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

[Abelian]

The obvious solution is that every chapter/city should have Athkatla's quest density.

Spoiler

Meanwhile, back in the real world, there are things such things as deadlines and funding constraints...

 

[Dreaad]

This shit is insane. The same conversation keeps recycling every 20 pages, with tidbits of updates here and there. It's like violent, mentally challenging deja-vu every time I check this thread. 1200 pages and counting, hell I've probably made this exact comment 58.85 times. The Discussion of Sawyerism: Thread of Eternity.

 

[Lhynn]

This shit is insane. The same conversation keeps recycling every 20 pages, with tidbits of updates here and there. It's like violent, mentally challenging deja-vu every time I check this thread. 1200 pages and counting, hell I've probably made this exact comment 58.85 times. The Discussion of Sawyerism: Thread of Eternity.

Makes it really easy to keep up tho, dont it?

 

[Sensuki]

I think you are trying to push through your own wants (or fears?) into the game, when the things actually said are completely different.

Nope. I'm just guessing, and I'm more than happy to be incorrect about that.

I do however think it is a fair assumption that the end of the game will take place in Eir Glanfath as one of the plot points is investigation of Engwithan Ruins to try and find out information about the "supernatural event" that takes place in the prologue of the game. Most of those are in Eir Glanfath, and the Glanfathans are their guardians.

There is also the fact that Dyrwoodans and Glanfathans are (while at a truce) at odds with eachother, and I guess one of the "decisions" you'll have to make over the course of the game is your opinion on the conflict between them. If you associate with Glanfathans throughout the game, you'll probably get negative reputations towards Defiance Bay and whatnot, and become known as a "facepainter".

In the Lore of the game it's only recently that Glanfathans have allowed animancers from Defiance Bay access to some of their soul knowledge, so it makes logical sense that you would go from Dyrwood countryside to the city "go to the city, i have heard of animancers there that will help you" to Eir Glanfath where some Defiance Bay animancer vouches for you and organizes for you to speak with someone there etc etc

(just a theory, but there's hints of possible story arcs in the lore)

 

[Infinitron]

Game is too dense with content? What the fuck is that... So you've got this huge city in front of you, should it be just filled with emptiness to avoid a player getting overwhelmed? Controversial or not that's retarded. The developer has to make more maps for the same effect and the player has to walk more, to get the same amount of meaningful gameplay.

I'm much more annoyed by big looking locations that in the end turn out that there's barely anything to do.

"Content" doesn't necessarily mean "sidequests".

Besides, I think you'll agree that Sigil was dense enough.

 

[Rake]

Infinitron thanks for reminding me why i dont think sawyer "gets it".

* Ill agree that most CNPCs didnt have the depth they should have had, they were exceptionally fleshed out when compared to anything else thats on the market tho. At least on this side of the world.

* Saving Imoen is only part of the motivation to find Irenicus, not only has he tortured you, which covers revenge, but he also has told you he would unlock your divine powers, so youve got greed. So yeah... hes kind of wrong, you didnt lack motivations or dialogue to represent them. You could even say you cared nothing for the girl, and that option was present in every single dialogue that was about the subject.

* F:NV companions are boring, plus companion break the challenge of that game... i rather just play it game alone.

* Athkatla was a better city than any designed by him so far, it actually felt alive. The first time you played it the amount of quests was overwhelming, and it added to the feeling of being in a strange big place that you didnt understand. They also made the game replayable as fuck as playtroughs could be wildly different depending on which quests you took and how you solved them.

*PS:T already was out.

*Except that in Spellhold they throw this out forcing you to say to Irenicus that you are there for Imoen. Being able to say through the game that you don't care about her makes the moment to stand out more. They soulld had allow you to completely ignore Irenicus if you wanted, and if you do some time down the road just have him kidnap you or an encounter with his agents so you can find a different link to Spelhold and go there on your own.

*Agree, that's why Sawyer said that he recognises he is the minority in this one. I don't expect PoE companions to be writen in the style he likes personaly. Maybe the one he writes himself.

