Interview Feargus Urquhart confirms Pillars of Eternity 2 in development, plus a new Cain/Boyarsky game

[Mustawd]

that isn't unique to PoE, which has a higher finished rate than D:OS.

Why do we always conveniently forget Story Mode, which D:OS does not have afaik, when we discuss PoE completion rates?

EDIT:

PoE was a game that only few people beside Obsidian fanboys continued playing or talking about it after the whole hype died down.

Currently, the conversion rate from Regular Thread to Thread about PoE stands at about 50%. In other words, there is a 50% chance that a thread on the codex will be derailed by PoE. So not sure what you're talking about.

Source:

Spoiler

I made it up, but sure feels like it huh?

 

[acer palmatum]

I would prefer they blow my mind with something new, like they did with FO, Arcanum, Bloodlines. Sequels are great, but their best stuff has always been new shit.

Their best stuff has always been sequels to games that had the first one done by another company, at least that's the truth about Obsidian.

 

[Infinitron]

that isn't unique to PoE, which has a higher finished rate than D:OS.

Why do we always conveniently forget Story Mode, which D:OS does not have afaik, when we discuss PoE completion rates?

It might be a factor, but it was only added in February's Patch 3.0.

 

[Mustawd]

that isn't unique to PoE, which has a higher finished rate than D:OS.

Why do we always conveniently forget Story Mode, which D:OS does not have afaik, when we discuss PoE completion rates?

It might be a factor, but it was only added in February's Patch 3.0.

Ahh, I see. For some reason I thought this had been in fairly soon after release.

 

[Fireblade]

The problem is that old school RPGs today will struggle to sell just million copies, it would take nothing short of miracle to sell multi million. Maybe if we get a actually good game (unlike PoE) that get praised by all, gets massive amount of marketing and is accessible for large audience, then maybe. In the old times when RPGs like Baldurs Gate could sell massive numbers and development costs were much lower, it was easy decision to make a expansion.

Games sell less today than they did 20 years ago for the same reason that TV ratings for the top shows (or any given set of shows you look at) are way down from 20 years ago. There's tons more choices (Steam is a large part of the reason for that). Doesn't necessarily have anything to do with quality.

Your second sentence is baffling. Pretty sure everyone here should know that a truly good game would never be "praised by all" and "accessible for large audience". In fact, being "accessible for a large audience" is one of the key ingredients in a game being complete shit.

These new "old school RPGs" have lower budgets than the ones back then did anyway, so they don't have to sell as much. For example, I've read that BG2's budget was $5M, which is over $7M in today's dollars, don't think any of the games being discussed here had a budget near that.

 

[Decado]

Arcanum, a Space Opera, or Sawyer's historical RPG ala Darklands. Nothing else is acceptable. Enough with the fucking post-apocalyptic games.

 

[markec]

Games sell less today than they did 20 years ago for the same reason that TV ratings for the top shows (or any given set of shows you look at) are way down from 20 years ago. There's tons more choices (Steam is a large part of the reason for that). Doesn't necessarily have anything to do with quality.

Sure, maybe, why not, but that doesnt change the limited sales.

Your second sentence is baffling. Pretty sure everyone here should know that a truly good game would never be "praised by all" and "accessible for large audience". In fact, being "accessible for a large audience" is one of the key ingredients in a game being complete shit.

I was talking about a hypothetical situation where many things would need to fall in line for a "old school" RPG sell multi million copies.

These new "old school RPGs" have lower budgets than the ones back then did anyway, so they don't have to sell as much. For example, I've read that BG2's budget was $5M, which is over $7M in today's dollars, don't think any of the games being discussed here had a budget near that.

Again you are missing the point, I wasnt talking about games not being profitable but making a big expansion for games that sold less then million copies is not profitable especially if you see that only very small percentage of players finished the game.

 

[Fenix]

Ask for space opera sci-fi, not post-apoc.

They should do a cyberpunk-ish/high-tech low-life futuristic game before it gets old too. Seems like this is the new trend in the cRPG scene(Copper Dreams, VD's next game, Cyberpunk 2077...)

Yeah, with new round of scientific and technical progress, I start to notice that science-fiction theme is back in games and cinema, also literature. literature

The Demon Princes are Vance's best books in my opinion, though turning that into a game is not something I trust Obsidian with. The Dying Earth is probably easier to turn into a game.

