Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

[fantadomat]

They did know what they wanted to make though, an Infinity Engine revival with a very traditional Forgotten Realms style setting. They viewed that as their ticket, right or wrong, and I think the result was a lot of people realized that's not really what they wanted from Obsidian (again, right or wrong).

Obsidian's prime pitch was Infinity Engine/Bhaalspawn Saga "spiritual successor". IE veterans were their target audience. It was a cheap attempt to cash-in on nostalgia, just like every other Kickstarter "Renaissance" RPG.

What happened was, they just failed to impress their target audience, similar to how BioWare failed with their "spritual successor", Dragon Age: Origins.

These games just stink of degenerate current gen fads, trends and sensibilities. Pretty much everything post-MotB/SoZ does.

Obsidian did fail,Biowaste didn't until DA2. DAO was pretty good game for what it was,far better than PoE. There is a good reason why the second DA sold that well even when being shit.

 

[Lilura]

Obsidian did fail,Biowaste didn't until DA2. DAO was pretty good game for what it was,far better than PoE.

I agree DA:O > PoE. I'm just saying DA:O did not impress IE veterans as a spiritual successor to IE/BSS. Major turn-offs were: encounter/itemization scaling, injury system triviality, lack of dungeon strategy due to cooldown wait-outs and list-based console inventory as well as lack of mage duels and an overall lack of combat encounter difficulty (nothing on par with BG2 dragons, illithid, beholders, liches etc.)

 

[fantadomat]

Obsidian did fail,Biowaste didn't until DA2. DAO was pretty good game for what it was,far better than PoE.

I agree DA:O > PoE. I'm just saying DA:O did not impress IE veterans as a spiritual successor to IE/BSS. Major turn-offs were: encounter/itemization scaling, injury system triviality, lack of dungeon strategy due to cooldown wait-outs and list-based console inventory as well as lack of mage duels and an overall lack of combat encounter difficulty (nothing on par with BG2 dragons, illithid, beholders, liches etc.)

Oh yeah i totally agree,the game didn't impress old fags. But it did satisfy in a way,it was a new rtwp game that was ok,and as a story fag i did enjoy it quite a lot. The whole origin system was new and unique. It came 10ish years after BG2 and seven after NWN,a lot of rpg fans were starving.

 

[Lacrymas]

ToEE also has "origins", every alignment starts in a different place. They aren't as elaborate as DA:O's, but DA:O's are far from unique.

 

[fantadomat]

ToEE also has "origins", every alignment starts in a different place. They aren't as elaborate as DA:O's, but DA:O's are far from unique.

Yeah i forgot about that bugfest. Still they are very different in a way. One is about origin of person the other is about alignment.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

But it did satisfy in a way

Not only did it not satisfy me, it gave me a morbid realization that these studios will never ever deliver a good rpg. Never ever.

 

[Lilura]

Oh yeah i totally agree,the game didn't impress old fags. But it did satisfy in a way,it was a new rtwp game that was ok,and as a story fag i did enjoy it quite a lot. The whole origin system was new and unique. It came 10ish years after BG2 and seven after NWN,a lot of rpg fans were starving.

It can also satisfy combatfags if you deck it out like this.

As alluded to in that set-up, one of my biggest beefs with post-Renaissance era RPGs is their lack of game-play speed. NWN started that; with a couple of exceptions such as Warband, everything just became slower from that point on.

 

[fantadomat]

Oh yeah i totally agree,the game didn't impress old fags. But it did satisfy in a way,it was a new rtwp game that was ok,and as a story fag i did enjoy it quite a lot. The whole origin system was new and unique. It came 10ish years after BG2 and seven after NWN,a lot of rpg fans were starving.

It can also satisfy combatfags if you deck it out like this.

As alluded to in that set-up, one of my biggest beefs with post-Renaissance era RPGs is there lack of game-play speed. NWN started that; with a couple of exceptions such as Warband, everything just became slower from that point on.

BG games are very slow if you don't ctrl+j . But i will concede that at least they do have ctrl+j while other games don't. I don't really care much about battle difficulty and combat systems,still i do enjoy having hard and fun battle from time to time. Did enjoy outsmarting the Twisted Rune and Demogorgon on harder difficulty.

 

[Lilura]

IE games can be configured to run at 60 AI updates per sec.

Fallout, Arcanum and Planescape: Torment have Always Run options. Plus, Dex pumps movement speed in Arcanum. In JA2, an array of stats pump movement speed.

Of course, for Underrail you need to install a speedhack to move above a snail's pace. Mass Effect 2, as well.

 

[Dodo1610]

They did know what they wanted to make though, an Infinity Engine revival with a very traditional Forgotten Realms style setting. They viewed that as their ticket, right or wrong, and I think the result was a lot of people realized that's not really what they wanted from Obsidian (again, right or wrong).

Obsidian's prime pitch was Infinity Engine/Bhaalspawn Saga "spiritual successor". IE veterans were their target audience. It was a cheap attempt to cash-in on nostalgia, just like every other Kickstarter "Renaissance" RPG.

What happened was, they just failed to impress their target audience, similar to how BioWare failed with their "spritual successor", Dragon Age: Origins.

These games just stink of degenerate current gen fads, trends and sensibilities. Pretty much everything post-MotB/SoZ does.

