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

[ItsChon]

It's just so hard to interact with any community by a dev, like I don't know if tomorrow there will be screenshots of these posts and I'll be fired, but whatever. What's the point of making games if you can't have fun, this shit gets too intense sometimes as it is. Keep at it

For sure. There are definitely a lot of idiots on this forum that don't realize how risky it can be for a developer to interact with this forum with all the no-no words that are thrown around willy nilly as well as some of the ideas expressed here, both genuinely as well as ironically/for comedy. I always try to censor myself a bit when I see someone like that posting because I want more developers to come by here because I see the potential for us to influence the genre and industry positively, even if in only a minor way. Sadly, most people here don't seem to realize the dynamics at play or are too edgy/unempathic to bother.

So regardless of what my personal opinions are, will always wish people like you the best, and hopefully you can take the critiques that you see here (although it can be hard to find with all the lazyposting and shitposting that happens) back to the studio to improve the final product.

 

[jf8350143]

Just take a look, we are arguing whether Obsidian's PR is dancing at the edge of the razorblade of deceptive marketing for multiple projects in a row, or beyond the edge.

Genuine conversation I had with a "certain significant other" person:
- What trailer is this?
- That's Avowed, Obsidian's own Skyrim, set in their own IP.
- Oh.., it's in the PIllars universe... But why is it first person?
- Well, they've decided to target a more mainstream audience.
- But Pillars was isometric, then Deadfire was isometric, and now this is first person... why?
- Deadfire didn't sell that well.
- But the reason for Deadfire not selling well was Pillars, not the fact it was isometric!
- Yeah, but Obsidian have instead taken it as a sign that they have to make the next game first person and this will fix sales numbers.
-

No noeed to lie to yourself, isometric rpg never sells well. it has become a niche genre for almost 20 years now.

 

[Briar Diem]

2024 release date and still not in alpha (and after five years no less)? We may be seeing the return of Bugsidian.

On previous projects Alpha periods were sometimes just a few months long. This is actually the longest we'll have for Alpha/Beta period for any game at Obsidian by a longshot, and is good news.

 

[Tyranicon]

I may be the only Obsidianite who comes here (other than Avellone, lol)

Um....



But free brofists just for showing up. Always appreciate someone on the inside even if it's the usual 'dex doom and gloom.

For what it's worth, if you guys knock it out of park, it'll be seen as a hell of a comeback around here.

 

[Briar Diem]

There are definitely a lot of idiots on this forum that don't realize how risky it can be for a developer to interact with this forum

There is actually straight up no chance of any sane developer interacting with this community. It is so toxic no one could touch it with a 10 foot pole on official terms. Anything from extreme misogyny to full fledged nazis lmao but I personally don't care and see value in the other side of the community (the unadulterated feedback, legit care about the genre Obsidian is working in). The fact one of the cofounders of Obsidian saw that value as well tells you something also.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

It's just so hard to interact with any community by a dev, like I don't know if tomorrow there will be screenshots of these posts and I'll be fired, but whatever. What's the point of making games if you can't have fun, this shit gets too intense sometimes as it is. Keep at it

I hope your most pretigious boss that never did anything wrong, Urquhart doesn't fire you..

Much love Urguhart. And Good luck with the game Briar Diem.

 

[Briar Diem]

Just take a look, we are arguing whether Obsidian's PR is dancing at the edge of the razorblade of deceptive marketing for multiple projects in a row, or beyond the edge.

Genuine conversation I had with a "certain significant other" person:
- What trailer is this?
- That's Avowed, Obsidian's own Skyrim, set in their own IP.
- Oh.., it's in the PIllars universe... But why is it first person?
- Well, they've decided to target a more mainstream audience.
- But Pillars was isometric, then Deadfire was isometric, and now this is first person... why?
- Deadfire didn't sell that well.
- But the reason for Deadfire not selling well was Pillars, not the fact it was isometric!
- Yeah, but Obsidian have instead taken it as a sign that they have to make the next game first person and this will fix sales numbers.
-

No noeed to lie to yourself, isometric rpg never sells well. it has become a niche genre for almost 20 years now.

Yeah, I can't imagine an isometric RPG selling well. Deadfire is better than POE1 (IMO), and the reason POE1 sold well is because there was a lot of hype about infinity engine games returning, and the kickstarter itself being on the news everywhere. There were even celebrities playing it on Twitch. And suddenly everyone had their fill once POE came out (also IMO). Codex says POE was nowhere close to infinity engine games quality (writing, combat), sure, maybe true enough. If Avowed sells < 300k copies though this comment will age like milk and I'll have to eat a shoe.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Just take a look, we are arguing whether Obsidian's PR is dancing at the edge of the razorblade of deceptive marketing for multiple projects in a row, or beyond the edge.

