Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[GarfunkeL]

I replayed BG last year. From one of the speed runs I'm pretty sure you can access the mines without going to Nashkel. You can go to the Carnival Area instead, which also triggers Chapter 2. I'm pretty sure going around (ie through the wilderness areas) would be slower than just going through Nashkell or the Carnival area to get there (in minutes and seconds).

No. You cannot even enter Cloakwood Forest until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot access Bandit Camp until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot enter Baldur's Gate until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot re-enter Candle Keep until you're in the proper chapter. Mods have naturally removed all of these restrictions, and they were originally in place to stop low-level players from getting raped.

 

[Infinitron]

I replayed BG last year. From one of the speed runs I'm pretty sure you can access the mines without going to Nashkel. You can go to the Carnival Area instead, which also triggers Chapter 2. I'm pretty sure going around (ie through the wilderness areas) would be slower than just going through Nashkell or the Carnival area to get there (in minutes and seconds).

No. You cannot even enter Cloakwood Forest until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot access Bandit Camp until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot enter Baldur's Gate until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot re-enter Candle Keep until you're in the proper chapter. Mods have naturally removed all of these restrictions, and they were originally in place to stop low-level players from getting raped.

All, or some? I know there are mods that let you access most of the Cloakwood before Chapter 4, but I don't believe they could let you actually access and liberate/destroy the Cloakwood Mine without breaking the game.

If it really is all, please point me at the mod that does so.

 

[deuxhero]

they were originally in place to stop low-level players from getting raped.

Which is weird, because BG's encounter design exists for nothing BUT ensuring low-level players get raped, like dire wolves directly to your right along the road after the tutorial (seriously, that's such an awful piece of design. It doesn't teach the player anything but "we have shitty encounter design, you'll need to reload a lot". High level enemies "gating" off areas is fine, but BG's are more of a mine field in a playground than a gate)

 

[Dreaad]

Well to be fair that makes sense from a "real world" where monsters roam about forcing unprepared people to stay on the roads. But yeah I imagine the actual placement has nothing to do with that, its just poor design.

 

[Volourn]

Yeah. Wolves. In Woods. Is. Shitty. design.

Oh. Codex.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Infinitron now you're actually making me doubt myself. There are mods that open up Cloakwood Forest and Bandit Camp but having checked the readme, they don't open the Mine itself nor do they open Baldur's Gate until you're in the proper chapter.

deuxhero the first zone has bears (that are neutral at first), diseased gibberlings, and regular wolves. The second zone has more of each, plus bandits, and that ogre. You shouldn't encounter dire wolves in either, unless a mod changes the respawn tables. But it's been so long since I last played pure vanilla BG, might be that my memory is going.

 

[deuxhero]

All wilderness fights in Baldur's Gate 1 are fixed to my knowledge, no random tables at all except for what gems/scroll things drop.

I was confusing "directly along the road" and "will inevitably fight if you try to avoid getting mauled by that pack of gibberinglings along the road that your 4 party members have little hope of beating without serious injury" (and unless you go south, which means more fights, you will have to face a fairly hard mage with these injuries and depleted resources. Yay?) seen here

And there is indeed a pair of dire wolves in that area.

(side note: Isn't it amazing how horribly samey the wilderness looks in BG1?)

 

[Sensuki]

I replayed BG last year. From one of the speed runs I'm pretty sure you can access the mines without going to Nashkel. You can go to the Carnival Area instead, which also triggers Chapter 2. I'm pretty sure going around (ie through the wilderness areas) would be slower than just going through Nashkell or the Carnival area to get there (in minutes and seconds).

No. You cannot even enter Cloakwood Forest until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot access Bandit Camp until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot enter Baldur's Gate until you're in the proper chapter. You cannot re-enter Candle Keep until you're in the proper chapter. Mods have naturally removed all of these restrictions, and they were originally in place to stop low-level players from getting raped.

I already fucking said this at the top of the page. I do not know why people keep quoting me on it.

For instance. The Bandit Camp, Cloakwood and Baldur's Gate are content-gated

All wilderness fights in Baldur's Gate 1 are fixed to my knowledge, no random tables at all except for what gems/scroll things drop.

No, not all Wilderness fights are fixed, there are plenty of encounters that are random. Encounters are also different depending on whether you are playing BG1 vanilla, BG1:Tutu or BGT or BG1:EE.

BG1 also has encounters that respawn in areas, those are random too.

 

[deuxhero]

When are they randomized then?

 

[Sensuki]

Every Wilderness area has random encounters. Even the very first area after Candlekeep. You run into random Gibberlings and Black Bears.

The second area has random Gibberling and Xvart spawns. Sometimes you don't get any Xvart spawns, until you revisit the area.