*Agree with this also, but not one denies that the game after Brynnlaw was linear and lost much of it's charm. If they could have spaced better the content among the chapters it would have been an improvement of the game as a whole.

 

[Sensuki]

I wonder if Pallegina will be a rape victim

 

[throwaway]

Keep in mind that this game promised storytelling on par with PS:T in its pitch video.

I feel like that side of the equation has been very much absent since the development actually kicked off.

 

[Decado]

Chalk me up as one more dude who found the quest layout of BGII to be perfectly serviceable. I liked having an overloaded second chapter. To the extent that I can barely tolerate the chapter approach at all, I prefer (if I must deal with it) an asymmetric layout with short chapters and stupidly huge chapters. I appreciated Betrayal at Krondor for this very reason.

Also, let's remember that the massive quest overload in Chapter II isn't really just for Chapter II -- you can do most of them in Chapter II, III, or VI. And in fact some of them, like Firkraag or the Illithiid dungeon, can be a royal bitch if you try to do them in Chapter II. Unless you are a super-cool Codexian dude.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Also, let's remember that the massive quest overload in Chapter II isn't really just for Chapter II -- you can do most of them in Chapter II, III, or VI.

Yeah, this. How does it affect the story flow or whatever other bullshit if you can do them pretty much whenever? Main story is separated and you can work on that and side quests separately.

Of course, if you want to make the game for "duurrrr i r confused what do now???!" game testers then it might be too much.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not really about the chapters per se. The "stagger things throughout several chapters" thing was brought up as one possible solution to BG2's congested quest layout. Perhaps it's the only solution; the idea of an RPG that's just one big freely traversable city may be inherently problematic in that respect. There's no geographical progression, no sense of direction.

 

[Jasede]

Stop trying to imply there is a problem, man.

 

[Infinitron]

Stop trying to imply there is a problem, man.

Stop trying to imply that because you liked a game, the upsides and downsides of its design can't be analyzed and criticized.

Would Black Isle make a game with a story structure like Baldur's Gate 2? Would Chris Avellone? The answer is no - it's not their way, and there are good reasons for that.

 

[Decado]

I wonder if Pallegina will be a rape victim

For fuck's sake put a trigger warning on that shit.

 

[Jasede]

Stop trying to imply there is a problem, man.

Stop trying to imply that because you liked a game, the upsides and downsides of its design can't be analyzed and criticized.

Would Black Isle make a game with a story structure like Baldur's Gate 2? Would Chris Avellone? The answer is no - it's not their way, and there are good reasons for that.

No you dingus, you're comparing apples and oranges. Would Obsidian make a game with that kind of story structure? No. Story is all they are good at. BG 2's quest structure isn't conductive to telling a moving story at a good pace. But its quest structure has other strengths, and the more you move away from that kind of "lots of quests thrown at you" structure the less you're going to get that P&Py "let's adventure!" feel and instead go for a more PS:T (or jRPGy, even) experience.

I'm just saying that there's good and part parts to it and it'd be silly to disregard the good. In fact I'd argue that the BG 2 style would work way better for Eternity than anything else. I've seen Obsidian's take on trying to deviate from it. It was called NWN 2 OC and it was terrible. It was a 120 hour game with nothing to do.

 

[FeelTheRads]

You always knew you had to do nothing, though.

 

[Infinitron]

BG 2's quest structure isn't conductive to telling a moving story at a good pace.

Congratulations, you've just admitted that BG2's quest structure is problematic.

more you move away from that kind of "lots of quests thrown at you" structure the less you're going to get that P&Py "let's adventure!" feel and instead go for a more PS:T (or jRPGy, even) experience

Sure, whatever. I don't feel that games like Fallout 2 or Planescape were actually "low on quests", but I recognize that many people on the Codex have a serious hard-on for the "CITY OF ENDLESS ADVENTURE" model of RPG, so maybe that's what you're referring to.

