Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[meanwhileInPoland]

*shrug* I don't agree. It didn't feel that way to me.

But feel free to hunt down some examples of minor NPCs in Baldur's Gate that give passionate responses full of character to the question "Tell me about yourself".

(What's likely is that in many cases BG doesn't even give you the option to ask that.)

why do you keep on comparing PoE writing with BG1? Didn't they promise in their kickstarter PS:T level of writing?

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

 

[Shin]

*shrug* I don't agree. It didn't feel that way to me.

But feel free to hunt down some examples of minor NPCs in Baldur's Gate that give passionate responses full of character to the question "Tell me about yourself".

(What's likely is that in many cases BG doesn't even give you the option to ask that.)

why do you keep on comparing PoE writing with BG1? Didn't they promise in their kickstarter PS:T level of writing?

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

But it is also known that PoE is to BG what TToN is to PST. So it's somewhat fair to not compare it to the greatness of ToE, but to it's little brother. However, while BG's dialogue/story isn't that great, it does have better pacing, has been founded on grounded lore (and the writers acknowledge that by including maifu's like elminster and drizz't), is a lot more whimsical and is obviously a lot more down to the point. Having dozens of useless backer NPC's who kept dumping irrelevant lore on you didn't help either.

 

[Infinitron]

ToE?

I think that, setting aside cherry-picked "exposition loredump" responses that don't really tell you anything about the character as a whole, NPCs in PoE (including minor ones like shopkeepers etc) have more characterization than those in the Baldur's Gate series. However, the difference may not be large enough to be very noticeable, I suppose.

I guess that's representative of the reception of a lot of PoE's improvements over the IE games - "Yeah, I guess it's better, but it's not a thing that's very important/noticeable to me so I don't care".

 

[J_C]

The one thing many people forget that PoE had to establish a whole new fantasy world created from scratch, meanwhile BG had decades of Forgotten Realms lpre already established. There were exposition dumps in PoE, sure, but without them, the world of Poe would have seemed shallow. Or many people wouldn't understand why certain things are happening.

I'm certain that if PoE 2 happens, it will have musch less exposition.

 

[Roguey]

For those who played the 'scaled up' version of act 3: how exactly does it scale things? Does it just bump enemy levels to 14 (or whatever), or does it literally scale enemies to the party's level? I'm asking because I am somewhat overleveled for starting act 3 due to WM (level 11), but I have no desire to do any more sidequesting, which could be necessary to keep up with the scaled-up enemies depending on how the system works...

Also, is it just me, or is one of the soulbound weapons from WM1 (Saint Ydwen's Redeemer) obsoleted by the SPOILER weapon from WM2? I guess if you had two 2H melee in your group you could use both...

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84...-iii-high-level-content-scaling/#entry1774188

With high level scaling 'ON', selected encounters throughout the area it has been engaged will be increased in level difficulty by 33%. For example: a level 3 enemy will be increased to level 4.

 

[Villagkouras]

Quick question: Will the IE mod be updated for this version?

 

[Zetor]

For those who played the 'scaled up' version of act 3: how exactly does it scale things? Does it just bump enemy levels to 14 (or whatever), or does it literally scale enemies to the party's level? I'm asking because I am somewhat overleveled for starting act 3 due to WM (level 11), but I have no desire to do any more sidequesting, which could be necessary to keep up with the scaled-up enemies depending on how the system works...

Also, is it just me, or is one of the soulbound weapons from WM1 (Saint Ydwen's Redeemer) obsoleted by the SPOILER weapon from WM2? I guess if you had two 2H melee in your group you could use both...

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84...-iii-high-level-content-scaling/#entry1774188

With high level scaling 'ON', selected encounters throughout the area it has been engaged will be increased in level difficulty by 33%. For example: a level 3 enemy will be increased to level 4.

Good info, thanks!

So if scaling is turned on, it's essentially a multiplicative version of POTD that stacks with the regular (additive) one... which would make Thaos level 18ish (I assume he's level 12 normally) if act 4 is scaled? Ouch. Though I can just disable scaling for act 4 and beat him with a regular level 12 group, so no biggie.

aside: I don't really like how strong an effect character level seems to have on encounter challenge levels in POE (even if it's not as blatant as D:OS)

 

[Trashos]

I don't understand why people act like we get awesome stories in RPGs all the time and PoE didn't live up to that standard.

