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

Pizzashoes

Pizzashoes

Scholar
Joined
Oct 31, 2017
Messages
444
In Pillars, the Watcher is a nameless occupation with no background, but the character's identity is tied into the larger story by giving him an ancient soul. That kind of connection to the past reminded me of the Dragon Reborn from the Wheel of Time series. I got a huge kick out of having such a superior soul, reliving the character's past life, gaining (or maybe relearning) powers from that past, and then eventually meeting the soul of Iovara, a hot (white) elven chick you could choose to be your past lover.

The hooks were admittedly vague, they might take a reasonably high IQ to understand, but the connections for the PC to the story are there. They exist. They were written down and acted out for your pleasure.
 
dragonul09

dragonul09

Arcane
Edgy
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
1,445
Cross said:
The Bishop said:
Your character is completely disconnected from the world it is in.
Click to expand...
This perfectly sums up the problem not just with PoE, but with the nu-Obsidian style of RPG protagonists in general, Tyranny included. It becomes particularly clear when you look at how the protagonists are referred to in PoE and Tyranny:
  • The Watcher
  • The Fatebinder

Now compare that to the protagonists of some other story-driven RPGs:
  • The Vault Dweller
  • The Bhaalspawn
  • The Exile
  • The Nameless One

Notice a difference? The first group describes what a character does: someone who watches, someone who binds fates.

The second group describes a character's background and identity: someone who grew up in a vault and enters the outside world for the first time, a Bhaalspawn child who was taken in by Gorion, an exiled Jedi general and I don't think I need to explain why the Nameless One is a protagonist with a lot of baggage. Unlike the nu-Obsidian protagonists, these protagonists have clear ties to the game world they inhabit, characters that know them from before the game begins, even homes such as Candlekeep and Vault 13. Because of this foundation, they have a logical context for pursuing the quests of their respective games.

It's like Obsidian wants to have it both ways: telling stories that revolve around the protagonist personally (the Watcher's curse, the Fatebinder's budding Archon nature), while refusing to give those protagonists even a sliver of context. The protagonist's identity (or rather, the lack thereof) is at odds with the kind of the story the game is trying to tell, which is why the story development in PoE and Tyranny feels so unsatisfying.

It's quite baffling that even Tyranny, a game about playing as a high-ranking army officer, left it entirely to the player to define the protagonist's backstory.
Click to expand...

How is the Fatebinder disconnected from the world and why shouldn't we fully define his backstory? The whole game revolves around you and your actions, it's not like PoE where barely anyone acknowledges you or your accomplishments and even if they do, there's barely any reaction at all. In Tyranny it's all about you and the road to power, everyone acknowledges your accomplishments and they react according to your actions, which is far better than 90% of rpgs out there. The only thing Tyranny is bad at, is it's terrible length and abrupt ending which made it clearly that this game was just an afterthought for Obsidian.

And the part where you define the protagonists backstory by playing that little conquest mode is one of the best thing Obisdian did in a long time and they should use it in more games from now on.
 
Self-Ejected

CptMace

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Die große Nation
I think what he meant was that tno, the exile, the bhaalspawn (who should actually be Gorion's ward in his demonstration) and the vault dweller (I don't think it works that well for this one) is that they have a bit of backstory which connects them to the world.
So you can craft a story that involves this bit of backstory. This is the whole concept of pst where you only roleplay one iteration of the character where the game tells you that tno went through some radically different personalities over the course of his lives. This is also true for the exile, where a whole chunck of the plot revolves around him/her being cast away by the council. Gorion's ward hook and plot in BG1 are also exploiting this bit of backstory.

The fatebinder, since you can chose how he came to be the fatebinder, doesn't work the same.
I think that's what he meant. And I'll agree on this last part : pushing the rp to the point where you let the player choose his background basically says "it's not gonna be important". It can also mean "we worked our ass off to implement reactivity to your background" but I don't think there's a single game that does that.
 
Cross

Cross

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Joined
Oct 14, 2017
Messages
3,036
Pizzashoes said:
In Pillars, the Watcher is a nameless occupation with no background, but the character's identity is tied into the larger story by giving him an ancient soul. That kind of connection to the past reminded me of the Dragon Reborn from the Wheel of Time series. I got a huge kick out of having such a superior soul, reliving the character's past life, gaining (or maybe relearning) powers from that past, and then eventually meeting the soul of Iovara, a hot (white) elven chick you could choose to be your past lover.

The hooks were admittedly vague, they might take a reasonably high IQ to understand, but the connections for the PC to the story are there. They exist. They were written down and acted out for your pleasure.
Click to expand...
The hooks were admittedly vague, they might take a reasonably high IQ to understand
Click to expand...
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Pillars of Eternity. The descriptive text is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of Kantian philosophy most of the exposition will go over a typical player's head. There’s also Thaos' nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of this lore, to realise that it's not just fantasy- it says something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Pillars of Eternity truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the humour in Pallegina's existential catchphrase “Ado vidòrio,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev’s Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Josh Sawyer’s genius wit unfolds itself on their monitors. What fools.. how I pity them.

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Pillar of Eternity tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the ladies’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid :cool:
 
Last edited:
Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss

Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss

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Messages
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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Cross said:
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Pillars of Eternity. The descriptive text is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of Kantian philosophy most of the exposition will go over a typical player's head.
Click to expand...
:prosper:

Cross said:
This perfectly sums up the problem not just with PoE, but with the nu-Obsidian style of RPG protagonists in general, Tyranny included. It becomes particularly clear when you look at how the protagonists are referred to in PoE and Tyranny:
  • The Watcher
  • The Fatebinder
Now compare that to the protagonists of some other story-driven RPGs:
  • The Vault Dweller
  • The Bhaalspawn
  • The Exile
  • The Nameless One
Notice a difference? The first group describes what a character does: someone who watches, someone who binds fates.
Click to expand...
And both groups suffer from the chosen one syndrome and ego pandering, which are always terrible in a game that it supposed to involve character progression, etc.
 
Sentinel

Sentinel

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Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,781
Location
Ommadawn
agentorange said:
441.jpg

Why are the portraits in these dialogues so much better than the party member portraits? Why aren't they just using this style for everything.
Click to expand...
Dx3hBKn.png
 
ilitarist

ilitarist

Learned
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Joined
Oct 17, 2016
Messages
857
Interesting point, Cross. Add Courier to your first list as he can be of any age and affiliation as long as he works as courier and made the delivery that saddened Ulysses at some point.

It really is a good divide line. With all the shortcomings of Fallout 3 I still feel that premise is good, your character has a background with not much choice defining his current standing. It's not hard to imagine F3 hero hating his father and doing sidequests just for fun as well as following the sane main quest line. Bhaalspawn, Nameless One and Vault Dweller do what they were told to do because it's their only change to solve a big problem. Courier or Watcher path feels artificial, they decide to be killing machines solving regional problems even though nobody really asks them to.

Still think Tyranny does it best. You have a backstory but it sort of just defines your character, it doesn't matter anymore because you're in the army now.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
This thread has more interesting conversation shifts than Deadfire will. Take notes, Obsidian.
 
IHaveHugeNick

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,479
All you guys talk about is the writing, but what about the art?

The themes of black lesbian intercontextual constipation expressed so vividly by the artist responsible for painting Pallegina's face, remind me of Picasso expressing terror and brutality of war in Guernica and carry a touch of reminiscence of Monet's protest against the Slavic sophistry of Belgian bourgeoisie.
 
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