Game News Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Announced and Live on Fig

[Nihiliste]

I like Pillars more than most here and thought again about getting in at the lowest crowdfunded price.

But the fact that carrie patel seems to be leading the writing is a huge red flag.

Tyranny showed that Obsidian without Avellone is banal shit boring.

The best parts of Pillars were the small fragments contributed by Avellone.

No Avellone, No Zeits, maybe a little bit of Fenstermaker.

Purple hair is just one of those symbols that warns you to stay away. It's like the colouring on a poisonous spider.

 

[Rivmusique]

But the best parts of PoE were mostly TWM.

 

[dukeofwhales]

And the Council of Stars, which was written by Patel.

 

[Nihiliste]

The best part was Durance

Even the interesting classes like Cypher and Chanter we only got because Avellone pushed for some classes that were more linked to the game lore

 

[Tigranes]

"Our god Avellone is the source of all good things in the world. If a thing is good, then it is from his loins; if it is not, he has valiantly fought against it against all odds."

 

[Nihiliste]

Or you know, just the source of most good things about obsidian stories

 

[duanth123]

"Our god Avellone is the source of all good things in the world. If a thing is good, then it is from his loins; if it is not, he has valiantly fought against it against all odds."

Tigranes, like Infinitron, you seem to have developed a nasty habit of denigrating quality writing to prop up the new shit.

No one, apart from certain usual suspects, is saying Avellone's perfect. But at least he understood tonal consistency. And consistent delivery of stimulating, original material.

And not exhausting your setting with big dumb conceits like having to chase down a huge walking statute that has inexplicably managed to dig its way out of several hundred tons of earth.

I mean, talk about an in your face, lack of subtlety. It's the in-universe equivalent of an ADRA-ROIDED moustache-twirling villain.

And, yeah, maybe they'll be more to it. And maybe there won't. But as a kickstarter hook, it's pretty clearly aiming for the cheap seats.

Which would be entirely consistent with Lurker King's assertions that nu-Obsidian is less concerned with their artistic output than its saleability.

Avellone was perhaps always an anomaly in that regard.

And before you answer, just know I maintain my position from the previous thread that these "priorities" are to some degree operating on an unconscious level. Translation: Those at nu-Obsidian don't know their desires to live a good life exceed by a large margin their creative energies.

 

[Rev]

Tigranes is just making fun of the tendency some people have of giving credits to Avellone for all the best things that came out of Obsidian, even in games where he had little roles and even praising him for things he have not contributed to (such as the ciphers class, as in the above post).
MCA did design and write some exceptional stuff in past Obsidian games (and before that, at Black Isle), and I also think that Durance was the best companion in PoE, but he didn't design the classes in the games: he just wrote two characters. And other Obsidian games were great mainly because of the work of other people, specifically Mask of the Betrayer had Saunders and Ziets in bigger roles and we have to thank them for that great game, and New Vegas came mostly from the minds of Sawyer and Gonzalez, so saying that every good Obsidian thing is because of MCA is also wrong.

We all want to see something major and good from Chris, because the last time he really had a vision for a game and brought it to life was with KotOR II more than ten years ago, and the last time he had a huge role on a project was Alpha Protocol which also has been released quite some time ago. Hopefully he'll put aside all these free-lancing minor work and get real again and use his writing and creative skills for good use, finally.

 

[Tigranes]

"Our god Avellone is the source of all good things in the world. If a thing is good, then it is from his loins; if it is not, he has valiantly fought against it against all odds."

Tigranes, like Infinitron, you seem to have developed a nasty habit of denigrating quality writing to prop up the new shit.

No one, apart from certain usual suspects, is saying Avellone's perfect. But at least he understood tonal consistency. And consistent delivery of stimulating, original material.

And not exhausting your setting with big dumb conceits like having to chase down a huge walking statute that has inexplicably managed to dig its way out of several hundred tons of earth.

I mean, talk about an in your face, lack of subtlety. It's the in-universe equivalent of an ADRA-ROIDED moustache-twirling villain.

