Eternity Avowed Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[ArchAngel]

This still looks better than Bethesda shit

 

[Larianshill]

Didn't this guy declare Veilguard GOTY?

 

[Starner]

The problem with this approach is that it takes 5 years to release ultimate 8-bit game, and a decade for 16-bit dream game.

I would say that projects like porting M&M III to ScummVM or Dune 2 to AGA or open source reimplementation of Gothic 2 can be realistically done in a free time. But Avowed will be better than any ambitious, truly original hobbyist project by the virtue of being actually finished released.

There are so many quality releases from the past 40 years, and my backlog is such that I don't mind waiting for some inspired indie games to finish development. I don't think Avowed will be bad by any means, just average. Based on previous Obsidian games and Bethesda games I can already nail down exactly how this will play and it's the definition of safe. If it's a choice between playing Avowed or anything else the decision is obvious.

 

[Child of Malkav]

This still looks better than Bethesda shit

Yeah, it actually looks fun. Way more fun than TOW that's for sure.

 

[Maculo]

Cipher and Chanter bit the bullet. Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Monk were cut up and absorbed into the main 3 (Warrior, Ranger, Wizard).

Priest and Paladin are now just godlike/MC-only skill tree? I think he said you acquire or discover these traits and abilities, such as revive.

It could never be 1:1 to a CRPG, but this is still quite the drop. Hopefully this game can be modded.

 

[Fearlessjay]

Can't even call it Obsidian at this point, it's XBox studios. This game is doomed. If MS had any faith in it they wouldn't release it the same time as Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Like a Dragon Hawaii, Assassin's Creed black man and Monster Hunter. It's gamepass slop been excreted out.

 

[processdaemon]

Cipher and Chanter bit the bullet. Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Monk were cut up and absorbed into the main 3 (Warrior, Ranger, Wizard).

Priest and Paladin are now just godlike/MC-only skill tree? I think he said you acquire or discover these traits and abilities, such as revive.

It could never be 1:1 to a CRPG, but this is still quite the drop. Hopefully this game can be modded.

No Cipher is really disappointing, playing Cipher and all the associated extra dialogue was one of the more memorable aspects of the PoE games for me (Chanter was cool too but I can live without it). It seems like a bad decision to take away something that gave the setting a bit of flavour, but I guess if they're hoping to get more attention outside the CRPG crowd they might not care that much if PoE fans feel let down.

 

[Maculo]

Cipher and Chanter bit the bullet. Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Monk were cut up and absorbed into the main 3 (Warrior, Ranger, Wizard).

Priest and Paladin are now just godlike/MC-only skill tree? I think he said you acquire or discover these traits and abilities, such as revive.

It could never be 1:1 to a CRPG, but this is still quite the drop. Hopefully this game can be modded.

No Cipher is really disappointing, playing Cipher and all the associated extra dialogue was one of the more memorable aspects of the PoE games for me (Chanter was cool too but I can live without it). It seems like a bad decision to take away something that gave the setting a bit of flavour, but I guess if they're hoping to get more attention outside the CRPG crowd they might not care that much if PoE fans feel let down.

It was a straight up mistake not to include those classes. Every fantasy medieval game has warrior, archer, and wizard, but none have psychics or the ability to shout slurs Bîaŵac at people to cause damage. Likewise, battling medieval psychics and rappers also would have been a better hook than "the rot". Obsidian really could have leaned into its own setting and dialed it up for an action game.

 

[Cryomancer]

Cipher and Chanter bit the bullet. Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Monk were cut up and absorbed into the main 3 (Warrior, Ranger, Wizard).

Yep. This game just removed EVERYTHING good from Pillows.

I want to be a watershaper druid and gore people in first person as a wereshark. I want to dominate and disintegrate my enemeis with cipher powers. Pillows wizard is just boring, plain and simple.

 

[ArchAngel]

Cipher and Chanter bit the bullet. Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Monk were cut up and absorbed into the main 3 (Warrior, Ranger, Wizard).

Priest and Paladin are now just godlike/MC-only skill tree? I think he said you acquire or discover these traits and abilities, such as revive.

It could never be 1:1 to a CRPG, but this is still quite the drop. Hopefully this game can be modded.

No Cipher is really disappointing, playing Cipher and all the associated extra dialogue was one of the more memorable aspects of the PoE games for me (Chanter was cool too but I can live without it). It seems like a bad decision to take away something that gave the setting a bit of flavour, but I guess if they're hoping to get more attention outside the CRPG crowd they might not care that much if PoE fans feel let down.

It was a straight up mistake not to include those classes. Every fantasy medieval game has warrior, archer, wizard, but none have psychics or the ability shout slurs Bîaŵac at people to cause damage. Likewise, battling medieval psychics and rappers also would have been a better hook than "the rot". Obsidian really could have leaned into its own setting and dialed it up for an action game.

