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

[copebot]

There would be no need to rotate crops with spells to either create food, manipulate weather patterns, or bless land to restore fertility. There would have been no reason to enslave Africans to harvest sugarcane if priests and mages could prevent and remove malaria reliably. There would be no need to hunt whales for whale oil with reliable magical lighting, or a means of just producing normal candles more efficiently.

The key thing from a world-building perspective is that industrialization is the process of turning a food surplus + sanitation + better transportation + better communication + stable government, which creates a lot of surplus people who are no longer needed as agricultural labor, who then move to the cities to work in factories, as artisans lose social and economic importance due to industrial competition.

Fantasy is about the social world before those collective developments, but just like the real world before the first English Industrial Revolution, there were tons of unevenly distributed technological and artisan-crafted marvels. Large portions of the world were still unmapped until relatively recently, and I think part of the fantasy fiction spirit is also about reviving the adventure of exploration and the mystery of an unknown world full of strange creatures, savage humanoids, and utterly alien civilizations.

 

[KateMicucci]

You have people wearing armor from 16th century that was specifically designed with guns in mind

this should be tattoed on the backs of every gun-phobe from here to cathay

people who can't stomach the only early modern fantasy in the world because it's not '''''''''''''''medieval''''''''''''''' enough are below contempt. medieval fantasy settings have been garbage for 40 years now and they still ask for more of that same slop.

Guns have been in fantasy since at least 1516 when one of the villians of Orlando Furioso used one. This is supposed to take place during the reign of Charlemange.


XXVIII
"Besides, that both his puissance and his might
Are such, as in our age are matched of few,
Such is in evil deeds his cunning sleight,
He laughs to scorn what wit and force can do.
Strange arms he bears, unknown to any wight,
Save him, of the ancient nations or the new:
A hollow iron, two yards long, whose small
Channel he loads with powder and a ball

XXIX
"He, where 'tis closed behind, in the iron round,
Touches with fire a vent, discerned with pain;
In guise that skilful surgeon tries his ground,
Where need requires that he should breathe a vein.
Whence flies the bullet with such deafening sound,
That bolt and lightening from the hollow cane
Appear to dart, and like the passing thunder,
Burn what they smite, beat-down or rend asunder.

XXX
"Twice broken, he our armies overthrew
With this device, my gentle brethren slain;
The first the shot in our first battle slew,
Reaching his heart, through broken plate and chain;
The other in the other onset, who
Was flying from the fatal field in vain.
The ball his shoulder from a distance tore
Behind, and issued from his breast before.

XXXI
"My father next, defending on a day
The only fortress which he still possessed,
The others taken which about it lay,
Was sent alike to his eternal rest:
Who going and returning, to purvey
What lacked, as this or that occasion pressed,
Was aimed at from afar, in privy wise,
And by the traytour struck between the eyes.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

>Guns
>During the reign of Charlemagne.
>In 774
Even in the past there was ahistorical fan-fiction.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

In Forgotten Realms, magic isn't some type of "advanced technology" they don't understand or something that can be classified next to technology. The weave is a product of Mystra, which could arguably be interpreted as making all magic-users some form of cleric, I suppose.
Basically, it's inherently supernatural.

 

[Delterius]

In Forgotten Realms, magic isn't some type of "advanced technology" they don't understand or something that can be classified next to technology. The weave is a product of Mystra, which could arguably be interpreted as making all magic-users some form of cleric, I suppose.
Basically, it's inherently supernatural.

Hasn't stopped anyone from studying it like it's physics and hasn't stopped civilizations from engineering themselves a magical industrial age. In fact, the 'weave' is ridiculously straightforward. It's supernatural capability is almost nill. At the end of the day the mass produced Wand of Light Cantrip is no different from the mass produced lightbulbs and 'Mystra' willed it so.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's supernatural capability is almost nill.

It's the definition of supernatural.

 

[Delterius]

It's supernatural capability is almost nill.

It's the definition of supernatural.

The point is it's stemlord shit like everything else in that world.