The Temple Area next to Beregost has random Wild Dog pack encounters. On your first sweep you may never find one, but passing through the area again you might encounter a pack of Wild Dogs, War Dogs or even a single Wild Dog.

The way these spawns work also changes across versions. BG1 Vanilla has the intended spawns. BG1 Tutu/BGT have weird spawns, usually you get spawns more often and in larger groups with these. BG1:EE I think they changed it again, but it's more like BGT spawns AFAIK.

I'm not sure when the randomization is determined by the game engine. Maybe there's a fog of war cheat that will allow you to see monster spawning. If you can be fucked testing. Keep a save of exiting the area where Gorion is killed and go to the next one. If you replayed that level 3 times you probably won't get the same random encounters each time.

I've noticed this because of having to reload, say when Imoen gets gibbed by an Ogre. Load my last save, which is usually exiting the previous area. Load it up and the random trash mob encounters are different.

 

[Dreaad]

There is also level scaling for sure in BG EE. Not sure about original, since it's been a while. But yeah if you are a higher level you encounter far bigger groups of hobgoblins/bandits/kobolds etc.

 

[Abelian]

No no no, forward content-gating.

For instance. The Bandit Camp, Cloakwood and Baldur's Gate are content-gated, and you access them by setting off the chapter trigger

I'm pretty sure that you can't access the Cloakwood mines until you finish the Bandit Camp, which requires finishing the Nashkell Mines and dealing with Mulahey, then Tranzig in Beregost.

Spoiler

 

[Sensuki]

Hahah.

The Chapter triggers are all pretty simple, Chapter 3 and 4 are set off by obtaining scrolls from chests, you don't even need to fight Mulahey or anyone at the Bandit Camp, IIRC, you can just sneak in and steal the scrolls from the chests. You have to kill Davaeorn for Chapter 5 I think (which is also set off by obtaining a scroll, but I think you need to kill him to get it, as it's not pickpocketable?). Chapter 6 is quest triggered when you are sent back to Candlekeep by Duke Eltan and Chapter 7 begins when you exit Candlekeep (this is from memory).

 

[Hormalakh]

^ this goes to show why chapters are just dumb, imo. there are so many cases you have to consider that just don't really make sense for a transition (and possibly have to debug) that you would have to put chapters behind bottle-necks to make sure they make sen...

WAT A MINUTE THATS WHAT BG2 DID! It broke the chapters into bottle-neck spots and just went with that. But then....Sawyer hated how long BG2's chapter 2 was compared to the other chapters. Well, that's because the bottle-necks made sense there and not earlie...


hmm it seems like you can't win with either case. What do we get with chapters anyway?? just a narrator locking us out of gameplay and railroading the story.

NO THANKS!

I would much rather they forgo the whole chapter shit, and do voice-overs for the scripted interactions. We don't need the game broken into chunks for us. The chapters really dont' add anything except that "oh look, it reminds me of a book," except it's disorganized, weird and has arbitrary divisions we call 'chapters.' "

CYOA books usually don't come with chapters.

 

[Rake]

^ this goes to show why chapters are just dumb, imo. there are so many cases you have to consider that just don't really make sense for a transition (and possibly have to debug) that you would have to put chapters behind bottle-necks to make sure they make sen...

WAT A MINUTE THATS WHAT BG2 DID! It broke the chapters into bottle-neck spots and just went with that. But then....Sawyer hated how long BG2's chapter 2 was compared to the other chapters. Well, that's because the bottle-necks made sense there and not earlie...


hmm it seems like you can't win with either case. What do we get with chapters anyway?? just a narrator locking us out of gameplay and railroading the story.

NO THANKS!

I would much rather they forgo the whole chapter shit, and do voice-overs for the scripted interactions. We don't need the game broken into chunks for us. The chapters really dont' add anything except that "oh look, it reminds me of a book," except it's disorganized, weird and has arbitrary divisions we call 'chapters.' "

CYOA books usually don't come with chapters.

Sawyer didn't like the pacing of the game, not the chapter structure. I would imagine his solution to be less optional areas are open on chapter 2- more latter. For example Umar hills and Windspear appear only in chapter 3, just before you go to spellhold, Underdark having a couple of other optional areas (Underwater city being one of those), the 3 forest areas in chapter 6 being fully flessed out on par with Trademeet and D'Arnise hold, 1/3 of quests in Athkatla being chapter 6 only etc. In essence MORE chapter locked contend instead of less.

I would much rather they forgo the whole chapter shit, and do voice-overs for the scripted interactions. We don't need the game broken into chunks for us. The chapters really dont' add anything except that "oh look, it reminds me of a book," except it's disorganized, weird and has arbitrary divisions we call 'chapters.' "

Depends on the execution. MotB had chapters and it wasn't much of a problem. PS:T didn't, but the content was still gated. If your problem is with the chapter structure, don't worry. We don't know for sure the game has chapters anyway. If your problem is with the narrative gateing content, tough luck i quess.

