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

[roguefrog]

What is there to get influenced by BG3 specifically?

Mostly expensive triple A stuff, which does make it harder to copy.

Like fully voiced and mo-capped cutscenes for everything. Even when a simple text bark would have been better, quicker, and cheaper (see all those superfluous fully named NPCs in Baldur's Gate proper that trigger a cutscene to only speak one line of dialog)

More resources poured into romances of course. Although I don't think Obsidian will actually ever do them fully. They've seem to always have been critical of player character romances. (even though PoE2 technically has romance options, they're easily ignored/skippable)

Possibly the multiplayer component.

I agree it's too early to tell though unless they decided to do another hard pivot after the first pivot away from an "open-world" Bethesda game.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

One thing I'm glad to hear is no horny companion NPCs. I thought after BG3 that would trend.

BG3 was released six months ago and this has been in development for years. It'll take a while before we'll see RPGs obviously influenced by it.

What is there to get influenced by BG3 specifically? BG3 = DAO + DOS games and those were around for much longer + BG3 EA was around.

Lessons developers should learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Tactical, turn-based combat sells
• An RPG should have at least a semblance of exploration
• A considerable amount of interactivity with the world can be accomplished, even in a game with turn-based combat
• Quests can have various Choices & Consequences associated with them, and there can also be consequences for player actions outside quests
• RPGs can have a fairly non-linear structure

Lessons developers will learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Sex sells, especially with viral marketing
• Aside from a single player-generated character, the party members should be pre-generated and have ludicrously convoluted backstories
• Vast amounts of money should be spent on voice-acting and motion-capture, especially for those pre-generated companions
• Embrace the worst fantasy setting possible
• Players don't care about basing your game on a poor ruleset, such as "D&D 5th edition"

Only the voice-acting / motion-capture lesson bears an enormous cost, and moreso for the latter than the former; consider that Bethesda Softworks already shifted to full voice-acting with the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006.

 

[Shaki]

Lessons developers will learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Sex sells, especially with viral marketing
• Aside from a single player-generated character, the party members should be pre-generated and have ludicrously convoluted backstories
• Vast amounts of money should be spent on voice-acting and motion-capture, especially for those pre-generated companions
• Embrace the worst fantasy setting possible
• Players don't care about basing your game on a poor ruleset, such as "D&D 5th edition"

Why wouldn't they? These are literally the main reasons why BG3 sold so well.

 

[lukaszek]

Why wouldn't they? These are literally the main reasons why BG3 sold so well.

i think its word of mouth actually. There were people outside of codex that were praising this game to me while it was still in ea

 

[Shaki]

Why wouldn't they? These are literally the main reasons why BG3 sold so well.

i think its word of mouth actually. There were people outside of codex that were praising this game to me while it was still in ea

The bearsex and shit like that going viral was the initial thing that boosted it to mainstream, I had people who don't play games talk to me about it because they saw it on tiktok. Streamers picked it up, etc.

Then later people who picked it up, actually liked it because of the 5 "wrong lessons" Zed mentioned. If you go on any BG3 fan space like their subreddit, things like: romances (sex), production values, companion stories, shallow and extremely easy to pick up system, woke setting, are the main reasons why normies enjoyed it.

 

[Quillon]

One thing I'm glad to hear is no horny companion NPCs. I thought after BG3 that would trend.

BG3 was released six months ago and this has been in development for years. It'll take a while before we'll see RPGs obviously influenced by it.

What is there to get influenced by BG3 specifically? BG3 = DAO + DOS games and those were around for much longer + BG3 EA was around.

Lessons developers should learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Tactical, turn-based combat sells
• An RPG should have at least a semblance of exploration
• A considerable amount of interactivity with the world can be accomplished, even in a game with turn-based combat
• Quests can have various Choices & Consequences associated with them, and there can also be consequences for player actions outside quests
• RPGs can have a fairly non-linear structure

Lessons developers will learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Sex sells, especially with viral marketing
• Aside from a single player-generated character, the party members should be pre-generated and have ludicrously convoluted backstories
• Vast amounts of money should be spent on voice-acting and motion-capture, especially for those pre-generated companions
• Embrace the worst fantasy setting possible
• Players don't care about basing your game on a poor ruleset, such as "D&D 5th edition"

Only the voice-acting / motion-capture lesson bears an enormous cost, and moreso for the latter than the former; consider that Bethesda Softworks already shifted to full voice-acting with the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006.

Yes but all those points were apparent before BG3. "should learn" section is all DOS stuff, "will learn" section is almost all bioware stuff, and many other gayms had 1 or several of those "qualities". My point was that devs didn't have only 6 months to get influenced by BG3, they had many years.