 

[KateMicucci]

That feel when you're trying to play a PnP game and your friend keeps saying

"Guys what if we used this [magical device] to build a rail gun? I'm an engineer so I can't help but think this way haha"

 

[Delterius]

That feel when you're trying to play a PnP game and your friend keeps saying

"Guys what if we used this [magical device] to build a rail gun? I'm an engineer so I can't help but think this way haha"

try playing mage the awakening with a chemistry graduate

'hey if we combine plembonium with potassium and then add some kosher hydrogen then we have a mini nuke and, also, the changes are so minute it can't cause paradox right'

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

That's basically an alchemist though.

 

[Delterius]

That's basically an alchemist though.

nah that's easy

'i'm afraid you cannot find any plembonium. the alchemy store only has quick silver and the alchemy books say its useless for that so why would your character do that stuff. roll against a DC check of 150 to know what plembonium is'

 

[Mauman]

Mask of the Betrayer is better than Torment. You're 15 years late.

I'm not going to argue that Obsidian hasn't made some great games in it's run, as they have. Mask is definitely one of them. So is New Vegas.

My response has more to do with the realization as to what Obsidian has become now. A husk of it's former glory.

 

[Infinitron]

Mask of the Betrayer is better than Torment. You're 15 years late.

I'm not going to argue that Obsidian hasn't made some great games in it's run, as they have. Mask is definitely one of them. So is New Vegas.

My response has more to do with the realization as to what Obsidian has become now. A husk of it's former glory.

Husk of its former glory? That's BioWare.

But Obsidian, going from NWN2 OC in 2006 to Deadfire in 2018? From Dungeon Siege 3 in 2011 to The Outer Worlds in 2019? Eh...

There's been a certain decline and there's been a generational turnover of talent within the company (the loss of Chris Avellone alone was a huge blow), but "husk of its former glory" is too strong an expression. They were never that great in the first place and the culture war stuff is distorting everybody's view of it.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

"husk of its former glory" is too strong an expression.

 

[Nano]

Husk of its former glory? That's BioWare.

But Obsidian, going from NWN2 OC in 2006 to Deadfire in 2018? From Dungeon Siege 3 in 2011 to The Outer Worlds in 2019? Eh...

There's been a certain decline and there's been a generational turnover of talent within the company (the loss of Chris Avellone alone was a huge blow), but "husk of its former glory" is too strong an expression. They were never that great in the first place and the culture war stuff is distorting everybody's view of it.

Come on dude. Most video game companies don't release any good games at all. Old Obsidian had several, so what if there were some duds in the middle too?

 

[Cross]

I just don't see the logic in the world suddenly stopping at an arbitrary technological point all because of some men with silly hats, unless there was a concerted effort to suppress it as part of some sort of political power play.

In many fantasy settings, including D&D, the gods derive their power from how strongly people believe in them. If a technological revolution occured and people started relying more on technology and less on magic, they would naturally become more skeptical of the gods. So the gods would have an incentive to let technology remain stagnant.

Zelazny's Lord of Light has a pretty cool take on this concept.

 

[Roguey]

Come on dude. Most video game companies don't release any good games at all. Old Obsidian had several, so what if there were some duds in the middle too?

Rough gem-era Obsidian: kotor 2, Mask of the Betrayer, Alpha Protocol, New Vegas

Polished turd-era Obsidian: Dungeon Siege III, South Park, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Deadfire, The Outer Worlds, Grounded

 

[Old Hans]

the gods derive their power from how strongly people believe in them.

that happens in real life too. remember Nammu the ancient Sumerian god? Used to be big man on campus back in the olden days. Now he's a big fag loser no one cares about

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

In D&D it's actually in the lore that the Harpers go out of their way to prevent technological progress. Dunno if there's anything similar in Pathfinder.

If your objective was to trigger me by conflating the Forgotten Realms with Dungeons & Dragons, consider it mission accomplished.

 

[FreeKaner]

Rough gem-era Obsidian: kotor 2, Mask of the Betrayer, Alpha Protocol, New Vegas

Polished turd-era Obsidian: Dungeon Siege III, South Park, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Deadfire, The Outer Worlds, Grounded

South Park one was good. Tyranny has all the makings of a good game in it but it was ransacked for resources. PoE1/Deadfire have many faults but they are playable with occasional enjoyable parts with White March being a really good campaign when ignoring rest of second half of PoE1.