I looked into his bibliography, and the only thing I have read is short story Dodkin's Job from some storybook, sadly.

inclooooooosivity.

Hey, new word! Can you explain it?

Spoiler

Relatedly, Dragonfall has <20% completion rate I believe (iirc), and that game is short.

My personal reason was - I had enought of bug-eating, I decided to wait for FINAL patch. When it was released, I realized that don't want to solve all quests I have previously solved, to reload many times to know all possible outcomes of quest already solved before (carma points), I began to search for information abot game quests, full guide or something, and find literally nothing about that. I just thought - hey, SRD is really good game I enjoyed, but... maybe one day.

Personally I think that EE versions of WL2 and D:OS are slightly better then original but still not something I would call good games. SRD on the other hand I very much enjoyed despite its faults.

In case of D:OS EE they fucked up all voice acting, it is literally worst in every instanse.

 

[AwesomeButton]

much of the PoE sales were due hype of Obsidian making a Baldurs Gate spiritual successor, everyone was hyped for their storytelling, BG like gameplay fueled by beautiful nostalgic screenshots, and many like me were disappointed with end result.

More like "and the end result had a vague resemblance of an IE game but played absolutely nothing like one".

That's kind of an apples and oranges comparison. You can look at Pillars of Eternity after the release of the expansions and call that an "Enhanced Edition".

You can call it that, and it would be a very cheeky thing to say. The release version was just a backer beta with a stamped "1.0" in front of the build number. PoE after expansions is the game as it should have been released, not the "enhanced version" by any means. Unless by "enhanced" you mean "actually playable".

WM wipes the floor with the main game. It has superior level design, better encounters, main plot is actually coherent and engaging from start to finish. The dungeons might not have 15 levels, but they wipe the floor with anything Od Nua has to offer. Playing WM made me realize just how much of a rush job base game was.

True. Too bad that because of PoE's development problems (pushed back twice, released in a bad state), too few people will see its best parts.

 

[Morality Games]

True. Too bad that because of PoE's development problems (pushed back twice, released in a bad state), too few people will see its best parts.

That's what sequels are for.

 

[Roguey]

Man, we don't even know how much the old expansions sold back in the day. The Baldur's Gate games were re-released in numerous compilations that included the expansions and I get the impression that they sold a lot of those over the years. There might not have been a lot of people who actually bought the expansions standalone.

They were pretty low budget I think. Tales of the Sword Coast took less time to develop and release than just the first part of White March.

We know the NPD numbers for Tales of the Sword Coast, 156,000 as of May 2000. BG's numbers were 500,000 at that time.

 

[shadow9d9]

I think the Enhanced Editions of WL2 and D:OS (and possibly SRD as well) were a lot more successful in comparison yeah?

Personally I think that EE versions of WL2 and D:OS are slightly better then original but still not something I would call good games. SRD on the other hand I very much enjoyed despite its faults.

Funny. I think SRD was complete shit. DOS Enhanced(Didn't play original) was brilliant for the first 2/3, and a bit weaker in last 1/3.

SRD. Blech.

 

[Fargus]

I'm more interested in that Cain\Boyarsky game heh

 

[Davaris]

I'm more interested in that Cain\Boyarsky game heh

Yeah, its crazy that Boyarsky quit his job at Blizzard to roll the dice once again with Cain. Will be interesting to see what they plan to do.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Sign me up for this^



Somebody wake this chipmunk up to the realities of game development.

Maybe you will teach me the realities, o master of game development knowledge.

Or better yet - go get fucked. I've played better games released on time, played better games released prematurely and played better games released after delays. If you feel happy spending your money on unfinished product and on the promise of "post-release support", you're pretty dumb.

 

[Jaesun]

Would be hilarious if Cain\Boyarsky are working on Pillars of Eternity 2....

 

[himmy]

Might just be the single most boring and poorly written fantasy series I ever tried reading.

What fantasy/sci-fi do you like? What fantasy/scifi do you think is more literary and/or 2deep4me? Honestly curious.

