biggest January jankfest.

 

[frajaq]

Now thats what I'm talking about

 

[Immortal]

They were all shit too. Amazing isnt it?

Pillars had loading screens so long, you could go make a dinner

That's a feature inherent to Unity, nothing to do with Obsidian's coding other than not going above and beyond to make them faster, which most devs don't do.

That's a cope - Unity was pretty shit during PoE 1 development but scene preloading has been the recommended approach for Unity like.. always.

Before you ever click a transition the next area should already be in memory. Especially when your target audience is PC and that area is just a 2D parallax map with some colliders, fire particle effects and a few NPC's standing around playing 'smoke pipe' animations on loop.

PoE 1 also was notorious for long save and load times because of how shitty of a job they did persisting game state. They cleaned it up a little in Deadfire but this isn't a "unity is bad" problem, frankly. This is the level of expertise you'd expect from a school project, not a game made by a professional development company.

 

[luj1]

They were all shit too. Amazing isnt it?

Pillars had loading screens so long, you could go make a dinner

That's a feature inherent to Unity, nothing to do with Obsidian's coding other than not going above and beyond to make them faster, which most devs don't do.

That's a cope - Unity was pretty shit during PoE 1 development but scene preloading has been the recommended approach for Unity like.. always.

Before you ever click a transition the next area should already be in memory. Especially when your target audience is PC and that area is just a 2D parallax map with some colliders, fire particle effects and a few NPC's standing around playing 'smoke pipe' animations on loop.

PoE 1 also was notorious for long save and load times because of how shitty of a job they did persisting game state. They cleaned it up a little in Deadfire but this isn't a "unity is bad" problem, frankly. This is the level of expertise you'd expect from a school project, not a game made by a professional development company.

according to Roguey nothing is ever Obsidians or Soyers fault

he is the same apologetic shill with an agenda like Infinitron, enamored with developers and thinking they are 'friends' if he shills

 

[Roguey]

That's a cope - Unity was pretty shit during PoE 1 development but scene preloading has been the recommended approach for Unity like.. always.

Yeah all those Unity RPGs with fast loading times like uh....

 

[Modron]

I don't really recall loading times in Atom RPG doesn't mean it didn't have them of course just that I was never put off by their length.

 

[scytheavatar]

Obsidian and The Chinese Room are going to compete to see which one reveals the biggest January jankfest.

Let's be real, Avowed looks like a 6.5/10 game. That's way better than anything TCR can hope to reach with their Bloodlines game.

 

[Roguey]

I don't really recall loading times in Atom RPG doesn't mean it didn't have them of course just that I was never put off by their length.

https://af.gog.com/forum/atom_rpg_p...ding_times_make_me_want_to_quit?as=1649904300

The longer you play a game, the worse it gets because of all the info that gets saved. Though the impression I get is that the Atom Team put in the effort to make sure loading times were fast. That's just one.

 

[Quillon]

I don't think engine would matter that much with loading times. With pillows game loads the whole 2D multilayered map at once where in most other 3D games it loads the immediate area only then the rest and/or 3D games have more duplicated assets which reqs loading 1 of each etc. Save bloat on loading times is another matter.

 

[Gargaune]

I don't think engine would matter that much with loading times. With pillows game loads the whole 2D multilayered map at once where in most other 3D games it loads the immediate area only then the rest and/or 3D games have more duplicated assets which reqs loading 1 of each etc.

That's not it here, it's the engine, or at least it was at the time, I don't know how Unity's developed since. PFKM was running 3D on Unity and its load times were just as miserable as Pillows' 2D.

 

[Quillon]

I don't think engine would matter that much with loading times. With pillows game loads the whole 2D multilayered map at once where in most other 3D games it loads the immediate area only then the rest and/or 3D games have more duplicated assets which reqs loading 1 of each etc.

That's not it here, it's the engine, or at least it was at the time, I don't know how Unity's developed since. PFKM was running 3D on Unity and its load times were just as miserable as Pillows' 2D.

My experience with PFKM/WotR is it is fast af at first then gradually gets slow af cos of save bloat.

 

[Gargaune]

My experience with PFKM/WotR is it is fast af at first then gradually gets slow af cos of save bloat.

