Eternity Avowed - Obsidian's first person action-RPG in the Pillars of Eternity setting - coming Fall 2024

[Luckmann]

Oh, I'm sorry, it appears you're too retarded to understand what I'm saying. My apologies, but I'm afraid I can't dumb it down for you any further. It is just one of those "You need to have an IQ of at least 60 to follow" things. I'd ask for your understanding, but I know you can't.

Act like I'm an idiot if you want, but you're the one saying they're the same game because they're bother superficially "open world fantasy games."

See, the fact that you genuinely think I said any of those things, let alone that quotation, is why I don't have to "act" like you're an idiot.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Compiled a list of people known working on the game. Not 100% sure about all of the names as some were mentioned by Adridactelo over at Obsidian forums and I haven't double checked them

Chris Parker - Game Director

Lucien Soulban - Lead Narrative Designer
Paul Kirsch - Narrative Designer

Jorge Salgado - Lead Area Designer (?)
Kayd Hendricks - Senior Area Designer
Seth May - Area Designer

Maxwell Matzenbacher - Senior Combat Designer

Martin Smith - Senior System Designer
Kevin M. Lee - Senior System Designer (I'm not completely sure on this one)
Kyle Koenig - System Designer

Nick Carver - Senior Technical Designer

Robert Nesler - Art Director
Dimitri Berman - Lead Character Artist
James Chea - Senior Character Artist
Can Etiskol - Senior Character Artist
Zoe Nicole-Aprodite Smith - Junior Character Artist
Daniel Platt - Senior 3D Artist

Bobby Hernandez - Lead Concept Artist
Schwinn Masavisut - Concept Artist

Hoya Lee - Senior Lighting Artist

MaKayla Hensley - Junior VFX Artist

Jason Diaz - Animation Director (?)
Derek Zivolich - Character Animator
Eric Feinberg - Character Animator
Amor Santos - Senior Animator

Paul Burg - Senior Programmer (He developed the system for world interactions and population management in RDR2)
Gabriel Paramo - Senior Gameplay Programmer
Jeff Chung - Senior Software Engineer

Joseph L. Rubino - Cinematic Director

Scott V. Gilmore - Senior Audio Designer

Pearl Ko - UX Designer
Kimie Kim-Mizutani - UI Artist

I hope Salgado will be narrator, if the game has one. Also loved his work on PoE 1.

 

[The Jester]

the fact that Skyrim is bigger than the Witcher 3

Bigger in what aspect?

 

[Joseph Stalin]

So, who exactly is waiting for the game? Who is it aimed at?
It's like back in PS3/360 era where a lot of FPS were trying to copy CoD because they want a share of that money, but didn't work because people that liked CoD wanted to play CoD, not a clone of it.
The people that like Skyrim will keep playing Skyrim.

Skyrim will be 10 years old by the time Avowed is released, and there hasn't been any game like Skyrim released in the meantime. If Obsidian can nail the Bethesda formula with Avowed it will be a massive hit.

lul.

There have been several games that tried to replicate Skyrim. But you must first understand what that means.

Skyrim is about two things: Hype and Size. The hype you can not replicate. The size you can.

The first big one that tried was Dragon age Inquisition.
The second Witcher 3.
The third was Kingdome come.
The fourth was Ass Creed: something

There are more, but not worth mentioning. All the games listed above were actually Skyrim+ in the sense that they tried to do more than just a sandbox with depthless quests. However, they did not have the most important aforementioned ingredient: hype.

This game has NO chance in hell to be a Skyrim II. At best it will compete with Elex 2, which will absolutely blow it out of the water.

Only an absolute Obsidian fanboy might imagine this even comparing commercially with Skyrim.

There are several factors that hinder it even before being released. It carries the terrible stench of the hollowborn world of PoE. It has none of the "legendary idiots who you think were responsible for that favourite game you liked decades ago" shiny tag. It is running on the fumes of a game that is still, despite a decade of time, going strong and will be unfavourably compared with it.

Obsidian should absolutely have used this chance to make a new world and sell it as a story-rich game. But they didn't. They are operating on too many incorrect assumptions.

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience. After all, this is exactly why Morrowind was so weird - the lead developer made two rules for the project.
1. Every piece of the setting must be unique and non-Tolkien-like.
2. Every piece of lore must be subjective, and never presented as objective facts.

 

[Atlantico]

Teaser-trailer looks like an indie-LotR clone, where you're playing the king of the Oathbrakers Oathkeepers.

It manages to look both generic and derivative at the same time.

The only point of this trailer was to announce the project and build hype. I guess one out of two is a passing grade.

 

[Luckmann]

the fact that Skyrim is bigger than the Witcher 3

Bigger in what aspect?

Is there some aspect in which it (unfortunately) isn't?