I don't get awesome stories in rpgs all the time, though I did get a couple in the last decade. However I do read a shit ton of good stuff all the time, and PoE is mediocre in comparison.
I do like the game, but its story is flawed by its most essential component ie the fucking narration. (especially important in a vidya gmae, coz these got weakers 4th walls if u see what i mean bruh).

Cpt Mace, I don't agree entirely, but I see your point. To me, the story is awesome and the narration is uneven. I won't argue with the flaws you show, i hate them too. But the narration also has some great parts (eg, "watching" the tortures or in the final area when you are walking up to Thaos). Despite the narration flaws, there is still greatness in there.

Also, talking strictly about RPGs (I won't compare PoE to Kundera and Balzac), I think we got a pretty good deal in PoE's case. I haven't played Dark Souls, so I can't compare to that. PoE's story is comparable to PST's in my view (I prefer PST's story, but not by much). The narration is weaker, but still better than 95% of the RPGs out there.

All in all, I stand by my claim that the hate is unfair. If we apply the same level of scrutiny to other games in the Codex top list, what is going to be left standing? A couple of games? So OK, PoE is not the best gaem evah, it is the 4rth best gaem evah.

The lore is too convulated and it feels like an overflowing glass,every time you talked to someone it felt like you were reading a stacked encyclopedia and a boring one at that.You just can't expect me to give a shit about the lore when you keep droping big names all over the place and I barely started the game,and this goes on and on and on...

And people complain about the quests because they were very straightforward run of the mill quests,with few choices and barely any consequences and the writing didn't helped at all.The game had like 40 quests and most of them were too god damn generic,and the only one that had some decent C&C was the Raedric one,wich was pretty generic in my opinion.

The game felt like a worse version of Baldur's Gate,now people say that they already established the universe they may go nuts on PoE 2 but I just don't see the potential...

I think you are exaggerating a bit there. I won't defend the flaws, I agree that the narration is not perfect and the lore exposition is weak at times (but not always). It does not mean that we shouldn't appreciate the good stuff or that we get better products often. That's why I call the hate unfair. The constructive criticism is not unfair, the game needs that.

About the quests, I don't see the problem. Some of them are really good and you get a lot of different ways to deal with them usually. There are weaker quests too, but again, what are we comparing to? How many RPGs can you think of with better quests overall?

No, I don't agree that the end product is weaker than BG1 in any meaningful way. BG1 may have better pacing (on a weak story), but that is not enough to make it anything more than "serviceable". In terms of story and quest design, PoE is also much superior to BG2. (I did appreciate Irenicus' struggle and voice acting, but that's not enough to stand against what was offered by PoE in my view). I am not doubting BG's historical significance or the goodness of BG2's combat, btw.

 

[Infinitron]

Zetor You know, I'm not sure what Thaos' level is. Would be interesting to peak into the game's files to find out.

 

[CptMace]

(What's likely is that in many cases BG doesn't even give you the option to ask that.)

Indeed. Npcs in BG are more like "begone peasant", npcs in Fallout are more like "move on faggot" and that's really all I need.

One of my first posts on Obisidian forums (same nickname) was about that exactly. I created a topic about narration to discuss info dumps and how they practically kill a story. I was pretty tired to see that's exactly what happened to PoE for me. I get they worked on their setting, I get they want people to acknowledge it, but they did it the wrong way, plain and simple.

To go back to the Souls analogy, From Soft writing team worked on the setting and chose the very right way to show it.

Although, I don't understand why main stuff should be treated differently from side stuff - narration-wise.

All in all, I stand by my claim that the hate is unfair

Maybe that's the problem you got with me, I don't hate the game.
I dislike its narration, but I enjoy the game overall, and I frankly doubt it's not a worthy successor of IE games as a lot of people claim. I don't think its system is essentially flawed like a lot of people claim and I have a good feeling about the potential sequel, mostly because the sequel, as the xpac, will be "freed" from the "new setting syndrome" and its narration, especially for side-stuff, will feel more natural.

 

[Maculo]

So, I've finally said fuck it, stopped waiting and started playing it (Sorry Roguey )Maybe its the lowered expectations, Obsidian fanboyism or just having low standards but I quite like it so far. Expected to be far more critical of the writing. Or maybe I just haven't gotten to the truly bad parts yet.

I know plenty will disagree with me, but I think the writing gets better towards the end in some ways. For example, Durance, GM, and Eder received decent development, and Obsidian had neat ideas for the plot. One problem was that those ideas were buried in text, and I mean a lot of text (spoiler text below is an example). Another problem was that Obsidian threw a lot of information at you towards the end and then does nothing with it (spoiler text below possibly is the worst offender).