And, yeah, maybe they'll be more to it. And maybe there won't. But as a kickstarter hook, it's pretty clearly aiming for the cheap seats.

Which would be entirely consistent with Lurker King's assertions that nu-Obsidian is less concerned with their artistic output than its saleability.

Avellone was perhaps always an anomaly in that regard.

And before you answer, just know I maintain my position from the previous thread that these "priorities" are to some degree operating on an unconscious level. Translation: Those at nu-Obsidian don't know their desires to live a good life exceed by a large margin their creative energies.

As Rev says, it's funny when someone has to bend over backwards and make shit up to make it sound like everything about X is amazing and everything about Y is godshitawful. Avellone is a million miles ahead of every writer currently employed by Obsidian based on merit - so why talk shit to justify it (not you, the Nihilist guy)?

I think you were the one spurging at me for praising Tyranny... posting in a review thread where I said it has fruit ninja combat and shitty, nonsensical writing that goes to hell after an OK start. And now you think I rate Obsidian's new writers. Or is calling them incompetent, as opposed to saboteurs on a mission to destroy gaming and masculinity, too nice? (On a more general level, if you want to argue that they have the wrong priorities on an unconscious level, OK - I find that much more reasonable than some of the paranoia exhibited by other posters.)

This is the Codex so yelling at me for opinions I don't actually have is par for the course, but hey, if you're going to do something as hitler as comparing me to Infinitron, I'd like it to be for playing Fallout 4 or saying POE is better than BG2 or something.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Are we doing a fundraiser for this? Agree / Disagree

 

[Invictus]

For all the supposed Incline that Avellone, Zeits & Fenstermaker bringeth remember they were on board for Pillars and look where that ended up
There was lots of talk that Durance and the Weeping mother had a lot of dialogue cut and that was the last straw for Avellone in Obsidian but we dont know exactly why that content was cut but it was cut and while what remained was enough to have a couple of interesting companions (perhaps the best one of the game) the writing was not bad certainly but nothing stellar.
As much as I think Tim Cain has not done anyhting relevant in the last 15 years... to be fair Avellone has not done much since perhaps Alpha Protocol but to be perfectly fair I would say since Kotor 2

 

[Invictus]

Are we doing a fundraiser for this? Agree / Disagree

I already pledge but I might do again if we get a Codexian troll ingame

 

[Flou]

I wonder if one of the big issues is that they're not sure what kind of viability model will come out of being a 20-30 man studio making halfway scale games.

Even PoE2 has double amount of staff working on it. I counted around 50 on the Fig group photo. For me the ideal way for Obsidian would be to have 3x teams working on games varying from 20-100 people with about 200 people on the staff in total. That way they would have something new coming out every year which guarantees steady income.

It's a big ship to steer and I think the owners are slowly taking the boat in that direction. PoE helped a lot in getting there and I hope PoE2 ends up selling as well as the 1st did and they have more economical freedom when it comes to making games.

And if they are going more into the self publishing mode Feargus talked about, it helps them to keep all of the income. Who knows what kinda cut Paradox got from the publishing deal they had. Naturally it also helps when Kickstarting games, when you can just throw your own games into the bundles/tiers without having to discuss things through with the publisher who might oppose (or wants a piece of the pie).

 

[Invictus]

From what I read about the deal with Paradox they acted as publishers for the physical stuff and distribution so they probably got a cut there but not the overall sales since they didnt pitch in with moneyz

 

[Flou]

For all the supposed Incline that Avellone, Zeits & Fenstermaker bringeth remember they were on board for Pillars and look where that ended up
There was lots of talk that Durance and the Weeping mother had a lot of dialogue cut and that was the last straw for Avellone in Obsidian but we dont know exactly why that content was cut but it was cut and while what remained was enough to have a couple of interesting companions (perhaps the best one of the game) the writing was not bad certainly but nothing stellar.