I seem to recall PFKM's prologue was okayish on load times, and then suddenly they ballooned once I got let loose on the main map. An instant and significant gap that wasn't down to gradual save bloat.

 

[Quillon]

My experience with PFKM/WotR is it is fast af at first then gradually gets slow af cos of save bloat.

I seem to recall PFKM's prologue was okayish on load times, and then suddenly they ballooned once I got let loose on the main map. An instant and significant gap that wasn't down to gradual save bloat.

Wasn't the prologue the whole ass act to get the barony in the same map?

According to both of us the fact is the engine could and did load the areas fast then it got slowed down(whether gradually or suddenly) so save bloat explanation is the most logical one

 

[Immortal]

Though the impression I get is that the Atom Team put in the effort to make sure loading times were fast.
That's just one.

This whole "Developers have to put in effort" is always true for every engine.
You've created some weird fanfic in your head that other engines don't require effort to make things perform well.

Unity's disadvantage is that it's too easy to compile a game that works. So developers *think* they don't need to do the same optimizations that other engines would likewise require. Preloading scenes in memory is industry practise, it's not Unity's fault when dev's don't do it. The only limitation on caching in memory should be shitty hardware.

Yeah all those Unity RPGs with fast loading times like uh....

You are making the wrong argument here.
Saying "Look! Other shitty game devs made crappy games too! checkmate" doesn't really counter my point.

If your argument is "Unity requires work other engines don't" you should of said: "Name a Unreal RPG that runs poorly".

 

[Gargaune]

My experience with PFKM/WotR is it is fast af at first then gradually gets slow af cos of save bloat.

I seem to recall PFKM's prologue was okayish on load times, and then suddenly they ballooned once I got let loose on the main map. An instant and significant gap that wasn't down to gradual save bloat.

Wasn't the prologue the whole ass act to get the barony in the same map?

According to both of us the fact is the engine could and did load the areas fast then it got slowed down(whether gradually or suddenly) so save bloat explanation is the most logical one

Whatever the game was loading, I remember the times going up sharply at a specific point in the first part of the game. That's not what "save bloat" means, it's the engine choking on a larger chuck of data. Save bloat refers to a gradual process - visit an area there, pick up a daisy here, dump some loot in another place - that slowly tanks load times over time. PFKM definitely has save bloat, a pretty horrendous case of it, but it's not what I'm describing here, your load times balloon suddenly in the first part of the game and then slowly get worse as you carry on.

Anyway, you've got two Unity isometric RPGs with different developers and very different approaches to graphics and they both load slow as shit, seems like a pretty good case for Occam's Razor.

 

[Morality Games]

So can Avowed be the Baldurs gate 3 killer or will we have to wait for Dragon Age 4

The only thing DA4 is gonna kill is itself.

Dragon Age: Origins has its charms, although there is little reason to revisit it in the post-Kickstarter Age of RPGs. Even a very heavily flawed game like Torment: Tides of Numenera is probably more worth playing.

I'll maintain that Dragon Age II is interesting as an oddity in that is a structural (not thematic) successor to Planescape: Torment due to:

(a) takes place mostly in one hub that extensively reuses environments for quests
(b) heavily jRPG/Visual novel-influenced approach to companions and narrative
(c) combat/encounters are similarly dumb and empathize style over substance. Planescape stripped down D&D systems and Dragon Age II stripped down Dragon Age: Origins systems
(d) made on a shoestring budget over a limited timeframe

I don't know if I like it as a game, but it's interesting as a product in the history of RPGs.

The key structural difference is that the presentation of the narrative in DAII is cinematic and the presentation of the narrative in Planescape is novelistic.

 

[Morality Games]

I thought it was obvious.

Orders from on high. We only have 1-2 years of development time and a limited budget to make a cRPG. But cRPGs are technically complex and consume large budgets and require lots of time. What will we do?

Avellone: We’re going to do a single hub in the city of Sigil. Because we’ll have a limited amount of time to design and program areas, quests will take players through the same area multiple times as the narrative advances. We’ll add some condensed areas outside of Sigil if we can. It won't be like Baldur's Gate where you can go wherever you want among areas on the World Map; new areas will be be unlocked through linear narrative progression so we don't sequence break our plot.