Spoiler

If I remember correctly, the twin dryads tell you that you have run into Thaos across multiple past lives. Moreover, I got the impression that the "unanswered question" and confrontation with Thaos was what subconsciously drove you. I thought these were decent ideas that Obsidian left untouched.

As far as Act III, Twin Elms (whatever it is called) felt bland to me.

For those who played the 'scaled up' version of act 3: how exactly does it scale things? Does it just bump enemy levels to 14 (or whatever), or does it literally scale enemies to the party's level? I'm asking because I am somewhat overleveled for starting act 3 due to WM (level 11), but I have no desire to do any more sidequesting, which could be necessary to keep up with the scaled-up enemies depending on how the system works...

A.

I cannot exactly answer your questions, but I can tell you a mistake that I made on PotD. I fought a scaled-up Thaos at max level, and I regretted it for a number of reasons. Outside of Thaos, everything else was still a breeze on scaled difficulty. I even took additional companions (without much gear, or thought to their talents) in lieu of custom characters, because I thought it still would be easy.

I found scaled-up Thaos to be incredibly frustrating with story-companions. His Priest buffs and Cleanse Flame spells rained on my parade. At that point, I could not leave the area to switch out my party, and so I had to do the instance over.

 

[Infinitron]

So, I've finally said fuck it, stopped waiting and started playing it (Sorry Roguey )Maybe its the lowered expectations, Obsidian fanboyism or just having low standards but I quite like it so far. Expected to be far more critical of the writing. Or maybe I just haven't gotten to the truly bad parts yet.

I know plenty will disagree with me, but I think the writing gets better towards the end in some ways. For example, Durance, GM, and Eder received decent development, and Obsidian had neat ideas for the plot. One problem was that those ideas were buried in text, and I mean a lot of text (spoiler text below is an example). Another problem was that Obsidian threw a lot of information at you towards the end and then does nothing with it (spoiler text below possibly is the worst offender).

Spoiler

If I remember correctly, the twin dryads tell you that you have run into Thaos across multiple past lives. Moreover, I got the impression that the "unanswered question" and confrontation with Thaos was what subconsciously drove you. I thought these were decent ideas that Obsidian left untouched.

As far as Act III, I think Twin Elms (whatever it is called) felt bland to me. .

It's not untouched, just not explicitly spelled out.

Spoiler

Yes, your character's soul is traumatized by the cowardice and regret of a previous incarnation - his failure to confront Thaos about his doubts. That's what drives the entire "personal" part of the plot. By learning about it and coming to terms with it, you are healed.

In general, Obsidian use "soul" in this game as a proxy for all sorts of issues of mental health, heredity, etc.

 

[Maculo]

It's not untouched, just not explicitly spelled out.

Spoiler

Yes, your character's soul is traumatized by the cowardice and regret of a previous incarnation - his failure to confront Thaos about his doubts. That's what drives the entire "personal" part of the plot. By learning about it and coming to terms with it, you are healed.

In general, Obsidian use "soul" in this game as a proxy for all sorts of issues of mental health, heredity, etc.

While I agree with you for the most part Infinitron, I still would classify it as untouched though. I do not remember any instance of that development's mention outside of the dryad twins. For me, that was one of the best developments, and yet it came and went very quickly in my opion.

 

[Sizzle]

It's not untouched, just not explicitly spelled out.

Spoiler

Yes, your character's soul is traumatized by the cowardice and regret of a previous incarnation - his failure to confront Thaos about his doubts. That's what drives the entire "personal" part of the plot. By learning about it and coming to terms with it, you are healed.

In general, Obsidian use "soul" in this game as a proxy for all sorts of issues of mental health, heredity, etc.

While I agree with you for the most part Infinitron, I still would classify it as untouched though. I do not remember any instance of that development's mention outside of the dryad twins. For me, that was one of the best developments, and yet it came and went very quickly in my opion.

I agree. They were probably aiming at a sort of "reveal" that makes sense in hindsight, like in KoTOR 2, but they didn't develop it enough for it to have the impact they wanted to make.

Which is a shame, because it could have solved many problems a lot of people had with the motivation of the PC.

 

[Infinitron]

Maybe. It ties into what I said in another thread about how the game doesn't have a PS:T-like "wow, this is profound stuff" moment that it hammers into you.

Kind of funny how after complaints about too much exposition there's also a complaint about there not being enough.