 

[roguefrog]

An RPG should have at least a semblance of exploration

Exploration in BG3? The first map had everything piled practically on top of each other...the crash site being right next to a druid camp which was a stones throw from an orc occupied town with the gate to the orc camp just a short distance away... It would have made more sense to create separate maps and travel time between areas (you must gather your party before venturing forth) But this design tracts with Larian's map design from the DOS games. One big Disneyland map with multiple unique locations right next to each other with virtually no travel time.

 

[Old Hans]

Exploration in BG3? The first map had everything piled practically on top of each other

I know its meant to be a condensed version of a larger area, but it feels so weird that the goblins cant locate the hidden grove which is practically across the street from the selune temple

 

[luj1]

i just realized what this shit makes me think off - grimrock, kek, same production values

Perhaps the same production VALUES, but even Grimrock had a better production STANDARD

Also don't forget that Grimrock literally caused a mini resurgence of RT blobbers, meanwhile this will cause nothing

 

[Tyranicon]

[*]Embrace the worst fantasy setting possible

Aha! Here's where you're wrong, because you need to be licensed from WotC to use FR!

Imagine, being litigious over something as generic and boring as Forgotten Realms/Toril/Faerun/whatever.

-looks at Avowed and Eora-

Worldbuilding was a mistake.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

i just realized what this shit makes me think off - grimrock, kek, same production values

Perhaps the same production VALUES, but even Grimrock had a better production STANDARD

Also don't forget that Grimrock literally caused a mini resurgence of RT blobbers, meanwhile this will cause nothing

It did not. What caused was a faux "i'm a hardcore crpg player" moment because the graphics were pretty, the fact that grimrock 2 did absolutely nothing proves that people bought the game because it made them look cool.

 

[Viata]

people bought the game because it made them look cool

There was a good explanation back then, but it sums up to:
People wanted to play old bloobers like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master because crpg fans tend to praise those games but they DON'T want to play old games themselves (it's also how we still see people asking for remaster/remake of old games so they can ~finally~ play it). They want to play modern version of those games and when Grimrock was released, there came their chance and they bought the game (which is why Grimrock 1 sold quite well), but then they learned that they don't like the genre and so most of them didn't finish the game and had no interest in Grimrock 2 (which sold badly compared to 1).

 

[thesecret1]

Imagine, being litigious over something as generic and boring as Forgotten Realms/Toril/Faerun/whatever.

That's where you're wrong too. FR isn't just generic and boring, it is actively shit and ruining whatever it touches. A generic boring fantasy would have you fight Big Bad Evil Guy and his evil minions. FR will spin you a tale about how NOT ALL MINIONS are evil, and the mustache-twirling cartoon villain will make a pass on the player prior to the bossfight.

 

[Tyranicon]

Imagine, being litigious over something as generic and boring as Forgotten Realms/Toril/Faerun/whatever.

That's where you're wrong too. FR isn't just generic and boring, it is actively shit and ruining whatever it touches. A generic boring fantasy would have you fight Big Bad Evil Guy and his evil minions. FR will spin you a tale about how NOT ALL MINIONS are evil, and the mustache-twirling cartoon villain will make a pass on the player prior to the bossfight.

I dont entirely disagree, but that's more on the writers/management than the setting.

We are not very far at all from the times when all [x] are evil and should be destroyed.

The weirdest thing they did was applying modern culture war topics to literal fantasy monsters.

this is your daily reminder that they retconned drow to be mostly good, and the evil ones are a minority

 

[jackofshadows]

Also don't forget that Grimrock literally caused a mini resurgence of RT blobbers, meanwhile this will cause nothing

Dude are you really think so? Don't be deluded.

Edit: nevermind, though this was BG3 thread so you're probably right.

 

[agris]

Exploration in BG3? The first map had everything piled practically on top of each other

I know its meant to be a condensed version of a larger area, but it feels so weird that the goblins cant locate the hidden grove which is practically across the street from the selune temple

You both should check out Archaelund. Good blobber exploration, iso tb combat, full party creation and a meaty ruleset

edit: also zero current year bullshit

 

[thesecret1]

Imagine, being litigious over something as generic and boring as Forgotten Realms/Toril/Faerun/whatever.

That's where you're wrong too. FR isn't just generic and boring, it is actively shit and ruining whatever it touches. A generic boring fantasy would have you fight Big Bad Evil Guy and his evil minions. FR will spin you a tale about how NOT ALL MINIONS are evil, and the mustache-twirling cartoon villain will make a pass on the player prior to the bossfight.

I dont entirely disagree, but that's more on the writers/management than the setting.

We are not very far at all from the times when all [x] are evil and should be destroyed.

