Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting

[v1c70r14]

I think both TOW and Avowed are somewhat fun games that get unfairly accused of being horrible and "woke" by veteran RPG players who were expecting more.

Get a load of this kike. Yeah, the company with the art director that is very vocal about not hiring Whites, and who has not gone back on this but had the full support of Obsidian and Microsoft, the same Microsoft that has "woke" mandatory demands on all the garbage products they publish, this company that is owned by them, they're not "woke". Sure. And the game with a fishnigger homo alongside another homo, in the Netflix casted ugly neon danger hair mess of a game that has trooncore social activist writing that people would get up in arms about if they didn't fall asleep or skip it outright out of boredom, they/them pronouns, this singleplayer MMO FPS is "unfairly" accused of being woke?

A shitty action game that can't live up to the standards set by any past action game, be it recent ones, or antiquated exemplars like Dark Messiah. Cities that are more dead than in Neverwinter Nights 2. More braindead gameplay than the old clickers like Titan Quest. The most uncanny NPCs I've ever seen in a video game. A victim of too high expectations? Everyone expected more sewage to seep out from Obsidian after Outer Slop, and somehow it keeps getting worse even than expected.

I always have to wonder whom these garbage releases are for that get cooked up in the cultural weapon labs of California. Apparently it's kikes and kike-adjacent people like Turdks or those Balkaners that have lost their old stock and don't even retain a Slavic constitution but have gone full semite, like Romanians and Bulgarians. Every single anti-semitic post on the Codex ever made was justified when this is what kikes want for RPGs. Playing as some fungus head in a bad cross between Skyrim and Diablo, with the mandatory drag queen color scheme slapped onto it. It's not even goyslop anymore, it's just kikeslop, from the rectum of the big schnozer man funneled straight into his own mouth ad infinitum.

 

[Sherry]

Hi.

The sky was filled with swirling streamers of gray. A thicker knot of clouds loomed like an upraised fist on the distant northern horizon, angry purple and black. The weather had gone bitterly cool again. Miriamele was very grateful for her thick new wool shirt. It had been a present from the married farmer man on the outskirts of Fior mes Ivèrno. When the husband and his ill wife had come to bestow the gift, Miriamele had been properly polite and thankful as she knew an Envoy should be. She just hoped they didn't think she was going to marry their son or something. She had met him half a dozen times now, but he had still said scarcely anything to her, although he smiled a lot. It was nice to be admired, Miriamele had decided, be she couldn't help wishing that someone was doing the admiring besides this silly boy. Still, the shirt was well-made and warm.

DARKENING SKIES

Her journey, along with her two companions Kai and Marius, had taken them through The Wildwoods, out and over the Rolling Crags, and further north still where the Grim Wetlands lay. The trio's journey followed the trail of a Ranger said to be operating and sharing information with the Steel Garrote - a traitor within their ranks - which ultimately brought them to the edge of The Delemgan Glade. Miriamele knew they would eventually have to trek further west to find an Adragan Heart, and after resting for the day, did this journey begin to unfold under the cover of darkness.

AND SO IT BEGINS

Miriamele squinted up at the stars swimming in the black night. She was finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake. Her weary eyes turned to the brightest constellation, a rough circle of lights hovering what seemed a handsbreadth above the gaping, broken-eggshell edge of the sunken glade. A claw of wind reached down from above. Only the passing of long centuries had opened the land before her to the night skies. The wind came again, sharper this time, bearing a flurry of snowflakes. Though it wracked her with shivers, Miriamele was thankful: the chill scraped some of her drowsiness away. It wouldn't do to fall asleep. Not this night of all nights.

TO THE DELEMGAN QUEEN

Kai and Marius stood in contemplative silence, their own gaze focused on the task below them. How would they traverse such a hostile environment, and still avoid bloodshed? Miriamele had spoken with the Rangers and learned how protective the Delemgan Queen was with those she ruled, and from the high vantage point, she could already pick out shadowed silhouettes patrolling the rocky paths and switchbacks.

Thanks,
Sherry

 

[luj1]

the character models do show their limited budget

I thought ur opinion on Avowed was kinda genuine, but now I am sure you are another rabid bitch shill

the models have nothing to do with the budget, they are just plain stupid to look at even for normies

limited budget you say? I say limited creativity

 

[JarlFrank]

I think the 3D modeler at Obsidian took photos from a recent pride parade for reference.

 

[luj1]

Yeah I think I know where they got their inspiration from...

Yup this whole thing is a literal fucking psyop Jesus Christ

 

[FreeKaner]

the character models do show their limited budget

I thought ur opinion on Avowed was kinda genuine, but now I am sure you are another rabid bitch shill

the models have nothing to do with the budget, they are just plain stupid to look at even for normies


limited budget you say? I say limited creativity

I mean one can disagree with the sort of godlike stuff they did here, but this isn't even extreme compared to godlike models in poe1/2. I was mainly talking about polygons, textures and animations (especially the animations) in terms of budget. I agree that while I unequivocally love the environment I have a lot more reservations with character models. That said it is possible to make interesting stuff I don't think it is creativity issue as much as creative direction issue.

