People News Josh Sawyer says he failed with Pillars II, would direct a third game if he can figure out why

[Heroic Liberator]

Holy pravoslavnik alphabet, comrade; not pagan Etruscan runes.

Yet I was not referring to the script, but to the orthographical rendition of different phonemes in Welsh.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

but to the orthographical rendition of different phonemes in Welsh

I know, but I couldn't resist the textbook Codex response to a statement like that. Welsh should probably have gone down the Scandinavian route of adding additional letters or Slavic diacritics to some of the consonants instead of doubling up and pretending they're new letters, but the vowels and standard mutation clusters are quite consistently represented. Let's hug, drink vodka, and mock the Irish instead for their appalling use of the Latin alphabet.

 

[l3loodAngel]

Yeah, PoE was really bad at launch. Still isn't amazing. People who were burned with PoE would not buy PoE2. Simple as that.

Was? MMOesque system cannot be fixed no matter what you do. POE2 is more of the same, but instead of making setting interesting they were busy with really important stuff like kicking Avellone out through the door and adding hats to appease cross dressers. The only man who could do it on their roster.

 

[Dr Schultz]

Could be. Like I said, I didn't get that far into the game. To me, the aspects that seemed to diverge from high fantasy were among the least appealing. I think doing a time-shifted Forgotten Realms can be great when the time-shift is the core theme (see Arcanum, Shadowrun, WH40k), but that isn't what POE looked like to me. I might be mistaken, but I don't think the game is really thematized around "what if the Renaissance had Tolkien's bestiary?" or "what if the golden age of piracy had Tolkien's bestiary?" so much as being like "what if we added guns and the Carribean into Forgotten Realms?" But since my impression is so superficial, I probably should stop grousing. I'm like an enthusiasm fampyr.

Probably a more pronounced time-shift would have made apparent the differences. But still, Mark, the bulk of the narrative in the first game spins around an Inquisitor who is trying to stop a scientific revolution and in the second game around a struggle between colonial powers (this isn't literally the main plot in Deadfire but is where most of the narrative lies). Additionally, in both cases the soul thing is central. These are quite early modern age problems and themes.

That's why I'm under the impression that Eora is simply trying to look like the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

In all honestly, I can see the seeds of many good stories in the Eora worldbuilding. Sadly these stories never came into existece.

You can tell a good story in any setting, so this strikes me as a pretty low bar.

But still, Mark, the bulk of the narrative in the first game spins around an Inquisitor who is trying to stop a scientific revolution

Bulk? You don’t find any of this out until roughly halfway through the goddamned game. Also, there’s nothing early modern about this narrative. You could just as easily set a religion vs science story in 12th century Cordoba. The setting in POE is thoroughly medieval aside from the presence of firearms.

and in the second game around a struggle between colonial powers (this isn't literally the main plot in Deadfire but is where most of the narrative lies).

Again, nothing distinctly early modern about Deadfire aside from the presence of tall ships and guns. They could tell the same story modeled on 13th century Venice vs Genoa (especially since Venice is already the model for Valia), rather than 16th century Venice vs 18th century Great Britain.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

16th century Venice vs 18th century Great Britain.

Don't forget the late Meiji era Japan ripoff of Rauatai.

 

[Grunker]

A Darklands successor and a Blackguards-game in the style of PoE. Man I'd dig both.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Do you want all of your dreams to die before your eyes, Dane?

 

[Grunker]

Sorry mate your meme is too new for me to have gotten with the program

 

[Heroic Liberator]

No meme there, just the sad reality that all of these successor games, spiritual or franchised, turn out being shit.

 

[Dr Schultz]

In all honestly, I can see the seeds of many good stories in the Eora worldbuilding. Sadly these stories never came into existece.

You can tell a good story in any setting, so this strikes me as a pretty low bar.

True enough. Once I've read a preatty entertaining short story entirely setteled in a bathroom. Still, what I've said in my previous post is that I see the seeds of many good stories in this setting. Not exactly the same thing.

But still, Mark, the bulk of the narrative in the first game spins around an Inquisitor who is trying to stop a scientific revolution

Bulk? You don’t find any of this out until roughly halfway through the goddamned game. Also, there’s nothing early modern about this narrative. You could just as easily set a religion vs science story in 12th century Cordoba. The setting in POE is thoroughly medieval aside from the presence of firearms..

The last time I've checked Thaos appeared in the first hour of the game. Additionally, no. The medieval inquisition is nothing like people imagine it: Few wandering inquisitors with really limited powers and little to no influence over the society as a whole. The Inquisition got serious in the modern age.

and in the second game around a struggle between colonial powers (this isn't literally the main plot in Deadfire but is where most of the narrative lies).

Again, nothing distinctly early modern about Deadfire aside from the presence of tall ships and guns. They could tell the same story modeled on 13th century Venice vs Genoa (especially since Venice is already the model for Valia), rather than 16th century Venice vs 18th century Great Britain.

As far as I know, Venice and Genoa (Amalfi and Pisa, for that matter) never fought over colonies inhabited by technologically inferior subjects. And being Italian I should know about that... Colonialism is a remarcably modern subject. It didn't happened until the age of the exporations, which, again, is a modern thing.

 

[Xeon]

I kinda liked Pathfinder Kingmaker, was pretty good overall.

But yeah, most of them kinda sucked tho.

