Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Hormalakh]

He sounds like a philosopher

Seriously though, Tim Cain was who came to mind immediately when he said Fallout. I am beginning to understand why Josh is so dispassionate about this stuff. He is concerned about his mental health and his outlook on life is that at the end of the day this is 9-5 job.

At the same time, it's also why the good old games of the past will continue to be rare. Artists who become somebody in any type of media rarely concern themselves with wealth and health when they start. They are passionate about the art they want to create and are willing to live through some shit. That was where a lot of the old-school game mentality came from. People living in their basements, coding. When they became rich, it was just because they were famous. Second generation "artisans" instead care less about the creativity and passion that went into the game, but more about the lifestyle that comes from it.

Roguey thanks for sharing that information. But it really changes how I view Sawyer's influence on the game. It saddens me that nostalgia and promises of an old-school game were made and that I ate it up. I truly hope that others on the team are more passionate about the game and are able to steer the game away from Josh's dispassionate stances. At the very least, plenty of fans are giving Josh et al an earful. Otherwise, such a game, while "good for what it is" will be quickly forgotten.

Who needs a publisher thinking about the money and final product and couldn't give a shit about the project when you've got a lead who does the same thing?

Serpent in the Staglands is probably more likely to be an "old-school classic" than Pillars. I'm not saying Pillars can't do it - but it'll be harder and with much more fan/mod support.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm talking about Pillars as a GAME and not as an interactive story. Josh's main contributions to this game are in the GAME department. The story and art are less directly influenced by him. There are obviously much more passionate artists in those fields.

 

[Sensuki]

so have they given up or what
http://poedevtracker.net/
no post in 20 days

Go to the top right and open the preferences cog and tick display posts from the bug forums.

Serpent in the Staglands is probably more likely to be an "old-school classic" than Pillars. I'm not saying Pillars can't do it - but it'll be harder and with much more fan/mod support.

QFT. I kinda feel bad I didn't spend a lot of my time helping them instead. The moment I opened their game I was just like ... yesssss - it's just oozing with atmosphere.

 

[imweasel]

I'm surprised to read that Sawyer isn't passionate about game design at all. Passion and devotion should be a prerequisite, especially if you are lead game designer.

If I was doing job interviews about a game designing position and an interviewee said "I want to be a game designer because it puts a roof over mah head and food on dah table", then I would show him the door.

 

[Hormalakh]

I do want to also go on record to say that if Josh reads this,

"Josh, you're wrong in that what you are making *does not belong to you*. It does belong to you and it does define you. Just like Michelangelo (I use him as an example strictly because he is an artist, not because I think both of your works are comparable) was paid to create "The Last Judgement" in the Sistine chapel, it did not physically belong to him. But people throughout the world know that he was the one who created it. People recognize him as the artist that put it together and while no money continues to go directly to him, he is recognized for his contributions.

Similarly, your colleagues like MCA and Tim Cain, while neither of them own either Planescape nor Fallout, are recognized for their contributions - as well as the rest of their teams. Even to this day (there is a new thread on this very website about Fallout, started January 5th) people are introduced to their works and recognize them for what they are - masterpieces in video gaming. Yes, Tim Cain lost his IP to Interplay and thereafter, it was sold and it has since become a hollow shadow of itself, but players like those here at the Codex still recognize the primary games and respect the work that went into them. We continue to argue that Fallout 3 and FONV are but shallow mimics of the classics. Those classics will always remain in a class of their own regardless of how much they sold and how poorly they did compared to other games.

There are plenty of reasons to be passionate about the contributions one makes into projects that may one day be considered works of art. It is passion like that which made games like Fallout and Planescape possible. It is passion that makes people on these forums remember developers like Tim Cain and MCA fondly. It is passion that makes anything worth doing doing."

 

[Sensuki]

I'm 100% sure that if Josh got to make a turn-based historical game he'd be super super passionate about it.

 

[Hormalakh]

I'm surprised to read that Sawyer isn't passionate about game design at all. Passion and devotion should be a prerequisite, especially if you are lead game designer.

If I was doing job interviews about a game designing position and an interviewee said "I want to be a game designer because it puts a roof over mah head and food on dah table", then I would show him the door.

Don't confuse the two - he's passionate about games and game design. He's just not passionate about making games like PoE. If he wanted to make his own game, he'd make it a historical-fantasy turn-based game using ars magica or something like that with darklands.

also before anyone says that he's dispassionate because he has no creative license, i would argue tht he does. he's made significant changes to the IE model to the chagrin of many. When it came to game design, he could have used a variety of solutions for the game and simply said exactly what he's always been saying "this is only meant to be a spiritual successor."

inb4 the game suddenly flops and the reason changes from "it's publisher's fault" to "well I didn't have creative license."

 

[Infinitron]

There are good things about being dispassionate. You know who else is passionate? The SJWs. Passionate people can be so passionate that they lose sight of their audience and pursue fantasies nobody is interested in.

(inb4 Josh is doing that)

 

[Hormalakh]

that's not what his reasoning is though, for being dispassionate. he doesn't say anything about "well i don't want to be a crazy psychopath." what he talks about is money, creative identity, and free license.

 

[Sensuki]

There's no doubt that the game is going to have gameplay problems like Wasteland 2 and Divinity: Original Sin did. Both of those studios have committed to fixing the issues with their games in patches. I wonder will Obsidian do the same? To be honest, I don't think they will, at least not to the same extent anyway.

 

[Kem0sabe]

pursue fantasies nobody is interested in.