 

[Orange Clock]

I think both TOW and Avowed are somewhat fun games that get unfairly accused of being horrible and "woke" by veteran RPG players who were expecting more.

Get a load of this kike. Yeah, the company with the art director that is very vocal about not hiring Whites, and who has not gone back on this but had the full support of Obsidian and Microsoft, the same Microsoft that has "woke" mandatory demands on all the garbage products they publish, this company that is owned by them, they're not "woke". Sure. And the game with a fishnigger homo alongside another homo, in the Netflix casted ugly neon danger hair mess of a game that has trooncore social activist writing that people would get up in arms about if they didn't fall asleep or skip it outright out of boredom, they/them pronouns, this singleplayer MMO FPS is "unfairly" accused of being woke?

Tbf, I think Microsoft dialed back on DEI practices recently (didn’t they fired their dei department? or was it google?). Also, I think it was higher ups at Xbox/MS who pushed for removal of pronouns, but the devs was highly against it, so they had to settled on making it a toggleable option. On addition, nobody at Obsidain/Xbox voiced a vocal support for Art Director, they just used “if I ignore it, it’ll go away” tactics. So, imho, Feargus and Spencer are indifferent to woke or outright against it, especially since it doesn’t bring free money anymore. It’s the devs, who are responsible for all this garbage.

 

[Xelocix]

Its face is weirdly scrunched together and doesn't seem to fit its head properly so looking at it is a little unsettling. I hate Orlans though so I'll admit that my bias might be showing.

The thing is, nearly every face in this game has something wrong with it. Either something about eyes or hair, or face structre or all together. Uncanny valley galore...

They hate whites. And they have hard time to imagine different species.

Look for example there, this is a simple AI image I made, and while some ratios are wrong for these ears and theirs positions on head, it radiates cuteness.

The fuck is this pedophiliac bullshit?

it radiates cuteness.

Bro who tf talks like this, creepy weird gross ass faggot. Leave your goon cave and stop generating toddlers.

 

[Morgoth]

We need a "poetic" emoticon.

Thanks, Sherry.

 

[Fedora Master]

The Mushroom aesthetic was the absolute worst choice.

 

[Fedora Master]

Apparently it's kikes and kike-adjacent people

Clearly not since he doesn't play the games he shills.

 

[Riddler]

the character models do show their limited budget

I thought ur opinion on Avowed was kinda genuine, but now I am sure you are another rabid bitch shill

the models have nothing to do with the budget, they are just plain stupid to look at even for normies


limited budget you say? I say limited creativity

I mean one can disagree with the sort of godlike stuff they did here, but this isn't even extreme compared to godlike models in poe1/2. I was mainly talking about polygons, textures and animations (especially the animations) in terms of budget. I agree that while I unequivocally love the environment I have a lot more reservations with character models. That said it is possible to make interesting stuff I don't think it is creativity issue as much as creative direction issue.

It's a bit interesting that both Veilguard and awoved seemingly have good environmental art but mediocre to bad character art.


Is it an engine thing (different engines though?)? A woke thing? Are the pipelines for hires in these areas different?

 

[luj1]

I think both TOW and Avowed are somewhat fun, somewhat dull "baby's first RPG"-type games (similar in vibe to the early BioWare console RPGs KOTOR1 and Jade Empire) that get unfairly accused of being horrible and "woke" by veteran RPG players who were expecting more.

that get unfairly accused of being horrible and "woke"

unfairly

But why? Can't wait to see your mental gymnastics

 

[Child of Malkav]

Are you... going to play VTMB2?

I told you during our initial exchange: no.

 

[Yosharian]

I mean one can disagree with the sort of godlike stuff they did here, but this isn't even extreme compared to godlike models in poe1/2. I was mainly talking about polygons, textures and animations (especially the animations) in terms of budget. I agree that while I unequivocally love the environment I have a lot more reservations with character models. That said it is possible to make interesting stuff I don't think it is creativity issue as much as creative direction issue.

It's a bit interesting that both Veilguard and awoved seemingly have good environmental art but mediocre to bad character art.


Is it an engine thing (different engines though?)? A woke thing? Are the pipelines for hires in these areas different?

If you were a woke idiot what would you rather work on?

There's not much opportunity to insert woke politics into a landscape

 

[Maldoror]

I think instead of kvetching about Avowed forever I'll spend the rest of the weekend playing one of the Strategic Simulations AD&D games. Should I play Eye of the Beholder or Pool of Radiance again?

 

[Orange Clock]

There's not much opportunity to insert woke politics into a landscape

You could always do a limestone, who identifies as sandstone

 

[Morgoth]

Too many RPGs don't get that 'choices that matter' isn't just about cause and effect, but Avowed does​

By Lauren Morton
published 33 minutes ago

I want choices that matter to me, not just to the game.

