Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming November 12th(?)

[Aarwolf]

Yeah, right, like we didn't have to help one asexual lesbian start romancing other lesbian in the past. Peak Obsidian no-romance, 100% RPG gratification.

 

[Tyranicon]

https://wccftech.com/avowed-confirmed-by-obsidian-to-be-very-short-for-an-rpg/

Possibly a clickbaity title since the pertinent part from the article is

The best comparison for Avowed in terms of scope is The Outer Worlds. Players can expect a roughly similar experience, just like The Outer Worlds, depending on what kind of difficulty they play on, and how thoroughly they explore and invest inside content, versus just sticking to the main crit path missions.

Which is what I assume everyone expected.

How long is TOW? I dunno, I only played like 2 hours and uninstalled. But according to the link:

The main story can be completed in just over 13 hours, while side content doubles that amount to around 26. For comparison, other non-open world RPGs like The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age II require between 24 and 37 hours to complete. With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian had the excuse of a shoestring budget, having picked Take-Two's indie label Private Division as the publisher.

There's so much "manage your expectations" for this game that I'm thoroughly whelmed.

 

[Kem0sabe]

View attachment 51570
https://wccftech.com/avowed-confirmed-by-obsidian-to-be-very-short-for-an-rpg/

Possibly a clickbaity title since the pertinent part from the article is

The best comparison for Avowed in terms of scope is The Outer Worlds. Players can expect a roughly similar experience, just like The Outer Worlds, depending on what kind of difficulty they play on, and how thoroughly they explore and invest inside content, versus just sticking to the main crit path missions.

Which is what I assume everyone expected.

How long is TOW? I dunno, I only played like 2 hours and uninstalled. But according to the link:

The main story can be completed in just over 13 hours, while side content doubles that amount to around 26. For comparison, other non-open world RPGs like The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age II require between 24 and 37 hours to complete. With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian had the excuse of a shoestring budget, having picked Take-Two's indie label Private Division as the publisher.

There's so much "manage your expectations" for this game that I'm thoroughly whelmed.

They had the same "manage your expectations this is a small scale rpg" when people started getting hyped for new Vegas in space (outer worlds).

Microsoft should shut them down, they bring nothing of worth to the Xbox brand, and they can only member berries new Vegas so many times.

 

[jungl]

holy shit shorter then dragon age 2. This year is shit for crpgs.

 

[Yosharian]

View attachment 51570
https://wccftech.com/avowed-confirmed-by-obsidian-to-be-very-short-for-an-rpg/

Possibly a clickbaity title since the pertinent part from the article is

The best comparison for Avowed in terms of scope is The Outer Worlds. Players can expect a roughly similar experience, just like The Outer Worlds, depending on what kind of difficulty they play on, and how thoroughly they explore and invest inside content, versus just sticking to the main crit path missions.

Which is what I assume everyone expected.

How long is TOW? I dunno, I only played like 2 hours and uninstalled. But according to the link:

The main story can be completed in just over 13 hours, while side content doubles that amount to around 26. For comparison, other non-open world RPGs like The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age II require between 24 and 37 hours to complete. With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian had the excuse of a shoestring budget, having picked Take-Two's indie label Private Division as the publisher.

There's so much "manage your expectations" for this game that I'm thoroughly whelmed.

Too fucking long with the DLCs

But that was mainly because it was shit

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

holy shit shorter then dragon age 2. This year is shit for crpgs.

Surely if we expect the game to be bad then the less of it there is the better? "Sure, it sucks, but at least it's over quickly."

 

[jf8350143]

Outer Worlds is longer than DA 2(unless you count DA 2's DLC but not Outer Worlds'). I don't know what the media is smoking but you definately don't need 37 hours to finish DA 2(even with the two DLC).

 

[AwesomeButton]

A shorter non-rpg is better than a longer non-rpg, so that's a plus. "A walking sim with dialogue" sounds like an accurate bargain at this point.

