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

[Sensuki]

I would be disappointed if the RPG Codex adventuring party wasn't the toughest fight of the game.

 

[Exar Kun]

Jestai, the whole point of these kickstarter RPGs is to please CRPG players, specifically carrying on the feel of the infinity engine. If they were trying to create a game that would appeal to everyone they would not be making this game. If you don't like it, fuck off and don't play it. God knows the market is flooded with RPG's more to your liking.

Its not that your ideas are necessarily bad. They are just not for this type of game. That's the whole point.

 

[uaciaut]

Not PE-related: George Ziets and Josh Sawyer talk about horror settings:

Spot on the WoD games, the only times i found myself legitimately scared in V:tM Bloodlines was during the Mansion mission (which had nothing to do with the WoD world in particular) and prolly a little spooked when i was going for the tzimisce for the first playthough, the game had much more appeal for its' politically - centered plot with all the conflict between the clans and factions and so forth. I don't really know much about Ravenloft lore but i really doubt you could pull a Cthulhu RPG, especially an isometric one.

 

[Aeschylus]

Not PE-related: George Ziets and Josh Sawyer talk about horror settings:

Good to know they both appreciate the awesomeness that was Ravenloft. Abandoning the setting was the greatest crime 3E committed.

 

[CappenVarra]

Well yes, a Delta Green cRPG would be lovely... Get to it Obsidian.

 

[Surf Solar]

Not PE-related: George Ziets and Josh Sawyer talk about horror settings:

That was a nice read, thanks. First time I hear about this Ravenloft setting, will look at the lore etc. a bit.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

???

Giggled when you were about to me about "my fantasy world".

English pls biodrone

got mixed up with your alts there, pal

 

[Volrath]

That was a nice read, thanks. First time I hear about this Ravenloft setting, will look at the lore etc. a bit.

 

[Jestai]

???

Giggled when you were about to me about "my fantasy world".

English pls biodrone

got mixed up with your alts there, pal

Can't edit the original post

 

[Surf Solar]

That was a nice read, thanks. First time I hear about this Ravenloft setting, will look at the lore etc. a bit.

 

[Infinitron]

So, apparently it was Obsidian's 10th birthday two days ago. Codex didn't notice. Should we feel bad?

We're 10 years old today!
June 12, 2013
Well look at that... it's June 12th, Obsidian's birthday, and we're the big 1-0. It seems like just yesterday we working in Feargus' attic, starting up Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II... We've put out quite a few games during that time, and we want to know what your favorite one is and why! Come by ourFacebook or Twitter and let us know!

 

[DraQ]

Well, I backtracked a bit.

You and me both.

Considering three examples of 'Adventure': A section of 'wilderness' (here meaning a large region where danger can't exactly be culled once and for all); A isolated Dungeon and a active 'Enemy Base'.

In the first and second, I'd expect that resting areas should be more abundant - the party isn't necessarily in a hurry and its not like the dangers of the 'wilderness' are actively trying to kill them. Though one might argue that you shouldn't rest in a dungeon at all (and I'd agree), I think its a good thing to remember that, for the purposes of gameplay, the Sawyerist Heresy would probably see the adventurer's retreat to the dungeon's entrance in order to rest and then continue forward at a later date, and simply just letting them sleep in designated areas as equal things. The 'simulationist' way would just be merely more 'tedious'.

Whereas when attacking a organized group, especially the Antagonist himself, I'd expect that you're supposed to take the place by storm. If so, then the area shouldn't necessarily be a endless dungeon - and rest should be a bit more limited.

These are just a few examples of how the game's design should be flexible so that the story makes sense.

That's an interesting idea, but "dungeon" here is a bit of synthetic construct - it could be anything between more or less isolated piece of underground wilderness with architecture or outright organized camp of opposing force.

I would generally group environments based on hostility and size/isolation.

Wilderness is generally open, so can be considered of infinite size. Respawns of some sort (not necessary the same enemies in same places respawning over and over) are a way of reflecting that. A dungeon, OTOH may be of varying size and isolation.

Hostility can come from different sources - persistent hazards (cold, flames, poisonous vapours) and conscious efforts to eradicate intruders (enemy base or any location, including dungeon, populated by sapients who are either hostile or to whom player is hostile).

