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

[Jasede]

first...
person...

 

[grotsnik]

I say we all pretend to be donating for the next month, right up until the moment the money's taken out of Spectacle's account.

Anyway, to hurriedly backtrack on my previous suggestion, this isn't as wacky a game concept as W2, so we probably should use kid gloves when it comes to off-puttingly over-explicit memes/in-jokes. A simple, funny/inventive encounter with a nod to the site > trying to persuade Josh Sawyer to include a group of bandits with unique animations to represent them shitting on each other's chests. IMO.

 

[Grunker]

I understand what you're saying and I agree, although I don't like fantasy because, unlike science fiction, the author can start from absurd premises and, when you start from absurd hypotheses there is not way to reach any non-absurd conclusions. Fantasy is not the right medium for serious discourse about such topics because the author can handwave anything because, after all, "it's fantasy".

That's just the difference between good fantasy and bad fantasy. And unlike what Draco's delusions entail, there's no reason internal coherence in the fiction has to be the same as reality's historical coherence with the middle ages.

I'm not calling for political correctness or a race of lesbian, blue elves. I'm just saying a writer shouldn't impart any kind of restrictions on himself when exploring the construction of a fictional culture. In other words, MCA et al shouldn't cater to rainbow liberals like me, conservatards like draco, or just plain retards like the romance-fans on the Obsidian forums. He should explore whatever themes and culture traits he feel would be interesting.

To throw even more cool-kreds out the window, I edited a book on a larp recently which was almost entirely about constructing two fictional cultures, and as far as we could tell from the analysis of that, they succeeded in handling gender traits pretty fucking well without taking political correctness into account: http://clausraasted.dk/thewhitewar/thewhitewar.pdf

Anyway, it's not that complicated really: the short of it is I am kind of scared these story-focused Kickstarter projects will end up with a huge mess because however the writer's handle things, one of the crowds (me, Draco, the biotards, whoever) will shout "TRAVESTY!" if their writing seems to not conform to our wishes/political positions.

After all, these guys are the professionals, we're just angry cunts. Wasn't it Yahtzee who once said that fans are whiny, frustrated cocks who should have as little influence over the creative process as possible?

 

[Grunker]

OK, Grimlorn said it better than me:

I don't mind some gay characters but if those assholes had their way. Half the characters would be LGBT, your party would all be BI so everyone could romance each other, and you'd have to sit through cutscenes of gay guys crying about their dead bf. It would be terrible.

Obsidian shouldn't even need to be petitioned. They've done it before, they'll do it again. Just these people from Bioware have an inflated sense of worth and entitlement. They think every little opinion they have is as valid as the next guy's.

Bioware's way of handling gays and women hurts them way more than it helps them anyway.

Fuck man, Bioware Social Network is the source of the scum of this earth. It shakes my beliefs in The Great Rainbow (tm) way more that they are shared by a lot of the retards at BSN than any look through Stromfront Codex ever could...

 

[Infinitron]

Actually the reference to DPS makes me think that guy is definitely trolling

 

[J_C]

I have claimed one of the 5000$ tiers, so now we just need DarkUnderlord to start the fundraiser.

You rich son of a ....

Great job BRO!

Second, we really need that fundraiser now. This is a VERY good reward for the 5k tier. A Codex adventurer party with 6 retards Codexers. If we collected 5K for a shitty statue in W2, surely we can do the same for this awesome cause.

oldmanpaco According to Josh, he will talk about mechanics in his next update.

 

[Grimlorn]

If they're building their own system and the codex develops their fighting force, wouldn't you have to have a pretty strong grasp of that system, how it works and how to make a challenging party? You'd need to know a lot about the game wouldn't you?

 

[Infinitron]

If they're building their own system and the codex develops their fighting force, wouldn't you have to have a pretty strong grasp of that system, how it works and how to make a challenging party? You'd need to know a lot about the game wouldn't you?

Eh, we'll just create a D&D party. They can convert it to whatever system they'll use.

 

[Surf Solar]

I want to be a bard

 

[a bear named spigot]

because its first person you can actually SEE the fear in the orcs eyes as hes about to be shot by my arrow and realises that ill then move on and kill his family

This is what has been missing all this time.