You're the creative director for the next up-and-coming RPG. You step on stage in front of an audience of eager fans (pretend we still do these things live), and after the reveal trailer rolls you steeple your fingers and the grand promise you make to players is:

"That mountain? You can go there!"
"A living, breathing world"
"A story with choices that matter"

You say "choices that matter" and the crowd cheers, though they're quietly harboring skepticism. Would they have believed you outright if you went for the mountain? Maybe. They're all buzzword-laden lines, so perhaps it won't make any difference in the end. But whether or not the choice perceptibly changes your trajectory, it sure felt like a big deal in the moment, and that's what makes a choice matter.

Giving me choices that matter, not just to its own systems and evolving story, but to me as a player, is something Obsidian's latest RPG Avowed just nails. It's constantly giving me dialogue options that let me roleplay my Envoy in interesting ways, and choices that I can feel are going to have repercussions later on, but also choices that just feel fun and interesting to make even if I don't know whether they'll turn back up in the epilogue.

It hurts my heart a little to find yet another way to praise Avowed as a direct response to something that I felt let down by in Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year, but I haven't been able to ditch the feeling in my 80 hours and counting.

One of my major complaints in my Veilguard review was that it became obsessed with proving to me that my choices mattered. Reminders would pop up in the middle of a cutscene making sure I understood that events playing out were a result of my decisions.

But "choices that matter" isn't just about how many ways a game can demonstrate cause and effect to me. A few slightly different dialogue lines or choosing which of my party members will have a bruised up face for 10 hours of my playthrough just didn't matter to me if the choice that made it happen was uninteresting. Tangible effects are an important part of making choices matter, but without a choice that's difficult or surprising or scary I'd rather just not get to choose anything at all.

Avowed has heaped my plate full of steaming hot choices. One of the first things I did with my "Court Augur" background was decide that yes I did actually have a romantic history with this Inquisitor Lödwyn person everyone's talking about. I had no idea if it was going to come up much (it has, fun enough) or if it was just a little moment of backstory flair, but it sure felt juicy to make that choice.

Later on in Avowed's second area, the Memory of the Deep side quest asks me to find a hidden meteorite and choose whether to give it back to the person who originally gave me the quest, or someone else. I actually sat there and thought about it for a solid five minutes. Giving the meteorite back to the farmer who asked for it could have serious consequences but giving it to the very suspect "Giftbearer" didn't seem right either. I was pretty sure this choice wasn't actually going to result in any change to the game—a sequence involving an incursion of new dream thralls seemed unlikely—I just cared about the choice itself. Should I let this guy have back the thing that could put him in danger?

There are so many other choices in Avowed that have stopped me and made me think. Should I lie to a dreamscourged ranger about the fate of her patrol partner? Should I execute a traitor who's trying to avoid further bloodshed? Should I help a dreamscourged man euthanize himself even if his sole surviving family member begs me not to let him? Many of these choices didn't have any effect on other parts of the game—just a quick exchange of dialogue and a strikethrough in my quest log. But those choices mattered to me just because they were interesting problems for my emotional little human brain.

Avowed has launched a bare three and a half months after The Veilguard, meaning that nothing in it could possibly be a reaction to critiques of BioWare's storytelling, and yet I just kept finding ways to directly compare them.

I found myself uninterested in choosing to save Minrathous or Treviso in The Veilguard because choosing between two mostly identical dragon attacks meant nothing to me. But a similar situation about the fate of an entire city in Avowed really made me stop to think about what it would mean for the future of its citizens.

I was annoyed when all of my companions in The Veilguard ended their personal quests by putting major decisions about their lives in my hands. Choices that, again, seemed sort of morally equivalent and uninteresting to consider, but more maddening for the fact that they kept letting me be the one to choose.

Meanwhile, much later in Avowed, I see one of my companions making a similar choice about her future and what to pursue. My Envoy has a dialogue option saying: "wait, you want me to choose?" and my companion responds—all but looking directly into the camera—that no of course she's going to make her own choice but she'd like my opinion as a friend. Obsidian couldn't have predicted this very specific thing bugging me in The Veilguard, and yet.

"Choices that matter" is one of those marketing lines that gets tossed around as often as any other lofty promise about "immersion" in games. It was a real bummer to see a series I've loved miss what matters most about making choices matter—that the choices themselves, not just their outcomes, have to be interesting—but Avowed has lifted my spirits a little bit by just getting it.

Avowed has plenty of cause and effect type choices that change the course of the story and affect major parts of my surroundings. It has missable quests with pretty big implications. It has one of those RPG epilogue reels where you find out the fate of everyone you influenced with your decisions. It has a whole lot of choices that have observable effects, but more importantly it has choices that matter.

C&C: Just things that Obsidian always did well.... and is hated for it on the Codex. Go figure.

 

[The Nameless One]

Too many RPGs don't get that 'choices that matter' isn't just about cause and effect, but Avowed does​

By Lauren Morton
published 33 minutes ago

I want choices that matter to me, not just to the game.

You're the creative director for the next up-and-coming RPG. You step on stage in front of an audience of eager fans (pretend we still do these things live), and after the reveal trailer rolls you steeple your fingers and the grand promise you make to players is:

"That mountain? You can go there!"
"A living, breathing world"
"A story with choices that matter"

You say "choices that matter" and the crowd cheers, though they're quietly harboring skepticism. Would they have believed you outright if you went for the mountain? Maybe. They're all buzzword-laden lines, so perhaps it won't make any difference in the end. But whether or not the choice perceptibly changes your trajectory, it sure felt like a big deal in the moment, and that's what makes a choice matter.