 

[AwesomeButton]

If you people take off the rose-tinted glasses, every IE game has had a passable-quality writing, except PST. So stop being such crybabies (

Spoiler

:mrpresident:

), stop pretending you're Michel Foucault when you read PoE dialogues, and take PoE for what it is. From today's perspective, I'm not too annoyed by neiter IE games' writing nor PoE's. 15 years ago, I used to find BG2's writing captivating, because I was a scrub. End of story, so to speak.

 

[Trashos]

I know plenty will disagree with me, but I think the writing gets better towards the end in some ways. For example, Durance, GM, and Eder received decent development, and Obsidian had neat ideas for the plot. One problem was that those ideas were buried in text, and I mean a lot of text (spoiler text below is an example). Another problem was that Obsidian threw a lot of information at you towards the end and then does nothing with it (spoiler text below possibly is the worst offender).

Spoiler

If I remember correctly, the twin dryads tell you that you have run into Thaos across multiple past lives. Moreover, I got the impression that the "unanswered question" and confrontation with Thaos was what subconsciously drove you. I thought these were decent ideas that Obsidian left untouched.

As far as Act III, Twin Elms (whatever it is called) felt bland to me.

I believe that the discussions you have Thaos in your memories (do you remember those discussions where you have to choose answers before you actually know what is going on?) is partly how the game dealt with that issue. More should have been done, sure.

Is there any chance that you didn't give Twin Elms a fair chance because it is late in the game? If there is such a chance, give it another chance. I think it is very well designed and lively, definitely much better than Defiance Bay.

 

[Trashos]

stop pretending you're Michel Foucault when you read PoE dialogues, and take PoE for what it is. From today's perspective, I'm not too annoyed by neiter IE games' writing nor PoE's. 15 years ago, I used to find BG2's writing captivating, because I was a scrub. End of story, so to speak.

I know I won't be able to convince you, Button, but I believe PoE deserves much more credit than that.

 

[Maculo]

I believe that the discussions you have Thaos in your memories (do you remember those discussions where you have to choose answers before you actually know what is going on?) is partly how the game dealt with that issue. More should have been done, sure.

Is there any chance that you didn't give Twin Elms a fair chance because it is late in the game? If there is such a chance, give it another chance. I think it is very well designed and lively, definitely much better than Defiance Bay.

When I say Twin Elms, I am ignoring the Council of Stars quests, which are decent. There is just something about Twin Elms that turned me off to the area. Personally, I felt the distinction of the tribes was weak, when being part of a tribe was central. Moreover, I felt that our foot print on the area was minimal. In fact, I do not remember if Twin Elms even had an ending slide. In contrast, the player played a role in Defiance Bay, Dyrford Crossing, and Raedric's Hold.

I expected tribal politics would be the last obstacle before the Council of Stars and Thaos. Instead, I think you can immediately go to the Council of Stars.

 

[WhatAreYou?ACasul?]

I don't understand why people act like we get awesome stories in RPGs all the time and PoE didn't live up to that standard.

I don't get awesome stories in rpgs all the time, though I did get a couple in the last decade. However I do read a shit ton of good stuff all the time, and PoE is mediocre in comparison.
I do like the game, but its story is flawed by its most essential component ie the fucking narration. (especially important in a vidya gmae, coz these got weakers 4th walls if u see what i mean bruh).

There's no narration in PoE or it's flawed? That's something new... You will have to elaborate, because from what I know Dark Souls, for example, is universally praised for its rich narration, which is achieved by dialogues (merely 4 lines per encounter usually), item descriptions, and map / NPCs design. I would say PoE is superior than Dark Souls in terms of narrative almost everywhere from dialogues to scripted scenes, except for item descriptions.

That Dark Souls example came to my mind in reference to that 4th wall comment, whatever it means, because you see PoE and Dark Souls are open world, and that's yet another layer of narration right there.

So, I don't know what you're talking about lol. I guess I have to get used to the level of mental retardation on this forum since 99% of the playerbase identifies PoE with its rich narration and you will find no review claiming otherwise. Only Dex.

You better get used to a lot of things yes. I already explained why pillars' narration sucks ass months ago : here you go.
By the way, no, Pillars doesn't have a better narration than Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, at all. If only because From Soft although uses props and level design to tell their story, or because their story is never, ever forced to the player who can brainlessly go from the beginning to the end without giving a fuck, or he can try to discover what happened, and he'll find a ton of stuff that isn't forced on him through wikipedia-style blocks of text. That's how a video game narration is properly handled. Pillars, as a IE games nostal-trip, is heavily literary. I don't mind that. It's just poorly done.
If you can't get over the games you like getting criticized, I suggest you go on another forum, you already seem to hate this one.

