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

[fobia]

Marketing this to Twitch viewers is such a gross misunderstanding and misidentification of their audience I don't have words.

Why? I think from a marketing perspective it's really smart. Don't see the error here.

 

[Lacrymas]

Because it's not a Twitch-style game? Obviously. It's not like it hasn't been tried before and failed spectacularly (look at Numanuma). Unless they've made it into a Twitch-style game. In which case, bye, Obsidian, I can't say it's been very fun lately, but eh.

 

[Infinitron]

This isn't new, for the first game they did a stream with Jesse Cox: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=9683

One of my first experiences with Twitchfolk.

 

[Otterz]

So this pretty much confirms Sawyer as Eothas's writer. As much as I appreciate his work as system/game designer, I cannot say I'm enthusiastic to see him type out narratives. If his work with Arcade Gannon and Pallegina is to take in consideration, I fear the game's main (?) antagonist (??) might turn out to be quite insipid indeed.

 

[Ruzen]

But what if Pillars 2 had twitch integration. A voting system in chat to decide responses you take. Wouldn't that will be cool?

Spoiler

 

[Krzysiek]

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/96795-critical-role-obsidian-announce-partnership-for-deadfire/

Greetings fellow Watchers and Critters!

If you missed out on the announcement for the partnership between Critical Role and Obsidian, you can read all about it here:

http://eternity.obsi...ity-ii-deadfire

Pre-Order the game now!

http://versusevil.co...i-deadfire_c-r/

We've also been getting a ton of questions from you all, so we've prepared a small FAQ!

• When will the Vox Machina voice sets be released?
  • On May 8th, when Deadfire launches!
• How do I obtain the Vox Machina voice set DLC?
  • It's free! You just need to own the game.
• Are the voice sets edition specific? (Standard, Deluxe, Obsidian Edition)
  • All editions will include the free Vox Machina voice sets!
• I am a Fig backer, will I get voice sets?
  • Yes!
• Will the DLC be available for the console version of the game?
  • Yes! The DLC will be free with the PS4, XBOX, and Switch versions of the game.
• Is there a difference if I pre-order the game from the Versus Evil website, GOG, or Steam?
  • There is no difference, each platform will grant you the same rewards, including the pre-order items.

If there are any more questions, please feel free to ask away in the comments and we'll update the FAQ accordingly!

 

[Luckmann]

He's your boss not your mother.

No. The relationship with the caravan leader is never explored. You're a part of the caravan, but you could've paid to be in the caravan, or you could've just been traveling with them in the same direction, or you could've been hired as a caravan servant. None of this is explored, but I never got the vibe that he was my boss.

 

[Urthor]

Twitch audience is a big audience, as long as this game is put in front of a *lot* of nerdy eyeballs 10% will probably actually make the purchase. Marketing isn't about finding the right target audience when you are a small business, it's about finding *an* audience and getting your product out there on the cheap, which Twitch is 100% perfectly suited for, as it has one of the lowest cost per impressions of any platform.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Dedfire confirmed first crpg on nintendo switch ?

 

[CptMace]

I agree with Lacrymas. Twitch has become a usual option for marketing, which I assume has to do with the results these operations give in terms of sales, to the point that companies don't even care if their game is extremely solo-play oriented, as in there's no point in backseating.
Also, even if this type of games is just "unstreamable", I'm pretty sure the streamer alone can get people to be interested in them. And considering how little it costs to get someone to stream your game, specifically because offering some kind of exclusivity to a bunch of people allows them to make profitable deals with these amateurs who are already very glad to get stuff for free.

There is a beloved francophone streamer - mistermv - who worked for a webtv before going independant, and used his summer time of broadcast to play the first poe. He went to create a show for the occasion, to justify that he'd spend july and august on a single game, called Boredom for the summer. His viewer count went down from ~4k to ~1k, not only because of the usual summer drop of viewers (as proven by the viewcount of his vods on youtube below).

Spoiler

The last 30 parts barely pass the 5k views.

He recently made an operation with gog (who seems to be capitalizing on this twitch thing as well) and chose to play Tyranny for showcasing gog's offer of adventure games or smthg. He concluded his 2-h stream by saying that he'd keep on playing Tyranny beyond the operation, but retracted since then. He explained that his current viewer count (~6-7k) would take a massive hit from streaming such a game, since he's independant now the viewer count is way more impactful on his income. And yet I'm talking about a dude who streams stuff like King's Quest, Warriors of the eternal sun, 7th saga and other completely unstreamable games.
The dude still wants to stream deadfire though

 

[FreeKaner]

RPGs are highly interactive games, not only is watching someone else play them ultimately invalidating this point but also watching someone make choices you are not participating in or even disagree with is running against it. It's not only not enjoyable it's probably frustrating.

 

[Ninjerk]

RPGs are highly interactive games, not only is watching someone else play them ultimately invalidating this point but also watching someone make choices you are not participating in or even disagree with is running against it. It's not only not enjoyable it's probably frustrating.

Gotta straw poll that shit

 

[Lacrymas]

There's also the fact that there's lots of reading that grinds whatever momentum the streamer has built up. I also get frustrated by how awful at whatever game it is that they are playing the majority of streamers and let's players I've seen are.

