Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Infinitron]

That screenshot is a bit too crowded. Mommy, why are there naked men everywhere?

As for why, something something memory something something Unity, does it really matter? They seem to have gotten better with it in Twin Elms, already in the same game.

 

[Athelas]

It sure was a stroke of genius that they wrote a story about a population shortage as the result of the most recent generation largely being hollowborn.

 

[Infinitron]

A new JS interview:

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.c...awyer-on-Wrapping-Up-Pillars-of-Eternity.html

MMORPG: What is next for Pillars of Eternity -- can gamers consider the game done or are there more expansions or even a sequel planned?

Josh: Pillars of Eternity is all wrapped up. It's been a great experience, but we'd like to move on to a new project. We'd love to make a sequel and have a ton of ideas for ways we can improve on Pillars, but that's a way off.

Hrmmm...

 

[Delterius]

does it really matter?

Well, its an important thing to discuss. Environments is that one aspect of PoE which even detractors found to be stunning, with the exception of Defiance Bay which is felt to be a bit too deserted. I think that it may be due to layout. To minimize pathfinding issues most maps, Defiance bay included, are made up of very expansive corridors and wide doors. The city itself is mostly plazas, squares, monuments and wide streets whereas Baldur's Gate and Athkatla often have a lot of clutter and detail here and there. Waukeen's Promenade is filled with fluff in the form of carts and sideshops. To make up for that change you'd need a lot more NPCs than the IE games theoretically would (keep in mind that SoD screenshot is really zoomed out).

 

[AwesomeButton]

MMORPG: I can’t shake the feeling that there is this huge untapped well of players who would love Pillars of Eternity but simply don’t know that this is a game for them because they missed that era of RPGs.

And from this follows:

Are there any plans to bring the game to consoles?

 

[Excidium II]

I can only imagine how great this game would play with a controller.

 

[Fry]

A new JS interview:

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.c...awyer-on-Wrapping-Up-Pillars-of-Eternity.html

MMORPG: What is next for Pillars of Eternity -- can gamers consider the game done or are there more expansions or even a sequel planned?

Josh: Pillars of Eternity is all wrapped up. It's been a great experience, but we'd like to move on to a new project. We'd love to make a sequel and have a ton of ideas for ways we can improve on Pillars, but that's a way off.

Hrmmm...

Yah, that's a little surprising. I really doubt they'll try to crowd fund new IP, so probably publisher-financed shit taking priority.

 

[agris]

That screenshot is a bit too crowded. Mommy, why are there naked men everywhere?

As for why, something something memory something something Unity, does it really matter? They seem to have gotten better with it in Twin Elms, already in the same game.

Yea, it is a bit too crowded, eh? All those people standing around is making me feel... me feel.. like maybe something important is going on in that shot. Chaotic. Humm, weird. Good thing something something memory something something Unity keeps me from feeling these conflicted emotions in PoE.


I ask because it questions basic competency, a rapidly dwindling commodity for Obsidian these past several years. Then again, I'm old and remember Black Isles. Fuck me I guess.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

So I started a new play and I'm in TWM part 1 . After defeating the ogres I looked on the map and Maneha was on. I thought it may be a bug but you can recruit her in Part 1. Great to see that we have this kind of change. Maybe now I can see new dialogue in durgan's battery.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Warning, crappy writing below, open at your own risk:

Spoiler

Gold almighty, this writing is un-fucking-bearable, the pain from reading and listening to this bullshit voiced is almost a physical one! Whoever wrote this has utterly failed and should never be let near any distributable media for his crimes against writing style and dialogue-writing!!

 

[Infinitron]

I ask because it questions basic competency, a rapidly dwindling commodity for Obsidian these past several years. Then again, I'm old and remember Black Isles. Fuck me I guess.

"These past several years" implies that you also remember the sterling competency of KOTOR2 and NWN2

So I started a new play and I'm in TWM part 1 . After defeating the ogres I looked on the map and Maneha was on. I thought it may be a bug but you can recruit her in Part 1. Great to see that we have this kind of change. Maybe now I can see new dialogue in durgan's battery.

Yeah, not a bug.

 

[Florian Gheorghe]

question : do you have this kind of bug when characters move very weird and get stuck? It often happens and I remember when I was using IE mod on the highest speed this used to happen. I uninstalled it , even reinstalled the game but still I get character moving repeatedly at very high speed.

 

[Infinitron]

He also joined an hour USGamer RPG podcast interview:

Listening to this now, posting commentary.

Things Josh wants to improve in the future: Better combat pacing, more dynamic environments and environmental interaction, more C&C and reactivity.

Josh says there was a deliberate effort to make TWM less dense than the main game, a bit closer to BG1 than BG2.

Some talk about the stronghold. Josh takes the blame for emphasizing systems over content and once again says the sequel will be different.

But the interviewer actually mostly cares about there not being enough people in the stronghold, which leads to a discussion of what agris asked about earlier ITT. Large crowds cause slowdowns on low-end machines, plus "logistical problems" during the stronghold attacks. Also writing dialogue for all them would take some work. But Josh regrets not adding them anyway.

Wow! Josh admits they implemented hard counters by adding the various immunities in 2.0/3.0. "Or the possibility for hard counters".

 

[AwesomeButton]

Wow! Josh admits they implemented hard counters by adding the various immunities in 2.0/3.0. "Or the possibility for hard counters".

