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

[Murk]

You've perfectly summarized how I felt about it, except for one minor detail: The overused î letter in the game is part of our alphabet, and we pronounce it differently than what the writers intended, and every time it appeared, it turned the faux-welsh words into donkey noises, which was amusing to me.

Could you explain this -- how should it sound and how does it sound in the current state?

 

[Roguey]

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.

Fampyrs aren't called vampires because they're not vampires. They're stage 1 of the Pillars of Eternity undead state. Orlans aren't gnomes/halflings because the latter two are goofy as all hell and Josh wanted to do a badass tiny guerrilla warfare race; ewoks with edge.

 

[MRY]

Calling undead that are not vampires “fampyrs” is even worse.

 

[Murk]

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.

Fampyrs aren't called vampires because they're not vampires. They're stage 1 of the Pillars of Eternity undead state. Orlans aren't gnomes/halflings because the latter two are goofy as all hell and Josh wanted to do a badass tiny guerrilla warfare race; ewoks with edge.

>badass
>ewoks

You trolling m8?

 

[vortex]

fampyrs is chosen for recognition. If you call your stage 1 undead Glanfatwiranampam, nobody would remember waht is their role later in the game.
Choice of the word is like lingual collateral damage.

Only a linguist and RPG game player would notice that but there are not many with such combination.

 

[Roguey]

Calling undead that are not vampires “fampyrs” is even worse.

They're similar enough to vampires in that they show no signs of decay.

>badass
>ewoks

You trolling m8?

Ewoks are lame beacuse they're cuddly teddy bears.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

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.

It was a ripoff and they changed the names to avoid a lawsuit. That's okay. What is not okay is choosing awful names and making "improvements" that nobody asked for.

 

[Robert Erick]

You've perfectly summarized how I felt about it, except for one minor detail: The overused î letter in the game is part of our alphabet, and we pronounce it differently than what the writers intended, and every time it appeared, it turned the faux-welsh words into donkey noises, which was amusing to me.

Could you explain this -- how should it sound and how does it sound in the current state?

In welsh, î is pronounced like "ee", which is what the writers had in mind. In my language, we pronounce it like /ɨ/, which turned every word using it into nonsense. Didn't help that I was instinctively pronouncing them phonetically.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Forgotten Realms is dull and forgettable but at least you can happily ignore it and focus entirely on your individual adventure. PoE forces the player to come to terms with the setting.

EXACTLY. Because my world-building is so profound!

It's the same thing with pretentious posters here. They force people to waste their time with useless posts about the intricacies of the setting and Sawyer's choices of names. WHO GIVES A FUCK?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[oscar]

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

I played for a good six hours and never saw even a hint that this was the plot. A shame as it actually sounds interesting and much better than the generic tedium the game leads you in with.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Re:fampyre
https://books.google.com/books?id=X0UdAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA751&q=fampyres&f=false

 

[SerratedBiz]

fampyrs is chosen for recognition. If you call your stage 1 undead Glanfatwiranampam, nobody would remember waht is their role later in the game.
Choice of the word is like lingual collateral damage.

Only a linguist and RPG game player would notice that but there are not many with such combination.

I disagree, it depends (as has been said before plenty of times) in the presentation.

You can take the example of Harnmaster, a superficially by-the-book elves and dwarves and men world. It does the thing where goblins are called gargen and Gondor is Tharda and who knows what else; its undead, are called Amorvin.

Amorvin are powerful undead who have willingly entered a pact with the evil god Morgath (wow, really?) and therefore get to preserve their free will. They are "reborn" whenever they "die" but, after a certain number of times, they will go on to lose their free will and become gulmorvin and essentially become lower-ranked, undead slaves.

The people of Harn wouldn't really know any of this, as the worship of Morgath is forbidden in lawful cities. They'd know, however, that there are tales of dark entities out in the world who's only goal is to steal souls in order to feed their god. If you were to encounter such a being, you would be paralyzed with fear and a bone-chilling cold would drain the warmth from your body, as you would when facing death itself.

And I dunno, this sort of thing just does it (for me, at least). These could very well be liches and zombies, and yet they're infused with a refreshing energy which makes them far more interesting than merely calling them fancy names ever could.

Renaming something is a chance to splash a new coat of paint on a familiar concept. It doesn't have to be abstract and conceptual in order to make it interesting, just recolor it but do so in a smart and tasteful way.

 

[shihonage]

Is it because the first game satisfied the existing need and the audience just wasn’t interested in the second? Is it because awareness was lower for the sequel? Is it because despite the strong reviews and the strong sales for the first game, people didn’t “really” like it? Maybe it’s a combination of all of these things.

It's because back when game studios were small, games still had personality and focus to their design, a flair of creativity and trying something new. They also used proprietary engines.