 

[Yosharian]

I would rather play DA2 five times over than replay TOW

And I don't even like DA2 that much

 

[Roguey]

How long is TOW? I dunno, I only played like 2 hours and uninstalled. But according to the link:

48 hours as a completionist.

holy shit shorter then dragon age 2. This year is shit for crpgs.

Dragon Age II's length is extremely padded. You don't want games that pad their length with garbage.

Bloodlines can be completed in 17-23 hours if you only do the main quest, 40 if you do everything. Even then the critical path content gets awful and overly-long near the end.

 

[FreeKaner]

It is a I believe longer than TOW but similar in scope. That's there are few hubs and regions with a bit of forking narrative rather than being an open world exploration game.

Which is fine, I think the bethesda-ubisoft combination formula (with "RPG elements") that every action game is going for nowadays is way overdone and also creates shallow games. Any issues with awavered won't be because of its length and scope. Problem with TOW isn't its length or scope either.

I would even say the less Obsidian tries to do grand scale epic games the better, they really can't do that and in both PoE1/2 best content is in the more limited scope areas. They were chasing that BG2 scale with PoE1/2 and failed miserably. They would probably fail at Skyrim scale too.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

who was 4th astronaut on the moon?

The point was that someone that's only been here for nine years is trying to talk down to someone that was here from the beginning. Who was the 4th man on the moon? Someone who was probably more important than the 3rd from the last man on the moon.

Which is what I assume everyone expected.

How long is TOW?

This would be fine if there's a lot of replay value to it. Is Obsidian even still up for having a lot of options in how to handle things at this point?

 

[Drakortha]

Nobody actually cares about game lengh, scale, and depth in 2024. What matters to everyone is can you fuck your party members.

We decided to forego full romance paths in Avowed. It's something that we thought very hard about

Oh no.

 

[Cross]

How long is TOW? I dunno, I only played like 2 hours and uninstalled. But according to the link:

48 hours as a completionist.

holy shit shorter then dragon age 2. This year is shit for crpgs.

Dragon Age II's length is extremely padded. You don't want games that pad their length with garbage.

Dragon Age 2 is horrible, but it was developed in roughly a year.

Avowed has been in development for 6 (!) years. They didn't start from scratch, since The Outer Worlds gave them the framework for a (crappy) first-person RPG to work with. And all they managed to produce after those 6 years is 4 shallow companions, braindead Skyrim-tier combat, a small game world and reduced reactivity (you can't kill NPCs or ditch companions).

Feargus must be funding a second vacation home with all the money he's fleecing from Microsoft.

 

[Lemming42]

Yeah while the hub planets system sucks, I don't have a problem with TOW's length or structure, it's more the fact that every second of that short runtime is extremely unenjoyable due to the actual content of the game. Someone could make a decent game in that framework but my faith that these people are capable of it is near zero.

 

[Roguey]

Avowed has been in development for 6 (!) years. They didn't start from scratch, since The Outer Worlds gave them the framework for a (crappy) first-person RPG to work with. And all they managed to produce after those 6 years is 4 shallow companions, braindead Skyrim-tier combat, a small game world and reduced reactivity (you can't kill NPCs or ditch companions).

They had some tools yes, but they had to make pretty much all systems and assets from scratch. There was also a false start when they tried to make a more ambitious game. Additionally, there's now a no-crunch/no-overtime culture in the game industry, and remote work thanks to covid really knocked down productivity.

What this means is that Sonic here got his way:

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

https://wccftech.com/avowed-confirmed-by-obsidian-to-be-very-short-for-an-rpg/

I'd prefer RPG with great replayability. Also only if this mean the next RPG comes faster, not 5+ years gap.

Trying to satisfy gamer who want 10 million hours of gameplay is what led us to bloated useless shit on RPG.

 

[Yosharian]

How long is TOW? I dunno, I only played like 2 hours and uninstalled. But according to the link:

48 hours as a completionist.

holy shit shorter then dragon age 2. This year is shit for crpgs.

Dragon Age II's length is extremely padded. You don't want games that pad their length with garbage.

Dragon Age 2 is horrible, but it was developed in roughly a year.

