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

[Kem0sabe]

Out of their release catalog, not sure any of their game system's can qualify as deep or complex. Kotor was a console rpg with simplified combat and character progression, people remember it for its deep story, NWN2's implementation of the D&D ruleset wasn't what i would call it's bigger virtue, people remember it mainly for MotB's story and characters, even tho ZoE was a huge leap in game systems compared to the previous NWN2 campaigns. Alpha protocol was yet another simplified console rpg.

And what I'm saying is, how much criticism did those games receive because of that? Answer: Not much.

Because content is king(tm) and no True Codexer(tm) has ever decreed a game "shit" because of its systems.

(exceptions granted to Roguey, Excidium, and perhaps a few others)

Speaking in terms of game system's, their best effort might have been ZoE and not New Vegas

Summoning Roguey for extra rage

True enough.

 

[Sensuki]

I think the very most important thing for this game to get right is the "IE feel".

They've already achieved this with the environment art
Character art (so far) looks to be pretty good, the Update 79 video characters look very BG2
The system design while different does have an IE feel for the most part in a lot of areas, but not all

Now they need to hit stuff like responsiveness / crispness of unit movement, controls, commands and actions/UI - IE was very responsive for the most part, barring the IWD dialogue
Combat needs to be fluid and similarly paced
Spell FX at the moment is a little bit worrying, it's kind of a big deal for me, but maybe not as much for others
And the game needs to have pretty good performance. If Shadowrun Returns can run smoothly at 120FPS+ on my system, then PE should as well.

I hope the dialogue UIs, menus and everything are very similar as well. When I play the beta I'll certainly be going through all the actions in the IE games and comparing them to the PE counterparts and pointing out anything that feels worse. Games that look good and run well on pretty much anything generally do pretty well (look at Blizzard's past games for example).

 

[Roguey]

Summoning Roguey for extra rage

I can only laugh. SoZ is an embarrassment. Looking at crafting systems alone, it's clear which one is far more elegant and balanced.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Summoning Roguey for extra rage

I can only laugh. SoZ is an embarrassment. Looking at crafting systems alone, it's clear which one is far more elegant and balanced.

Did you even play SoZ? their party system, D&D skill use, and combat are superior than anything that New Vegas had at launch. How someone can defend a glorified iteration of Fallout 3's systems is beyond me.

 

[FeelTheRads]

How someone can defend a glorified iteration of Fallout 3's systems is beyond me.

Project Coordinator: Joshua Eric Sawyer

Roguey also thinks Dungeon Siege 3 is a good game, because guess what Sawyer said a game his company made is good.

 

[Roguey]

Did you even play SoZ?

Yes, it's terrible.

their party system, D&D skill use, and combat are superior than anything that New Vegas had at launch.

No. It's not even good by D&D video game standards.

How someone can defend a glorified iteration of Fallout 3's systems is beyond me.

It mostly met its goals, SoZ's didn't.

 

[Xeon]

I kinda liked the dialogue system in SoZ, don't think there was an MC even though you start with one so it kind of made it a little fun to discover what kind of options you get based on races and skills and whatever. Dungeons and towns kinda sucked, there was not much exploration aside from the overworld because almost all places were pretty small except for the last dungeon with the multiple levels.

Stealthing was similar to Torments, only one character is needed to change locations so stealthing that place was pretty simple when I brought a specialist.

Also Alpha Protocol might not have had good gameplay but the story and reactivity[?] was pretty great I think.

 

[Athelas]

How someone can defend a glorified iteration of Fallout 3's systems is beyond me.

Project Coordinator: Joshua Eric Sawyer

Roguey also thinks Dungeon Siege 3 is a good game, because guess what Sawyer said a game his company made is good.

Uh...Sawyer has been openly critical of the gameplay of past Obsidian games - as have other Obsidian employees. Might wanna do you research there.
Although I find it pretty amusing how you constantly bring up Obsidian's spotty history and conclude PoE will be shit when you appear to be a huge InXile fanboy.

 

[Infinitron]

? FeelTheRads is not an inXile fanboy.

Sawyer has been critical of past Obsidian games but he does like DS3.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Uh...Sawyer has been openly critical of the gameplay of past Obsidian games

I only said what I remember from Roguey's posts about DS3 which were pretty much: "Sawyer said it's good therefore it's good"

Although I find it pretty amusing how you constantly bring up Obsidian's spotty history and conclude PoE will be shit when you appear to be a huge InXile fanboy.

I haven't really concluded anything. However, I dislike Sawyer's ideas and Obsidian's approach in general while at the same time I like having something to hate on.

That aside, I must have done something wrong if I appear to be an inXile fanboy, especially a huge one. I am deeply sorry for that and I will do my best to change this opinion. In the meantime do some research as well.