How much more dialogue can you give those two characters? While I agree that they were well written and all, but at the same time they were really a huge burden with their endless dialogue. Give them more dialogue and they just won't fit in the same setting as all the other characters and from that point of view I understand why some of that material was cut.

Durance and Weeping Mother were the best written companions in the game, but at the same time they were not best companions in the game. I prefered Aloth and Eder over the two.

But I wonder how much time did Chris spend on those two companions and how much time did they give other writers to flesh out theirs? And what else did Chris write on the game?

 

[duanth123]

if you want to argue that they have the wrong priorities on an unconscious level, OK - I find that much more reasonable than some of the paranoia exhibited by other posters

That's what I've been arguing, as I stated multiple times elsewhere. You keep referring to other nonsense when you respond to me.

Do you have any reason to believe they don't care about the games they make, or that Sawyer doesn't want to make POE2?

You posed this question. I decided to answer it.

The narrative hook of this Fig-starter leads me to believe that nu-obsidian has at the very least disproportionately placed priorities, if not "wrong" ones.

For all the supposed Incline that Avellone, Zeits & Fenstermaker bringeth remember they were on board for Pillars and look where that ended up
There was lots of talk that Durance and the Weeping mother had a lot of dialogue cut and that was the last straw for Avellone in Obsidian but we dont know exactly why that content was cut

And what I honestly suspect is that some godforsaken soul over at Obsidian got it in their head that Avellone's writing was too challenging for the demographic they were targeting with Pillars.

The gutting of his contributions to PoE is as equally consistent as is giant-walking-statue-of-doom with a company that does not "care" - not in the exaggerated sense where they sit around all day using our backer funds for sex change operations, but in the sense that they are in some sort of financially-driven "survival mode" whereby expressions of creativity such as those that were Avellone's trademark are seen as undesirable/risky.

And yes, I believe they have hired/trained in accordance with that mentality of risk, breeding into their ranks a mediocrity ignorant of the potentials of the medium.

I'd like to be proven wrong with PoE II, but, to the extent we're all still in a position to judge the final product only by its appearances from the Fig pitch, I am incredibly underwhelmed.

but hey, if you're going to do something as hitler as comparing me to Infinitron,

Anything to have you notice me, senpai

 

[Tigranes]

*shrug* you tend to jump in when I'm responding to other people, and then I have to puzzle out what outlandish new opinions you've ascribed to me. But whatever gets you hard.

As always, my rule is don't ascribe to sabotage when you can ascribe to incompetence, because people are usually too incompetent to sabotage that well. I don't see anything in Pillars that shows a concerted effort towards 'dumbing down'. As usual, that was a one-dimensional theorycrafting when people said "Avellone content got cut it MUST BE BECAUSE THEY'RE JEALOUS OF HOW WELL HE CAN WRITE AND NOW THEY WANT TO MAKE HIM DUMB TOO". Given existing information, the most likely scenario is that the companions' requirement of independent game mechanics, like GM's mind dungeon, required resources they didn't have.

You seem to be enormously offended by the Eothas EMERGES FROM ZE EARTH hook, to the point that you keep posting that gif in a million different places, but I'm not really sure what it's supposed to prove. I look at it and think "eh, I like the Deadfire colonial intrigue stuff a lot more, this thing could be good or bad on what they do with it." You clearly think it sucks donkey balls, fine - not sure why you think it proves that they don't care about their games.

My current hypothesis, based on existing evidence (i.e. what is contained within POE1 and Tyranny), is that nu-Obsidian writing is pretty decent & showing some vestiges of a distinct style at its best, and try-hard verbose disorganised crap at its worst... and importantly, with no particular promise that they can take their best and move up a level. And I can certainly see how their worst exhibits a poverty of inspiration. That's not particularly positive, but I see no need to spice it up by trying to make big theories about how they don't care or how it's because of postmodernism in universities today or it's their inferiority complex lashing out at Avellone or whatever.