 

[Infinitron]

POE, to me, was basically that crazy prisoner's petition expanded from 5,000 words to 1,000,000 words. Every encounter I've had with the setting (my brief stint playing it, my efforts to read about it) suggest a grandiose effort to obscure fantasy tropes, such that if you really, really work hard to parse the stupid Welsh and sift through the longwinded backstory, you realize it's just about elves, gnomes, etc. doing exactly the same stuff they do in every other fantasy setting.

Is it correct to say that the goal of the "grandiose effort" was to "obscure", when Josh Sawyer himself will openly admit that Pillars of Eternity is an elves & dwarves game? I think I would say it was aimed at a hypothetical self-aware audience that wanted those things but appreciated the complex adornments.

In other words, sometimes people want to overrule Almendarez-Torres without saying "Almendarez-Torres", but other times they just think elaborate 5000 word petitions are cool.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

To be fair, you need to have very high IQ to understand Pillars of Eternity.

 

[hexer]

Speaking of the future, even if he figures out why PoE2 failed, the real issue will be to convince his bosses he won't fail again.

 

[MRY]

I guess until someone can explain why vampires are called fampyrs and gnomes/halflings are called Orlans and so forth, it’s hard for me to judge. I don’t really know what the underlying intent was; I certainly don’t think Obsidian was trying to snooker anyone.

 

[Grunker]

POE, to me, was basically that crazy prisoner's petition expanded from 5,000 words to 1,000,000 words. Every encounter I've had with the setting (my brief stint playing it, my efforts to read about it) suggest a grandiose effort to obscure fantasy tropes, such that if you really, really work hard to parse the stupid Welsh and sift through the longwinded backstory, you realize it's just about elves, gnomes, etc. doing exactly the same stuff they do in every other fantasy setting.

Is it correct to say that the goal of the "grandiose effort" was to "obscure", when Josh Sawyer himself will openly admit that Pillars of Eternity is an elves & dwarves game?

You might be correct but that kindda highlights the sillyness of renaming everything, don't you think.

This is highly speculative but I can't escape the feeling that Sawyer did all that silly renaming because he wanted to escape the reality of the game being an elves & dwarves game

 

[Infinitron]

The dual nature of genre obscurantism - it can be aimed either at people who don't like a genre, or at people who really like it.

You can make a generic fantasy game with weird terms to disguise the fact that it's a generic fantasy game and sell it to people who don't like generic fantasy games.

Or you can do the same to sell the game to people who DO like generic fantasy games, have liked them for many years, and now on a meta level appreciate being able to go "Heh, I see what you're trying to do there, this is different but not really".

The second option is how Pillars of Eternity made me feel. Its obscurantism, far from being a disparagement of generic fantasy, is instead fan service for generic fantasy superfans. They figured that if you're the sort of person who thinks it's COOL to parse out the differences and similarities between fampyrs and vampires, then this is the game for you!

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Anyway I don't know why are you guys so puzzled that Pillars tries to appear more exotic than it really is, as if it wasn't a common practice in the entire genre. 95% of fantasy novels amount to big city of totally-not-Constantinople struggling against totally-not-Vikings.

 

[Grunker]

The dual nature of genre obscurantism - it can be aimed either at people who don't like a genre, or at people who really like it.

You can make a generic fantasy game with weird terms to disguise the fact that it's a generic fantasy game and sell it to people who don't like generic fantasy games.

Or you can do the same to sell the game to people who DO like generic fantasy games, have liked them for many years, and now on a meta level appreciate being able to go "Heh, I see what you're trying to do there, this is different but not really".

The second option is how Pillars of Eternity made me feel. Its obscurantism, far from being a disparagement of generic fantasy, is instead fan service for generic fantasy superfans. They figured that if you're the sort of person who thinks it's COOL to parse out the differences and similarities between fampyrs and vampires, then this is the game for you!

I think you're trying to overexplain the facts here. What it is is just muddled. In Danish we have a word - 'formfuldendt' - which basically means when something is trying to be something very clearly, and achieves being that thing to the fullest. That's what PoE isn't with its half-baked fantasy, half-baked historicism, etc., and the renamed stock fantasy monsters are just a symptom of that IMO.

A simple way of saying is it that PoE wants to have its cake and eat it too. But again, I speculate that since Sawyer finds stock fantasy boring, he was trying to obscure the fact that he was actually making stock fantasy - maybe even from himself.

That's also why White March is such a breath of fresh, cool air. It's sooooooooooo much more honest about what it is than the main game. It even has Crägholdt which is basically just completely oldschool P&P fan service.

 

[vortex]

Sawyer being half-austrian himself reads Forgotten Realm as Vergessen Reich with californication term Vorgotten Realms. V goes to F.
Therefore Vampire is Fampyr(e).

Problem with Pillars is that doesn't have gravitas of old words as horrific as it should be.
Pillars is lighthearted excessively.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

But again, I speculate that since Sawyer finds stock fantasy boring, he was trying to obscure the fact that he was actually making stock fantasy - maybe even from himself.

And this is what happens when you don't create what you heart dictates.

 

[Murk]

I can't stop giggling at "fampyres"; is there an actual explanation?

Are other mundane things renamed for no reason (not counting races, I mean objects or actions)?

 

[Xeon]

At first I kinda thought they renamed things to protect themselves from lawsuit or something for naming things to what D&D have. But most of the stuff are kinda pretty common even outside of D&D I think so it kinda sounded stupid.

 

[MRY]

I can't stop giggling at "fampyres"; is there an actual explanation?

Are other mundane things renamed for no reason (not counting races, I mean objects or actions)?

Yes, "xaurips" (kobolds) which were the first thing that started me on the riff years ago.

[EDIT to fix link]