Isn't that what Josh is doing with all his nonsensical rules in PoE

 

[Infinitron]

Isn't that what Josh is doing with all his nonsensical rules in PoE

Haha, I thought saying "inb4" would prevent people from actually saying it.

I was thinking more in the direction of "OK, fuck it, I'm tired of this genre, LET'S TAKE THIS FRANCHISE IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION". Think Richard Garriott

 

[Hormalakh]

if he really wanted to be dispassionate, he would have just copy/pasted the whole IE system verbatim and changed the names of the D&D stuff.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Not that I dislike what they are doing with PoE, the small snippet we have had of the dialogue, characters, quests and art all point to it being an enjoyable rpg despite the combat and rules.

But the game does loose some charm with this by the numbers approach, when compared to some more personality drive projects

 

[Hormalakh]

Not that I dislike what they are doing with PoE, the small snippet we have had of the dialogue, characters, quests and art all point to it being an enjoyable rpg despite the combat and rules.

But the game does loose some charm with this by the numbers approach, when compared to some more personality drive projects

IT does seem like Josh Sawyer would have been a better "producer" and someone else (Tim Cain/Adam Brennecke) would have been a better lead designer. Though I dunno if Tim Cain would have been ready for another heartache like what happened with Fallout.

 

[Infinitron]

if he really wanted to be dispassionate, he would have just copy/pasted the whole IE system verbatim and changed the names of the D&D stuff.

I think you might be confusing "dispassionate" with "lazy".

If you think that AD&D-style rules are fundamentally archaic and simply don't belong in any modern game, then you're gonna do your job and replace them. That's not passion, it's doing your job.

 

[Hormalakh]

No, no, I speak English - no confusion here. I'll even write everything grammatically correctly so you can be sure. He is crying "No free license! This isn't my game!" as his reasoning behind his work ethic. If that was true, then he shouldn't have had any choice in the matter and he would have just made AD&D-without-the-names or 4e/5e-without-the-names. This is a veritable potpourri of a variety of different things. He goes off-script when it doesn't fit his gaming sensibilities and comes back when he's fine with it. That means that he can change things as he wishes.

If he's saying that the higher-ups aren't giving him free reign, then why can he adjust the difficulty however he wishes? I've seen him speak several times where he practically said he had to fight off Feargus from getting into design. So it's not like his bosses are running the show.

He is following his principles of game design. He is forbidding certain designs and artwork because those are things he believes in (the JESJW theory). These are creative decisions that he is making.

 

[Sensuki]

Just FTR, I believe those quotes that Roguey pulled were more about Fallout New Vegas than PE and probably before the Kickstarter began. That probably doesn't mean much, but anyway.

 

[Sensuki]

Kaz posts on the forums for the first time in a long time, in reply to my inventory tooltips thread

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69...record-panel-tooltip-suggestion/#entry1555902

Hey there,

I think these are good ideas, and I've had a similar thought for displaying a stat break down in a tool tip. The sad bit is that it will take significant work on the programmers' part to make it happen. It's very possible that it will show up in a post-release patch at some point, but as it stands the programmers have far more important tasks on their plate right now.

As for concentration and interrupt scores, I do have a task already to squeeze it in somewhere, so that should be coming soon. As a quick note, the mock up you have does not account for a weapon in the off-hand under damage and cases where you have more than 4 types of damage reduction values. (I believe I have to account for a total of 7 potential stats there) I'll figure something out, thanks for the ideas!

Hehe - submitting shit in the bug forums actually works.

At least names for the icons will be in the next build

I am not sure if this is true in 392, but we do offer tooltips for these icons in the current build.

 

[Hormalakh]

lol.... good to hear - poor Kaz. doing everything by himself. I really want them to hire another freaking programmer next time.

 

[Sensuki]

He has a helper now - Lindsey Laney. They have quite a few programmers working on the game atm. But that knowledge is static, we aren't sure if people move on/off the project.

 

[Shevek]

I dont get all this Sawyer hate. What because of minor rules disagreements? Lol. You want MCA leading this? Hes a writer and world builder but I dunno about his grasp on mechanics (see his playthrough of Arcanum). Cain has a good grasp of mechanics but not the story stuff (hes always creditted as a programmer I think; not a lead). Honestly, Sawyer is the best man for the job at OE and hes been doing a pretty great job.

 

[uaciaut]

I dont get all this Sawyer hate. What because of minor rules disagreements? Lol. You want MCA leading this? Hes a writer and world builder but I dunno about his grasp on mechanics (see his playthrough of Arcanum). Cain has a good grasp of mechanics but not the story stuff (hes always creditted as a programmer I think; not a lead). Honestly, Sawyer is the best man for the job at OE and hes been doing a pretty great job.

Sawyer has his obsessions on some stuff but he's probably one of the best people in the industry available for this kind of project, regardless of how often many people whine about their vision of what they want PoE to be.

 

[Grotesque]

Josh Sawyer, the artist that went from this



to this:





the horror....

 

[Shevek]

Everyone has their obsessions on stuff, though. I wouldnt want someone as lead who didnt have something they were obsessed over that they really were passionate about expressing in a game. Sawyer is big on history (cultures, practical armor, etc) and balance. Well, good. I may not agree with every single design decision (wizards, recent armor changes, etc) but at least these decisions are coming from a good place and from someone who is passionately implementing them to make what they believe would be a great game.

 

[imweasel]

Sawyer has his obsessions on some stuff but he's probably one of the best people in the industry available for this kind of project, regardless of how often many people whine about their vision of what they want PoE to be.

Asking for PoE to not be shit really isn't asking very much.