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

[Blaine]

If you're easily butthurt about criticism, you might be on the wrong website just saying.

You're completely missing the point.

Sawyer's not criticizing other games for the sake of evaluating them—he's criticizing other games so that he can hold up fistfuls of perceived faults and proclaim, "I'll fix all of these."

Admirable, possibly, or perhaps just egotistical. In my view, that's a wrongheaded approach, because game design is always a double-edged sword: There must be both perks and flaws. We shall see if he manages to oversee the creation of a perfect game with only strengths and no weaknesses.

 

[felipepepe]

No, you still had the combat skills that would be your priority... since you were going for a barbarian, you would spend the points in Tumble, Taunt, Parry or whatever other combat skill.

Sawyer setting them appart means that you will have to spend them on the non-combat skills, your barbarian will end up with diplomacy, intimidade or whatever... that's not a bad thing per se, but Sawyer's talks like he decided for that so that parties cound't "fail" or get stuck in the game, which is a rather dubious solution instead of just making the game playable without non-combat skills...

 

[BobtheTree]

Also, if you'd ask Josh, he'd say BG2 is the worst Infinity Engine game.

Because it is.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Uh what? Learning from other peoples mistakes is a wrongheaded approach? Looking at similar games and learning from their design mistakes is wrong?

If you are gonna honestly evaluate a game, do you think you can get away without making any criticisms at all?

Do you think in order to criticize a game, you will need to make one with no flaws?




You're on a website that criticizes constantly. We used to ridicule the old "you need to have played the game seven times to criticize it" schtick, but now it seems we have one upped it and gone all "you need to be able to make a perfect game on your own in order to criticize it".

You guyse are butthurt that he criticizes your favourite games. Just admit it and move on, don't start creating these wild rationalizations.

 

[Infinitron]

No, you still had the combat skills that would be your priority... since you were going for a barbarian, you would spend the points in Tumble, Taunt, Parry or whatever other combat skill.

Those combat skills were hardly important, though. For all intents and purposes your stats and your feats were your combat skills. Again, it's a very, very different roleplaying model from Fallout and people need to stop conflating the two.

To be honest, your example is probably irrelevant since Sawyer doesn't even like speech-related skill checks. It's likely that speech challenges will be based mainly on stat checks and that those non-combat skills will be mainly "utility" stuff like lockpicking, crafting, etc.

 

[Sensuki]

P:E will be encompassing the lower levels of D&D play, more akin to say BG1 and IWD1. I think they said it should end with you being able to get up to about level 12 in terms of D&D.

BG2 was like level 7 (or 8 if you imported a TotSC char) to ~17-19ish, so it's fine with me if the first game doesn't have absolutely spell-jamming wizard battles ... but P:E2 however ...

 

[FeelTheRads]

"you need to be able to make a perfect game on your own in order to criticize it".

Umm, no, he can criticize all he wants. Even though "all systems get it wrong" is really pretty much retarded and when you say that, and then keep claiming you'll fix it (basically by patching with retarded shit like minigames or cooldowns, buy hey) then you kinda have to show up something for your claims since it stops being just simply critique.

 

[Lancehead]

I agree with you that Sawyer hasn't actually designed a great system so far, but shitting on him because he puts his thoughts out there for others to read is ridiculous. Also, he's never going to be a good designer if he lacks the critical thinking capacity to find what worked and what didn't in other systems. Disagreement over what he considers strengths and weaknesses doesn't make him arrogant.

It's all about the tone bro... Tim Cain is a proved designer and you don't see him shitting all over other games. Lord British is/was probably the most amazing designer out there, the guy basically invented the genre, and even him sounds arrogant when he says "Most Game Designers Really Just Suck"... Josh going along the same lines is just ridiculous.

Well, I can see why you might perceive the tone as such, but in such a case I would say Sawyer being an "unproven" designer is rather irrelevant, because having a better resume doesn't excuse an arrogant tone.

 

[felipepepe]

Do you think in order to criticize a game, you will need to make one with no flaws?

No, but after making many flawed games as well you shouln't pose yourself as the wisest designer in the world, that will fix all flaws...

To be honest, your example is probably irrelevant since Sawyer doesn't even like speech-related skill checks. It's likely that speech challenges will be based mainly on stat checks and that those non-combat skills will be mainly "utility" stuff like lockpicking, crafting, etc.

Well, let's put this on hold them and wait for further info... it will probably end being at least a decent game, but still Josh should get down from his "holier than thou" illusion and replay NWN2 before dismissing other games like shit.

 

[Brayko]

I like Sawyer. He's fun to troll, but I believe he'll knock Project Eternity out of the park. It's his Grimiore, and if he fails he'll end up a broken man. Hell, if he fails he'll probably end up a meme poster on the Codex like those who shall remain nameless.

All in all, I give him a 60/40 chance of getting the job done.

So true! Obsidian shan't let us down. I like their games already but a less streamlined 2d game without publisher interference will be BLAST OFF time.

 

[Jaesun]

NO MORE FREE RIDES!

 

[felipepepe]

Well, I can see why you might perceive the tone as such, but in such a case I would say Sawyer being an "unproven" designer is rather irrelevant, because having a better resume doesn't excuse an arrogant tone.