 

[Pizzashoes]

And let's not forget on the intense difficulties the player has to queue actions every couple of seconds. Unless the player is an engaging announcer, it would grind down. Maybe all Twitch players should be told to play on Story, so they can do the fights in real-time with no pausing. Also, they need to read out the dialogue, too. Jesus

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

These are all good reasons why an intelligent streamer (oxymoron?) would never want to broadcast a CRPG, or why most viewers wouldn’t want to watch. But from Obsidian’s perspective, if they can give away a $50 game to showcase hours of their product to a few thousand sets of eyeballs, why on earth wouldn’t they do that? It pays for itself very quickly. Also explains why they’d include more voice acting; makes the game way, way, way more marketable on twitch by getting around the reading issue.

And the frustration of watching someone else make dumb choices or just play badly may encourage some viewers to buy the game. I almost paid up for access to the Kingmaker beta after watching some streamer play it badly—I felt compelled to erase his stupidity. Fortunately, I passed my autism resistance check, but the point stands.

There are lots of tasteless idiots out there and Obsidian needs some fraction of those idiots to buy their merchandise if they want to stay in business. Better more voice acting for twitch appeal than, say, multiplayer.

 

[frajaq]

The only RPG that I've seen do kinda well on twitch for the streamer (as in 90% of the viewers don't leave the poor channel) was D:OS 2 on release

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

What marketing opportunities do people believe Obs should be pursuing, instead of what we’ve seen so far, in order to help the game sell as much as possible (which is, when you get down to it, the goal of every publisher ever)? Sending those cosplay girls from the Pax booth to the houses of each of us 15 active posters on this thread in order to personally...address each of our concerns with the game? (BTW, I’d personally take that Rockwood one if Obsidian’s marketers are lurking this thread and are going to take me up on this brilliant idea)

 

[Grotesque]

Something beautiful is coming, something that will save us all.

This is how I perceive Eothas.

 

[2house2fly]

He's your boss not your mother.

No. The relationship with the caravan leader is never explored. You're a part of the caravan, but you could've paid to be in the caravan, or you could've just been traveling with them in the same direction, or you could've been hired as a caravan servant. None of this is explored, but I never got the vibe that he was my boss.

The impression I got is the player character is a passenger, possibly one who has not paid to tag along with the caravan. That would explain why he tells you to go find the berries, if you're not paying him he has no specific reason to care about you. And of course he has no reason to send any other passengers to go in your place, why should they care? He does send Calisca with you, which I suppose begs the question of why he didn't just send her off alone

 

[2house2fly]

RPGs are highly interactive games, not only is watching someone else play them ultimately invalidating this point but also watching someone make choices you are not participating in or even disagree with is running against it. It's not only not enjoyable it's probably frustrating.

If i was watching someone play an RPG I think I'd specifically want to see them make choices I personally wouldn't make

 

[Bonerbill]

The only RPG that I've seen do kinda well on twitch for the streamer (as in 90% of the viewers don't leave the poor channel) was D:OS 2 on release

Full voice acting and multiplayer helped. As much as the CRPG purists on here and 4chan like to complain about both of those features, they actually help with popularity, especially for let's plays and streams.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Dedfire confirmed first crpg on nintendo switch ?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/12/13/wasteland-2-directors-cut-coming-to-switch

It's a race!!!

 

[Luckmann]

He's your boss not your mother.

No. The relationship with the caravan leader is never explored. You're a part of the caravan, but you could've paid to be in the caravan, or you could've just been traveling with them in the same direction, or you could've been hired as a caravan servant. None of this is explored, but I never got the vibe that he was my boss.

The impression I got is the player character is a passenger, possibly one who has not paid to tag along with the caravan. That would explain why he tells you to go find the berries, if you're not paying him he has no specific reason to care about you. And of course he has no reason to send any other passengers to go in your place, why should they care? He does send Calisca with you, which I suppose begs the question of why he didn't just send her off alone

I agree, I got the impression of passenger too, and that they stopped pretty much out of the goodness of his heart - same reason Calisca is sent with you. That said, it seemed about time to stop anyway, and it was a good place, so the whole "stopping just for you" could've just been an excuse anyway. But I *never* got the impression that you were an employee - although I'll concede that it's entirely possible to understand it that way, since the relationship isn't expanded upon at all.

It's basic stage-setting, really, and I'm fine with it.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Intro was pretty ok for setting the stage and getting the gist of how things work.

Still better than killing rats in the basement or some sewer level.

 

[Starwars]

I think it worked ok in setting the stage. It's not amazing or anything, but alright. I do like the bit of "hey, what's your background" stuff that you do with Calisca and the little storybook thing with Sparfel (the greatest name) does a good job of setting the action off.

What I did like was the first dungeon as a "tutorial dungeon". A good size for the purpose, and you can get through it very quickly if you're replaying.

One missed opportunity is the great atmosphere they've got going after you awaken. It's kinda similar to after Gorion dies in Baldur's Gate, which I guess was intentional, how you're sorta left alone out in the wilderness. But that lovely, hostile feeling never really takes off. Despite the fact that Gilded Vale is all grimdark it never feels dangerous. In BG there was a great feeling of dread, especially with the little "boss fight" just outside Friendly Arm Inn.