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

[Peachcurl]

TBH, this is looking worse and worse as they release more information about it.

Indeed, it's promising to be a very entertaining release.

I just hope that if it's the dumpster fire we generally expect, they put a bunch of the studio to the sword like they started cleaning house in nuBlizz.

For added entertainment value, I presume? It's not like nuBlizz got any better from that.

 

[mediocrepoet]

TBH, this is looking worse and worse as they release more information about it.

Indeed, it's promising to be a very entertaining release.

I just hope that if it's the dumpster fire we generally expect, they put a bunch of the studio to the sword like they started cleaning house in nuBlizz.

For added entertainment value, I presume? It's not like nuBlizz got any better from that.

It just happened, who knows what will come of that. I'm talking about MS culling their staff, cancelling projects, etc.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Tbh you're too negative on some stuff. It's going to just be meh. TOW tier, where the writing is stupid and everything else is mediocre.

 

[Delterius]

I for one am happy that Obsidian will be able to focus on things that matter. Like Grounded.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I for one am happy that Obsidian will be able to focus on things that matter. Like Grounded.

If only they could start work on more classics like a spiritual successor to World of Tanks.

 

[cyborgboy95]

So they are looking at Mass Effect as inspiration for tough moral choices now.

Obsidian wants Avowed to be a "challenging" RPG that's more complex than "black-and-white, good-versus-evil morality"​

Breaking away from the moral binary
Obsidian Entertainment is hammering away at its fantasy-with-firearms roleplaying game Avowed, due this year, which the developers hope can surpass the "black-and-white" moral binary.


"Our approach to choice and consequences is to eschew a black-and-white, good-versus-evil morality scale, where the moral balance of your decision is very obvious," director Carrie Patel explains in an interview with Gamesradar, "but rather something that feels closer to life, where sometimes it's not obvious or sometimes the right choice feels obvious, but the outcome can be surprising; justified but surprising."

Patel explains that she enjoys that moral challenge as both a player and a designer because it allows people to "chew on something complicated and kind of make and explore those decisions in the relatively safe environment of a game." Where else could you accidentally fly your own ship into the sun, if it weren't for Obsidian games, right?
Patel then points to Mass Effect 2 - despite its pulpy paragon and renegade binary - and the incredible Legion loyalty quest as an example of a dilemma that players were "talking about years later." She believes that those kinds of headscratchers "bind" players to their in-game counterparts. "And also the characters and companions that they're sharing this journey with."

 

[Rhobar121]

I don't understand at all what Obidian is trying to do.
I don't even know who this game is intended for.

It will neither be a game with strong RPG elements, nor will it be a game focusing on gameplay (Elden Ring).
The game will not provide a lot of freedom (like BG3, Fallout)
The game will not have an open world like the games it was based on (Skyrim).
They didn't even try to appeal to the Bioware crowd with romance.

What is the focus of this game?
The game literally doesn't have a single element to attract anyone to the game. It seems like they just took the worst elements from every popular game and combined them together.

 

[Roguey]

Patel then points to Mass Effect 2 - despite its pulpy paragon and renegade binary - and the incredible Legion loyalty quest as an example of a dilemma that players were "talking about years later."

I don't even remember this. I just chose the paragon option for my paragon playthrough and renegade for the renegade, what is there to think about?

 

[Rhobar121]

Patel then points to Mass Effect 2 - despite its pulpy paragon and renegade binary - and the incredible Legion loyalty quest as an example of a dilemma that players were "talking about years later."

I don't even remember this. I just chose the paragon option for my paragon playthrough and renegade for the renegade, what is there to think about?

It only mattered in ME3 and even then there was one correct choice, which was to blow them to pieces

 

[axedice]

spells are "on their own button". "There's a single button to use an ability, in terms of the ones that you have on your talent tree."

So does that mean the total number of available spells in this game is limited by how many buttons are on a console controller? Maybe each skill tree has a single awesome ability then when you push a button, something awesome happens...

Boy this is being quite an elevator ride. Like when you get on at top of a skyscraper and starts going down fast. Only it did not stop at ground level, so it feels like we still have some place to descend underground.

 

[scytheavatar]

I don't understand at all what Obidian is trying to do.
I don't even know who this game is intended for.

It will neither be a game with strong RPG elements, nor will it be a game focusing on gameplay (Elden Ring).
The game will not provide a lot of freedom (like BG3, Fallout)
The game will not have an open world like the games it was based on (Skyrim).
They didn't even try to appeal to the Bioware crowd with romance.

What is the focus of this game?
The game literally doesn't have a single element to attract anyone to the game. It seems like they just took the worst elements from every popular game and combined them together.

Someone already mentioned in this thread, this game is laser focused on being Pillars of Eternity 2 wearing the clothes of The Outer Worlds. It is clear that people in Obsidian are angry that POE2 flopped and to them it flopped only because it's a shitty old school isometric game. That if the same game was made in a more popular format it would have been way more successful.

Of course, they originally wanted the game to be POE2 in Skyrim's clothes, but making that was asking for too much from these people. So they had to settle for the downgrade, but I think no one expected that even making a TOW level game was a challenge for Obsidian.

