Game News Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Dev Diary #7 - Story of the Worldwound

[Thonius]

Go woke(er) go broke? Uh... The rule is broken so far.
Anyhow, I think 3rd one is going to probably flop due to more wokism. Also, it's not a smooth release, their only hope is that they'll patch faster than people progress. Screencap it and print it!

If that was a wager I wouldn't make it. Wotr would need to experience a truely massive crash in popularity. Steam:

PoE1 all time peak 7 years ago: 41,906
PoE2 all time peak 3 years ago: 22,744

PF:KM all time peak 3 years ago: 22,643
PF:WotR all time peak this week: 44,000+

The 24 peak difference between PoE1/2 is +100 players (and under 1k, total). The 24 peak difference between PF:KM/PF:wotr is around 38,000+ players.

I think WotR's success is pretty much guaranteed at this point. My reasoning is that even if there is backlash against this game, which right now seems rather unlikely, it would probably be felt when Owlcat releases it's sequel, i.e. Pathfinder 3. That's what happened in PoE between the original game and Deadfire. The original game sold really well, has an 87% positive rating on steam and was incredibly well received by the games media. But despite all those positive signs, it's sequel, Deadfire, wasn't able to perform according to Obsidian's expectations. We still don't know why that happened, but one poster in this thread suggested it might be related to Sawyer's autism:

Pillars of Eternity 2 sold badly because the systems for the first one were over developed and un-fun. Josh Sawyer required the players to think and experiment a lot in order to never feel powerful or accomplished.

POE was released at the dark age of CRPG. We were playing Wastelands 2 for god's sake!

Sounds like it's a sequel that sold on the strength of the original and will drop in sales once people see how bad the sequel is.

It's not really bad, it's just Devs made lots of promises on greatly improving it ( no bugs ) but they just slightly improved it (less bugs). Also, the module is wokish.

 

[Black_Willow]

Sounds like it's a sequel that sold on the strength of the original and will drop in sales once people see how bad the sequel is.

I think it's the opposite. Owlcat has found it's audience, which should be a mixture of furries, trannys and critical role fans. It turns out that most of the Codex are not part of this rainbow coalition.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/forums/general-rpg-discussion.4/?order=reply_count

Idk, the Wrath of the Righteous threads are some of the most popular threads in the history of RPG Codex.

It's more likely this entire internet forum is nothing but latent (slavic) homosexuals, projecting nonstop.

CYKA BLYAT

 

[Drowed]

Go woke(er) go broke?.

The thing about this "go woke go broke" rule is that it manifests itself in the changing priorities of the product rather than the accessories that permeate the work.

Firstly, Pathfinder was already "woke" from the beginning: trannys, gays or whatever, take your poison, it was there from the tabletop books. What makes most fans like Pathfinder is basically the fact that it is simply D&D 3.75. That's just it. Apart from BG3, there are practically no other (famous) games released with these mechanics in the last years, but there was a huge growth in the number of virtual tabletop RPG players thanks to the bug and the numerous game podcats that became popular on the internet. Basically you have a huge audience wanting to play D&D and its derivatives, but few companies willing to release games based on it.

And getting back to the "woke" issue, as said before, Pathfinder has always had its share of token characters. So it doesn't feel the need to do like other series that feel compelled to essentially take out all white men as protagonist characters (like having a He-Man show where you literally barely see He-Man). Pathfinder's characters are largely just superfluous appearances that circle around you and much of the time can be ignored without any mental effort. You just create your character, play D&D and kill some shit. They had the sense not to overload the player's patience with irrelevant themes, probably because the plot/campaign is based on something that already exists so it's not like they need to put much effort into creating a new story.

 

[Puukko]

Essentially this game is a safe space for queers to LARP in without fear of getting thrown off rooftops. It has nothing to do with D&D.

... But isn't that what modern DND is?

 

[Dycedarg]

Woke shit aside, it's amazing how the traditional games media has largely ignored this game. While PoE 2 had 71 critical reviews on Metacritic, WotR has only 16 at this point. I guess it's to be expected, since journos from California are much more likely to cover a local game, no matter how shitty and irrelevant, than to cover a more relevant title made in Russia.

 

[Fedora Master]

A quarter million copies, but only a tiny fraction of the people who bought it will ever finish it. That's how you get the glowing reviews on Steam, too.

 

[Roguey]

Woke shit aside, it's amazing how the traditional games media has largely ignored this game. While PoE 2 had 71 critical reviews on Metacritic, WotR has only 16 at this point. I guess it's to be expected, since journos from California are much more likely to cover a local game, no matter how shitty and irrelevant, than to cover a more relevant title made in Russia.