Dark Souls, for example, is universally praised for its rich narration, which is achieved by dialogues (merely 4 lines per encounter usually)

See, that's the problem. You seem to give any kind of importance to the fact that npc's monologues (there's no dialogue in Souls games by the way dude, but don't worry, you already have a lot to struggle with in life, so i'll let this one go) are 4-liners. You although totally missed why Dark Souls narration is greatly handled, hence you talk about "dialogues" in the first place. You're so clueless it's actually cute.

Could you tell me how replacing the first person by the third is supposed to show that the dialogues are "impersonal", and what does "impersonal" mean in the context of "poorly written dialogue"? I've found the fact that you conducted such an experiment interesting, but failed to see its sense and consequences.

I know that I was the one who threw Souls example into the discussion, but frankly I'm tired of Souls discussions; let me just say that the example is obviously not conclusive, and I would like to retreat from this discussion Well, one thing maybe: "dialogue" in the context of cRPGs does not mean the same as "dialogue" in the context of Plato's dialogues or Shakespearean plays. One argument would be that usually we call that window where the "dialogues" take place a "dialogue box" regardless of whether there's a dialogue between our character and NPC or the NPC just tells us her monologue; that's just a convention to say that "you have a dialogue with an NPC". BTW. in Souls games you actually have "dialogues" in that later sense: you can say YES or NO to NPC questions, for example.

Anyway, leaving Souls aside, how does that replacement of the first person by the third trick work exactly?

 

[AwesomeButton]

I know I won't be able to convince you, Button, but I believe PoE deserves much more credit than that.

Maybe we'll discuss this again, 15 years from now.

BTW, one of the examples of things that genuinely pissed me off was when Galvano explained that "the Pargrun dwarves' culture was language-driven". There is sloppy fantasy writing on display! I can feel myself going into Nerd Rage Mode just imagining the person who wrote that.

Nerd Rage Below:

Spoiler

The difference between the good writer and the hack lays, among other things, in how well a writer knows the subject he or his characters are dealing with. By this classification, the above phrase was written by a shameless hack. What the fuck is a "language-driven" culture? Is there a culture which is NOT language-driven? If a group of people don't communicate, is there a society and a culture to begin with? Classifying a culture as being "language-driven" means nothing, it just exposes you as someone who pretends to speak the lingo without actually having any knowledge of the subject.

And the hack who wrote this dumbfuckery placed it in the mouth of a character who is supposed to be a scientist. Now that is bad writing right there.

For fuck's sakes, the person who wrote that should have heeded the advice of the creative director himself. It'a great piece of advice and a good video in general:


The truth is, if we nitpick, we can find stylistical and illogical bullshit throughout the plot and dialogue of the whole game. But why do that? It's like you play a PnP game, and your DM is coming up with lame characterizations of cultures, and with flimsy characters and stories, because it's improvisation and because it's just your DM, it's not Tolkien, and you go along, because the point is to have fun. You don't want to be the know-it-all or the "expert" who interjects the whole time and ruins the game. If you approach PoE with the mindset of a "I am accustomed to high literary discourse"-jackass, the only person you will ruin the game for is yourself, since it's a single-player video game.

 

[WhatAreYou?ACasul?]

Fun fact:

Josh Sawyer just tweeted who was the real-life model Eder's features were based upon. It was Max von Sydow.

 

[CptMace]

Could you tell me how replacing the first person by the third is supposed to show that the dialogues are "impersonal"

...
Really ?
PS : I know it's the codex, so i have to clarify that there's no sarcasm in that question.

Well, one thing maybe: "dialogue" in the context of cRPGs does not mean the same as "dialogue" in the context of Plato's dialogues or Shakespearean plays.

Glad to learn that.

 

[WhatAreYou?ACasul?]

Could you tell me how replacing the first person by the third is supposed to show that the dialogues are "impersonal"

...
Really ?
PS : I know it's the codex, so i have to clarify that there's no sarcasm in that question.

Yes, really. Please elaborate. No sarcasm.

The whole request was:

Could you tell me how replacing the first person by the third is supposed to show that the dialogues are "impersonal", and what does "impersonal" mean in the context of "poorly written dialogue"?

 

[Magnificate]

Twin Elms felt fine to me. Defiance Bay on the other hand did not, mostly because the streets were too wide and the entire city felt too well maintained.