Genuine conversation I had with a "certain significant other" person:
- What trailer is this?
- That's Avowed, Obsidian's own Skyrim, set in their own IP.
- Oh.., it's in the PIllars universe... But why is it first person?
- Well, they've decided to target a more mainstream audience.
- But Pillars was isometric, then Deadfire was isometric, and now this is first person... why?
- Deadfire didn't sell that well.
- But the reason for Deadfire not selling well was Pillars, not the fact it was isometric!
- Yeah, but Obsidian have instead taken it as a sign that they have to make the next game first person and this will fix sales numbers.
-

No noeed to lie to yourself, isometric rpg never sells well. it has become a niche genre for almost 20 years now.

Yeah, I can't imagine an isometric RPG selling well. Deadfire is better than POE1 in every single way (IMO), and the reason POE1 sold well is because there was a lot of hype about infinity engine games returning, and the kickstarter itself being on the news everywhere. There were even celebrities playing it on Twitch. And suddenly everyone had their fill once POE came out (also IMO). Codex says POE was nowhere close to infinity engine games quality (writing, combat), sure, maybe true enough. If Avowed sells < 300k copies though this comment will age like milk and I'll have to eat a shoe.

IDK , Pathfinder and Divinity sold pretty well. Of course , Owlcat is not as big as Obsidian and DOS2 was a outliner, but still. There's a market for it.

 

[santino27]

I may be the only Obsidianite who comes here (other than Avellone, lol), though maybe others lurk. But I like how insanely critical you guys are. It's all valid criticism, from people who take this shit seriously, IMO. It's just so hard to interact with any community by a dev, like I don't know if tomorrow there will be screenshots of these posts and I'll be fired, but whatever. What's the point of making games if you can't have fun, this shit gets too intense sometimes as it is. Keep at it

That's the right kind of attitude for actually making things better imo, although of course in development, change like that needs to often come from the top. Some of the complaints here are just people bitching, which is par for the course with any open discussion environment, but I think there's a lot of truth in the negativity too. Not engaging with anyone other than braindead game journos or the echo chamber of diehard fans is why everything is stagnant shit. Anyway, glad you're here, and don't get fired yet. Also kudos for using your name... being connected to the codex at a professional level is, as you said, pretty damn dicey, which is why so few of us do it.

Yeah, I can't imagine an isometric RPG selling well. Deadfire is better than POE1 in every single way (IMO),

Except for story and characters, because holy shit.

 

[Eirinjas]

So, judging by the trailer it's an Elderscrolls-Lite game that rips off the combat mechanics of Skyrim, gives you the übermensch killing prowess of Corvo from Dishonored, in a land that looks like Outer Worlds meets Lord of the Rings, fighting fungally infected creatures ala The Last of Us, with that quasi-cartoon realist vomit art-style so prevalent in games these days, and it lets you roleplay your gender and diversity hire attributes. Talk about creative bankruptcy. Boy, marketing sure did focus group the hell out of this one. It wouldn't surprise me if loading the game the Obsidian logo includes the poc trans flag just to tick off all the boxes on the demographics bingo card. Why not go a step further, Obsidian, and put Dylan Mulvaney in your next gameplay trailer? I know you've thought about it.

 

[ItsChon]

Yeah, I can't imagine an isometric RPG selling well. Deadfire is better than POE1 in every single way (IMO), and the reason POE1 sold well is because there was a lot of hype about infinity engine games returning, and the kickstarter itself being on the news everywhere. There were even celebrities playing it on Twitch. And suddenly everyone had their fill once POE came out (also IMO). Codex says POE was nowhere close to infinity engine games quality (writing, combat), sure, maybe true enough. If Avowed sells < 300k copies though this comment will age like milk and I'll have to eat a shoe.

This isn't your field of expertise and I know you can't do anything with this information, nor does it probably matter to you, but see this post about why Deadfire sold very poorly.

The two main reasons Deadfire flopped is because,

A) There was little to no marketing/media behind it, or at least, media that was effective. I remember reading that PoE 2 had come out and being confused as fuck, especially since I hadn't even got around to the first game yet. There wasn't nearly as much Kickstarter and youtube hype surrounding the sequel, which obviously means less exposure.

and

B) PoE scored so well and got high reviews all around, despite the fact that it was so bland and mediocre. Pillars of Eternity was super popular, and a bunch of people knew about it. This led to a lot of people new to the genre buying the game and playing it. These people that are new to the CRPG genre play the game for a few hours, but for some reason, they just can't get into it. Normally, this would lead a player to think that said game was bad or missing something, but this is where all the good reviews came in. If all these reviewers and YouTubers are praising the game, they conclude that this is what the best of the genre has to offer. This means that their inability to get into the game is not due to the game being bad or missing something, but it's due to the fact that they're not really into the CRPG genre.

