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

[Roguey]

The Outer Worlds was a commercial success because tons of normalfags fell for the "From the creators of Fallout New Vegas!" meme. The game itself has shown to a lot of people, both old fans and newcomers, that Obsidian does not have it in them anymore to make a game that's on par with FNV. They can't play the same card twice. Worst still, KCD 2 is coming out a week earlier, so now Avowed will be compared to both it and Skyrim.

Tim Cain's dismissed the "people were tricked" explanation because it continued to sell well over time. Released in October 2019, 2 million by February 2020. 3 million by May 2021. 4 million by August 2021. 5 million by October 2023. How is it that 2 million people were deeply unsatisfied and yet it went on to sell more than that initial amount over the next three years?

 

[Grampy_Bone]

tons of normalfags fell for the "From the creators of Fallout New Vegas!

Except normalfags didn't like New Vegas--it consistently rates lower than Fallout 3 and 4 on all normie sites, got famously burned by metacritic costing them a bonus, and has been more or less de-canonized by Bethesda.

FNV is loved by people who aren't the target market of Outer Worlds, that's for sure. If anything this game did well by playing it much safer and using Sawyer Balanced (TM) design + Bro Shooter mechanics.

 

[Harthwain]

New Vegas [...] got famously burned by metacritic costing them a bonus

Did it? They needed 85 and they got 84. Calling that "famously burned" and proof that "normalfags didn't like New Vegas" is a huge stretch.

 

[LizardWizard]

tons of normalfags fell for the "From the creators of Fallout New Vegas!

Except normalfags didn't like New Vegas--it consistently rates lower than Fallout 3 and 4 on all normie sites, got famously burned by metacritic costing them a bonus, and has been more or less de-canonized by Bethesda.

FNV is loved by people who aren't the target market of Outer Worlds, that's for sure. If anything this game did well by playing it much safer and using Sawyer Balanced (TM) design + Bro Shooter mechanics.

FNV rates higher than both those games on Steam

FNV got killed on metacrtic on release due to Bethsoft's shitty QA and forcing the game out the door before the holidays despite save killing bugs being rampant.

 

[markec]

Are you a developer? If not, why do you care what some developer thinks?

I accept my unimportance.

The photo was someone complaining that a bunch of women "ruined" Obsidian. Well, Obsidian's been doing just fine by any metric (financially, critically, user reception). The people on the Codex who hate the games they're putting out now very likely also hated the games they were making back then as well, so what's changed here really?

I enjoyed and defended pretty much every game Obsidian released before PoE and I even backed PoE. Obsidian was supposed to be the saviors of RPGs, "if only those pesky publishers didnt get in way of their visions!". "PoE will be that game that they always wanted to make and without publisher interference!"

Instead we only got mediocrity, safe, sanitized, mediocrity.

Looking back over their old Kickstarter, I don't think you can lay that charge at Obsidian's feet. They might have tapped into the mood but never overtly 'eaned into Fargo's anti-publisher rhetoric.

It was fan sentiment more then official Obsidians stance. But it was a opinion based on reading between the lines interviews Obsidian staff did after pretty much every game they made before PoE.

No matter the faults of the games they made the fans always shifted the blame on publishers. In eyes of the fans they had to make games they didnt want just to stay afloat and rushed them in broken, unfinished state state because of publishers.

How many times did we read how they had plans or visions for a game, how much content they had to cut, how much they were forced to rush to finish the game on timeframe publishers set. If only they had a little more time, little more money, little more freedom, little more support from publishers those game they made would not be just a unpolished gems but true masterpieces.

It was fan sentiment but Obsidian did foster it quite a bit.

 

[scytheavatar]

The Outer Worlds are never an awful game...... it's more like an aggressively 7/10 game, and that might be good enough for many people. It felt more like a really long tech demo of a cool game than a cool game. Right now I do not have much faith that Avowed can even be as 7/10 as The Outer Worlds.

 

[orcinator]

The Outer Worlds are never an awful game...... it's more like an aggressively 7/10 game, and that might be good enough for many people. It felt more like a really long tech demo of a cool game than a cool game. Right now I do not have much faith that Avowed can even be as 7/10 as The Outer Worlds.

7/10 implies it did anything passably, when every single aspect of it, from the visuals to the plot to the gameplay was absolutely terrible.

 

[thesecret1]

And why should tastes of the masses matter, especially here of all places?

Because the Codex is too small of a community to sustain game dev studios by itself? Just look at Iron Tower.

And what does that have to do with what I've asked? What's the logic here? "Codex is too small a community to sustain gamedev, therefore it should embrace the shit tastes of the mainstream"?