Is always a douche thing, but never living up to his speech adds insult to injury. Lord British saying he'll make a game as gret as Ultima VII is interesting... the guy is the father of cRPGs after all. Josh saying he'll fix all issues in cRPGs after designing NWN2 OC is just retarded...

Of course, he'll say that there was the publisher pressure, and the limited budget, and the license deal and all that... but so had the games he attacks, and they all did better than him. It goes without saying that most of the games would be tons better if they didn't have those challenges, but if Josh only works well in "perfect conditions", to hell with him. The guy is hyping himself more than Peter Molyneux FFS, releasing a "okay" game now won't cut.

 

[tuluse]

So the codex cannot into celtic language.

Neither can I

 

[Infinitron]

Josh saying he'll fix all issues in cRPGs after designing NWN2 OC is just retarded...

Here's a blast from the past: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/sawyer-takes-over-nwn2-development.11796/

Note that the game was released on October of that year. Guess what other game Ferret worked on? Yep: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Ferret_Baudoin

 

[Broseph]

Josh saying he'll fix all issues in cRPGs after designing NWN2 OC is just retarded...

NWN2 OC was an abortion, but I don't think Sawyer actually had all that much to do with it. I'm fairly sure he was brought on later into the project's development, which was a total mess. I'm sure Roguey can tell us more.

Edit: Infinitron beat me to the punch.

 

[Jaesun]

Yes sawyer was brought in way later after the lead designer quit (Ferret Baudoin) on NWN2 OC.

 

[Duraframe300]

Note that the game was released on October of that year. Guess what other game Ferret worked on? Yep: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Ferret_Baudoin

And working at Bethesda now, possibly on the next Fallout.

Edit: According to Annie, Sawyer was it who made the game at least playable. It was even more of a mess before.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

No, but after making many flawed games as well you shouln't pose yourself as the wisest designer in the world, that will fix all flaws...

I don't think he does pretend to be the best designer in the world. He does say he will try to avoid making mistakes though - why wouldn't he? Should he try to make mistakes?

 

[Lancehead]

Here's a blast from the past: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/sawyer-takes-over-nwn2-development.11796/

Heh, some nice and relevant quotes in that thread from Sawyer.

 

[felipepepe]

Ok, so all we have to judge him is New Vegas? Oh, we can't use that either, because they were forced to use shitty Bethesda game engine and to release it early... so we are left with....?

 

[Infinitron]

Here's a blast from the past: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/sawyer-takes-over-nwn2-development.11796/

Heh, some nice and relevant quotes in that thread from Sawyer.

Yeah. And also this quote from Vault Dweller, then an administrator:

Come on, people, give Josh a fucking break. If you disagree with his designs, argue, but cut the personal attacks out.

OMG POLITICAL CORRECTNESS SPEECH CODES CODEX IS GOING DOWN THE TOILET

Ok, so all we have to judge him is New Vegas? Oh, we can't use that either, because they were forced to use shitty Bethesda game engine and to release it early... so we are left with....?

You can use FO:NV. And there's also Icewind Dale 2. But yeah, like I said, Sawyer hasn't gotten his big break yet.

 

[uaciaut]

Why the hell does the discussion seem to fall back on "what Sawyer's like" every 5 pages or so? He's not the only person working on the project and i doubt Obisidian's project development system is dictatorshi-like where project lead vetoes everyone and does whatever he wants without caring what the other people say. Sawyer clearly seems to have some hardcore fans on here (one in particular) and a few haters as well (again one in particular at least in the last few pages), why are people feeding them with more off-topic material by arguing on Sawyer with them?

 

[Lancehead]

Heh, some nice and relevant quotes in that thread from Sawyer.

Now show some real attention span and read the thread.

What does this even mean?

 

[Jaesun]

Ok, so all we have to judge him is New Vegas? Oh, we can't use that either, because they were forced to use shitty Bethesda game engine and to release it early... so we are left with....?

EDIT: IWD II It was going to use the same 2nd edition that IWD used, but Sawyer talked Feargus into making it 3rd edition. He implemented that.

 

[Delterius]

Ok, so all we have to judge him is New Vegas? Oh, we can't use that either, because they were forced to use shitty Bethesda game engine and to release it early... so we are left with....?

New Vegas is perfectly fine to judge Sawyer with.

Yeah. And also this quote from Vault Dweller, then an administrator:

Come on, people, give Josh a fucking break. If you disagree with his designs, argue, but cut the personal attacks out.

OMG POLITICAL CORRECTNESS SPEECH CODES CODEX IS GOING DOWN THE TOILET

The glorious time when VD cared and eventually died a little inside. But the most disturbing part of that old thread was Volourn's grammar.

Ok, so all we have to judge him is New Vegas? Oh, we can't use that either, because they were forced to use shitty Bethesda game engine and to release it early... so we are left with....?

NWN II It was going to use the same 2nd edition that IWD used, but Sawyer talked Feargus into making it 3rd edition. He implemented that.

How much of a mess was NwN2 again? Having to reimplement the same system used on the past game...