Me, I'm a traditionalist. Lots of towns, overland travel between them, dungeons, even trash mobs. All of these things, that some people on this forum love to hate, exist for a reason.

 

[Jasede]

No, I admitted it was problematic if you wanted to focus on the plot and the story rather than on dungeon crawling and adventuring.
I do hate the idea that you're implying I'm not a 'traditionalist' (what the hell odes that mean? what's more traditional than killing things in a dungeon?) just because I'm simply saying that there are positive aspects to the quest structure in question.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Sure, whatever. I don't feel that games like Fallout 2 or Planescape were actually "low on quests", but I recognize that many people on the Codex have a serious hard-on for the "CITY OF ENDLESS ADVENTURE" model of RPG, so maybe that's what you're referring to.

Correction, many/most BG2 fans have a serious hard-on for that model, Athkatla (along with those cheesy/degenerate/unfair/confusing/metagamey mage duels) is often cited as one of the best things about BG2 by CRPG players.

And yes I'm well aware that they mentioned all IE games in their pitch but I bet that people wanting another BG2 fix made up the biggest part of the backers (goes without mentioning that BG2 was/is the most popular IE game).

Me, I'm a traditionalist. Lots of towns, overland travel between them, dungeons, even trash mobs. All of these things, that some people on this forum love to hate, exist for a reason.

And there's a reason people loved Athkatla as well, it managed to convey the feeling of a busy, sprawling metropolis by some distance better than most other CRPGs, not in small part due to concentration of (quality) content in that one place.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Infinitron pulling the traditionalist card! What next? Stay tuned for more great comebacks!

Jasese, did you know you like the quests in BG2 because you like big cities? It's not actually good for anything, though. In fact it's very problematic.

 

[Decado]

If a motherfucker says "Problematic" one more time I am going to make it rain grenades in this bitch. I swear to god. I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I sincerely hope PoE structure won't look like this:

-Prologue

-Chapter 1, city/village#1 and 3 wilderness areas.

-Chapter 2, city/village#2 and 3 additional wilderness areas.

-Chapter 3, city/village#3 and 3 additional wilderness areas.

-etc. (throw in a Stronghold and Mega dungeon somewhere along the way).


But hey I guess that would be great because content would be divided equally among different chapters and poor players won't feel confused/threatened (even quit the game!) by being bombarded by so many evil sidequests.

 

[Sensuki]

I don't think BG2 would have been as good if Athkatla wasn't so bustling with stuff to do.

 

[Infinitron]

Correction, many/most BG2 fans have a serious hard-on for that model

It's not always "BG2 fans" per se. There's a certain school of posters here who like BG2 the most of all the IE games (excluding PS:T) because it came closest to emulating their idea of the ultimate Black Isle/Troika-style game, which is basically New Reno writ large, a city full of C&C and set-piece encounters. Sure, Athkatla didn't have much C&C, but it was a step in that direction.

But I'd better be quiet before this turns into a discussion about Age of Decadence.

I sincerely hope PoE structure won't look like this:

-Prologue

-Chapter 1, city/village#1 and 3 wilderness areas.

-Chapter 2, city/village#2 and 3 additional wilderness areas.

-Chapter 3, city/village#3 and 3 additional wilderness areas.

-etc. (throw in a Stronghold and Mega dungeon somewhere along the way).


But hey I guess that would be great because content would be divided equally among different chapters and poor players won't feel confused/threatened (even quit the game!) by being bombarded by so many evil sidequests.

It might, but that's not really relevant to Sawyer's gripe with BG2. As I said:

It's like how you can access all of Fallout's map from the beginning, but most players will still have a sense of progression, from Shady Sands to Junktown to Hub etc. Sawyer doesn't have any problem with Fallout's structure or pacing. It's about the density, not the non-linearity, openness or "freedom".

 

[FeelTheRads]

but most players will still have a sense of progression

In what way? And how do BG2's quests stop that? Still have to explain that except saying that it does.

You're arguing for some kind of textbook design again which apart from being bad on its own it's also Sawyer's textbook which makes it even worse.