Giving me choices that matter, not just to its own systems and evolving story, but to me as a player, is something Obsidian's latest RPG Avowed just nails. It's constantly giving me dialogue options that let me roleplay my Envoy in interesting ways, and choices that I can feel are going to have repercussions later on, but also choices that just feel fun and interesting to make even if I don't know whether they'll turn back up in the epilogue.

It hurts my heart a little to find yet another way to praise Avowed as a direct response to something that I felt let down by in Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year, but I haven't been able to ditch the feeling in my 80 hours and counting.

One of my major complaints in my Veilguard review was that it became obsessed with proving to me that my choices mattered. Reminders would pop up in the middle of a cutscene making sure I understood that events playing out were a result of my decisions.

But "choices that matter" isn't just about how many ways a game can demonstrate cause and effect to me. A few slightly different dialogue lines or choosing which of my party members will have a bruised up face for 10 hours of my playthrough just didn't matter to me if the choice that made it happen was uninteresting. Tangible effects are an important part of making choices matter, but without a choice that's difficult or surprising or scary I'd rather just not get to choose anything at all.

Avowed has heaped my plate full of steaming hot choices. One of the first things I did with my "Court Augur" background was decide that yes I did actually have a romantic history with this Inquisitor Lödwyn person everyone's talking about. I had no idea if it was going to come up much (it has, fun enough) or if it was just a little moment of backstory flair, but it sure felt juicy to make that choice.

Later on in Avowed's second area, the Memory of the Deep side quest asks me to find a hidden meteorite and choose whether to give it back to the person who originally gave me the quest, or someone else. I actually sat there and thought about it for a solid five minutes. Giving the meteorite back to the farmer who asked for it could have serious consequences but giving it to the very suspect "Giftbearer" didn't seem right either. I was pretty sure this choice wasn't actually going to result in any change to the game—a sequence involving an incursion of new dream thralls seemed unlikely—I just cared about the choice itself. Should I let this guy have back the thing that could put him in danger?

There are so many other choices in Avowed that have stopped me and made me think. Should I lie to a dreamscourged ranger about the fate of her patrol partner? Should I execute a traitor who's trying to avoid further bloodshed? Should I help a dreamscourged man euthanize himself even if his sole surviving family member begs me not to let him? Many of these choices didn't have any effect on other parts of the game—just a quick exchange of dialogue and a strikethrough in my quest log. But those choices mattered to me just because they were interesting problems for my emotional little human brain.

Avowed has launched a bare three and a half months after The Veilguard, meaning that nothing in it could possibly be a reaction to critiques of BioWare's storytelling, and yet I just kept finding ways to directly compare them.

I found myself uninterested in choosing to save Minrathous or Treviso in The Veilguard because choosing between two mostly identical dragon attacks meant nothing to me. But a similar situation about the fate of an entire city in Avowed really made me stop to think about what it would mean for the future of its citizens.

I was annoyed when all of my companions in The Veilguard ended their personal quests by putting major decisions about their lives in my hands. Choices that, again, seemed sort of morally equivalent and uninteresting to consider, but more maddening for the fact that they kept letting me be the one to choose.

Meanwhile, much later in Avowed, I see one of my companions making a similar choice about her future and what to pursue. My Envoy has a dialogue option saying: "wait, you want me to choose?" and my companion responds—all but looking directly into the camera—that no of course she's going to make her own choice but she'd like my opinion as a friend. Obsidian couldn't have predicted this very specific thing bugging me in The Veilguard, and yet.

"Choices that matter" is one of those marketing lines that gets tossed around as often as any other lofty promise about "immersion" in games. It was a real bummer to see a series I've loved miss what matters most about making choices matter—that the choices themselves, not just their outcomes, have to be interesting—but Avowed has lifted my spirits a little bit by just getting it.

Avowed has plenty of cause and effect type choices that change the course of the story and affect major parts of my surroundings. It has missable quests with pretty big implications. It has one of those RPG epilogue reels where you find out the fate of everyone you influenced with your decisions. It has a whole lot of choices that have observable effects, but more importantly it has choices that matter.

C&C: Just things that Obsidian always did well.... and is hated for it on the Codex. Go figure.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh really? Let's actually read that article...

Avowed has heaped my plate full of steaming hot choices. One of the first things I did with my "Court Augur" background was decide that yes I did actually have a romantic history with this Inquisitor Lödwyn person everyone's talking about. I had no idea if it was going to come up much (it has, fun enough) or if it was just a little moment of backstory flair, but it sure felt juicy to make that choice.

A flavor background choice that may or may not come up later. Does the author of this article tell us if it does come up later? No, either it doesn't or she hasn't played far enough to see it matter. What a great start for "choices that matter"!