 

[ArchAngel]

For all the supposed Incline that Avellone, Zeits & Fenstermaker bringeth remember they were on board for Pillars and look where that ended up
There was lots of talk that Durance and the Weeping mother had a lot of dialogue cut and that was the last straw for Avellone in Obsidian but we dont know exactly why that content was cut but it was cut and while what remained was enough to have a couple of interesting companions (perhaps the best one of the game) the writing was not bad certainly but nothing stellar.
As much as I think Tim Cain has not done anyhting relevant in the last 15 years... to be fair Avellone has not done much since perhaps Alpha Protocol but to be perfectly fair I would say since Kotor 2

Then it is not a coincidence that Obsidian also didn't not release an outstanding game since Kotor 2.

 

[Invictus]

For all the supposed Incline that Avellone, Zeits & Fenstermaker bringeth remember they were on board for Pillars and look where that ended up
There was lots of talk that Durance and the Weeping mother had a lot of dialogue cut and that was the last straw for Avellone in Obsidian but we dont know exactly why that content was cut but it was cut and while what remained was enough to have a couple of interesting companions (perhaps the best one of the game) the writing was not bad certainly but nothing stellar.
As much as I think Tim Cain has not done anyhting relevant in the last 15 years... to be fair Avellone has not done much since perhaps Alpha Protocol but to be perfectly fair I would say since Kotor 2

Then it is not a coincidence that Obsidian also didn't not release an outstanding game since Kotor 2.

Meaning...?
Perhaps that was the issue with Avellone he wanted to be in charge of a project and the powers that be at Obsidian though otherwise

 

[Lurker King]

Do you have any reason to believe they don't care about the games they make, or that Sawyer doesn't want to make POE2?

I got plenty. The fact that only previous game that was worthwhile involved Fallout, the fact that he openly admitted in interviews that he doesn’t like BG, which is basically the entire base for Pillars, the fact that he doesn’t like RTwP and prefer turn-based, the fact that he try to include some of his little preferences in Pillars (stealh, historic guns, etc.), but couldn’t go all the way because that’s not what the audience wants, the fact that Feargus is a complete sellout that is afraid of turn-based combat, the fact that they talked about Pillars in their own documentary as a ‘product’, the fact that the design was build around a specific audience and not their interests, the fact that they made important decisions about the game, which include whole segments of the game and the story, on the fly, the fact that new Pillars seem to be another game based on a stupid premise, etc. I could be here quoting trivia about Pillars and Obsidian developers all day. Everyone knows that the checklist approach and good passionate design have nothing to do with each other. This never made any great games in the past and certainly won’t make great games now. Trying to fix some boxes of PoE is just an attempt to please their ‘costumers’. You are treating the symptoms, not the disease. None of these modifications will fix their lack of courage to try what they want, and the lack of passion in what they are doing. If you support Obsidian games as a passionate cRPG player you are fool, because they are not passionate cRPG players themselves and certainly have no respect for you. They respect your wallet, which is very different.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Sawyer's doing a Q&A on Twitch.

He's got a lot of grey hair now. https://www.twitch.tv/obsidian

 

[Parabalus]

Sawyer's doing a Q&A on Twitch.

He's got a lot of grey hair now. https://www.twitch.tv/obsidian

He just said "Most people seem to play combat in slow mode." WTF? Who uses that shit?

 

[Sensuki]

Haha my question wasn't answered in the "answers from twitter" but someone asked it in the comments

 

[Roguey]

He just said "Most people seem to play combat in slow mode." WTF? Who uses that shit?

I set it to automatically enter slow mode in the options and never turned back.

Normal is way too fast for me.

 

[Fairfax]

praising him for things he have not contributed to (such as the ciphers class, as in the above post).

In that case, he did contribute:

I had no involvement with the systems of the game beyond pushing that we create classes unique/native to the physics of the world (the Cipher), since a number of the classes that had been created up to that point were largely archetypes that could be found in other fantasy games. I felt strongly that if we could make a tie between the systems and lore, the game would be stronger for it.