That's just it. I'm sure that people read book for different reasons, but I don't want my fantasy to be literary or deep or anything. I have more than enough literary books to read. Too often authors use sci-fi/fantasy to buff up a poor "literary" book with a wild setting, the same way you can make a mediocre meal more interesting by throwing in a lot of hot spices. Sci-Fi-wise, despite considering myself a fan a while ago, I realized I actually don't really like any of the big books and while I do get excited about sci-fi setting in films or games, I rarely read any sci-fi these days. Mostly because I get excited about a book and then end up with something like The Book of the New Sun where half of the first volume is about walking around aimlessly through a fucking botanical gardens, thinking about stuff. You're not Proust, you're not Joyce and you should knock it off! And I don't even take that sort of shit from them.

I like my fantasy honest in its role of escapist literature. I don't want somebody exploring the great ideas of our world by using Orcs and Trolls or talking about the way light-blue aliens of A.M. Erika treat the dark-skinned aliens of A Free K or whatever. That is not to say that genre fiction shouldn't discuss social or philosophical problems, but when they become the focus of the book I feel like I'm wasting my time, knowing that there are hundreds of authors more qualified to do that than some nerd who puts women in skimpy metal armours on his covers. I want something that is above all FUN and that manages to grip you enough to make you burn through a 800 pages book in a few days, while taking a break from reading other types of literature. Of the top of my head, I'll probably give Pratchett, Rothfuss and Lynch as examples of this.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I'm more interested in that Cain\Boyarsky game heh

I think there we might see the real reason Avellone left Obsidian:

*** Boyarsky and Cain discussing their next RPG ***
Cain: It will be epic and glorious and ground-breaking!
Boyarski: Yes! We will pull out all the stops and awe the player into submission!
<Avellone, sitting at a desk nearby, perks up his ears>
Cain: I know! It will begin with a powerful air chase, and your airplane will crash in the middle of wolf-infested woods to haunting violin music!
<Avellone swallows nervously>
Boyarsky: Yes!!! And there will be blood-thirsty wolves everywhere, but not just any wolves, but some of them will be werewolves, and some will be dire wolves, and some will be foxes!
Cain: But we will want a lot of C&C, so the player can fight them or pick the Wolf Whisperer trait and become the leader of the pack and run around attacking other wolves!
Boyarsky: Yes! And near the crash site, there will be a cave with a ghost of a wolf, and if you can talk to spirits, he will tell you how to get to a nearby wolf settlement and avenge him on the general of the local wolf army!
<Avellone jumps up like a madman, punches Boyarsky in the face, and jumps out the window, yelling "Fuck you, you fucking lupine cunts! Fuuuuuck youuuuuuu.....">

 

[almondblight]

I want something that is above all FUN and that manages to grip you enough to make you burn through a 800 pages book in a few days, while taking a break from reading other types of literature.

Hmm...too me, Book of the New Sun (and Long Sun) were fun SciFi that made me burn through 800 pages in a few days.

Mostly because I get excited about a book and then end up with something like The Book of the New Sun where half of the first volume is about walking around aimlessly through a fucking botanical gardens, thinking about stuff.

That's just silly. He's in the botanical gardens for about 25 pages, and while he's inside he's encountering amnesiacs, fighting hallucinations, going into a patch of killer plants to retrieve a weapon, encountering people trapped inside who seem to be displaced in time, running into an important rebel, etc. To dismiss the book because a small part of the action takes place inside a "botanical garden" (inside the book, it's more like an odd illusory set of different worlds) is kind of silly.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't want somebody exploring the great ideas of our world by using Orcs and Trolls

Pratchett

O_o

 

[Prime Junta]

i like shallow shit fantasy

'k

 

[godsend1989]

I hope its Bloodlines 2, tired of papamole turn based games.

 

[DeepOcean]

I like my fantasy honest in its role of escapist literature. I don't want somebody exploring the great ideas of our world by using Orcs and Trolls or talking about the way light-blue aliens of A.M. Erika treat the dark-skinned aliens of A Free K or whatever.

Depends... to me, genre fiction can be very interesting when the author got an idea and ran wild with it but can be boring as shit when it takes the lazy route of replacing blacks for orcs as the oppressed people and call it a day. There are a few things that only fantasy and sci fi can explore like what would happen on the sociology of an alien race where the females were twice the size of the males for example or what would happen on a society where people can use biologic robots to replace their bodies and can radically change their bodies any time they want. I sorta agree with you, if you gonna the Forgotten Realms route, however, discussing philosphy seriously while killing globins feel weird "Here now we discuss what would happen if a guy remembered all his past lives... finished? Now turn back to kill globins and level up" but there are pretty good genre fiction just not decent fiction on videogames yet.