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

[Butter]

It's intentional, as it allows the interior to be larger than the exterior. Plus, it's good for containing certain people in an area where they're safe from some random events. The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era. My heavily modded Skyrim loading screens are so fast that I can maybe read 3 words from the lore screen, and I'm a fast reader.

Fallout 4 load times are atrocious, even with an SSD. There are multiple mods designed to address this specifically.

 

[Gargaune]

There is no problem to have a moddable Unreal engine game. The problems will be the learning curve for modding this engine, and of course the license for releasing the tools.

Yes, technical solution aside, the learning curve would be the major issue in the modding scene because it would deprecate the existing knowledge base and disincentivise migration to the new title. Already Fallout 4 had a noticeably less productive mod scene, plenty of modders just carried on with Skyrim, and that's just over habit and the flavour of fiction. You tell those guys they gotta go back to square one (Morrowind square one, to be precise) for TES VI and they'll nope right out.

It's tough to speculate what would happen to TES VI if it's released without modding support. I think if the stakes are like either you sell millions of copies or tens of millions, Bethesda will have to find a solution for making it moddable. By the time TES VI releases, TES V will be largely forgotten (by the tens of millions audience), so it's difficult to ride on past reputation. My feeling is that if it's not moddable word of mouth will destroy sales.

It's not particularly tough to speculate since Bethesda games have always been released without modding support - on consoles, where the majority of sales for Bethesda games occur. A lot of people who play Bethesda games on PC also don't use mods, as hard as that may be too believe.

I guess it's time to beat this drum again - the modding scene provides staying power, a minority of the initial customer base keep talking about the game long after release, maintaining its public profile and attracting continued sales, regardless of whether those new customers are interested in mods themselves.

 

[Readher]

It's intentional, as it allows the interior to be larger than the exterior. Plus, it's good for containing certain people in an area where they're safe from some random events. The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era. My heavily modded Skyrim loading screens are so fast that I can maybe read 3 words from the lore screen, and I'm a fast reader.

Fallout 4 load times are atrocious, even with an SSD. There are multiple mods designed to address this specifically.

You just probably have capped framerate. With unlocked framerate they're almost instant. It's true that you de facto need mods to do this, since unlocking framerate itself will cause physics to go haywire and the game logic will run faster (which mods fix). They already fixed that engine issue in FO76 though, so Starfield shouldn't have that problem.

 

[Delterius]

It's intentional, as it allows the interior to be larger than the exterior. Plus, it's good for containing certain people in an area where they're safe from some random events. The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era. My heavily modded Skyrim loading screens are so fast that I can maybe read 3 words from the lore screen, and I'm a fast reader.

Fallout 4 load times are atrocious, even with an SSD. There are multiple mods designed to address this specifically.

You just probably have capped framerate. With unlocked framerate they're almost instant.

what

 

[Butter]

It's intentional, as it allows the interior to be larger than the exterior. Plus, it's good for containing certain people in an area where they're safe from some random events. The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era. My heavily modded Skyrim loading screens are so fast that I can maybe read 3 words from the lore screen, and I'm a fast reader.

Fallout 4 load times are atrocious, even with an SSD. There are multiple mods designed to address this specifically.

You just probably have capped framerate. With unlocked framerate they're almost instant.

what

It's true. Bethesda's engine is so fucked that increasing the frame rate speeds up loading. But then that would fuck up the physics.

 

[Perkel]

There is no problem to have a moddable Unreal engine game. The problems will be the learning curve for modding this engine, and of course the license for releasing the tools. For someone as big as Bethesda, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Epic release a cut down version of their toolset specifically for modders. :It is a mystery:

There is actually a problem.
UE5 has a lot of third party tools and parts that are integrated and don't allow developers to create mod tools if they want to use those parts of engine.

This is the same reason why CDPR RED engine doesn't allow to modify game map at all as it was made with separate tool which CDPR can't distribute to modders.

UE5 is like that times 10. Hell if you want to use it in any proper way you have to use Houdini with it's own $$$.

 

[Orud]

It's true. Bethesda's engine is so fucked that increasing the frame rate speeds up loading. But then that would fuck up the physics.

Because there is no incentive to fix that as long as consoles can't run any game decently above 30 fps (which is still the baseline). The second more horse power is added to consoles, AAA gamedevs immediately throttle it by more fancy graphics.

 

[Kem0sabe]

 

[HoboForEternity]

p good video and explained nicely the corporate speak bullshit about this game they use in the interview. i want this game to be at least decent since i like PoE, but eh not betting any chips on it.

 

[Fedora Master]

What expectations?

 

[luj1]

ahahahaha

Game will have 2 races, Human and Elves

 

[tastywaffles]

The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era.

There are Fallout 4 loading screens that can take literally 5-10 minutes to load. Multiple minutes per was common, was typical.

 

[copebot]

The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era.

There are Fallout 4 loading screens that can take literally 5-10 minutes to load. Multiple minutes per was common, was typical.

Not with the mod that fixes it. The game is broken on PC and was broken on PC in that respect from the moment it released.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The loading is really non-issue in an SSD era.

There are Fallout 4 loading screens that can take literally 5-10 minutes to load. Multiple minutes per was common, was typical.

That has never happened to me. And it's on an SSD, btw.

 

[AwesomeButton]

"Obsidian: lower your expectations". It's sad.

 

[thesecret1]

Should be the official sub-title. "Avowed: Lower Your Expectations". Has a nice ring to it.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

"Obsidian: lower your expectations". It's sad.

When was it not like that, though?

 

[Kem0sabe]

It was even part of their Outer World press campaign preceding release. "this is not new Vegas in space, temper your expectations"

 

[Cryomancer]

I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.

As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.

 

[Roguey]

I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.

As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.

Height differences are a mess. Notice that no Elder Scrolls lets you play as a short race.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff.

This cope has been already expended, Obsidian has spent the past decade repeatedly failing to make a reduced scope (relative to AP/NV) translate into more sophisticated design.

 

[Butter]

Obsidian are a AAA studio who have convinced players that they're AA.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

"Obsidian: lower your expectations". It's sad.

I doubt they can go any lower lol.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I don't think that reducing the scope is a bad thing. Quality > Quantity. In Gothic 2, there is a total of ONE main city, very memorable, full of interesting stuff. In Skyrim, there are many "major cities", all boring and uninspiring.

As for 2 races, IMO they should have added at least a 3rd race. Humans, Dwarves and Elves.

Height differences are a mess. Notice that no Elder Scrolls lets you play as a short race.

Morrowind introduced different heights (and weights) by race/gender combination, with male bosmer (wood elves) being the shortest, though the difference is less extreme than for the usual fantasy dwarves and halflings.

 

[Cryomancer]

IMO Obsidian declined a lot. Just compare FNV with outer worlds, FNV has a lot of interesting factions, lots of cool weapons, and OW has neon weapons and revolves around "corporations bad", hence I'm not hyped for this game. Can be good? Sure. But so far, the unique good things that I saw are the spell effects.