The weirdest thing they did was applying modern culture war topics to literal fantasy monsters.

this is your daily reminder that they retconned drow to be mostly good, and the evil ones are a minority

FR treats fantasy monsters as human reskins, at which point one has to ask why not just literally make them humans. Same thought processes, same general values, only some cultural differences – what point is there to even have them, then? A fantasy race should be incredibly alien not just in terms of culture, but also in the way their minds work – drow should be evil because THEY don't see anything wrong with their behavior (and indeed, their evilness should be perfectly reasonable if one were to look at the world through their eyes).

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

people bought the game because it made them look cool

There was a good explanation back then, but it sums up to:
People wanted to play old bloobers like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master because crpg fans tend to praise those games but they DON'T want to play old games themselves (it's also how we still see people asking for remaster/remake of old games so they can ~finally~ play it). They want to play modern version of those games and when Grimrock was released, there came their chance and they bought the game (which is why Grimrock 1 sold quite well), but then they learned that they don't like the genre and so most of them didn't finish the game and had no interest in Grimrock 2 (which sold badly compared to 1).

A lot of the people praising LoG and even including it in the GOTY lists didn't even mention EOTB or DM. They literally didn't knew of it, and were most likely fooled by the graphics. The rest is kinda true though, because even Shadowrun Returns got more traction than what LOG ever got.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

-looks at Avowed and Eora-

I will say that at least they oscillate around a little bit more interesting time period - FR is like 1350-1450 and I base it solely from relative rarity of firearms while Eora is 1500-1550 - again, based of the present firearm types and the fact that crossbows aren't completely replaced by them.
One more thing about Avowed - the instant weapon swap thing is kind of weird, because big part of PoE(both 1 and 2) was that you could switch weapons and it was often a good idea to do so, but had to suffer some recovery time penalty. This made it so you could realistically open a fight from having your melee dudes do a salvo from dual pistols or blunderbusses, but didn't make it the obvious choice while here it's obvious that no matter what's the reload time on these, any fight you start you fire away before entering melee. Somehow it seems like they skimped on weapon change animations.

Also as for LoG I think the first game sold well because it was graphic bait, back then people weren't used to these that much. Doesn't meant it wasn't a good game by itself, it's just that a lot of the sales they've got were equivalent of people buying asset flip. They should've understood LoG2 isn't going to repeat this success but alas. Also the "revival" of RT blobbers was short lived from what I've seen. There were many of these that started being developed after LoG succeeded but they all ended up selling low 10's of thousands of units and that was it. Kinda shame because some were going somewhere(The Fall of the Dungeon Guardians for instance).

 

[luj1]

Also don't forget that Grimrock literally caused a mini resurgence of RT blobbers, meanwhile this will cause nothing

Dude are you really think so? Don't be deluded.

Edit: nevermind, though this was BG3 thread so you're probably right.

LoG did cause a small wave of imitators, but none of them looked interesting except maybe Aeon of Sands

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So is this any good?

 

[Cryomancer]

At 2:50 of this gameplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62PPhIArKAM

You see people impaled by spears BUT spears seems unable to be used in the game. Why? There is any type of weapon more hated in "fantasy" than spears?

At 5:48 -: Liked the spell animation but will it have forced third person?

6:08 -: Creating a mini black hole. Interesting

In general, I would say that the unique thing that I'm liking in this game is the spell effects.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Lessons developers should learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Tactical, turn-based combat sells
• An RPG should have at least a semblance of exploration
• A considerable amount of interactivity with the world can be accomplished, even in a game with turn-based combat
• Quests can have various Choices & Consequences associated with them, and there can also be consequences for player actions outside quests
• RPGs can have a fairly non-linear structure

It's almost a miracle that a game in 2023 had these characteristic, even if nobody noticed...

 

[AwesomeButton]

Lessons developers will learn from Baldur's Gate 3:

• Sex sells, especially with viral marketing
• Aside from a single player-generated character, the party members should be pre-generated and have ludicrously convoluted backstories
• Vast amounts of money should be spent on voice-acting and motion-capture, especially for those pre-generated companions
• Embrace the worst fantasy setting possible
• Players don't care about basing your game on a poor ruleset, such as "D&D 5th edition"

You included this just for the lulz, you don't seriously think developers can tell a good ruleset from a poor one.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

I have to say that seeing characters move so fluidly while a dragon, furious swings its paws around causing ruckus with the flapping of its wings actually causing the grass to shake, and also see your character dodging organically to jump on the dragon's neck for a good stab is amazing.

Not to mention the spells, the animations of the attacks on the reactive enemies, and the scale of the world which looks like it was created with proper care and polish.

Oh sorry wrong game. I was talking about Dragon Dogma 2.

Awoved looks absolutely trash.