The vast majority of people that play video games are fucking retards, and they have no idea what's good and what isn't. You'll see someone on the Codex who played PoE for hours, perhaps even finished it, and will turn around and say the game is shit, while a "regular gamer" will have barely stomached the game for an hour or two, and turn around say "yeah PoE is a good game". They do this because people are sheep, and will believe whatever the general consensus is all the while, they buy and play games that might be completely contrary to what they say they like/say is good (see all the popamole Codexers that larp liking old games to impress oldfags, all the while they've sunk tens of hours into TOW, FO:NV, and Skryim).

So, when Deadfire came along, all of those people that bought PoE the first time abstained from Deadfire, because they just assumed that the CRPG genre wasn't for them, hence the complete commercial failure that the second game was. D:OS went the other way, the people that got played the first one enjoyed it and got pulled in, and when D:OS 2 got all the Kickstarter and YouTuber hype, that core audience along with all the people new to the game came in, which led to its sweeping success. I haven't played D:OS 2, so I don't know if it was good or not, but if it was, I'm sure the sequel will do anywhere from a little less successful, to even more successful, depending on how people liked it.

The reason there was no hype and coverage was being of reason B. Just some food for thought.

 

[santino27]

Sales vs. quality is of course something we've discussed ad nauseum, but... from what Sawyer has said in the past, Deadfire at least eventually made it to profit, albeit not at a magnitude (or rate of speed) that anyone would consider a hit. As for quality, the graphics/tech aspects were leagues better than POE imo, the mechanics were (mostly) better, the combat was (mostly) better, the main plot blew chunks out of its infected anus, the party companions veered between dull and disastrous (a clear and ongoing problem with the writing staff), and the ship layer just didn't excite anyone, including seemingly the devs involved. So, I guess sales-wise, it ended up a minor success, but otherwise it was a very mixed bag. Not interesting enough to fall into the traditional Obsidian 'crippled potential masterpiece' vein, but not awful either. Just there. Which set the stage nicely for Outer Worlds tocome out and double down on the idea of just being there too.

 

[Briar Diem]

IDK , Pathfinder and Divinity sold pretty well

Pathfinder and Divinity were both full 3d though, maybe more accessible? Yea you're right though, if game is fun enough shouldn't matter. Divinity eclipsed POE's by an insane margin of sales.

 

[Quillon]

This is a pretty old story at this point:

• Studio becomes popular after making good games for a niche genre.
• Studio loses popularity after making bad games for a niche genre.
• Studio gets bought by big corp who funnels it into making mainstream games.
• Studio dies.

It is. The release of Pentiment is the confounding variable in that narrative, though. EA never let BioWare do something like that.

If Obsidian survives, it'll be on the back of Grounded/Pentiment, not the stuff they're actually supposed to be good at, which is borderline hilarious.

if obs have some soul left it was in PoE1&2; instead of moving that team into the 3D sequel/their flagship title its divided between Grounded & Pentiment and this is the result lol

 

[duskvile]

No, the entire game isn't all bright and happy town, no it is not all so indistinct visually, just the spots shown in the trailer. There are lots of characters, quests, conversations, various game mechanics, big story, etc.

Can you tell if there will be stealth mechanics in gameplay? Can you make dual wield rogue?

Yeah there'll be an extended showcase tomorrow.
PS3/360-looking bear, cartoony xaurip. European-minded people don't like cartoons.

Bear looks quite realistic but xaurip is too cartoony. It would be better to have horiffic design of characters for more tension and immersion.

 

[Busyman]

It's just so hard to interact with any community by a dev, like I don't know if tomorrow there will be screenshots of these posts and I'll be fired, but whatever. What's the point of making games if you can't have fun, this shit gets too intense sometimes as it is. Keep at it

For sure. There are definitely a lot of idiots on this forum that don't realize how risky it can be for a developer to interact with this forum with all the no-no words that are thrown around willy nilly as well as some of the ideas expressed here, both genuinely as well as ironically/for comedy. I always try to censor myself a bit when I see someone like that posting because I want more developers to come by here because I see the potential for us to influence the genre and industry positively, even if in only a minor way. Sadly, most people here don't seem to realize the dynamics at play or are too edgy/unempathic to bother.

So regardless of what my personal opinions are, will always wish people like you the best, and hopefully you can take the critiques that you see here (although it can be hard to find with all the lazyposting and shitposting that happens) back to the studio to improve the final product.

meh I'm new to this forum, although I've lurked occassionally for the past few years, so I'm not going to dive too deep into this topic.

But the minute people start self censoring here, is when the floodgates open for more censorship and the place WILL eventually turn into reddit where you can be banned for not using someones "preferred pronouns" once the right people get into moderator positions.