Moving on to the first actual in-game quest choice:

Later on in Avowed's second area, the Memory of the Deep side quest asks me to find a hidden meteorite and choose whether to give it back to the person who originally gave me the quest, or someone else. I actually sat there and thought about it for a solid five minutes. Giving the meteorite back to the farmer who asked for it could have serious consequences but giving it to the very suspect "Giftbearer" didn't seem right either. I was pretty sure this choice wasn't actually going to result in any change to the game—a sequence involving an incursion of new dream thralls seemed unlikely—I just cared about the choice itself. Should I let this guy have back the thing that could put him in danger?

Ah yes. Another choice that's just for flavor - chose to give the item to NPC A or NPC B, but your choice probably doesn't have any ripple effect for future quests. That's supposed to be C&C? Yeah, there's a choice, but where's the consequence?

There are so many other choices in Avowed that have stopped me and made me think. Should I lie to a dreamscourged ranger about the fate of her patrol partner? Should I execute a traitor who's trying to avoid further bloodshed? Should I help a dreamscourged man euthanize himself even if his sole surviving family member begs me not to let him? Many of these choices didn't have any effect on other parts of the game—just a quick exchange of dialogue and a strikethrough in my quest log. But those choices mattered to me just because they were interesting problems for my emotional little human brain.

Storyfag choices for people who get emotional about virtual NPCs, without any actual gameplay effects or influencing the outcome of future quests or even just simple things like your standing in a faction.
You know, like the classics with actual C&C do.

 

[normie]

They apparently first pitched as a multi-player game that would be something akin to Destiny and Skyrim together. Now that's an ambitious project in scope but even if they somehow pulled it off perfectly that would not be a game I would play. I don't like Destiny, RDR2 or GTA so just having the Microsoft funds doesn't mean it is a good idea.

If they made an ambitious game that's not for me, at least I could respect it.

I don't know about Destiny but GTA & RDR2 made to be RPGs sounds awesome to me as I don't need fantastical elements and very much ok with realistic settings, RDR2 is very close to being an RPG already but R* games are technically way above industry standarts it wouldn't be realistic to expect some other dev. with high budget to achieve what R* does with 25 years of experience making same type of games.

I don't know about that. What I know is this game keeps surprising me with just how much fun it feels to play. It's technically competent, has a better melee or magic combat than anything Bethesda has managed despite it being Obsidian's first time doing this, the environments and artstyle is beautiful though the character models and animations do show their limited budget and I keep getting a lot more narrative reactivity than I expected. It feels to me like playing a DLC in PoE1/2 except in first person with great exploration and fun arcade combat. Would it better if it was a massive game with all the details and simulation of something Rockstar would make? Perhaps, but it also wouldn't be because of all those extra bits they'd just be that for me, extra. I just find the reaction to this game odd in how much of it is just criticizing why it isn't another game. If this game is successful enough to make a sequel with bigger scope we'll see if they are more ambitious then since even Outer Worlds was successful enough to warrant a sequel and its sequel seems to be bigger in scope also. That also includes the fact I gave Outer Worlds and thought it was bland and mediocre with off-putting humor.

wtf MODS! 2FA isn't working, this man's account has been hijacked by Obsidian marketing

 

[The Wall]

Too many RPGs don't get that 'choices that matter' isn't just about cause and effect, but Avowed does​

By Lauren Morton
published 33 minutes ago

I want choices that matter to me, not just to the game.

You're the creative director for the next up-and-coming RPG. You step on stage in front of an audience of eager fans (pretend we still do these things live), and after the reveal trailer rolls you steeple your fingers and the grand promise you make to players is:

"That mountain? You can go there!"
"A living, breathing world"
"A story with choices that matter"

You say "choices that matter" and the crowd cheers, though they're quietly harboring skepticism. Would they have believed you outright if you went for the mountain? Maybe. They're all buzzword-laden lines, so perhaps it won't make any difference in the end. But whether or not the choice perceptibly changes your trajectory, it sure felt like a big deal in the moment, and that's what makes a choice matter.

Giving me choices that matter, not just to its own systems and evolving story, but to me as a player, is something Obsidian's latest RPG Avowed just nails. It's constantly giving me dialogue options that let me roleplay my Envoy in interesting ways, and choices that I can feel are going to have repercussions later on, but also choices that just feel fun and interesting to make even if I don't know whether they'll turn back up in the epilogue.

It hurts my heart a little to find yet another way to praise Avowed as a direct response to something that I felt let down by in Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year, but I haven't been able to ditch the feeling in my 80 hours and counting.

One of my major complaints in my Veilguard review was that it became obsessed with proving to me that my choices mattered. Reminders would pop up in the middle of a cutscene making sure I understood that events playing out were a result of my decisions.

But "choices that matter" isn't just about how many ways a game can demonstrate cause and effect to me. A few slightly different dialogue lines or choosing which of my party members will have a bruised up face for 10 hours of my playthrough just didn't matter to me if the choice that made it happen was uninteresting. Tangible effects are an important part of making choices matter, but without a choice that's difficult or surprising or scary I'd rather just not get to choose anything at all.

Avowed has heaped my plate full of steaming hot choices. One of the first things I did with my "Court Augur" background was decide that yes I did actually have a romantic history with this Inquisitor Lödwyn person everyone's talking about. I had no idea if it was going to come up much (it has, fun enough) or if it was just a little moment of backstory flair, but it sure felt juicy to make that choice.