Avowed has been in development for 6 (!) years. They didn't start from scratch, since The Outer Worlds gave them the framework for a (crappy) first-person RPG to work with. And all they managed to produce after those 6 years is 4 shallow companions, braindead Skyrim-tier combat, a small game world and reduced reactivity (you can't kill NPCs or ditch companions).

Feargus must be funding a second vacation home with all the money he's fleecing from Microsoft.

Wait what. 6 years? Are you joking?

 

[Yosharian]

Avowed has been in development for 6 (!) years. They didn't start from scratch, since The Outer Worlds gave them the framework for a (crappy) first-person RPG to work with. And all they managed to produce after those 6 years is 4 shallow companions, braindead Skyrim-tier combat, a small game world and reduced reactivity (you can't kill NPCs or ditch companions).

They had some tools yes, but they had to make pretty much all systems and assets from scratch. There was also a false start when they tried to make a more ambitious game. Additionally, there's now a no-crunch/no-overtime culture in the game industry, and remote work thanks to covid really knocked down productivity.

What this means is that Sonic here got his way:

People should be paid more though. It's disgusting how much execs get paid (whether it's bonuses or just salary) compared to grunts

Execs that, let's not forget, are usually responsible for ruining the fucking games they're in charge of

 

[Yosharian]

Additionally, 'longer games' usually just means that the game has been crammed full of filler content and/or artificially lengthened by introducing grind where it doesn't belong

If that's what a long game means these days then I'll take a short game quite happily

Also, 'better graphics' often just means some guy got paid to render someone's testicles in 4k and the result is as pretty to look at as you might imagine

I remember when Elden Ring came out and everyone said the graphics were shit, if that's the case I'll take the worse graphics over highly polished shit that passes for 'graphics' these days

 

[Cross]

Wait what. 6 years? Are you joking?

When I searched for a date I found this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/avowed/comments/micynk/avowed_has_been_in_development_for_two_and_a_half/

Jorge Salgado, Lead Area Designer at Obsidian, mentions he's been on Avowed since late 2018.

source: Linkedin

"I'm currently Lead Area Designer on an Project Avowed since late 2018, after helping a very talented and focused team with the gameplay and level design foundation of Grounded (2020)."

On second thought, it says that he's been working on it since late 2018, not that it started development then. That could mean it has been in development for even longer.

 

[Roguey]

On second thought, it says that he's been working on it since late 2018, not that it started development then. That could mean it has been in development for even longer.

It obviously started when MS bought Obsidian (who else would pay for it?), so late 2018.

 

[Butter]

On second thought, it says that he's been working on it since late 2018, not that it started development then. That could mean it has been in development for even longer.

It obviously started when MS bought Obsidian (who else would pay for it?), so late 2018.

Wasn't Avowed their sales pitch to MS? Meaning they had at least done a bit of pre-production already?

 

[ferratilis]

Wait what. 6 years? Are you joking?

When I searched for a date I found this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/avowed/comments/micynk/avowed_has_been_in_development_for_two_and_a_half/

Jorge Salgado, Lead Area Designer at Obsidian, mentions he's been on Avowed since late 2018.

source: Linkedin

"I'm currently Lead Area Designer on an Project Avowed since late 2018, after helping a very talented and focused team with the gameplay and level design foundation of Grounded (2020)."

On second thought, it says that he's been working on it since late 2018, not that it started development then. That could mean it has been in development for even longer.

That guy is not at Obsidian anymore, even though he was one of the better level designers (Raedric Hold, Fort Deadlight). The leadership was probably flip-flopping so much between different design ideas that he just decided to leave.

 

[Lemming42]

I know Microsoft are an amoral mega-corporation but I actually feel bad for how hard they got scammed here. I'm feeling the type of sympathy I normally only feel for lonely old women who fall victim to romance scammers. This is the videogame equivalent of cowboy builders. Imagine someone pitching to you being like "we're making the next Skyrim!" and you're like "wow!" and you keep sending money over then six years later it's just Avowed.