That's another one of those situations where I get to laugh at the fanboys parroting developer points, this time at those who turned into the greatest critics of hard counters the minute they read Josh was against them.

 

[Infinitron]

"I feel that RPGs, at their heart, should be a hardcore genre."

Josh thinks six party members is probably too much for an RPG, but people are attached to that number so you gotta have it.

Some talk about the Ranger class - the interviewer didn't like it when she played the game last year. Josh says it was underpowered until patch 2.04.

"Do you think the first wave of Kickstarter RPGs have lived up to their promise?" "Yeah. Yeah I do."

Some talk about hardcore fans who played the old games vs new fans who didn't. Josh says satisfying the oldschool fans is the most important thing, but at the same time, they can't rely on them forever. But they don't want to ever change the game so much that its original spirit is lost.

 

[Roguey]

That's another one of those situations where I get to laugh at the fanboys parroting developer points, this time at those who turned into the greatest critics of hard counters the minute they read Josh was against them.

BG2/Silent Storm-style hard counters are still trash.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Josh thinks six party members is probably too much for an RPG, but people are attached to that number so you gotta have it.

lulz

A great designer indeed. Two fallacies in the same argument. And this hack still gets to develop games when people who never did if before did much better jobs than him.

Someone ask him what their in-house testers think about this. I heard they set the path which a game follows to become REALLY GOOD!

 

[Trashos]

Josh thinks six party members is probably too much for an RPG, but people are attached to that number so you gotta have it.

1. Tank
2. Off tank/ melee DPS
3. Rogue/Ranger
4. Mage
5. Priest
6. Double one of the above to add style, strategy and replayability.

6 sounds perfect to me, Josh. I definitely find groups of 4, like in DAO, underwhelming.

 

[Infinitron]

I imagine the arguments Josh would use to explain why 4 companions are better than 6 are exactly the same arguments you would use to explain why 6 companions are better than 12.

It doesn't really matter though because it's not ever going to change.

 

[Roguey]

Nothing's stopping anyone from limiting themselves to only 4 or 5 companions in PoE except the dreaded specter of Missing Out on Content.

The presence of story time mode ensures that difficulty is not an obstacle.

 

[Trashos]

I imagine the arguments Josh would use to explain why 4 companions is better than 6 are exactly the same arguments you would use to explain why 6 companions are better than 12.

It doesn't really matter though because it's not ever going to change.

It did look like it was going ot change to 4 for a while, didn't it? I am still scared of that.

Josh is a developer and I imagine that he finds groups of 4 easier to balance. But I am a consumer, and am looking for a rich tactical and strategic experience; even if it is harder to design.

I demonstrated above that 6 can be a very likeable option offering all the basic members (+1 option as a joker) without necessarily being a clusterfuck. And 6 does not stop you from using 4, while 4 stops you from using 6 (edit: as Roguey above also mentions).

The human brain can notice a limited number of different things in the environment at any given time (IIRC the normal number is 7, but don't quote me on that). The math is not straightforward, but this is why groups of 6 can work for lots of people (as practice demonstrates), while larger groups are very hard to manage meaningfully.

So, 6 it is .

 

[Roguey]

Knights of the Chalice only allows a party of four and it's a more tactical experience than Pillars.

 

[Infinitron]

Eric Fenstermaker interview: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-fenstermaker-on-pillars-of-eternity​.107366/

 

[Drudkh]

On that AxeOfTheBloodGod podcast...I thought it was interesting to hear an interviewer give opinions good or bad about a game to a dev straight out. I agreed with alot of what Josh had to say and he articulated himself well. It least i could tell that the interviewer actually played the game and gave a damn.

Infinitron, i don't think it's fair to imply that Josh actually stated that he'd rather have a 4 party standard, (from what i could remember) he just mentions that 6 members can be "unwieldy" a couple of times. The interviewer brought up a 4 party member team referring to DA O and she said that she's a convert to the 6 party style, and Josh didn't object to her praising of a 6 party team. I didn't come away with the idea that Josh is necessarily in favor of a DA O sized team at all. Also, i think it's amusing that you specifically sought out pics of the interviewer apparently; i wonder if you'd lace constant put downs into your feedback if it was simply an ugly male who was the interviewer...

I think the interviewer must not have tried a ranger in 3.0 since they're actually quite good now, i think. I also felt bad for Josh that he apologized about the rangers being not up to par when i think any experienced player can see that they're fine now.

The most interesting thing to me from that interview is when Josh said "I think that's a fair criticism" after the interview stated something along the lines of "TWM I is mostly a dungeon crawl, and all the good stuff came in part II" The way i see it, that comment isn't just a criticism, it's simply the case.

If Obsidian wasn't going to stick with the IE style in the many ways that they didn't, why not stray from the BG style when it comes to having areas of the game more densely populated with residents that have interesting things to say besides giving the player a quest like most modern rpgs. I have noticed already that the new Torment does give me a bit of lag with its more populated city in the same engine, but it's my fault for having a shit computer. The city in the early access of ToN is far more fulfilling to explore than any of the PoE cities because it feels vibrant and alive, performance be damned.

 

[Rivmusique]

Also, i think it's amusing that you specifically sought out pics of the interviewer apparently; i wonder if you'd lace constant put downs into your feedback if it was simply an ugly male who was the interviewer...

What?