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

[Roguey]

Some shit taste he has.

It's been alleged.

To be fair, though, Feargus didn’t interfere with the stories and RPG vision all the time (and Parker mostly brought his touch to UI and game systems, which only usually hurt me resource-wise). Darren and Jones didn't care. You also had to pull teeth from all of them to actually play the games the studio was making.

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books, but he’d give us a fantasy or sci-fi book he had read that he really liked, which was universally many hours of your life you wouldn’t get back.

I went through with reading them because I was genuinely trying to figure out what elements of these stories Feargus actually liked, because it confounded me – they were all terrible.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t figure out why he liked this shit, and whenever he’d try and loan me a book, I’d just tell him “no worries, I can get it on my Kindle.”

Okay, I guess I can't stop. So another issue with the books is that, at times, Feargus will inflict his story preferences on teams. When this happens, as a Creative Director it is helpful for me to try and ascertain where these story preferences came from and if necessary, argue against them, using the the same books that are upheld as shining pinnacles of inspiring storylines but yet cause brain tumors within seconds to people reading them. This was my job, and why I read these books - to use the very material to argue why we shouldn't do something that undermined the story experience.

Books do seem "minor," but in this context, it was to protect the game stories at the studio when I could. I didn't always succeed, as indicated by the DS4 example (again, the pitch failed partly b/c Square-Enix didn't want to work with us again).

 

[Tyranicon]

you're getting torched by the button brigade, but this is exactly how the entertainment industry works. that's the playbook for big movie releases, and why marketing is such a huge part of the budget, they need to create the demand.

Infinitely easier to do with movies since you already have a built-in audience with the actors/directors/writer/etc.

Outside of the indies/Japanese, there's few giant names in gaming that consistently deliver and command that large of a fanbase. Thinking off the top of my head you have, what, the Last of Us dude and Dad of Boy guy? Lol even. Nobody wants to be a fan of a glorified manager.

So now marketing has to resort to either whoring the shit out of graphics (not gonna work for Avowed) or... actual game mechanics and narrative.

You can only promote generic trash so hard before even the marketers fall asleep.

I recently made a whole shitpost about it.

 

[Lhynn]

there's something poetic about how feargus only got to make his skyrim killed by the time it was dead of old age

"Skyrim killed", dont know if its a typo or if you meant to write it that way, but it fits. 10 years too late to be killed by skyrim, but it still will happen, skyrim is better than this, and everyone already owns it, why buy this shit?

 

[Cryomancer]

Is impression or modern western AAA game devs try as hard as possible to have ugly npc's?

 

[Ryzer]

Is impression or modern western AAA game devs try as hard as possible to have ugly npc's?

In the case of Obsidian, I accuse their utter incompetence to design NPCs. Even if they wanted, they wouldn't achieve to make a single good-looking NPC.

 

[Morality Games]

Gamepass is great precisely because it's costing Microsoft shitloads of money that they won't recoup. Them abandoning the gaming industry will collapse the AAA scene and normies will flock elsewhere. Incline will reign.

I remember Microsoft saying Gamepass is profitable.

Bear in mind that when he mentioned abandoning the game industry, Phil Spencer was trying to fast talk the FTC into letting Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard.

 

[Wesp5]

In the case of Obsidian, I accuse their utter incompetence to design NPCs. Even if they wanted, they wouldn't achieve to make a single good-looking NPC.

Yeah, I was really disappointed with a lot of NPCs in the TOW DLCs. I mean they must have heard the criticism when they released the main game, how could they not improve on it?

 

[sosmoflux]

They simply believe they're doing a Good Deed by intentionally making ugly characters. Representing the down-trodden and all that. This is compounded by ESG scores and thin-wristed beta cucks that think classic masculinity is evil and classic femininity is unrealistic. Hence, ugly is the new beautiful.

The industry seems to be course-correcting on this (BG3) but many of these mind broken people are so far gone politically they would literally seeth and cry if they were forced to make handsome or cute NPCs.

 

[Tyranicon]

The industry seems to be course-correcting on this (BG3)

I've seen multiple people bring up BG3 as some kind of white knight for attractive characters when the most attractive major female characters are Shadowheart (who is... subjective at best) and Wyll's devil pimpette.

Meanwhile most characters look like clowns.

Also the most masculine companion is Karlach.

 

[sosmoflux]

The industry seems to be course-correcting on this (BG3)

I've seen multiple people bring up BG3 as some kind of white knight for attractive characters when the most attractive major female characters are Shadowheart (who is... subjective at best) and Wyll's devil pimpette.

Meanwhile most characters look like clowns.

Also the most masculine companion is Karlach.

You're not wrong, and they did uggofy several of the characters before release (Gave Shadowheart a man chin, Karlach more butch) - but compare these characters, and the characters you can make in the character creator, to pretty much any Western game over the past 10 years and you'd have to admit that BG3 is a definite upgrade. Also you can strip women naked and they look relatively attractive which was inconceivable at the time due to male-gaze etc.