Later on in Avowed's second area, the Memory of the Deep side quest asks me to find a hidden meteorite and choose whether to give it back to the person who originally gave me the quest, or someone else. I actually sat there and thought about it for a solid five minutes. Giving the meteorite back to the farmer who asked for it could have serious consequences but giving it to the very suspect "Giftbearer" didn't seem right either. I was pretty sure this choice wasn't actually going to result in any change to the game—a sequence involving an incursion of new dream thralls seemed unlikely—I just cared about the choice itself. Should I let this guy have back the thing that could put him in danger?

There are so many other choices in Avowed that have stopped me and made me think. Should I lie to a dreamscourged ranger about the fate of her patrol partner? Should I execute a traitor who's trying to avoid further bloodshed? Should I help a dreamscourged man euthanize himself even if his sole surviving family member begs me not to let him? Many of these choices didn't have any effect on other parts of the game—just a quick exchange of dialogue and a strikethrough in my quest log. But those choices mattered to me just because they were interesting problems for my emotional little human brain.

Avowed has launched a bare three and a half months after The Veilguard, meaning that nothing in it could possibly be a reaction to critiques of BioWare's storytelling, and yet I just kept finding ways to directly compare them.

I found myself uninterested in choosing to save Minrathous or Treviso in The Veilguard because choosing between two mostly identical dragon attacks meant nothing to me. But a similar situation about the fate of an entire city in Avowed really made me stop to think about what it would mean for the future of its citizens.

I was annoyed when all of my companions in The Veilguard ended their personal quests by putting major decisions about their lives in my hands. Choices that, again, seemed sort of morally equivalent and uninteresting to consider, but more maddening for the fact that they kept letting me be the one to choose.

Meanwhile, much later in Avowed, I see one of my companions making a similar choice about her future and what to pursue. My Envoy has a dialogue option saying: "wait, you want me to choose?" and my companion responds—all but looking directly into the camera—that no of course she's going to make her own choice but she'd like my opinion as a friend. Obsidian couldn't have predicted this very specific thing bugging me in The Veilguard, and yet.

"Choices that matter" is one of those marketing lines that gets tossed around as often as any other lofty promise about "immersion" in games. It was a real bummer to see a series I've loved miss what matters most about making choices matter—that the choices themselves, not just their outcomes, have to be interesting—but Avowed has lifted my spirits a little bit by just getting it.

Avowed has plenty of cause and effect type choices that change the course of the story and affect major parts of my surroundings. It has missable quests with pretty big implications. It has one of those RPG epilogue reels where you find out the fate of everyone you influenced with your decisions. It has a whole lot of choices that have observable effects, but more importantly it has choices that matter.

C&C: Just things that Obsidian always did well.... and is hated for it on the Codex. Go figure.

Mister Bean with hairy boobs and in old hooker clothes wearing badly applied make up, tripping himself in high heels is LESS OBVIOUS then this obvious propaganda piece. Also looks like average NPC in Avowed

Why only libshits, communists, wokeis, retarded jews, and biggest normies have soft heart for slop like this? Not Avowed, in general for Avowed-like. I think it's purely tribal thing, sports. They belong in same ideological football team as Obsidian. And they personally feel attacked when someone criticizes Avowed

I also firmly now believe we see and experience Beauty, Value and Reality fundamentally differently. How can someone in his 30s spend weekend arguing in favor of such slop compared to RPG CODEX TOP 100 RPGs. That list exists for a reason. Foundation of good RPG design is established by these titles, Lighhouse of Incline. Despite Vavra's backstabbing, KCD 2 will be on new iteration of that least.100th place, 100th place. It'll be on The List.

Avowed? A-LMAOED

 

[Morgoth]

Too many RPGs don't get that 'choices that matter' isn't just about cause and effect, but Avowed does​

By Lauren Morton
published 33 minutes ago

I want choices that matter to me, not just to the game.

You're the creative director for the next up-and-coming RPG. You step on stage in front of an audience of eager fans (pretend we still do these things live), and after the reveal trailer rolls you steeple your fingers and the grand promise you make to players is:

"That mountain? You can go there!"
"A living, breathing world"
"A story with choices that matter"

You say "choices that matter" and the crowd cheers, though they're quietly harboring skepticism. Would they have believed you outright if you went for the mountain? Maybe. They're all buzzword-laden lines, so perhaps it won't make any difference in the end. But whether or not the choice perceptibly changes your trajectory, it sure felt like a big deal in the moment, and that's what makes a choice matter.

Giving me choices that matter, not just to its own systems and evolving story, but to me as a player, is something Obsidian's latest RPG Avowed just nails. It's constantly giving me dialogue options that let me roleplay my Envoy in interesting ways, and choices that I can feel are going to have repercussions later on, but also choices that just feel fun and interesting to make even if I don't know whether they'll turn back up in the epilogue.

It hurts my heart a little to find yet another way to praise Avowed as a direct response to something that I felt let down by in Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year, but I haven't been able to ditch the feeling in my 80 hours and counting.