Hopefully they add some of the stuff back in expansions.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I haven't watched that video going into the skill trees since they could change and I generally prefer looking through that stuff on my own later, but I think it might be better if you consider it more as something like a DMoMM successor which had roughly the same types of skill trees and was basically a dumb action game with some sim elements rather than much of an RPG.

I figure they're pushing this towards people who might be into action games but who didn't play any PoE and who might find some of the interesting parts of the setting weird and as more of a barrier to entry than anything. Other than that, like... if you disintegrate a guy with cipher mind beams instead of a wizard's fire beams, does it matter much in a FPP action game? Ask a modder to make it purple?

Anyway, time will tell, I'm just not sure how much difference such distinctions would make in this style of game.

 

[Dark Souls II]

I don't remember PoE2 being woke. It was shit, it was one of the worst role-playing RPG games that I've ever played in my life, it had a terrible story & writing all along, but I'm rather sure all of that was due to the developers being retarded, incompetent & untalented, as opposed to them being eager to please the DEI gods.

Deadfire was a bit too libtarded in its approach to homosexuality which felt a bit too 21st century. They hand-waved it a bit.

All these devs are liberal. As Tim Cain says, wokeness didn't start yesterday. Their values change with the times.

I don't remember that, was probably optional. I avoided recruiting all the companions that felt obnoxiously woke at first sight (like that furry gnome thing they REALLY wanted you to add to your party early on).

I was also probably distracted with the fact how shit the overall narrative was. Literally in the intro video they disclose the whole story (you will go to place X to deal with god Z), and then there are no mysteries, no questions, no turns of events through the whole game. You go to place X and deal with god Z by picking one of 8-10 dialogue options to get a different ending (none of your choices made throughout the game matter).

 

[Roguey]

I avoided recruiting all the companions that felt obnoxiously woke at first sight (like that furry gnome thing they REALLY wanted you to add to your party early on).

Same, but I kept Xoti because she was useful in combat.

Literally in the intro video they disclose the whole story (you will go to place X to deal with god Z), and then there are no mysteries, no questions, no turns of events through the whole game.

Eh, that's not true. Eothas's motivations and ultimate goal are unknown at first. The gods task you with finding him and asking what he's doing. Then it changes to the impossible goal of stopping him.

 

[Tyranicon]

People have been saying for so long "it's better than POE trust me frfr" that I should probably just play it at this point.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

It's ok tbh.

 

[Gargaune]

Literally in the intro video they disclose the whole story (you will go to place X to deal with god Z), and then there are no mysteries, no questions, no turns of events through the whole game.

Eh, that's not true. Eothas's motivations and ultimate goal are unknown at first. The gods task you with finding him and asking what he's doing. Then it changes to the impossible goal of stopping him.

təmeɪtoʊ/təmɑːtoʊ

PoE2's main plot is an exercise in futility, the PC plays no active part in it and achieves nothing by the end, not on account of failing but - as you pointed out - due to it being an impossibility all along. The PC and their involvement are altogether irrelevant and, for an RPG, this is objectively atrocious and a complete failure of narrative design.

 

[S.torch]

PoE 2 is way worse than PoE 1. Is not even a competition. The tiny remains of soul that PoE 1 had were completely purged. No Durance, No Grieving Mother, no melancholic aura. Just reddit tier writing and "everyone is an asshole we're so deep bro fr fr no cap".

 

[Roguey]

PoE2's main plot is an exercise in futility, the PC plays no active part in it and achieves nothing by the end, not on account of failing but - as you pointed out - due to it being an impossibility all along. The PC and their involvement are altogether irrelevant and, for an RPG, this is objectively atrocious and a complete failure of narrative design.

"Nothing matters," - Josh Sawyer

 

[Gargaune]

"Nothing matters," - Josh Sawyer

We have Linkin Park at home, Josh.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I think that the god plot was dumb, but the exploration and factions were better in Deadfire.

 

[scytheavatar]

https://remapradio.com/articles/avowed-preview-xbox/?ref=remap-newsletter

Over the past few days, I’ve had the opportunity to explore the opening hours of Avowed, the upcoming fantasy RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, a developer best known for 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas and its series of excellent turn-based RPGs in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Avowed arrives early next year on Xbox and PC, and despite the existence of Fallout: New Vegas, this one more closely follows in the footsteps of 2019’s The Outer Worlds, a modest open world-ish sci-fi RPG that punched above its weight largely due to excellent writing.

Microsoft told me playing through the opening area of Avowed would take about two hours, but taking my time and poking about, my time in the Living Lands was closer to four or five hours. I talk extensively about my time with Avowed on this week’s Remap Radio, but that publishes tomorrow, and in the meantime, I wanted to jot down a couple of quick thoughts with the game.