Hostile areas should generally preclude resting or effectively make it non-option.

In limited/isolated hostile areas pasiveness is a big problem. If you're infiltrating dungeon full of kobolds, for instance, they shouldn't be sitting there and letting you pick them off - room by room.
Fortifying AI would be good, but pretty unrealistic to implement.
Fortifying scripts could work if they simply meant advancing dungeon or its parts through fortification states based on time, alert and population, but they would still be cumbersome to implement.
Active seek&destroy defensive groups forming and searching randomly might work, but that depends on AI and combat implementation - it would be good if such group could try to include diverse specializations and use them tactically - not just 3k10 kobolds with shortswords.

We accidentally Obsidian's whole birthday. Should we feel bad?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

I see someone has never played Wizardry. Or Might & Magic.

Yeah never played blobbers. I play TB games usually drunk. The FPP usually causes me to puke. So never played any blobbers. Another reason I don't like RTwP. Can't really play it drunk. though PE will ahjhave slow mo so lets see.

 

[serch]

I expect some 'plane tickets, bitch' from a Codexian party before escaping at full speed when confronted.​

 

[Roguey]

So, apparently it was Obsidian's 10th birthday two days ago. Codex didn't notice. Should we feel bad?

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

 

[Delterius]

would be good, but pretty unrealistic to implement.

Pretty much, I mean, the lines along which you're thinking are the ideal. But I'm never optimistic about how much of our uneducated suggestions (mine are, at least) can actually be implemented.

I was thinking about something a bit more simple. 'Resting areas' (whatever exactly they are) wouldn't be implemented in a realistic way - where you experience every single point of the narrative, such as actually leaving a dungeon in order to rest -, but they'd represent moments when either the party could take things a bit more slow or moments of the narrative where your characters are just meant to be at their peak.

Examples of the first I can think of, are the 'relatively-mundane Wilderness' ('mundane' meaning a journey through the countryside, not the Underdark); and Dungeons where the dangers are mostly static somehow, such as traps that you mentioned, but also unintelligent monsters and sentient sentinels placed (and trapped) in specific locations and rooms. The latter comes from a Sawyer quote from earlier, whatever encounters there can possibly be in a City will assume your party is well-rested (because not only they should, but there's no point otherwise).

But the really important thing to think about, I think, is that 'resting areas' should be used in specific ways as to favor the narrative.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

Hey, sometimes we have to pimp ourselves for survival. There is no shame in that.

 

[AN4RCHID]

So, apparently it was Obsidian's 10th birthday two days ago. Codex didn't notice. Should we feel bad?

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

 

[Blaine]

Hey, sometimes we have to pimp ourselves for survival. There is no shame in that.

Let's not stretch the usage of "they were just putting bread on the table" to include every game a developer's made that we don't like.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Let's not stretch the usage of "they were just putting bread on the table" to include every game a developer's made that we don't like.

IMO, they need those AAA contract work because they are what? 150+ employees? Hard to survive n KS/private investors alone. A more reasonable focused team of up to 40-50 persons would have a better chance of not having uhh obsidian's release history. I think that is why Feargus is way more moderate with with the pitch videos as compared to Brian.

those metric driven vids which Brian made, btw. Ensures lot of publisher I think Brian said he wants to keep team lean and compact, to make the games his team loves, implying that hopefully he won't resort to lol casuals in the future.

 

[Gurkog]

I put thousands of hours into Obsidian games (way more than any other developer's except Blizzard), but that doesn't mean I know anything about it or worship its employees. I just feed them money every time a game gets released.... except for Dungeon Siege 3 because that looked like pure console shit.

 

[861129]

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

Only the best RPG of this past decade.

 

[Declinator]

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

Only the best RPG of this past decade.

What are you talking about? Obsidian didn't make Knights of the Chalice.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

Only the best RPG of this past decade.

What are you talking about? Obsidian didn't make Knights of the Chalice.

MoTB.
KotC is a great game. but ultimately, its a DnD combat Simulator.

A couple of years ago, and it would have to be Arcanum for me.

 

[Roguey]

Considering what they've made this past decade, no.

Only the best RPG of this past decade.

I would have to agree that of all the games-marketed-as-RPGs released in the last ten years I liked New Vegas the best. It was building on Bethesda though.