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

[Tigranes]

And remind me which CRPG release in the last 15 years worth our attention/hope has not been in this broad 'medium' zone of "20-30 for rushers, 70-80 for completionists"? Fallout 1/2? Icewind Dale series? Risen 1/2? New Vegas? KOTOR 1/2? Witcher 1/2? Discounting indie games which have a different price-point anyway, we can point to Alpha Protocol as one title on the short-side, though that game has more replayable content packed in it than most, and whether you hated or loved it, length didn't really play a big role.

Of course I don't want a 10 hour RPG. The point is most RPGs worth talking about are already in that broad medium zone, so if you still continue to insist on length as an important factor, then either you need to provide some standardized metric to show why you want BG2 length not FO1 length, etc, etc, or, you can choose to be one of those people that wish every game is as big as Oblivion if it was actually full of stuff to do.

If P:E had raised only their target of a million I think I would have been worried, or expected, it to be shorter than most of the IE titles. As it is, I think it'll be 'medium' enough.

 

[Blaine]

The point is most RPGs worth talking about are already in that broad medium zone....

Oh, I completely agree. I've had that in mind myself throughout this discussion. Most of the Codex favorites and nearly all of my favorites are somewhere in the 40-60 hour range.

 

[Grim Monk]

I took some time to get stuff sorted out, and only contributed through Paypal after the Kickstarter was already finished.

Still, here's a question I'd like answered:

Has anybody who likewise got in late (or donate through Paypal in the first place) gotten any feedback from Obsidian?
Its been a over a month since my payment was confirmed, and they haven't even sent me a email...

 

[Roguey]

I think 40-60 hours is a very happy medium, one that by no means necessitates a particularly noticeable amount of filler.

Tell that to Knights of the Old Republic, Divinity 2, Risen, The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and so on.

 

[Arkeus]

Its been a over a month since my payment was confirmed, and they haven't even sent me a email...

I didn't pay late, but Obsidian hasn't given news to anyone yet as far as i know, and they will for knowing what add-ons to give/etc.

 

[Lancehead]

I think 40-60 hours is a very happy medium, one that by no means necessitates a particularly noticeable amount of filler.

Tell that to Knights of the Old Republic, Divinity 2, Risen, The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and so on.

NWN2 OC took me more than 100 h to finish.

 

[Roguey]

Yeesh. I was going by http://howlongtobeat.com/gamebreakdown.php?gameid=529 where most people took about 60 and ignored the few that took 100+. I assume they spent most of that time in menus or inventories, as I often do.

 

[Blaine]

Roguey: I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make. Could you elaborate? Do you mean that the games you've mentioned feature a lot of filler and that they're a representative sample?

 

[Infinitron]

I took some time to get stuff sorted out, and only contributed through Paypal after the Kickstarter was already finished.

Still, here's a question I'd like answered:

Has anybody who likewise got in late (or donate through Paypal in the first place) gotten any feedback from Obsidian?
Its been a over a month since my payment was confirmed, and they haven't even sent me a email...

It took inXile over three months before they set up Ranger Center where you could manage your pledge for Wasteland 2. Give it time.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey: I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make. Could you elaborate? Do you mean that the games you've mentioned feature a lot of filler and that they're a representative sample?

Yes. I define filler as any gameplay involving actions you repeat while your mind and/or reflexes are on autopilot. Combat in kotor and the NWNs is like 90-95% filler, Divinity 2 is full of trash mobiles that only require repeating the same set of actions over and over again, Risen significantly dropped down in quality around the 30 hour mark with a long lizard crawl, The Witcher is full of long back-and-forth treks and drowners. They'd all be better if they were shorter. Proof: Divinity 2's expansion actually had more combat-per-hour than the base game but it was only about 11 hours so it felt like a lot less. I think it was an overall better-paced game, escort mission notwithstanding. Witcher 2 wasn't nearly as tedious as The Witcher since they deliberately set out to remove a lot of the chaff (less walking, less fetching, dramatic decrease in drowners; also helps that it doesn't suffer from an issue the first one had, where you had to kill all hostiles in the immediate area before you could enter a new one).