Do I really have to spell it out? This sad cope of "It can't be us that's wrong! No! Never! Everyone else is!!!" is getting pretty tiring. I already get more than enough of that from gaming journalists. I hate to break it to everyone, but this place is not some grand authority when it comes to everything RPG-related.

Edit: On second thought I'd like to retract my statement, you're absolutely right. Screw the unwashed masses, RPG Codex knows best! Everyone should listen to what the Codex has to say! After all, Colony Ship turned out to be a huge commercial success! What does that cuck Swen know anyways? His game lets you have sex with a druid in bear form!

I don't know how "Why should we care about the tastes of the masses" transform into "everyone should listen to us!" in your mind, but I suggest you learn basic reading comprehension you autistic sperg

 

[Yosharian]

The Outer Worlds are never an awful game...... it's more like an aggressively 7/10 game, and that might be good enough for many people. It felt more like a really long tech demo of a cool game than a cool game. Right now I do not have much faith that Avowed can even be as 7/10 as The Outer Worlds.

7/10 implies it did anything passably, when every single aspect of it, from the visuals to the plot to the gameplay was absolutely terrible.

 

[Elttharion]

Shillup loves it, we are so back

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Jvegi]

 

[DKunit]

Yeah, well, SkillUp still likes to pretend Outer Worlds was good.

 

[Morgoth]

SkillUp is a bit hit or miss, but mostly hit for my tastes. His preview really got me slightly more excited for Avowed.

I mean it's not like there's anything else good to play in February, unless you're into Monster Cringe or Czech horse dung simulator.

 

[Erebus]

Did anyone here play Pentiment? How really is it?

It's very atmospheric, the historical setting is put to good use and the visuals are splendid, but the difficulty is so nonexistent that it can hardly be called a video game.

 

[Jvegi]

Pentiment is a less rewarding rip-off of Summertime Saga.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I don't like the aesthetic style and gameplay. It looks really cartoony to me and too much like a popamole shooter. I don't remember Pillars looking like that; I remember its colour pallet being a lot more subdued. Also the face animations are off, why was that chick in the beginning opening her mouth that wide? It looks uncanny.
It honestly looks like every other AAA Western game that got released recently. Maybe not as bad as Veilguard but still.

 

[Oberon]

And why should tastes of the masses matter, especially here of all places?

Because the Codex is too small of a community to sustain game dev studios by itself? Just look at Iron Tower.

And what does that have to do with what I've asked? What's the logic here? "Codex is too small a community to sustain gamedev, therefore it should embrace the shit tastes of the mainstream"?

Do I really have to spell it out? This sad cope of "It can't be us that's wrong! No! Never! Everyone else is!!!" is getting pretty tiring. I already get more than enough of that from gaming journalists. I hate to break it to everyone, but this place is not some grand authority when it comes to everything RPG-related.

Edit: On second thought I'd like to retract my statement, you're absolutely right. Screw the unwashed masses, RPG Codex knows best! Everyone should listen to what the Codex has to say! After all, Colony Ship turned out to be a huge commercial success! What does that cuck Swen know anyways? His game lets you have sex with a druid in bear form!

I don't know how "Why should we care about the tastes of the masses" transform into "everyone should listen to us!" in your mind, but I suggest you learn basic reading comprehension you autistic sperg

If an RPG studio wants to be successful, they should listen to ME.
Commit to an engine and build the game with intuitive user friendly dev tools released to the masses, release large campaigns on it over the years as expantion packs.
Owlcat should have done this with it's Pathfinder games, it could have been the next NWN.
Custom modules outshine official campaigns 9 times out of 10

 

[Quillon]

I guess they actually turn this mess around to at least meet industry standarts. We'll see if the story is actually a snoozefest like TOW with predictable/Obsidian style quests or not. I'll probably try it after at least month/whenever I'm done with first KCD2 run

 

[Fedora Master]

Yeah, well, SkillUp still likes to pretend Outer Worlds was good.

You just can't trust people who still put any faith in Obsidian. Doubly so if they are on the 'Dex.

 

[Necrensha]

Memorable characters everywhere:

 

[Shaki]

Somehow even Oblivion managed to have less plastic looking NPCs

 

[Vulpes]

There's like half a dozen women in that photo and yet the only person showing any cleavage is your bald-headed fishman companion

 

[DKunit]

Memorable characters everywhere:

Second row center guy looks like Gale's retarded cousin.

 

[Raghar]

Memorable characters everywhere:

Second row center guy looks like Gale's retarded cousin.

Before I clicked image and it showed bottom two rows, these pictures looked sufficiently decent.