 

[MaskedMan]

Blobert is the bard. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shoutGreater.htm

 

[J_C]

If they're building their own system and the codex develops their fighting force, wouldn't you have to have a pretty strong grasp of that system, how it works and how to make a challenging party? You'd need to know a lot about the game wouldn't you?

I think we could only choose the characters name, gender, class and description. The skills and attributes would be decided by Obsidian, who know the system.

 

[Grimlorn]

If they're building their own system and the codex develops their fighting force, wouldn't you have to have a pretty strong grasp of that system, how it works and how to make a challenging party? You'd need to know a lot about the game wouldn't you?

Eh, we'll just create a D&D party. They can convert it to whatever system they'll use.

Whatever it is, I hope it's tough enough to cause extreme butthurt to all the retards who play the game.

If they're building their own system and the codex develops their fighting force, wouldn't you have to have a pretty strong grasp of that system, how it works and how to make a challenging party? You'd need to know a lot about the game wouldn't you?

I think we could only choose the characters name, gender, class and description. The skills and attributes would be decided by Obsidian, who know the system.

I guess that makes more sense, but it would be cool to add resistances/immunities and make it a challenging experience for people who come across it. Also would be nice to see some banter about the decline from them before combat starts.

 

[J_C]

Also:

We will send you six PROJECT ETERNITY NPC character sheets for you to fill out for our design team. We will turn your personalized party design into a lethal wrecking crew to oppose the player in the shipped game (within reason of course).

 

[Syl]

So, Warriors of Diversity it is.

A group of 6 individuals lead by the infamous DarkUnderlord.

Jaesun - Class : Gay. Well, he's a thief. How else would he be able to attack you from behind ?

Taluntain - Some sort of engineer. He has plenty of weapons, mostly one shot, which jam more often than not.

Prosper - An entropic mage. He mumbles incoherent words and unleash random waves of magic. He definitly has a fragmented soul.

Cleve - A 7-foot tall fighter. He fights with his bare hands and can kill you with one blow, if he chooses so.

Crooked Bee - A druidess. She can shapeshift into a giant bee and all kinds of furry.

DarkUnderlord - During the whole battle, he sits on his throne, looking bored. When you attack him, he takes the blows without even blinking.

Should you be defeated, he stands up and approach to give you the final blow. Last words you hear : "I send you to 'The Watch'!".

 

[Jasede]

Hopefully they can be counted on to make the encounter/NPC somewhat in line with the description provided.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

There should be a white knight in the group!

 

[skuphundaku]

That's just the difference between good fantasy and bad fantasy. And unlike what Draco's delusions entail, there's no reason internal coherence in the fiction has to be the same as reality's historical coherence with the middle ages.

In my opinion, internal coherence alone is not enough. As I was saying before, that's the reason I prefer science fiction to fantasy. Sci-fi can have internal coherence (usually, the harder the sci-fi, the better) and coherence with the real world so that the starting premise makes sense. Fantasy can have internal coherence, but it can start from any premise and dismiss any criticism by appealing to artistic license. That, for me, is a massive dealbreaker. Take the example of PE: they want to create a mature and interesting story that explore mature themes, but start from patently fantastic concepts such as souls, gods and, worst of all, gods that interact directly with people/people's souls. Personally, I can't take any of their supposedly mature discourse seriously when you start from pure fantasy. For one, you can't debate real-life ethics realistically in a setting in which reincarnation is a scientific fact. Murder, for example, would be a much less serious crime - it would rate on the same level with property crime. Sacrificing your life would be much less of a sacrifice etc. If you've ever been around a compiler, then you must have heard the phrase "Garbage in, garbage out". Well, that's what this is.

 

[Oesophagus]

I hope they don't implement any popamole level scaling, as in enemies stats scale. I can go with the way BG2 did it, with the number and type of enemies changing

 

[Semper]

If they're building their own system and the codex develops their fighting force, wouldn't you have to have a pretty strong grasp of that system, how it works and how to make a challenging party? You'd need to know a lot about the game wouldn't you?

Eh, we'll just create a D&D party. They can convert it to whatever system they'll use.

they'll send you character sheets. dunno how much insight you have to have to create a challenging gang but i think that they'll alter them to make them more difficult if you ask.
btw i would throw in 100 bucks.