Gaider: I remember Chris was in a similar situation back in Black Isle. We’re going to do a single hub in the city of Kirkwall. Because we’ll have a limited amount of time to design and program areas, quests will take players through the same areas multiple times as the narrative advances. We’ll have a few condensed areas outside of Kirkwall and add some more in DLC if we can. It won't be like Baldur's Gate Dragon Age: Origins* where you can go wherever you want among the areas on the World Map; new areas will be unlocked through linear narrative progression so we don't sequence break our plot.

Sounds good. What about character backgrounds? Male and female options? Different races?

Avellone: The world and story are narrative driven, not adventure-driven, so we should probably have a pre-generated character with a lot of tie-ins with the world and the NPCs in it. We’ll call him the Nameless One. The history of his previous incarnations in Sigil will be an important part of the game/story. This will help us squeeze the most mileage out of our limited content.

Gaider: The the world and story are narrative driven, not adventure-driven, so we should probably have a pre-generated character with a lot of tie-ins with the world and the NPCs in it. We’ll call him Hawke. His family's history in Kirkwall will be an important part of the game/story. This will help us squeeze the most mileage out of our limited content. I remember Chris did something similar with the Nameless One, back in Torment. I'm going to get one over on Avellone though because Hawke can be male OR female, hahaha. Still human only though.

Sounds good. But what about the systems?

Avellone: We’re going to strip down the classes to Mage/Fighter/Thief. This will help us manage the scope of production.

Gaider: Luckily our only classes are Mage/Warrior/Rogue, so nobody can be mad we didn’t implement other classes like they were with Chris and Torment (they already got mad at us for that for Origins, they can't be mad twice!), but we’re going to strip away the sub-classes you could unlock by exploring the world back in Origins. Now they can just be Specializations that you have. Yeah, now you just have them. That will help us manage the scope of production.

What about alignments?

Avellone: We'll have the full D&D alignments from Law/Chaos and Good/Evil. It will help me focus the dialogue and define the Nameless One's identity in the world, how he interacts with NPCs and how NPCs react to him. Hopefully people will accept our pre-gen protagonist if they can at least decide the moral alignment.

Gaider: Well, we didn't have any alignments in Dragon: Origins, but they seemed important to the story in Torment. So we'll do Diplomatic/Humorous/Aggressive (Good/Lawful, Chaotic, Evil). This will help us focus the dialogue and define Hawke's identity in the world, how he interacts with NPCs and how NPCs react to him. Hopefully people will accept our pre-gen protagonist if we let them at least decide the personality.

Alright! This coming together nicely! But what about combat? cRPGs have thoughtful encounters and those take a lot of effort.

Avellone: We’ll just have mobs attack the Nameless One and his party, but they can have all sorts of fancy animated moves to destroy them. The RtwP will keep the pace fast and flashy. Hopefully the story makes up for it.

Gaider: We’ll just have mobs attack the Hawke and his party., but they can have all sorts of fancy animated moves to destroy them. The RtwP will keep the pace fast and flashy. Hopefully the story makes up for it, it worked for Chris.

Almost there! What about companions?

Avellone: We’re going to code in an invisible influence system the player can’t see scored from 0 to 20. High Influence scores trigger favorable results, lower Influence score will also trigger interesting results based in animosity the companions feel toward the Nameless One.

Gaider: We’re going to have a visible influence System along a spectrum called Rival and Friendship – might as well call it 0 and 20, they're both spectrums with negative-positive statistical values. High Friendship triggers favorable results; high Rivalry will also trigger interesting results based in the animosity the companions feel toward Hawke.

But what about the overall presentation?

Avellone: I'm going to make it like a novel, with lots of text. Like an interactive novel.

Gaider: I'm going to make it like a movie, with lots of cinematics, just like all of our post-Interplay games. Modern gamers like cinematics and not text, I'm not even going to have the textual cues in the response options clearly indicate what the Hawke voice actor actually says in the scene. Anyway, it will be like an interactive movie.

Do you really think this is going to work?

Avellone: I dunno. I hope so. I don't really have a choice given Interplay's constraints for this production.

Gaider: Didn't really work that well for Avellone in a commercial sense, but that's because players hate reading! This is going to be like a movie. Also, we don't really have a choice given EA's constraints for this production.