Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

The new companions have reactions in the main game areas. Also, the original companions have reactions in the expansion areas and banter with the expansion companions. The expansion companions are in the expansion areas but can be taken back to the original game areas.

 

[Volrath]

I've been having a very hard time being excited for this.

The individual stealth stuff is good, and should have been in the game since start.

The companions are uninteresting. No MCA - the saving grace of the base game's writing, and all companions have been severely lacking in depth. Don't see how these will be different.

Also, I don't think I have a save game for the expansion, and I'm definitely not replaying the base game. Maybe in two years if they overhaul it with interesting encounters and better itemization.

So never then?

 

[Merlkir]

Soulbound weapons sound interesting. I think I might've designed one by accident. :D (back in 2013)

http://janpospisil.blogspot.cz/2013/03/designing-wailing-sword.html

 

[Sabin Rene Figaro]

Expansion announced to backers: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/1274534

This looks really cool.

Regarding those companion descriptions, I am still saddened that Chris Avellone left because he contributed with easily the best companion of the base game. Pillars of Eternity was an excellent game, but this expansion will be a new important test for them. I want to see if they'll be able to deliver on interesting companions now that they don't have Avellone to help them out.

 

[Infinitron]

Universal Sword proficiency?

Ya. Apparently, there are limited soul weapons and they only give bonuses to a few classes each, so they are making them benefit from all weapon focus/mastery/etc talents. Pretty crappy, makes those talents effectively meaningless.

Well, the soulbound weapons might not be best-of-class (I think the SS of Gith wasn't actually the ultimate weapon either) but it does strain the system yeah.

Maybe as a compromise they could give each one of them several weapon types but not all of them.

Oh, another option here would be to make the Soulbound weapons benefit from NO proficiency. So in all cases it would be a choice between using a kickass generic weapon or a more mundane one with specialization talent bonuses. Basically, an extension of what they've already done by disallowing crafting on the Soulbound weapons.

 

[Sizzle]

* A bound weapon will display what you need to do to unlock additional powers. Each time you unlock a power, you also gain more lore on the weapon and what the next goal is. The capstone power(s) always complete the lore.

That part sounds exactly like how M&MX handled relics.

 

[Sensuki]

Ya, its a bad choice on their part. Their system is strong enough to give players options and the weapons giving different classes different bonuses is a solid idea that also helps with this. Making all weapon specs apply is silly. They just need to make more weapons.

Maybe you can succeed where I failed

 

[Jimmious]

Where can I see the attribute system changes?

 

[Excidium II]

Where can I see the attribute system changes?

Doesn't look like there's any changes beyond PER giving accuracy instead of deflection

 

[Jimmious]

Where can I see the attribute system changes?

Doesn't look like there's any changes beyond PER giving accuracy instead of deflection

But but but Sensuki said something about his awesome attribute system changes being taken into account or something

 

[Roguey]

This soulbound weapon deal is a "who cares?" thing to me. If I want to use a specific weapon with a specific character, I should be able to do so without penalty or metagaming.

Was 29 months a typo?

No. Most of the Kickstarter RPGs (Wasteland 2, PoE, Dragonfall: DC, Dead State) had development times of 29 months until initial release.

The guy gets ticked off that his team wasn't able to implement something that Baldur's Gate did in 1998.

Baldur's Gate had three years.

 

[Excidium II]

Baldur's Gate had three years.

Obsidian had over two years and a development toolkit that basically does everything short of the actual game's implementation for you so what's your point

 

[Roguey]

Obsidian had over two years and a development toolkit that basically does everything short of the actual game's implementation for you so what's your point

Stealth is difficult. Turns out they needed a few more months to get it right.

Meanwhile over developers decided that stealth wasn't worth the trouble of doing at all, even with additional months (about a year in inXile's case, more than that for Harebrained).

 

[Infinitron]

BG1 had a bit over 3 years, from Q3 1995 to Q4 1998 I think?

 

[Zed]

Baldur's Gate was made by people with like 0 game developing experiencing, and it was made from scratch. Once they got the experience, they made the best RPG ever with the sequel.