 

[Haplo]

Well, the world map in Witcher 3 seemed kinda very big. Empty-ish, sure. But pretty big. Perhaps bigger then Skyrim (but much fewer meaningful POI)?
And very pretty.

 

[Luckmann]

Well, the world map in Witcher 3 seemed kinda very big. Empty-ish, sure. But pretty big. Perhaps bigger then Skyrim (but much fewer meaningful POI)?
And very pretty.

It feels kinda big due to the general verisimilitude/realism of the open areas, but I sincerely doubt that it was bigger than Skyrim in the technical sense.

 

[GreyWardens Rock]

Nothing about it matters in the slightest if it is a WinSpyware exclusive.

 

[Tigranes]

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience.

Unfortunately, for the wider market, the reverse is often true. Straight up fantasy sells. Exotic doesn't.

I wonder how well Oblivion would have done if it hadn't retconned Cyrodill from jungle to temperate, 'you've-seen-it-before pretty & comforting' fantasy landscape. The same is broadly true for KCD and Witcher 3 - the main dish is the nice, temperate, vaguely European forests and plains. I would imagine it also has to do with the challenges of designing and implementing crazy biomes. Kudos to Morrowind for going all out on it, which remains unique to this day.

 

[Tacgnol]

I've never understood the obsession with huge mostly empty (or highly repetitive) worlds in these types of games.

Why not take a leaf out of the Gothic 1/2 book and instead create smaller but much more content dense worlds?

 

[NJClaw]

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience.

I don't think they are eager to try an exotic unorthodox fantasy setting, after what happened with Deadfire.

 

[coldcrow]

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience.

Unfortunately, for the wider market, the reverse is often true. Straight up fantasy sells. Exotic doesn't.

I wonder how well Oblivion would have done if it hadn't retconned Cyrodill from jungle to temperate, 'you've-seen-it-before pretty & comforting' fantasy landscape. The same is broadly true for KCD and Witcher 3 - the main dish is the nice, temperate, vaguely European forests and plains. I would imagine it also has to do with the challenges of designing and implementing crazy biomes. Kudos to Morrowind for going all out on it, which remains unique to this day.

Except that KCD plays in Bohemia.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Obshitian still chasing that skyrim dream a decade late. Arnt these kind of games redundent right now? Most big rpgs try to follow the witcher route.

 

[Tacgnol]

Obshitian still chasing that skyrim dream a decade late. Arnt these kind of games redundent right now? Most big rpgs try to follow the witcher route.

A lot of them want to combine The Witcher and The Skyrim approach. Problem is I don't think those approaches are compatible.

Doing a Witcher style narrative without a fixed character is almost impossible.

 

[Tigranes]

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience.

Unfortunately, for the wider market, the reverse is often true. Straight up fantasy sells. Exotic doesn't.

I wonder how well Oblivion would have done if it hadn't retconned Cyrodill from jungle to temperate, 'you've-seen-it-before pretty & comforting' fantasy landscape. The same is broadly true for KCD and Witcher 3 - the main dish is the nice, temperate, vaguely European forests and plains. I would imagine it also has to do with the challenges of designing and implementing crazy biomes. Kudos to Morrowind for going all out on it, which remains unique to this day.

Except that KCD plays in Bohemia.

Most players won't have any idea what Bohemia looks like or why it's different from France. The point is that they get this:

as opposed to, say,

 

[Joseph Stalin]

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience.

Unfortunately, for the wider market, the reverse is often true. Straight up fantasy sells. Exotic doesn't.

I wonder how well Oblivion would have done if it hadn't retconned Cyrodill from jungle to temperate, 'you've-seen-it-before pretty & comforting' fantasy landscape. The same is broadly true for KCD and Witcher 3 - the main dish is the nice, temperate, vaguely European forests and plains. I would imagine it also has to do with the challenges of designing and implementing crazy biomes. Kudos to Morrowind for going all out on it, which remains unique to this day.

Except that KCD plays in Bohemia.

Most players won't have any idea what Bohemia looks like or why it's different from France. The point is that they get this:

as opposed to, say,

Yeah, most developers, when they hear "fantasy setting" imagine just "fantasy creatures", while leaving everything else generic.

 

[undecaf]

Skyrim is about two things: Hype and Size. The hype you can not replicate. The size you can.

That's true, but I think it somewhat important to try and understand why exactly players like and go back to a game like Skyrim.

I don't think I do, fully, but I would guess it's that the game is not really "driven" by anything but the players whim and being servile to that to a fault, along with rewarding it. The stories and missions are all curiosities to give at least some sort of reason to do anything in the game beyond simply "because you can". And the skill system supports that by making anything you do affect your character - more so in earlier TES games where even simply running around would affect your character.