Kingmaker ended up getting over 30 on metacritic. Only one in its actual month of release (a few days later), and then a little over 20 over the next month. It's long, it's going to take them a while.

 

[Dycedarg]

Kingmaker ended up getting over 30 on metacritic. Only one in its actual month of release (a few days later), and then a little over 20 over the next month. It's long, it's going to take them a while.

I'm really interested to see how this goes. In my view, Obsidian and Inxile always get good coverage for their games, even if the resulting sales end up being mediocre. Pathfinder otoh has actually broken into the mainstream, or at least as much of the mainstream as a CRPG could get nowadays.

 

[cvv]

Honestly given the buzz and the Pathfinder fanbase I expected twice as much at least.

 

[Daidre]

Kingmaker ended up getting over 30 on metacritic. Only one in its actual month of release (a few days later), and then a little over 20 over the next month. It's long, it's going to take them a while.

I'm really interested to see how this goes. In my view, Obsidian and Inxile always get good coverage for their games, even if the resulting sales end up being mediocre. Pathfinder otoh has actually broken into the mainstream, or at least as much of the mainstream as a CRPG could get nowadays.

I always found Inxile numbers for player's activity pretty baffling for the amount of attention they get in western media.
For example their Steam stats for Wasteland 3 are not pretty (and Codex thread is barely moving):

Spoiler

Of course, game was in Gamepass and on consoles too but it still appalling results for the biggest PC's shop.
Comparing to Kingmaker first year numbers, game so buggy that you literally could not get to finale for a 2-3 months after release.

Spoiler

 

[Bohrain]

A quarter million copies, but only a tiny fraction of the people who bought it will ever finish it. That's how you get the glowing reviews on Steam, too.

I mean that's the standard. Isn't the average completion rate for a steam game something like 15%?

 

[Crescent Hawk]

Yeah I dont get it, have you guys ever read something from Golarion? Its a fucking ridiculous setting, perfect for critical faggots types. It honestly makes Eora look kinda nice.

 

[Jaedar]

Not surprising this doesn't have many reviews yet. It's a really long game.

Honestly I think its more the fact you can't tell them to fuck off. Making them advisors and central to the story really makes the SJW background stuff way more aggravating than it otherwise would be. It's like if the whole Octavia/Regongar love triangle/cuckery thing was an obligatory main quest in Kingmaker.

Yeah. Especially annoying since the ork has one major fuckup to her name which really ought to be grounds for immediate execution or at least court martialing*, but the worst you can do is slap her (at the cost of a massive morale penalty) or throw her in the drunktank for an evening. Still, I suppose it fits with the games characterization of the crusaders as utterly incompetent.

*Right on the eve of a big siege action she breaks down in the command tent and starts shouting about how they are all doomed and they should cancel the whole army and flee. It's laughable how you can't replace her, especially since there's multiple decent candidates within throwing distance.

 

[smaug]

Not surprising this doesn't have many reviews yet. It's a really long game.

Honestly I think its more the fact you can't tell them to fuck off. Making them advisors and central to the story really makes the SJW background stuff way more aggravating than it otherwise would be. It's like if the whole Octavia/Regongar love triangle/cuckery thing was an obligatory main quest in Kingmaker.

Yeah. Especially annoying since the ork has one major fuckup to her name which really ought to be grounds for immediate execution or at least court martialing*, but the worst you can do is slap her (at the cost of a massive morale penalty) or throw her in the drunktank for an evening. Still, I suppose it fits with the games characterization of the crusaders as utterly incompetent.

*Right on the eve of a big siege action she breaks down in the command tent and starts shouting about how they are all doomed and they should cancel the whole army and flee. It's laughable how you can't replace her, especially since there's multiple decent candidates within throwing distance.

Lol, I just let Regill decide all my military endeavors.. Would make him crusader leader if I could. Surprised you can’t get rid of Irabeth for a long while it seems.

 

[Zeriel]

Not surprising this doesn't have many reviews yet. It's a really long game.

Honestly I think its more the fact you can't tell them to fuck off. Making them advisors and central to the story really makes the SJW background stuff way more aggravating than it otherwise would be. It's like if the whole Octavia/Regongar love triangle/cuckery thing was an obligatory main quest in Kingmaker.

Yeah. Especially annoying since the ork has one major fuckup to her name which really ought to be grounds for immediate execution or at least court martialing*, but the worst you can do is slap her (at the cost of a massive morale penalty) or throw her in the drunktank for an evening. Still, I suppose it fits with the games characterization of the crusaders as utterly incompetent.