 

[Quillon]

That if the same game was made in a more popular format it would have been way more successful.

Doesn't seem like this is the case. If they made the equivalent of Neketaka in first person for instance they'd have started marketing the game with that, that's way too ambitious for them. We don't even know if there'll be a big city/city in the gaym, or anything about day/night cycle, npc schedules, faction rep system etc. Ship & crew, cNPC relationship system & romances are already out. They just decided to show combat that almost every game has that usually look better than this.

 

[AwesomeButton]

We don't even know if there'll be [...]

If it didn't exist in TOW, it most likely won't exist in Avowed. But the reverse is not guaranteed. If they think they can get away with cutting something more, they will cut it.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Hopefully there are no cities. Fuck cities in rpgs

 

[Peachcurl]

Hopefully there are no cities. Fuck cities in rpgs

I like cities in RPGs, if done well. Fuck cities in real life.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Hopefully there are no cities. Fuck cities in rpgs

Cities are OK as long as you don't spend half of the game in it with dozens of shallow fetch quests. Just make us visit the market, the castle and maybe sone guild or shit and let us be done with it.

 

[Jenkem]

the living lands is ripe for lore expansion, they will be able to do so much more than what they had to work with in pillows of pee and pillows of poo on fire. this could end up being the most creative obsidian project yet, lore-wise. it doesn't even feature pillows in the title so you know something special is happening. it's not pillows. it's AVOWED!

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Obsidian is done with RPGs. Now it produces action games with rudimentary RPG elements. After the failure Avowed they will abandon Eora, and the Outher Words brand will either evolve into a shooter or be abandoned altogether.

Even Josh and his gender studies course didn't help.

 

[Gargaune]

it doesn't even feature pillows in the title so you know something special is happening.

Damn right - a developer realising that a brand they own might be worth negative bucks, Feargus knows that "Obsidian" has more marketing value absent the "Pillars of Eternity" bit at this point. I'm not even being mean here, the studio still has positive cred with the casual consumer, but the Pillars moniker carries a lot of "isometric" and especially "meh" in its reputation.

 

[Tyranicon]

it doesn't even feature pillows in the title so you know something special is happening.

Damn right - a developer realising that a brand they own might be worth negative bucks, Feargus knows that "Obsidian" has more marketing value absent the "Pillars of Eternity" bit at this point. I'm not even being mean here, the studio still has positive cred with the casual consumer, but the Pillars moniker carries a lot of "isometric" and especially "meh" in its reputation.

Is Eora somebody's baby? It seems like they're going through a lot just to keep this generic, boring setting afloat.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

Is Eora somebody's baby? It seems like they're going through a lot just to keep this generic, boring setting afloat.

It's mostly just the matter of not having to pay royalties and having a setting in general. If suddenly they've created a new setting you just wouldn't care that there's Aeodynian Republic that is being ruled by Doge Jamal and fights war over control of Huculian Plains with Kragamonic Kangdom led by Kang Mokebe the Fearless and in the middle of it are you - the SNITCHER - who's magic power is to betray every ally he makes by snitching on him yadda yadda. While you may not care about Eora either, there's gonna be 12 guys who do and having some background already there beats redoing it again.

 

[Grunker]

it doesn't even feature pillows in the title so you know something special is happening.

Damn right - a developer realising that a brand they own might be worth negative bucks, Feargus knows that "Obsidian" has more marketing value absent the "Pillars of Eternity" bit at this point. I'm not even being mean here, the studio still has positive cred with the casual consumer, but the Pillars moniker carries a lot of "isometric" and especially "meh" in its reputation.

Is Eora somebody's baby? It seems like they're going through a lot just to keep this generic, boring setting afloat.

It's a lot of work you don't have to do, you save a ton of resources and initial headaches having that stuff laid out already. Unfortunately kind of defeats the purpose when you get less sales because no one gives a shit about your setting, which is why the decision seems kind of a weird one. Corporate optimism knows no bounds I guess.

 

[jackofshadows]

To think they would come up with less bland and safe setting instead would be too optimistic anyway.

 

[mediocrepoet]

This is what happens when you let a super autist be in charge of creativity and world design instead of systems.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

To think they would come up with less bland and safe setting instead would be too optimistic anyway.

That's kind of it. Mind you that unusual settings don't necessarily mean good sales and that's something they're considering. If you look at larger "renaissance" cRPG's you can really see that DOS1/2 which were self aware generic fantasy(BG3 is obviously that as aswell), Pillars(especially 1) was generic fantasy, Owlcats 2 pathfinder games are generic fantasy, Wasteland is post-apo but post-apo is one of the settings that has track record of working in the genre etc.(in fact some of the other bigger names include ATOM and Underrail).
Meanwhile quasi-historical Expeditions, weird(but bad) Numanuma, zombie-themed Dead State etc simply did worse. The general quality has bearing on that but probably if we managed to get some kind of measure of sales vs. the setting adjusted for quality differences you'd see that fantasy and post apo RPG's just outperform everything else