One of my major complaints in my Veilguard review was that it became obsessed with proving to me that my choices mattered. Reminders would pop up in the middle of a cutscene making sure I understood that events playing out were a result of my decisions.

But "choices that matter" isn't just about how many ways a game can demonstrate cause and effect to me. A few slightly different dialogue lines or choosing which of my party members will have a bruised up face for 10 hours of my playthrough just didn't matter to me if the choice that made it happen was uninteresting. Tangible effects are an important part of making choices matter, but without a choice that's difficult or surprising or scary I'd rather just not get to choose anything at all.

Avowed has heaped my plate full of steaming hot choices. One of the first things I did with my "Court Augur" background was decide that yes I did actually have a romantic history with this Inquisitor Lödwyn person everyone's talking about. I had no idea if it was going to come up much (it has, fun enough) or if it was just a little moment of backstory flair, but it sure felt juicy to make that choice.

Later on in Avowed's second area, the Memory of the Deep side quest asks me to find a hidden meteorite and choose whether to give it back to the person who originally gave me the quest, or someone else. I actually sat there and thought about it for a solid five minutes. Giving the meteorite back to the farmer who asked for it could have serious consequences but giving it to the very suspect "Giftbearer" didn't seem right either. I was pretty sure this choice wasn't actually going to result in any change to the game—a sequence involving an incursion of new dream thralls seemed unlikely—I just cared about the choice itself. Should I let this guy have back the thing that could put him in danger?

There are so many other choices in Avowed that have stopped me and made me think. Should I lie to a dreamscourged ranger about the fate of her patrol partner? Should I execute a traitor who's trying to avoid further bloodshed? Should I help a dreamscourged man euthanize himself even if his sole surviving family member begs me not to let him? Many of these choices didn't have any effect on other parts of the game—just a quick exchange of dialogue and a strikethrough in my quest log. But those choices mattered to me just because they were interesting problems for my emotional little human brain.

Avowed has launched a bare three and a half months after The Veilguard, meaning that nothing in it could possibly be a reaction to critiques of BioWare's storytelling, and yet I just kept finding ways to directly compare them.

I found myself uninterested in choosing to save Minrathous or Treviso in The Veilguard because choosing between two mostly identical dragon attacks meant nothing to me. But a similar situation about the fate of an entire city in Avowed really made me stop to think about what it would mean for the future of its citizens.

I was annoyed when all of my companions in The Veilguard ended their personal quests by putting major decisions about their lives in my hands. Choices that, again, seemed sort of morally equivalent and uninteresting to consider, but more maddening for the fact that they kept letting me be the one to choose.

Meanwhile, much later in Avowed, I see one of my companions making a similar choice about her future and what to pursue. My Envoy has a dialogue option saying: "wait, you want me to choose?" and my companion responds—all but looking directly into the camera—that no of course she's going to make her own choice but she'd like my opinion as a friend. Obsidian couldn't have predicted this very specific thing bugging me in The Veilguard, and yet.

"Choices that matter" is one of those marketing lines that gets tossed around as often as any other lofty promise about "immersion" in games. It was a real bummer to see a series I've loved miss what matters most about making choices matter—that the choices themselves, not just their outcomes, have to be interesting—but Avowed has lifted my spirits a little bit by just getting it.

Avowed has plenty of cause and effect type choices that change the course of the story and affect major parts of my surroundings. It has missable quests with pretty big implications. It has one of those RPG epilogue reels where you find out the fate of everyone you influenced with your decisions. It has a whole lot of choices that have observable effects, but more importantly it has choices that matter.

C&C: Just things that Obsidian always did well.... and is hated for it on the Codex. Go figure.

Deep stuff.

 

[Morgoth]

Too many RPGs don't get that 'choices that matter' isn't just about cause and effect, but Avowed does​

By Lauren Morton
published 33 minutes ago

I want choices that matter to me, not just to the game.

You're the creative director for the next up-and-coming RPG. You step on stage in front of an audience of eager fans (pretend we still do these things live), and after the reveal trailer rolls you steeple your fingers and the grand promise you make to players is:

"That mountain? You can go there!"
"A living, breathing world"
"A story with choices that matter"

You say "choices that matter" and the crowd cheers, though they're quietly harboring skepticism. Would they have believed you outright if you went for the mountain? Maybe. They're all buzzword-laden lines, so perhaps it won't make any difference in the end. But whether or not the choice perceptibly changes your trajectory, it sure felt like a big deal in the moment, and that's what makes a choice matter.

Giving me choices that matter, not just to its own systems and evolving story, but to me as a player, is something Obsidian's latest RPG Avowed just nails. It's constantly giving me dialogue options that let me roleplay my Envoy in interesting ways, and choices that I can feel are going to have repercussions later on, but also choices that just feel fun and interesting to make even if I don't know whether they'll turn back up in the epilogue.

It hurts my heart a little to find yet another way to praise Avowed as a direct response to something that I felt let down by in Dragon Age: The Veilguard last year, but I haven't been able to ditch the feeling in my 80 hours and counting.