*Right on the eve of a big siege action she breaks down in the command tent and starts shouting about how they are all doomed and they should cancel the whole army and flee. It's laughable how you can't replace her, especially since there's multiple decent candidates within throwing distance.

She even ASKS you to EXECUTE her, and the only "negative" option is to say, "Shucks you're right you're a traitor who should be killed, but I can't do that because REASONS."

It's that sort of blatant protection around a character that grates with people.

 

[luj1]

No one gives a shit how much this game sold except Infinitron the shill lord.

People care if it's good or not. And it's like a mishmash of things that work and things that do not, but most of them don't.

 

[Dycedarg]

No one gives a shit how much this game sold except Infinitron the shill lord.

People care if it's good or not. And it's like a mishmash of things that work and things that do not, but most of them don't.

Disagree. Many people, myself included, do care about sales numbers. A game selling well is an incentive for other developers to try to imitate it. On the other hand, when a game crashes and burns, it might spell the end of a company and stop others from trying something similar.

From what we're seeing, WotR is going to be a very successful game and will probably have some influence in the crpg market. Whether this is good or bad depends on how you feel about it.

 

[Fenix]

Yeah I could said that, in my opinion, it's first cRPG on my memory, that is SJW as fuck and with all that is a quality work being done.
Sadly.

 

[gurugeorge]

No one gives a shit how much this game sold except Infinitron the shill lord.

People care if it's good or not. And it's like a mishmash of things that work and things that do not, but most of them don't.

Disagree. Many people, myself included, do care about sales numbers. A game selling well is an incentive for other developers to try to imitate it. On the other hand, when a game crashes and burns, it might spell the end of a company and stop others from trying something similar.

From what we're seeing, WotR is going to be a very successful game and will probably have some influence in the crpg market. Whether this is good or bad depends on how you feel about it.

I said a while back, it depends on whether observers get the wrong end of the stick or not - if they think it's big because of the faggotry then that's bad, if they think it's big because it's an uncompromisingly nerdy CRPG gameplay-wise, and it shows that there's a good market for uncompromisingly nerdy CRPGs and punters don't want everything dumbed down, then that's good.

 

[Zeriel]

No one gives a shit how much this game sold except Infinitron the shill lord.

People care if it's good or not. And it's like a mishmash of things that work and things that do not, but most of them don't.

Disagree. Many people, myself included, do care about sales numbers. A game selling well is an incentive for other developers to try to imitate it. On the other hand, when a game crashes and burns, it might spell the end of a company and stop others from trying something similar.

From what we're seeing, WotR is going to be a very successful game and will probably have some influence in the crpg market. Whether this is good or bad depends on how you feel about it.

I said a while back, it depends on whether observers get the wrong end of the stick or not - if they think it's big because of the faggotry then that's bad, if they think it's big because it's an uncompromisingly nerdy CRPG gameplay-wise, and it shows that there's a good market for uncompromisingly nerdy CRPGs and punters don't want everything dumbed down, then that's good.

Problem is corporations have a history of willingly getting that analysis wrong. Remember when they told us "RPGs don't sell" after pumping out bad Diablo clones in the early 00's? It's that sort of self-serving analysis you should expect. Corporations and especially marketing departments are staffed with new hires who are convinced that what the kids love is wokeness, so if a grognard game riddled with wokeness succeeds, then they're gonna say it succeeded because of wokeness.

 

[Dycedarg]

Yeah I could said that, in my opinion, it's first cRPG on my memory, that is SJW as fuck and with all that is a quality work being done.
Sadly.

I refunded this game when I saw the amount of woke shit they hammered in it, so I can't say for sure one way or the other. But this would explain the reaction I saw in it's release thread.

I said a while back, it depends on whether observers get the wrong end of the stick or not - if they think it's big because of the faggotry then that's bad, if they think it's big because it's an uncompromisingly nerdy CRPG gameplay-wise, and it shows that there's a good market for uncompromisingly nerdy CRPGs and punters don't want everything dumbed down, then that's good.

There are many elements that could help explain this game's success, not just those two. Fantasy scenario, the ruleset being based on D&D 3.5, the competent art design and the epic level adventure are some that come to mind. But when it comes to copying a product, people tend to focus on things that are easy to replicate. Unfortunately for us, wokeness and fantasy are extremely easy to do. An intricate combat system based on D&D 3.5 with great character customization? Not so much.