Game News Pillars of Eternity II Fig Update #28: Factions of the Deadfire, Part I

[luj1]

This is the worst excuse for factions ever. However be sure to assign each an emblem, that'll help.

 

[Bohrain]

When this tradition of Obsidian to give weird names to basic fantasy 101 tropes will stop? It is just plain pedantism. Okay, we made the PC LARPER pirates faction... hmm... lets call them Principí! Originality, right there!

How dare they have vailian pirates use a vailian name for their organization. The nerve!!

So? What is the difference between a vailain pirate and a run of the mill Pirates of the Caribbean one then? Oh, yes, they worship the gods of the sea and wind and are... against be merciless... whatever this means. Some fantasy RPGs are more honest, they don't care into fleshing out their run of the mill pirates and just name them pirates or corsairs. However, giving pompous names to things is a really superficial way to pretend any difference from standard fantasy.

My issue isn't with the name exactly but the lack of depth on PoE factions, the name is just insult to the injury. Factions on PoE were mostly abstracted concepts made of fantasy tropes that never truly came to life, same problem with Tyranny with its Earthshakers and pompous names to all kinds of banal shit. Okay, let's get this concept here, lets get that trope there and mix all together with an weird name and BOOM, new fantasy that is totally different from standard fantasy drivel that I've seen 100 times. If on the game, on the actual quests and not on some throw away lore, they really don't give a strong reason why the writer bothered into giving an special name to their generic pirates, it will be the whole Fampyr thing again.

If Obsidian just wants to make generic fantasy, I'm fine with it, I like Forgotten Realms and that is high fantasy as it can get but this "We are making pirate dudes that raid shit... no... Príncipi." makes me laugh like no tomorrow as it doesn't add absolutely nothing to the game beyond hipsterism. Of course, they could be making interesting stuff up for this faction but after how PoE and Tyranny turned out on this regard, I'm pure cynical skepticism until proven otherwise.

To extrapolate a bit I think this is a sign of a larger issue in scifi/fantasy writing.
This is speculation from my part, but I think that a hefty number of people who are into this kind of genre literature are the type of people who can spend hours reading lore pages on a wiki. There is nothing wrong in that, but an issue arises when these kind of people become writers. They make worldbuilding a priority, without necessarily bothering to ask themselves "Does naming and giving everything history serve any narrative purpose?" or "Am I boring the audience to death with this infodump?".
Of course, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place if studios had editors who understood the strengths of the medium.

 

[luj1]

No need to get academic about it Bohrain. It doesn't deserve that level of scrutiny, so I'll just call it a piss-poor attempt.

Principi are, more or less, generic, gypsy pirates. They are a varied demographic, they pillage and plunder, amazing.

Such low-effort approach (a hallmark of this carcass of a franchise) reeks heavily of clueless Californian hipsters led by JES, the hipster-king. I'd say PoE is like a smaller, retarded cousin of DnD but that'd be too generous.

 

[FUDU]

When this tradition of Obsidian to give weird names to basic fantasy 101 tropes will stop? It is just plain pedantism. Okay, we made the PC LARPER pirates faction... hmm... lets call them Principí! Originality, right there!

How dare they have vailian pirates use a vailian name for their organization. The nerve!!

So? What is the difference between a vailain pirate and a run of the mill Pirates of the Caribbean one then? Oh, yes, they worship the gods of the sea and wind and are... against be merciless... whatever this means. Some fantasy RPGs are more honest, they don't care into fleshing out their run of the mill pirates and just name them pirates or corsairs. However, giving pompous names to things is a really superficial way to pretend any difference from standard fantasy.

My issue isn't with the name exactly but the lack of depth on PoE factions, the name is just insult to the injury. Factions on PoE were mostly abstracted concepts made of fantasy tropes that never truly came to life, same problem with Tyranny with its Earthshakers and pompous names to all kinds of banal shit. Okay, let's get this concept here, lets get that trope there and mix all together with an weird name and BOOM, new fantasy that is totally different from standard fantasy drivel that I've seen 100 times. If on the game, on the actual quests and not on some throw away lore, they really don't give a strong reason why the writer bothered into giving an special name to their generic pirates, it will be the whole Fampyr thing again.

If Obsidian just wants to make generic fantasy, I'm fine with it, I like Forgotten Realms and that is high fantasy as it can get but this "We are making pirate dudes that raid shit... no... Príncipi." makes me laugh like no tomorrow as it doesn't add absolutely nothing to the game beyond hipsterism. Of course, they could be making interesting stuff up for this faction but after how PoE and Tyranny turned out on this regard, I'm pure cynical skepticism until proven otherwise.

Taking up an immediate emergency fund drive for laxatives, so DeepOcean can take a real, actual shit.

It's easy to see that he has become so anal retentive, that he can no longer take a real shit, and has been forced to compensate by spewing it out on the internet.

This situation requires our immediate attention.

Hang in there DeepOcean. Help is on the way.