One of my major complaints in my Veilguard review was that it became obsessed with proving to me that my choices mattered. Reminders would pop up in the middle of a cutscene making sure I understood that events playing out were a result of my decisions.

But "choices that matter" isn't just about how many ways a game can demonstrate cause and effect to me. A few slightly different dialogue lines or choosing which of my party members will have a bruised up face for 10 hours of my playthrough just didn't matter to me if the choice that made it happen was uninteresting. Tangible effects are an important part of making choices matter, but without a choice that's difficult or surprising or scary I'd rather just not get to choose anything at all.

Avowed has heaped my plate full of steaming hot choices. One of the first things I did with my "Court Augur" background was decide that yes I did actually have a romantic history with this Inquisitor Lödwyn person everyone's talking about. I had no idea if it was going to come up much (it has, fun enough) or if it was just a little moment of backstory flair, but it sure felt juicy to make that choice.

Later on in Avowed's second area, the Memory of the Deep side quest asks me to find a hidden meteorite and choose whether to give it back to the person who originally gave me the quest, or someone else. I actually sat there and thought about it for a solid five minutes. Giving the meteorite back to the farmer who asked for it could have serious consequences but giving it to the very suspect "Giftbearer" didn't seem right either. I was pretty sure this choice wasn't actually going to result in any change to the game—a sequence involving an incursion of new dream thralls seemed unlikely—I just cared about the choice itself. Should I let this guy have back the thing that could put him in danger?

There are so many other choices in Avowed that have stopped me and made me think. Should I lie to a dreamscourged ranger about the fate of her patrol partner? Should I execute a traitor who's trying to avoid further bloodshed? Should I help a dreamscourged man euthanize himself even if his sole surviving family member begs me not to let him? Many of these choices didn't have any effect on other parts of the game—just a quick exchange of dialogue and a strikethrough in my quest log. But those choices mattered to me just because they were interesting problems for my emotional little human brain.

Avowed has launched a bare three and a half months after The Veilguard, meaning that nothing in it could possibly be a reaction to critiques of BioWare's storytelling, and yet I just kept finding ways to directly compare them.

I found myself uninterested in choosing to save Minrathous or Treviso in The Veilguard because choosing between two mostly identical dragon attacks meant nothing to me. But a similar situation about the fate of an entire city in Avowed really made me stop to think about what it would mean for the future of its citizens.

I was annoyed when all of my companions in The Veilguard ended their personal quests by putting major decisions about their lives in my hands. Choices that, again, seemed sort of morally equivalent and uninteresting to consider, but more maddening for the fact that they kept letting me be the one to choose.

Meanwhile, much later in Avowed, I see one of my companions making a similar choice about her future and what to pursue. My Envoy has a dialogue option saying: "wait, you want me to choose?" and my companion responds—all but looking directly into the camera—that no of course she's going to make her own choice but she'd like my opinion as a friend. Obsidian couldn't have predicted this very specific thing bugging me in The Veilguard, and yet.

"Choices that matter" is one of those marketing lines that gets tossed around as often as any other lofty promise about "immersion" in games. It was a real bummer to see a series I've loved miss what matters most about making choices matter—that the choices themselves, not just their outcomes, have to be interesting—but Avowed has lifted my spirits a little bit by just getting it.

Avowed has plenty of cause and effect type choices that change the course of the story and affect major parts of my surroundings. It has missable quests with pretty big implications. It has one of those RPG epilogue reels where you find out the fate of everyone you influenced with your decisions. It has a whole lot of choices that have observable effects, but more importantly it has choices that matter.

C&C: Just things that Obsidian always did well.... and is hated for it on the Codex. Go figure.

Mister Bean with hairy boobs and in old hooker clothes and badly applied make up, tripping himself in high heels is LESS OBVIOUS then this obvious propaganda piece

Why only libshits, communists, wokeis, retarded jews, and biggest normies have soft heart for slop like this? Not Avowed, in general for Avowed-like. I think it's purely tribal thing, sports and they belong in same ideological football team as Obsidian. And they personally feel attacked when someone criticizes Avowed

I also firmly now believe we see and experience Reality fundamentally differently. How can someone in his 30s spend weekend arguing in favor of such slop compared to RPG CODEX TOP 100 RPGs. That list exist for a reason. Foundation of good RPG design established by them can be compared with any new release. Despite Vavra's backstabbing, KCD 2 will be on new iteration of that least. 100th place, 100th place. It'll be on the list. Avowed? A-LMAOED

Deep stuff.

 

[PrK]

I think both TOW and Avowed are somewhat fun, somewhat dull "baby's first RPG"-type games (similar in vibe to the early BioWare console RPGs KOTOR1 and Jade Empire) that get unfairly accused of being horrible and "woke" by veteran RPG players who were expecting more.

Why unfairly? Serious talk, are they not horrible? Are they not woke? No veteran RPG player expected anything from Avowed btw. And comparing them to KotOR or even Jade Empire is beyond disingenuous, I'd rather do 7 back to back playthroughs of them than play another 10 hours of TOW or touch Avowed, and I strongly suspect so do most sane people.