I get what you're saying though, however the only hope for gaming to be like it used to be, prior to it becoming mainstream, is for people, who are open to all ideas (even those you consider "edgy"), to start creating their own games and doing crowdfunding....or if ESG investing is destroyed.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Can you make dual wield rogue?

They confirmed Dual Wield already. Nothing about stealth tho

 

[jf8350143]

No, the entire game isn't all bright and happy town, no it is not all so indistinct visually, just the spots shown in the trailer. There are lots of characters, quests, conversations, various game mechanics, big story, etc.

Can you tell if there will be stealth mechanics in gameplay? Can you make dual wield rogue?

Yeah there'll be an extended showcase tomorrow.
PS3/360-looking bear, cartoony xaurip. European-minded people don't like cartoons.

Bear looks quite realistic but xaurip is too cartoony. It would be better to have horiffic design of characters for more tension and immersion.

Not sure about the stealth but they showed in the trailer you can dual wield axes and pistol.

 

[Zombra]

Obsidian may transform (or rather, continue its transformation) but I don't see it dying, simply from playing Grounded, which proves they do have creative minds there and can produce excellent gameplay when the talent is focused correctly. Easily the best in genre I've played, and I've played a few.

Whether they can redirect that to make actual excellent RPG gameplay here, who knows.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Yeah, I can't imagine an isometric RPG selling well. Deadfire is better than POE1 in every single way (IMO), and the reason POE1 sold well is because there was a lot of hype about infinity engine games returning, and the kickstarter itself being on the news everywhere. There were even celebrities playing it on Twitch. And suddenly everyone had their fill once POE came out (also IMO). Codex says POE was nowhere close to infinity engine games quality (writing, combat), sure, maybe true enough. If Avowed sells < 300k copies though this comment will age like milk and I'll have to eat a shoe.

We have an 80-page thread here about why Deadfire failed commercially.

I think the sum of it is that there are two main reasons. First is the failed marketing campaign. Maybe Obsidian was used to Kickstarter serving as free marketing, maybe the publisher was just inexperienced. There is also the paradox that PoE had the chance to be marketed as "Baldur's Gate's spiritual successor", whereas Deadfire was merely "PoE's successor". Second was, sadly, the fact that Pillars attracted people and let them down, after which they didn't come back for Deadfire.

I agree Deadfire is the better game in every aspect, and I have over 600 hours in it, compared to about 350 in PoE.

Isometric is completely capable of selling well (turning profit), evidenced by Owlcat's last games, and Divinity. IMO too few of PoE's and Deadfire's team were Infinity Engine games' fans and this impared the understanding of what makes these games fun. The mojo had returned by the time The White March was developed. However, Pathfinder Kingmaker and WotR evoke the infinity engine games better than PoE/Deadfire do.

 

[Infinitron]

Briar Diem Brandon Adler used to show up here occasionally too fyi.

 

[Diggfinger]

Will probably get this


never played Skyrim

 

[toro]

Will probably get this


never played Skyrim

will probably not get this

one retarded Outer Worlds was enough

 

[ArchAngel]

Codex always gives a good, wild ride! This thread is bonkers but 100% warranted. The trailer fails to show much in its 2 minute run time, which also means it fails as a trailer, many at the studio certainly agree. To clear up misconceptions though I'll say this, the game is big and open, it is unfair to compare it to OW (I think Ferg is trying to keep expectations down just in case), which I think it is nothing alike, this coming from someone who did not like much of OW, especially the art style.

The studio that did the trailer did some compression of colors and image editing, the screenshots that have been released are much more representative of what it looks like just running through it (they also are appear to be totally random shots from the game, I'm not sure why these were chosen out all the things, probably to keep spoilers at minimum). A lot of the game is being kept hidden right now, I think you will have to wait until the next trailer or some sort of presentation to really see it, but it is safe to assume it is very Obsidian, for better or for worse . No, the entire game isn't all bright and happy town, no it is not all so indistinct visually, just the spots shown in the trailer. There are lots of characters, quests, conversations, various game mechanics, big story, etc. Hopefully we can just release more shots from the game without having to worry about another trailer. I miss working on POEs where we could just leak our own shit and no one could tell us no.

I guess take that as you will. Dumpsterfire comments are bit overhype, development is going well right now, MS is allowing Obsidian free license to do as they will, and if it is success or fails it'll be on Obsidian's own terms.

But will it match Starfield 30 FPS on most powerful consoles? :D

 

[ArchAngel]

IDK , Pathfinder and Divinity sold pretty well

Pathfinder and Divinity were both full 3d though, maybe more accessible? Yea you're right though, if game is fun enough shouldn't matter. Divinity eclipsed POE's by an insane margin of sales.

I've played Deadfire recently and it looks much prettier than either DOS or both Pathfinder games. It was not about 2d or 3d.