Some of these are modded admittedly but it seems that overall the takeaway has been "omg attractiveness and sex sells what a revelation" throughout the wider game dev scene. Which isn't in isolation either considering many recent flops have pushed with an anti-beauty bent.

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Some shit taste he has.

It's been alleged.

To be fair, though, Feargus didn’t interfere with the stories and RPG vision all the time (and Parker mostly brought his touch to UI and game systems, which only usually hurt me resource-wise). Darren and Jones didn't care. You also had to pull teeth from all of them to actually play the games the studio was making.

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books, but he’d give us a fantasy or sci-fi book he had read that he really liked, which was universally many hours of your life you wouldn’t get back.

I went through with reading them because I was genuinely trying to figure out what elements of these stories Feargus actually liked, because it confounded me – they were all terrible.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t figure out why he liked this shit, and whenever he’d try and loan me a book, I’d just tell him “no worries, I can get it on my Kindle.”

Okay, I guess I can't stop. So another issue with the books is that, at times, Feargus will inflict his story preferences on teams. When this happens, as a Creative Director it is helpful for me to try and ascertain where these story preferences came from and if necessary, argue against them, using the the same books that are upheld as shining pinnacles of inspiring storylines but yet cause brain tumors within seconds to people reading them. This was my job, and why I read these books - to use the very material to argue why we shouldn't do something that undermined the story experience.

Books do seem "minor," but in this context, it was to protect the game stories at the studio when I could. I didn't always succeed, as indicated by the DS4 example (again, the pitch failed partly b/c Square-Enix didn't want to work with us again).

It's always so fun to reread these Rage of May posts by Avellone! Pure comedy.

 

[std::namespace]

i need to go back in time and kill the first person to ask wether the chicken or the egg came first

i would fuck hitler

 

[Kem0sabe]

Surprised by the amount of criticism in the Xbox sub reddits regarding Avowed news posts.

Despite the large number of "not all RPGs need to be deep, just enjoy the game" posts, there's a significant amount of unhappiness regarding lack of classes, lack of companion reactivity (can't kill them, can't dismiss them, lack of romances, lack of open world, combat looking boring.

No one at obsidian looked at the success of BG3 and especially the huge amount of fan engagement regarding companions and romances? To do Outer Worlds 2.0 companions, is just bad business.

 

[Rhobar121]

I'll be surprised if the game isn't postponed after such a shitty reception. If even M$ fanboys aren't happy about it, it's a sign that things are bad.
Unless m$ doesn't mind another Starfield, only this time the game won't sell millions of copies before players realize the game is crap.

 

[Tenebris]

They can postpone it all they want but if the core game is shit then it will continue to be shit.

 

[HoboForEternity]

The companion stuff seems really stupid. Deadfire characters will try to leave, or even try to kill you if you betray their faction. Baldur's gate 3 did it too.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'll be surprised if the game isn't postponed after such a shitty reception. If even M$ fanboys aren't happy about it, it's a sign that things are bad.
Unless m$ doesn't mind another Starfield, only this time the game won't sell millions of copies before players realize the game is crap.

Nah, they've already delayed and redrafted this thing at least once and IIRC more than once. They'll push it out with minimal further effort to see if they can recoup any of the money they dropped down the hole. Either that or they'll just cancel it and say fuck it. More likely to shit it on to game pass though.

 

[axedice]

Some new studio made a dark and darker ripoff which has much better combat than this shitshow. Truly fascinating

 

[Yosharian]

Some new studio made a dark and darker ripoff which has much better combat than this shitshow. Truly fascinating

Haha. That actually looks fun.

 

[Peachcurl]

Some new studio made a dark and darker ripoff which has much better combat than this shitshow. Truly fascinating

Nice, but it says PvP (guess the backstab in that video references that aspect). Is this multiplayer only?

 

[Roguey]

Some new studio made a dark and darker ripoff which has much better combat than this shitshow. Truly fascinating

Looks comparably janky to me. That's also a multiplayer game focused entirely on killing things.

 

[Butter]

Some new studio made a dark and darker ripoff which has much better combat than this shitshow. Truly fascinating

OK but does it have loadouts?

 

[cyborgboy95]

Even the easy-going youtube reviewers are having reservations about this game



Well I really hope Avowed doesn't flop too hard, I need it to sell just enough so that the franchise will not be abandoned completely, but I doubt the game will be successful enough to warrant a Avowed 2. In this case, a turn-based Pillars of Eternity 3 next will be the only logical step left assuming Microsoft is willing to invest.

 

[Yosharian]

POE3 lmao yeah right

 

[AwesomeButton]

a turn-based Pillars of Eternity 3 next will be the only logical step left

But only on a 120 mil budget