 

[Athelas]

Uh...Sawyer has been openly critical of the gameplay of past Obsidian games

I only said what I remember from Roguey's posts about DS3 which were pretty much: "Sawyer said it's good therefore it's good"

Uh no, you said 'Sawyer said a game his company made is good'. Go read your previous post. You're making stuff up.

And I must've missed the thousands of posts where you nitpick to death every aspect of WL2 and T:ToN and constantly bring up InXile's track record (in fact, I don't even recall a single such post). Your bias is blindingly obvious, don't delude yourself.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Uh no, you said 'Sawyer said a game his company made is good'. Go read your previous post. You're making stuff up.

Yes. That was supposed to mean DS3 which was mentioned in the previous sentence. I get that they were critical of their games, what I meant is that Roguey likes DS3 because Sawyer said it's good.

And I must've missed the thousands of posts where you nitpick to death every aspect of WL2 and T:ToN and constantly bring up InXile's track record. Your bias is blindingly obvious, don't delude yourself.

I'm sure there are some. But yeah, I had more hope from inXile I guess mainly because of their goals and intentions. Whether they were lies or simply inability to live up to them is another thing, but it did make them more likeable to me, at least in the beginning.
Now that kinda went away although I still have some hope for Torment probably because there is nothing concrete about it yet except again goals and intentions and I'm not a learning animal.

As for Obsidian, I probably wouldn't have picked on them so much if Sawyer kept his mouth shut. In fact I was quite excited about PoE too until he started talking.

But, OK, I give you this, there is a bias. What can I do, everybody picks something to love and something to hate.

 

[Sensuki]

what I meant is that Roguey likes DS3 because Sawyer said it's good.

Don't worry man, I understood what you meant, and you're correct too.

That person enjoys when the thread discussion is about him though, just ignore the JES worship stuff and don't reply to it.

 

[Athelas]

Well, to me it reads like 'Of course Sawyer is not gonna criticize a game his company made, no matter how flawed it is'. Which wouldn't be surprising coming from a person who has made hundreds of posts in the vein of 'PoE will be shit because Alpha Protocol HUR DUR'.

As for Obsidian, I probably wouldn't have picked on them so much if Sawyer kept his mouth shut. In fact I was quite excited about PoE too until he started talking.

I went back to the early pages of this thread and you were negative BEFORE the Kickstarter even launched. So, no.

 

[FeelTheRads]

So be it.

Henceforth let my name be Farggot and my avatar this:

 

[Duraframe300]

However, the person who gave me this opportunity did so because he's very interested in accessibility.

I don't understand this. What does he mean?

He got it largely because he's blind (and thus probably won't be able to play the game), is what I think he means. I'm sure his audition was okay too? Duraframe300 said he knew of the guy, so we'll see what he says when his net fixes itself

I recall Anthony Davis saying that Josh was a big believer in accessibility.

No big story and its mostly unrelated to Obsidian.

 

[Sensuki]

But I'm interested

 

[Sensuki]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2362964/the-most-exciting-pc-games-we-saw-at-e3-2014.html

Pillars of Eternity
I can’t talk about what I saw of Pillars of Eternity at the show just yet, but I can say Obsidian’s spiritual successor to the old Infinity Engine games (Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment) is right near the top of my most-anticipated list. --Hayden

Seconded. Look for more details on PCWorld soon. --Brad

 

[Sensuki]

Pillars of Eternity Top 5 at E3 from Escapist Magazine, mentioned first too.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art.../e32014/11739-Johns-Five-Favorites-of-E3-2014

Yes, this Kickstarter title made its first showing at E3 this year, and it is coming along quite nicely. When you look at it, the isometric view and art design has a distinctive feel of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, not surprising since many of the team have ties to the old RPGs in some way. But this is not a D&D game, so Obsidian has come up with its own rule set, its own world and bestiary, and its own classes and races. Unfortunately, what we saw at E3 is under embargo until later this week, but suffice it to say... Damn, I want to play this when it is ready.

 

[J_C]

It will be a shame if the press will show the pictures about the game before Obs shows it to the backers.

 

[Goegoff]

Why? How does it matter where the pictures come from?

 

[Merlkir]

I still don't get what the point of an embargo is. Anyone?

 

[Sensuki]

Probably to avoid PE getting swept under the rug at E3, and also to give all the Journalists time to write about the game. Some got to see it on the 10th, whereas others saw it on the 11th and 12th. They were then given until the 19th to have all their articles done. Just makes it fair for everyone so they all go up around the same time.

 

[dukeofwhales]

You get better quality content when journaists aren't rushing to get their article out FIRST get get all those sweet sweet ad impressions.

 

[bat_boro]

So today's the day that the embargo will be lifted, right? Oh it's the 19th. Nevermind then.