 

[Xeon]

I hope the stronghold doesn't require me to wait for chapters or special events to be upgraded.

 

[Sensuki]

Sawyer didn't like the pacing of the game, not the chapter structure. I would imagine his solution to be less optional areas are open on chapter 2- more latter..

This is what I've been saying all along. I don't think you'll get to free roam PE, you'll be content gated. You'll get access to a region and some optional quest hubs, and as you progress through the chapters, you'll get access to more regions and more optional quest hubs. This is speculation but I think the "Fallout style" that was described during the Kickstarter is out the window.

I hope the stronghold doesn't require me to wait for chapters or special events to be upgraded.

No it won't, but the speed at which you upgrade it will be determined by how much money you have (thus loot you find). I believe upgrades are expensive, so in the early game you probably have to think about which upgrades to build first.

 

[Rake]

Sawyer didn't like the pacing of the game, not the chapter structure. I would imagine his solution to be less optional areas are open on chapter 2- more latter..

This is what I've been saying all along. I don't think you'll get to free roam PE, you'll be content gated. You'll get access to a region and some optional quest hubs, and as you progress through the chapters, you'll get access to more regions and more optional quest hubs. This is speculation but I think the "Fallout style" that was described during the Kickstarter is out the window.

:shrug: Never bothered me as i think "Fallout style" isn't the best fit for a storyfag game.

 

[Goegoff]

"Fallout style" that was described during the Kickstarter

First time I've heard of this. Quote if You'd please?

 

[Athelas]

:shrug: Never bothered me as i think "Fallout style" isn't the best fit for a storyfag game.

It's actually the best fit because the best story is one without mandatory railroading. Fallout has a much better story than Baldur's Gate, despite the latter's attempts at serious narration.

 

[Sensuki]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/109792-project-eternity-interview-v15-109792.html

Buck: You've stated that you're taking an open world approach with the game, but will there be some areas where a more linear design makes more sense? When do you think a linear approach makes the most sense?

Josh: I'd like to avoid linear sequences whenever possible, but there are usually a few choke points the player will have to go through even in open games. For example, you have to get the water chip and deal with the Master in Fallout. There are a lot of ways to actually do those things, but you can't avoid dealing with them in some way. That's as "linear" as I'd like to get.

There was also a quote before this about open-worldedness but I don't remember where it was from a 2012 Eternity forum post, a Kickstarter video - somewhere.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

Do we know if they're still doing low INT dialogue? I think Tim Cain said they would during the kickstarter but I don't remember hearing anything on that since.

 

[Sensuki]

Infinitron, agris

Here we go, I fucking found it.

http://gamecrate.newegg.com/obsidian-pillars-of-eternity-preview/

Obsidian told us that most of the quests and content in the game could be regarded as “optional,” with the caveat that completing a certain amount of quests in a region will be necessary to build up alliances, gain information, and make progress.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Which is weird, because BG's encounter design exists for nothing BUT ensuring low-level players get raped, like dire wolves directly to your right along the road after the tutorial (seriously, that's such an awful piece of design. It doesn't teach the player anything but "we have shitty encounter design, you'll need to reload a lot". High level enemies "gating" off areas is fine, but BG's are more of a mine field in a playground than a gate)

You do realize that Tutu, BGT and BG:EE seriously fuck up monster spawns (there are some fixes IIRC though)? In all my years of playing vanilla BG I don't remember ever running into dire wolves in that area.

Besides, "mine field in a playground" is not neccesarilly bad design if you want to convey to the player that the wilderness is supposed to be dangerous and unpredictable (think of PB games as well), way too many modern games play it safe in regards to the challenges player faces at any given level (you're never pushed out of your comfort zone) which I find to be pretty boring approach to game design.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

This is what I've been saying all along. I don't think you'll get to free roam PE, you'll be content gated. You'll get access to a region and some optional quest hubs, and as you progress through the chapters, you'll get access to more regions and more optional quest hubs. This is speculation but I think the "Fallout style" that was described during the Kickstarter is out the window.

I don't think Fallout style world design was ever on the table to be honest regardless of what they may have said during the kickstarter. Obsidian is a play it safe studio, a good part of their target audience (which is much, much wider than just "folks who liked IE games") would feel overwhelmed if faced with so much choice in regards where to go and which quest to take at once (see various post on Obsidian forums regarding Athkatla in BG2), they require a much more "neat" game structure in order to not feel lost and enjoy the game.

People don't get that while yes BG and BG2 had chapter gated areas you still had access to over 50% of the game content (BG numerous wilderness areas and Athkatla in BG2 with all of its sidequests) very early in the game (after the tutorial phase in both games basically), no way do I expect that to be the case with PoE for various reasons.