Outer Worlds, on the other hand, is a thorough disappointment. Not only because what it is, which is dull and uninspired, it is also an already overdone type of setting because of popularity of Fallout 3 & Borderlands but also miserably tryhard at it. Space Opera is appealing, why go back again to retrofuturism? If you are going for retrofuturism why not make it more different than an era that has many overlaps with Fallout's retrofuturism? It is so disappointing especially when compared against the expectation when Tim Cain and Boyarsky got together again.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the loss of Chris Avellone alone was a huge blow

I'd have to question that. In retrospect, and from what leaks I've seen here, my reading is that he was already sidelined in New Vegas, and then completely sidelined after Alpha Protocol.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Deadfire

Deadfire is in the rough gem category, critical as I am of it. I don't know if you ever brought yourself to playing it without approaching it with codex preconceptions, but I can recommend doing that.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

the loss of Chris Avellone alone was a huge blow

I'd have to question that. In retrospect, and from what leaks I've seen here, my reading is that he was already sidelined in New Vegas, and then completely sidelined after Alpha Protocol.

Alpha Protocol was released four-and-a-half months before Fallout: New Vegas, which itself was followed by four expansions, with Chris Avellone as the project director for three of them: Dead Money, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road. Chris Avellone was only sidelined on F:NV because he had already been tasked with bringing Alpha Protocol to completion.

However, it does appear that, as a consequence of Alpha Protocol being a commercial flop but Fallout: New Vegas a considerable success, FU decided to sideline Chris Avellone on future game projects, while placing Obsidian's future in the hands of his new golden boy, Josh Sawyer, with predictable results.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the loss of Chris Avellone alone was a huge blow

I'd have to question that. In retrospect, and from what leaks I've seen here, my reading is that he was already sidelined in New Vegas, and then completely sidelined after Alpha Protocol.

Alpha Protocol was released four-and-a-half months before Fallout: New Vegas, which itself was followed by four expansions, with Chris Avellone as the project director for three of them: Dead Money, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road. Chris Avellone was only sidelined on F:NV because he had already been tasked with bringing Alpha Protocol to completion.

However, it does appear that, as a consequence of Alpha Protocol being a commercial flop but Fallout: New Vegas a considerable success, FU decided to sideline Chris Avellone on future game projects, while placing Obsidian's future in the hands of his new golden boy, Josh Sawyer, with predictable results.

With a difference of a few of months it doesn't matter that much which was before which. I remember both are released in 2010. So, the correction is that Avellone was already sidelined during FNV's development.

 

[AwesomeButton]

FU decided to sideline Chris Avellone on future game projects, while placing Obsidian's future in the hands of his new golden boy, Josh Sawyer, with predictable results

BTW, I've had a theory about this, which I'll never be able to confirm, but I think it makes good sense.

Josh's professional biography has went in such a way that he was lifted into a game dev position by Feargus, or at least with Frargus' blessing. Josh has told the story multiple times, how he taught himself html to make a website for a tatoo studio, and it was html that got him a job at Interplay. Later when he applied for an area designer, he wouldn't have gotten the designer position if it wasn't for some other guy who didn't take the job, Josh was actually less experienced than him.

When Black Isle dissolved, his experience in Midway was quite bad. He came back into relevance as a game dev when he came back into Feargus' fold. And come back he did, by heading FNV.

Given what we know of Feargus' system of values, especially professionally, he has every reason to respect Josh as someone who can get a decent product out in a short timespan. This is a big advantage in any manager's book. And Josh did that repeatedly - IWD2, FNV, PoE.

So I think Feargus and Josh have always been in a sort of a symbiosis - for Feargus Josh is the wiz kid who can cover the results of Feargus' dumb design decisions and meddling. Josh, for his part, probably feels more or less morally indebted to Feargus for his role in his career. What would Josh be doing if it wasn't for Feargus - mend bycicles, be a tatooist, sing in a choir? He had pretty crappy qualifications outside of his DM'ing, ironically.