When you were buying a game, even if it was mediocre, chances are, it was significantly different from other games even in its own genre - if not in gameplay mechanics, then at least in art style, level design, and/or sound design. In how movement felt, in how UI functioned - often an effort was made for UI to fit the specific game.

Now we have a couple of engines being used, on which most games are written. There are commonly accepted and reused UI design concepts which transfer from one game in the genre, to another. There is 3D acceleration, which processes all graphics through the unchangeable meatgrinder of the same predictable calculations and effects. Normal mapping, god-rays and chromatic aberration look exactly the same from one game to another, and you can expect to lose the same exact amount of detail to aliasing or to their poor lazy post-processing AA attempts.

"Wasteland 2" was no longer a project of nerdy passion and creativity like its predecessor. It was just cynically marketed that way by Brian "I had my name on back of Interplay CDs, dammit" Fargo. "Pillars of Eternity" wasn't any different. It was another soulless replica designed on basis of nostalgic appeal - just dog food made for those silly 35+ year old nerds clinging to their precious childhoods.

Well, the nerds are catching on. Game design is art, you cannot calculate a good game by making a cold feature checklist and pandering. You have to make something you actually WANT to make, something that ignites a fire inside you.

 

[vortex]

I disagree, it depends (as has been said before plenty of times) in the presentation.
Renaming something is a chance to splash a new coat of paint on a familiar concept. It doesn't have to be abstract and conceptual in order to make it interesting, just recolor it but do so in a smart and tasteful way.

That is why Pillars 3 should move from Italian renaissance and Forgotten realms lingual influence to something original, darker, grittier.
Also just like stronghold was blown up in Deadfire, whole Eora should be blown apart. Make whole new original world from scratch.

 

[Dr Schultz]

Calling undead that are not vampires “fampyrs” is even worse.

You are probably right, Mark, but this is precisely why I keep saying that Eora tries hard to look like the Forgotten Realms (for nostalgia’s sake) even if it's not.

 

[Orma]

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)?

There's gûls instead of ghouls

 

[Heroic Liberator]

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)?

There's gûls instead of ghouls

Sôýer really fucked up with his naming conventions.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

It's because back when game studios were small, games still had personality and focus to their design, a flair of creativity and trying something new. They also used proprietary engines.

When you were buying a game, even if it was mediocre, chances are, it was significantly different from other games even in its own genre - if not in gameplay mechanics, then at least in art style, level design, and/or sound design. In how movement felt, in how UI functioned - often an effort was made for UI to fit the specific game.

Now we have a couple of engines being used, on which most games are written. There are commonly accepted and reused UI design concepts which transfer from one game in the genre, to another. There is 3D acceleration, which processes all graphics through the unchangeable meatgrinder of the same predictable calculations and effects. Normal mapping, god-rays and chromatic aberration look exactly the same from one game to another, and you can expect to lose the same exact amount of detail to aliasing or to their poor lazy post-processing AA attempts.

"Wasteland 2" was no longer a project of nerdy passion and creativity like its predecessor. It was just cynically marketed that way by Brian "I had my name on back of Interplay CDs, dammit" Fargo. "Pillars of Eternity" wasn't any different. It was another soulless replica designed on basis of nostalgic appeal - just dog food made for those silly 35+ year old nerds clinging to their precious childhoods.

Well, the nerds are catching on. Game design is art, you cannot calculate a good game by making a cold feature checklist and pandering. You have to make something you actually WANT to make, something that ignites a fire inside you.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Well, the nerds are catching on. Game design is art, you cannot calculate a good game by making a cold feature checklist and pandering. You have to make something you actually WANT to make, something that ignites a fire inside you.

You have to make something you actually WANT to make IF you still have an interest in the genre. What do you think people like Sawyer have this cretin condescending attitude towards his own audience and the cRPG canon? He has no respect for cRPG players.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I think that by stating clearly what he is going to change compared do dnd and why Sawyer showed more respect for players than an average designer. The problem is that his design doesn't work. It's not bad intention, it's a lack of ability.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I think that by stating clearly what he is going to change compared do dnd and why Sawyer showed more respect for players than an average designer. The problem is that his design doesn't work. It's not bad intention, it's a lack of ability.

Saying that isn't fun to die and reload with a different strategy in BG2 is a disrespect to both the game and the target audience.

His design didn't work because he thought he know better than a system that was tried and tested by hundreds of players for more than 20 years.

If a cRPG developer thinks the cRPG genre is a silly thing for imbecile nerds, the result is PoE.

I hope that cRPG players learned the lesson and stop supporting these condescending hacks.

 

[Atchodas]

Deadfire gameplay consist out of 3 things :

1.Combat
2.Reading/listenting to text
3.Traveling

all 3 of them are trash

and thats why game is shit

 

[Ranarama]

It failed because the first one was garbage.

This one wasn't so bad by comparison. But it's hard to get people to play a sequel to garbage.

They also didn't fix the combat, it is still a mess, thanks to the abilities.