• Reset your expectations.

The game is what you think it is.
Since it was unveiled, Avowed has felt…off. I can’t put my finger on it. I am the target demo for a game like this and I found The Outer Worlds flawed but worthwhile and charming; Avowed should’ve been a slamdunk pitch. Instead, playing Avowed has affirmed my caution, because the combat is clunky, the world is a little lifeless, and seems, at least at first, to lack the kinds of compelling characters that took The Outer Worlds over the finish line. It’s impossible to make a complete judgment about an RPG based on a few hours with its introductory area, but you gotta start somewhere.

• Crafting the opening to an RPG must be hard, but this one doesn’t work.

The opening to Skyrim is a meme because it’s awesome, and tosses you into the world in the coolest way possible. I’m not a fantasy person but Skyrim had me by the collar from the jump, and I rushed to start poking and prodding at the world. I’m sympathetic to the notion that an RPG has a difficult job, because it needs to bring you into the world when you’re at your weakest as a character and know very little about the journey ahead. You’re not powerful, you’re not interesting, and you don’t know what you want to do. That could be an opportunity for good writing and clever quests to do the lifting, but I wasn’t able to find them. Instead I spent four hours desperately seeking things to do in the Living Lands’ opening hours that didn’t involve struggling to not die as a magic user, or engaging in shocking amounts of awkward platforming. A world, even one that’s only big-ish like in Avowed, needs to point you towards The Good Stuff.

• A potentially fatal flaw: quests without consequence, quests without motivation.

Avowed quite obviously does not have the budget or scope of a Skyrim, but again, part of the reason The Outer Worlds worked was because the combat was (arguably) serviceable, while everything else fell into the writing’s lap. I pushed through because the writing compelled me.

Truth be told, Avowed starts promisingly, with a strangely touching quest where you learn that, in this world, it’s possible to be born with half a soul. You meet such a person, an individual who’s spent their life desperately searching for the other half, but when they do, it turns out their “other half” is a lizard creature whose species has a penchant for violence.

You’re tasked with clearing (aka killing) the smaller enemies out of her home, before stumbling upon a larger variant trying to communicate with you. You can kill them, but my companion pointed out that maybe this was the (half) soulmate our quest giver was speaking of. Upon reporting back, I firmly suggested that, as odd as this situation might be, they should make the best of it.

Touched and deeply amused, I fast traveled back to their home, hoping to witness a lovely but awkward conclusion to this story. Instead, nothing happened. That was the end of the quest. All setup, no punchline.

It was a theme that repeated while exploring Avowed. Once, I cleared a cave of spiders preventing nearby fisherman from doing their jobs, but when the creepy crawlies were dead, no one came to fish. There was no one to thank me. All I had was a little more loot. Where's my impact on the world?

Or when I stumbled into a rickety shantytown on the outskirts of a great and rich city, figuring I could get up to some mischief—or at least an interesting side quest commenting on the game’s class divides? Instead, a soldier asked me to find four medallions that were hiding nearby. Alas.

• We do not live in a world of RPG scarcity. What itch is Avowed scratching?

“Launching a game in today's world is as challenging and big an effort as it's ever been,” said Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer in a recent interview with Game File. You can do everything “right,” by which I mean craft a seemingly objectively good game and spend time, money, and effort telling people about it. And it still might fail. There are no guarantees with video games these days, but step one is crafting an identity. Part of my early tepid reaction to Avowed was trying to puzzle out whether my reaction was purely because “hey, it’s not for me.” But upon playing it, I now wonder: is Avowed for anyone?

Avowed would not be the first video game to really get going hours later than it should. It’s a chronic problem with RPGs. I’ll be returning to the Living Lands in 2025. The only difference is that I’ll be walking through the door, digital wand in hand, with a little more skepticism this time.

 

[Maculo]

Literally in the intro video they disclose the whole story (you will go to place X to deal with god Z), and then there are no mysteries, no questions, no turns of events through the whole game.

Eh, that's not true. Eothas's motivations and ultimate goal are unknown at first. The gods task you with finding him and asking what he's doing. Then it changes to the impossible goal of stopping him.

təmeɪtoʊ/təmɑːtoʊ

PoE2's main plot is an exercise in futility, the PC plays no active part in it and achieves nothing by the end, not on account of failing but - as you pointed out - due to it being an impossibility all along. The PC and their involvement are altogether irrelevant and, for an RPG, this is objectively atrocious and a complete failure of narrative design.

For the sake of discussion, how many RPGs follow the same formula where the special MC always wins/saves the world against just in time? Here, you and the pantheon were out-maneuvered. It just wasn’t clear how badly the pantheon screwed up until it was too late.