I think, if Obsidian really wants to make that rumoured "Skyrim clone", they need to find a balance between their usual staple of story/mission driven games and the whim-driven servility of letting the palyer do "what he wants" (which TES games are designed for specifically rather than quests and stories) and rewarding that kind of gameplay.

They did somewhat swell job on it with New Vegas, but as everone knows it didn't quite hit home with the Bethtard crowd. "Not free enough, not enough to do in the world."

 

[Ismaul]

someone pronounce this

Héamecwyn/mecwyn/myqueen - illustrious queen, elven queen of the Aedyr Empire married with the ferscönyng.

"he a my queen"?

trannies confirmed

if the game doesn't have guns why even set it in pillars universe

Man, so far I've yet to see a single pillar. I'm more upset about that part, less the guns.

don't fret boys
the pillars be in your queen's robes

 

[NJClaw]

Skyrim is about two things: Hype and Size.

It's also about the catchiness of the "Dovahkiin Dovahkiin" song and of the "Fus Ro Dah" thing. Both these things easily impress themselves on weak-willed minds, instilling ideas of epicness and adventure. They are impossible to forget, and you can go around screaming "Fus Ro Dah! Lol I'm such a nerd", while being validated by other weak-willed individuals around you.

I guess you can include that in the "hype" aspect, but I feel it's something more specific.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

One thing could really help Obsidian - as mentioned before, the Living Lands is supposed to be a strange and exotic region. If they would go all out and make a distinct and unorthodox setting, THEN they'd have a chance of capturing a wider audience.

Unfortunately, for the wider market, the reverse is often true. Straight up fantasy sells. Exotic doesn't.

I wonder how well Oblivion would have done if it hadn't retconned Cyrodill from jungle to temperate, 'you've-seen-it-before pretty & comforting' fantasy landscape. The same is broadly true for KCD and Witcher 3 - the main dish is the nice, temperate, vaguely European forests and plains. I would imagine it also has to do with the challenges of designing and implementing crazy biomes. Kudos to Morrowind for going all out on it, which remains unique to this day.

Except that KCD plays in Bohemia.

my favorite part of italy

 

[Tacgnol]

They are impossible to forget, and you can go around screaming "Fus Ro Dah! Lol I'm such a nerd", while being validated by other weak-willed individuals around you.

I always think of them as Big Bang Theory Nerds. I think that show is a lot to blame for that subculture.

 

[The Jester]

but I sincerely doubt that it was bigger than Skyrim in the technical sense.

 

[The Wall]

You're overthinking Skyrim, broz! Remember, intelligence stat was thrown out. Gamers are like women, it's all about how you make them feeeel. Skyrim made people feel good. Also, just like women, gamers don't know what they want. How many are bitching that hard difficulty is too hard while complaining game is too easy? Gamers, just like rest of humanity, are women. Beings cursed with fucked up heads

Nothing and no-one can be loved by everyone, except Skyrim & pizza. Game that is pure-blood RPG, with Daggerfall's sense of scale and simulation, and decent graphics would sell millions. Wouldn't outsell Skyrim, but would make devs millioners. That should be just good enough, no? Maybe that will be Kenshi2, KCD2 or WayWard Realms

P.S. Also, lol @ "Skyrim was YUUUGE!". It was smaller even from Oblivion. Made people feel it was yuge, and that's all that matters: how you make peeople feel

 

[Luckmann]

but I sincerely doubt that it was bigger than Skyrim in the technical sense.

The thing is, how are these measured? A "meter" in Skyrim is clearly not the same as a meter in Twitcher 3.

You're overthinking Skyrim, broz! Remember, intelligence stat was thrown out. Gamers are like women, it's all about how you make them feeeel. Skyrim made people feel good. Also, just like women, gamers don't know what they want. How many are bitching that hard difficulty is too hard while complaining game is too easy? Gamers, just like rest of humanity, are women. Beings cursed with fucked up heads

Nothing and no-one can be loved by everyone, except Skyrim & pizza. Game that is pure-blood RPG, with Daggerfall's sense of scale and simulation, and decent graphics would sell millions. Wouldn't outsell Skyrim, but would make devs millioners. That should be just good enough, no? Maybe that will be Kenshi2, KCD2 or WayWard Realms

P.S. Also, lol @ "Skyrim was YUUUGE!". It was smaller even from Oblivion. Made people feel it was yuge, and that's all that matters: how you make peeople feel

Yeah, and despite the core map of Witcher 3 only covering one biome/region and one proper city, it certainly felt like it was so much bigger than Skyrim. Hell, even that not!-French region added in Blood & Wine felt bigger than all of Skyrim. When you go to Skellige, the new area feels tangibly different, despite using much of the same assets as Velen.