 

[Blaine]

It's perhaps worth noting that I personally consider Divinity 2, The Witcher, Risen, and the bulk of NWN/NWN2 (yes yes, expansions and fan mods, I know) to be crap. I did enjoy KotOR at the time of its release, although it definitely had a lot of what you'd consider to be filler.

Fallout 2 is an example of a 40-to-60-hour-long cRPG that I consider to have very little filler. Yes, you'll meet similar groups of enemies more than once when traveling on the map, and you'll have to watch the dotted line move for a few seconds on the way to someplace, but other than that the world's packed with hand-built locations, hand-placed items to filch (except in Broken Hills), plenty of NPCs and quests, and lots to explore.

I feel that some amount of "filler" is inevitable in any cRPG, though. About only kinds of (complex) games I can think of in which there's almost 0% downtime/filler are 4x games and grand strategy games, because you'll be constantly engaging your brain to parse and process emergent information... so much so that it can be difficult to manage it all.

 

[Roguey]

Fallout 2 is an example of a 40-to-60-hour-long cRPG that I consider to have very little filler. Yes, you'll meet similar groups of enemies more than once when traveling on the map, and you'll have to watch the dotted line move for a few seconds on the way to someplace, but other than that the world's packed with hand-built locations, hand-placed items to filch (except in Broken Hills), plenty of NPCs and quests, and lots to explore.

I didn't like the majority of Fallout 2. It's all very boring until you reach Vault City, then New Reno, NCR, and Vault 15 are fun, then it goes back to being boring. They should have focused on less and higher quality content.

 

[Hormalakh]

What games did you actually like roguey? You seem to pretty much hate everything except Josh Sawyer.

Edit: And I mean like completely. From beginning to end.

 

[Roguey]

I don't like any of them. I like bits and pieces from most of this list.

 

[Kahlis]

Fallout 2 is an example of a 40-to-60-hour-long cRPG that I consider to have very little filler. Yes, you'll meet similar groups of enemies more than once when traveling on the map, and you'll have to watch the dotted line move for a few seconds on the way to someplace, but other than that the world's packed with hand-built locations, hand-placed items to filch (except in Broken Hills), plenty of NPCs and quests, and lots to explore.

I didn't like the general mood of Fallout 2 and how reliant you were on scavenging early in the game for equipment. It very much felt like one of those games where people would replay and always go through the exact same areas, pick up the exact same items and weapons from specific containers every time, use them under specific circumstances. Fallout 1, despite being tighter, just felt better paced to me.

Add on top of that all of these miscellaneous other details - i.e. FO1's talking heads looking better than FO2's weird plasticine ones that were always in your face at weird angles, less idiotic overland encounters, and there's really little I have to say about FO2 in the way of positives aside from the fact that it simply allows us to return to an engaging setting and ruleset.

FO2 may have not have had filler in an obvious way but I felt there was a little too much running between towns for quests, and then you have places like...San Francisco...

 

[Harold]

I didn't like the majority of Fallout 2. It's all very boring until you reach Vault City, then New Reno, NCR, and Vault 15 are fun, then it goes back to being boring. They should have focused on less and higher quality content.

This.
If it weren't for The Den, which I also liked, I would've quit playing after Klamath.

 

[suejak]

Ironically, the classically "bad" areas of FO2 (as per Codex majority opinion) are The Den and New Reno. Then there's the whole problem of the magic GECK, which among other things made Vault City.

Not to imply that you people have anything in common with the people who founded the Codex, but it's fun to find glaring contradictions all the time.

 

[Roguey]

Ironically, the classically "bad" areas of FO2 (as per Codex majority opinion) are The Den and New Reno.

I thought they hated New Reno because the tone didn't fit the setting and its existence doesn't fit with the story's internal logic. Ignoring that, it's a place with a lot of fun things to do in different ways. It also gets points for allowing me to go on a misogynist murdering spree without repercussions.

Then there's the whole problem of the magic GECK, which among other things made Vault City

The Fallout 1 manual mentioned the GECK had a cold fusion-powered base replicator unit that creates food and basic items for building a new world. "Cold fusion" fits Fallout's science-magic and I imagine it didn't happen instantly so I didn't have a problem with it.