What fell flat for me though was the “we don’t know what comes next” that I remember (it has been a few years). Obsidian couldn’t have reinforced how badly we fucked up?

 

[Grunker]

View attachment 57952

People have been saying for so long "it's better than POE trust me frfr" that I should probably just play it at this point.

both are great

not perfect

but pretty great

the screenshot is an accurate portrayal of their writing though

 

[Gargaune]

For the sake of discussion, how many RPGs follow the same formula where the special MC always wins/saves the world against just in time? Here, you and the pantheon were out-maneuvered. It just wasn’t clear how badly the pantheon screwed up until it was too late.

You weren't outmaneuvered, though, that would imply you had the opportunity to succeed at some point and that's not the case with Deafire, not in the writing nor in the design. The PC simply doesn't play a part in the critical plot events, they are merely an observer or a... watcher, if you will. If you want the full TLDR breakdown, I've ranted about it before:

Which only further emphasises how Eothas's gambit is batshit crazy. Try telling a live service's sysadmin to shut the servers down without a backup and he'll chase you out with a broomstick, but the supposed "god of wisdom" goes all YOLO on the world's life service and he doesn't even put up a downtime notice.

But if Deadfire's main plot is dubious, it's the narrative design that really scuttles the skiff. I originally meant to write a long screed on the subject but I've long since lost the interest to expend too much effort over Deadfire, so riddle me this - what if the Watcher doesn't pursue Eothas? How do the plot's critical events change if you just decide to kick your feet up on a Neketaka beach and sip margaritas? Nothing, Eothas goes on and destroys the Wheel. All you're doing is chasing after him, your only role in the main event is to find out what he's up to. Oh, sure, you get to make one (and only one!) side request 'cause he admires your persistence, but who gives a crap?

Concerning the final "battle", and this what really vexed me about Sawyer's reaction to this criticism, I remember seeing a response from him along the lines of "we literally told you that you couldn't beat him, what more do you expect?" Yes, Josh, you did! In the final act, the other gods literally tell you something like "I dunno, go see if you can talk him down, not sure what else you could do", there are repeated suggestions through the game that Eothas is beyond your power. One problem, though... "nobody can make that shot on the Death Star", "no way you can carry the Ring across Mordor", "no chance in hell Ford can take Ferrari at Le Mans" etc. etc. et-fucking-cetera! You implemented the precise pattern of setting up impossible odds to overcome in a heroic plot and now you're surprised that the consumer expected the rest of that pattern to play out to the end!

Basically, Deadfire's an RPG about futility. You never stood a chance to begin with, and that's a hard concept to centre yourself around in a genre that's essentially the videogame equivalent of the Bildungsroman. CDPR arguably did a better job in Cyberpunk by shifting the focus, at least in retrospect, to the protagonist's struggle with their own inevitable mortality, how they cope with that, but Deadfire remains fixated on a main event you play no part in. You can make an RPG about failure, but futility?... Your narrative had better sing, and Obsidian's didn't. Oh, and just to twist that knife in, I'll remind you that Durance, in the first Pillars of Eternity, already killed Eothas - that's right, a former companion achieved more than you get to... in his backstory!

Now indulge me for just one more paragraph with what could've been... Eothas is basically a big rock colossus, right? Hey, you know what people have used in the past to "fight" rock? Cannon! Which is to say, exactly the sort of crap you've got lying around on all those ships littering the game. So here goes - you forge an alliance with one or more factions, sail through the storm and then blast Eothas with cannon shot! As his legs crumble under him, he gets one last blow in and smashes the Wheel and they both plummet into the depths. Or, if you chose to go it alone, you arrive at Ukaizo but you don't have enough guns to do the job, Eothas still destroys the Wheel and you've snuck in a nice little Saturday morning cartoon message about the importance of friendship. Either way you achieve two things: 1) you meaningfully rope the factional conflict into the resolution of the main plot, and 2) you turn a story of futility into one of failure. You failed, Eothas succeeded regardless of whether he also fell, and the setting moved where Obsidian wanted it to, but the task was doable!

And I'm not even saying this is how it should've been, this is just an example of what I came up with waiting for the office kettle to boil a few days after I finished the game and I'd expect professional writers and designers to do better. But enough, I ended up writing more than I meant to here anyway.

 

[Roguey]

What fell flat for me though was the “we don’t know what comes next” that I remember (it has been a few years). Obsidian couldn’t have reinforced how badly we fucked up?

But you didn't fuck up. There's a message of hope: kith must now sink or swim without the meddling of the AI Gods. A harder road to travel, but one that could possibly result in a better world. "No Gods, No Masters," - Josh Sawyer