Obsidian did fail,Biowaste didn't until DA2. DAO was pretty good game for what it was,far better than PoE. There is a good reason why the second DA sold that well even when being shit.

In my opinion Dragon Age: Origins gets too much hate here, it was the last AAA game that deserves to be called a RPG. Unlike the Renaissance RPGs it tried more then simply badly copying Baldurs Gate. POE might have more stats, skills and spells but still isn't half as enjoyable as DA:O.

 

[DalekFlay]

I agree DA:O > PoE. I'm just saying DA:O did not impress IE veterans as a spiritual successor to IE/BSS. Major turn-offs were: encounter/itemization scaling, injury system triviality, lack of dungeon strategy due to cooldown wait-outs and list-based console inventory as well as lack of mage duels and an overall lack of combat encounter difficulty (nothing on par with BG2 dragons, illithid, beholders, liches etc.)

Go look at Dragon Age: Origins' place on our top 50 list. I'll wait.

 

[Lilura]

Go look at Dragon Age: Origins' place on our top 50 list. I'll wait.

Well, enjoy the wait because I don't read lists or commentary other than my own.

 

[Roguey]

agris

Deadfire's budget should be comparable to if not greater than KotOR 2's and NWN2's.

KotOR 2: A core team of around 30, development time of less than a year, full voice acting.
NWN 2: A core team of around 60, development time of about two years, almost-full va.
Deadfire: A core team of around 60-70, development time of about two years, full va.

 

[Lilura]

POE might have more stats, skills and spells but still isn't half as enjoyable as DA:O.

At the end of the day, it's shit vs. shit so it doesn't matter all that much.

 

[Jezal_k23]

DA:O is pretty much Filler Combat: The Game. I still dread the Deep Roads or the Fade to this day and I think I played the game like 6 years ago or something. It's not as if the combat system redeemed it either, being extremely uninteresting, with a few spells you're gonna spam over and over. PoE feels like a superior effort to me since there's no content in it that I absolutely hate. Maybe it's not great, but it's never as bad as DA:O could get imo.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Do people seriously believe DA:O has better combat than PoE2?

 

[imweasel]

Do people seriously believe DA:O has better combat than PoE2?

Create a poll like a true Codexer and find out.

I bet you DA:O would win.

 

[Fairfax]

POE might have more stats, skills and spells but still isn't half as enjoyable as DA:O.

At the end of the day, it's shit vs. shit so it doesn't matter all that much.

Quite the change of heart.

Let's face it, Dragon Age: Origins is the best tactical RPG released since Silent Storm.

The disease called the 3D engine is the source of decline.

Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Mask of the Betrayer, Dragon Age: Origins, Silent Storm, Gothic 2 and Vampire Bloodlines?

... idiot.

This is how to mod Dragon Age: Origins for the best RTwP tactical experience.

Overall, Dragon Age: Origins > BG2.

Better characters, better writing, better combat, better C&C.

 

[Lilura]

Au contraire, probably the only RPGs I haven't called shit at one time or another, for one reason or another, are Fallout, Deus Ex and Jagged Alliance 2.

But keep wasting your time dredging up my posts on the 'Dex if you like; in the meantime, I will continue to cement myself as a chief commentator for several shitty RPGs, and the few rare ones that aren't.

 

[Jimmious]

So, after 60 pages of analysis, do we have an outcome?

 

[Quillon]

The bigger question is why Deadfire is reviewing worse than the first game. I can't wrap my head around that.

The Codex consensus is that the game has worse writing for its companions and main narrative. Since much of the CRPG market is composed of storyfags, and storyfags are also more likely to write reviews due to their natural love of writing, it's not surprising.

Obsidian had a reputation for excellent writing in the larger community and that resulted in better than usual reviews, in the past, due to the above factors; no longer.

The writing might be worse than PoE but its easier to digest this time around since they had spread it all over the game instead of dumping frequent WoTs on players like in PoE1.

 

[Lacrymas]

The entire encyclopedias of useless and dull information everyone was blurting out was the least of PoE's writing problems, though. Not having any interesting characters, believable motivations, drama, structure, and having an incredibly idiotic conclusion and twist were much bigger problems. Readers/players can forgive lore dumps if they're interesting enough, set up something later on and you have fostered good will with the rest of the narrative. The cavalcade of shit and triviality that is the entire writing of both 1 and 2 don't facilitate such good will, however, so the lore dumps stand out even more.

The matter of fact is that you'll like/tolerate PoE1 and 2 if you are a combatfag or have very, very low standards for writing and you just like reading words. Most people aren't combatfags, we are painfully aware of that, but most people also don't have such a tolerance for reading lots of words for no reason, so the low sales are the end result. Congratulations. The more I play older games, the more I realize in how many ways PoE is impotent.

 

[Dodo1610]

So, after 60 pages of analysis, do we have an outcome?

It's hard or even impossible to say since we do not know the game's budget, but it's very likley that the sales did not meet the expectations.

 

[unfairlight]

So, after 60 pages of analysis, do we have an outcome?

It probably only barely broke even. Sales are around 200k for Steam, peak player count never toppled Deutschland and Elex, missing the mark by 200 or so.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I asked previously but didn't get an answer. Wouldn't the people who funded this on fig know since they get return on investment?