 

[Blaine]

Well, frankly I find it difficult to be objective about Fallout or Fallout 2. Over the years since 1997-1998, I've played through Fallout six or seven times, and Fallout 2 at least a dozen times. I finally got tired of them sometime in 2007-2008. To this day, they're my favorite cRPGs of all time. I'm one of those rare beasts who prefers 2 to the original, though I freely admit the original is tighter and more pure, unlike DarkUnderlord 's mom.

I do however think it's okay for some locations not to yank down your pants and furiously turbo-suck your penis with how innovative and totally amazing they are. Not everything can be the downslope of the fucking rollercoaster. Some locations will be more humdrum than others by comparison. Vault City is the shit, though... great music, great atmosphere, filled with stupid pricks ruled by First Bitchizen Lynette, all of whom you'd like to kill but probably shouldn't (at least not right away). Good times.

 

[suejak]

Ironically, the classically "bad" areas of FO2 (as per Codex majority opinion) are The Den and New Reno.

I thought they hated New Reno because the tone didn't fit the setting and its existence doesn't fit with the story's internal logic.

That is correct.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Well, frankly I find it difficult to be objective about Fallout or Fallout 2. Over the years since 1997-1998, I've played through Fallout six or seven times, and Fallout 2 at least a dozen times. I finally got tired of them sometime in 2007-2008. To this day, they're my favorite cRPGs of all time. I'm one of those rare beasts who prefers 2 to the original, though I freely admit the original is tighter and more pure, unlike DarkUnderlord 's mom.

Next month year will be alert Blaine month year.

 

[Hormalakh]

Next month year will be alert Blaine month year.

How does alert Blaine year work? Are newfags required to do anything for alert Blaine year? Is there some sort of protocol to follow for Alert Blaine Year? Can I call it A Blaine Y?

 

[Blaine]

If only I had some easily accessible defense against this onslaught, such as un-checking a box in my Alert Settings!

 

[Kem0sabe]

Well, frankly I find it difficult to be objective about Fallout or Fallout 2. Over the years since 1997-1998, I've played through Fallout six or seven times, and Fallout 2 at least a dozen times. I finally got tired of them sometime in 2007-2008. To this day, they're my favorite cRPGs of all time. I'm one of those rare beasts who prefers 2 to the original, though I freely admit the original is tighter and more pure, unlike DarkUnderlord 's mom.

I do however think it's okay for some locations not to yank down your pants and furiously turbo-suck your penis with how innovative and totally amazing they are. Not everything can be the downslope of the fucking rollercoaster. Some locations will be more humdrum than others by comparison. Vault City is the shit, though... great music, great atmosphere, filled with stupid pricks ruled by First Bitchizen Lynette, all of whom you'd like to kill but probably shouldn't (at least not right away). Good times.

I´m currently replaying Fallout 1, almost finished with the Cathedral (game), and although i love the game, i found it hard to put up with the archaic interface... stuff like having to kill my own npc followers because its the only way to get through a door they are blocking is just too "meta" for me to enjoy.

 

[General Maxson]

Well, frankly I find it difficult to be objective about Fallout or Fallout 2. Over the years since 1997-1998, I've played through Fallout six or seven times, and Fallout 2 at least a dozen times. I finally got tired of them sometime in 2007-2008. To this day, they're my favorite cRPGs of all time. I'm one of those rare beasts who prefers 2 to the original, though I freely admit the original is tighter and more pure, unlike DarkUnderlord 's mom.

I do however think it's okay for some locations not to yank down your pants and furiously turbo-suck your penis with how innovative and totally amazing they are. Not everything can be the downslope of the fucking rollercoaster. Some locations will be more humdrum than others by comparison. Vault City is the shit, though... great music, great atmosphere, filled with stupid pricks ruled by First Bitchizen Lynette, all of whom you'd like to kill but probably shouldn't (at least not right away). Good times.

I´m currently replaying Fallout 1, almost finished with the Cathedral (game), and although i love the game, i found it hard to put up with the archaic interface... stuff like having to kill my own npc followers because its the only way to get through a door they are blocking is just too "meta" for me to enjoy.

I don't think you needed to kill them. I always managed to make them move. Can't remember though.