 

[Azalin]

Hopefully they can be counted on to make the encounter/NPC somewhat in line with the description provided.

I propose the Codex team to be a special/secret encounter for high lever characters like the Twisted Rune battle in BG2.Hell we could cpy it and have the heroes find an unintelligible/unreadable book called The Codex that can teleport you to Cleve's Bunker like the rogue stone in BG2 where you fight the Codex Diversity Team

 

[Commissar Draco]

Will a Fixed viewpoint be damaging to the immersion?
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60...aging-to-the-immersion-also-amount-of-combat/

I am excited hearing about obsidian making a new game but please dont be fixated on a fixed viewpoint like isometric, theres been a general advancement , a evolution if you will in gaming to more of ,a modern approach with 1st person views or at least having a camera were you can pan to truly admire the clothing and accesories and tattoos of your character (the character that YOU spend time making) if you do implement a camera which you can rotate please make it better than fallout new vegas which though was a good idea but looked..awkward. ,. and viewpoint is paramount to immersive experience, i want to feel like im actually IN the world , so viewpoint and then atmosphere, then story , then continuity etc

But a 1st person viewpoint like new vegas would be brilliant in a fantasy setting, let me set the scene:

My character has a tomahawk in one hand and a bola in the other (for example sake i understand there will be firearms in the game, probably rifle or primitive machine gun maybe an explosive or magic imbued firearm)I kick down the front door of a house spliters fly everywhere - details like this will help with immersion - the music then starts to pipe up in volume - maybe a orchestral style music piece to really fit the scene as my character goes into battle.

The tomahawk is thrown blindly (the shards are still splintering the air obscuring the view) and misses, the bola is thrown at an orcs legs and he falls over .
my character then pulls out a bow and notches an arrow
because its first person you can actually SEE the fear in the orcs eyes as hes about to be shot by my arrow and realises that ill then move on and kill his family (orcs=evil creatures) and get my reward from the quest giver.

now that deals with the superior viewpoint and thats just one example, imagine all the combat in the game it should be like Neverwinter nights 2 were you kill countless creatures and you can really get an impression for the overwhelming strength and power of your characters as they just cut everything to pieces in each and every battle almost without effort- but this time up close and personal.

Now i hope that looting is more of a streamlined process perhaps like dungeon siege (if i recall correctly that is) were you can automatically collect up all the gold pieces and then you can choose to pick up the nicer stuff like swords which SHOULD display DPS since the MMO style item properties IS a evolution in gameplay. (as picked up on by Obsidians prior Fallout New Vegas) and more immersive than having a description for the item then a +1 +2 etc which actually fell out of favour anyway.

So HUGE kudos to Obsidian, good luck with the game - i am indeed a backer but dont be afraid to change gameplay or camera angels which may hamper the immersive aspect of the game.

:declining:

What is worse and why? Him being Retard or Trolling? Now I wish Beth and Bio 100 hundred (miserable) years so the derp and herp contained there won't contaminate us.

 

[Digital Monocle]

So, Warriors of Diversity it is.

A group of 6 individuals lead by the infamous DarkUnderlord.

Jaesun - Class : Gay. Well, he's a thief. How else would he be able to attack you from behind ?

Taluntain - Some sort of engineer. He has plenty of weapons, mostly one shot, which jam more often than not.

Prosper - An entropic mage. He mumbles incoherent words and unleash random waves of magic. He definitly has a fragmented soul.

Cleve - A 7-foot tall fighter. He fights with his bare hands and can kill you with one blow, if he chooses so.

Crooked Bee - A druidess. She can shapeshift into a giant bee and all kinds of furry.

DarkUnderlord - During the whole battle, he sits on his throne, looking bored. When you attack him, he takes the blows without even blinking.

Should you be defeated, he stands up and approach to give you the final blow. Last words you hear : "I send you to 'The Watch'!".

What no Skyway or Liberal? I am disappoint

 

[skuphundaku]

There should be a white knight in the group!

That would be Wyrmlord, despite his brownish avatar he is currently inhabiting.

 

[evdk]

Way-of-the-sky, Shaman of Rage?