POE is a Unity game made by industry veterans. They got crowdfunding, free reins, creative control, and zero excuses.

 

[Infinitron]

It'd be interesting to compare the sizes of the dev teams:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/baldurs-gate/credits
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/pillars-of-eternity/credits

I kinda doubt that they all had "zero game developing experience", that seems like a bit of mythmaking. Maybe the initial core team and founders did, but all the coders and scripters and such? They made a game with better production values, UI, combat, etc, than Interplay's own RPGs with zero game development experience?

 

[Roguey]

Show me a Unity game made in 29 months with proper stealth as a working, but not primary, feature and I'll concede Obsidian messed up.

 

[Excidium II]

It'd be interesting to compare the sizes of the dev teams:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/baldurs-gate/credits
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/pillars-of-eternity/credits

I kinda doubt that they all had "zero game developing experience", that seems like a bit of mythmaking. Maybe the initial core team and founders did, but all the coders and scripters and such? They made a game with better production values, UI, combat, etc, than Interplay's own RPGs with zero game development experience?

Maybe they were just that good? If vidya gaem media valued programmers as much as artists and designers we'd know their story

 

[Roguey]

If you follow those links you'll see that most of them were in fact brand new or came from Shattered Steel, a not-RPG.

 

[Bubbles]

Show me a Unity game made in 29 months with proper stealth as a working, but not primary, feature and I'll concede Obsidian messed up.

https://youtu.be/q1_tbWTfY1I?t=2068

 

[Immortal]

The guy gets ticked off that his team wasn't able to implement something that Baldur's Gate did in 1998.

Baldur's Gate had three years.

Baldurs Gate needed an engine to be created from scratch and Pillars had over 2 years (almost 3 if you count the delay and pre-kickstarter work). Not a valid excuse.

 

[Infinitron]

BG did have the advantage of being able to copy-paste stuff from AD&D and kind of half-ass it because "PnP rules!", with less time spent iterating on stuff on the drawing board.

Let's face it, the IE stealth implementation is nothing in particular to be proud of, with its two skills that do exactly the same thing.

 

[Duraframe300]

The guy gets ticked off that his team wasn't able to implement something that Baldur's Gate did in 1998.

Baldur's Gate had three years.

Baldurs Gate needed an engine to be created from scratch and Pillars had over 2 years (almost 3 if you count the delay and pre-kickstarter work). Not a valid excuse.

They didn't actually. As in they didn't create the engine for that project specifically. (Though there was still more work involved in that regard then PoE, probably)

 

[Immortal]

BG did have the advantage of being able to copy-paste stuff from AD&D and kind of half-ass it because "PnP rules!", with less time spent iterating on stuff on the drawing board.

Let's face it, the IE stealth implementation is nothing in particular to be proud of, with its two skills that do exactly the same thing.

To your first point - Nah, Maybe if PoE's system was half way decent I would grant this but IMO 2E was far superior

To your second point - Yes, but it's still better then PoE. Which is sad.

The guy gets ticked off that his team wasn't able to implement something that Baldur's Gate did in 1998.

Baldur's Gate had three years.

Baldurs Gate needed an engine to be created from scratch and Pillars had over 2 years (almost 3 if you count the delay and pre-kickstarter work). Not a valid excuse.

They didn't actually. As in they didn't create the engine for that project specifically.

Don't type something like this without extroplating. What engine was the Infinity Engine based off? I don't care what it was made for. It's a HUGE undertaking to use an untested engine that is in it's infancy compared to a fully fledged engine that is in it's 4th or 5th iteration.

 

[Angthoron]

The guy gets ticked off that his team wasn't able to implement something that Baldur's Gate did in 1998.

Baldur's Gate had three years.

Baldurs Gate needed an engine to be created from scratch and Pillars had over 2 years (almost 3 if you count the delay and pre-kickstarter work). Not a valid excuse.

They didn't actually. As in they didn't create the engine for that project specifically.

Well technically it was. It was for an RTS, except Interplay said to make it an RPG instead.