Predict sales/critical response for D:OS 2

[Gargall amb Mocs]

- It will sell less than D:OS
- Will be praied on VIDIAH GAMEZ JOURNALISM SITES
- It will be despised by codexians, who will refer to it as 'shit'

 

[Luckmann]

I dunno, the hype is big with this one, and D:OS was a huge success already. I would be surprised if D:OS 2 doesn't do better, but at the same time, this thing has been in Early Access so long that I believe that much of the waves it would've made otherwise simply won't be made. A lot of people have already tired of the game and come release, it's just going to be another update to many of them, that they may or may not play a couple of weeks or months later.

I foresee overall critical response to also be extremely positive, but that's really just the jewish industry being shit and predictable, hyping whatever they consider to be hyped, unless they think they can profit by being contrarian.

That said, on a critical level, I think OP is largely right. But I also don't think that that matters much outside of the Codex, and even with those things being true, D:OS 2 seems to bring a lot of improvements to the table, and often, even mechanical improvements have a tendency to appeal to people to the point where they have a hard time defending the older editions of something, unless the differences are all too pronounced.

 

[Lacrymas]

It also depends whose "critical opinion" it will be. Mainstream video game "journalists" have no idea what they are doing even with AAA titles (or are pressured into giving good reviews), let alone these kinds of RPGs. Codexia will pick it apart and nobody cares about RPGWatch. And the world will continue on, we have a saying in Bulgaria that goes like "the dogs are barking, the caravan is moving" (i.e. even if the dogs are barking the caravan doesn't care). What matters is sales (like always) and that is what's going to be interesting to see.

 

[JasonNH]

I say journos will heap on the praise but players will be less enthusiastic than last time.

- The main new feature -- Origin stories -- is a massive decline. D:OS core audience is a bit more monocled and doesn't want to RP a pre-written Chosen One or hang out with Bioware imaginary friends.
- Larian will wish they spent more time building on the strengths of the first game -- reactivity, exploration, and co-op -- and improving the writing.
- New GM and PvP modes will barely move the needle, nor will mod tools. Sequel fatigue is also a factor.

The game will not be bad necessarily but it will be as flawed as the original, if not more so -- definitely not the sequel we wanted.

(hopefully I will be proven wrong)

I can't really follow the logic of your complaint with the origin stories. You claim it's a decline to the core audience, and yet the first game was pretty much just an origin story in itself. The protagonists had a single background story that was unfolded during the main campaign. If a singular, unavoidable origin story was good for the core audience in D:OS, why aren't multiple origin stories okay in DOS:2? What's more, the origin stories are entirely optional but can still be witnessed via companions. So you can choose whether you like the idea of an origin story and play it yourself, or decide whether you want to see it in a companion with a detailed backstory. More choice = decline?

 

[V_K]

Currently steamspy lists early access sales at 150k, so I'd say initial sales will be in the 400k-500k range. Whether they'll crawl up to a mil over the year - time (and the inevitalbe EE) will tell, but I don't see it faring *much* worse than DOS. It doesn't look like a LoG2 situation.

 

[Vicar]

I say journos will heap on the praise but players will be less enthusiastic than last time.

- The main new feature -- Origin stories -- is a massive decline. D:OS core audience is a bit more monocled and doesn't want to RP a pre-written Chosen One or hang out with Bioware imaginary friends.
- Larian will wish they spent more time building on the strengths of the first game -- reactivity, exploration, and co-op -- and improving the writing.
- New GM and PvP modes will barely move the needle, nor will mod tools. Sequel fatigue is also a factor.

The game will not be bad necessarily but it will be as flawed as the original, if not more so -- definitely not the sequel we wanted.

(hopefully I will be proven wrong)

I can't really follow the logic of your complaint with the origin stories. You claim it's a decline to the core audience, and yet the first game was pretty much just an origin story in itself. The protagonists had a single background story that was unfolded during the main campaign. If a singular, unavoidable origin story was good for the core audience in D:OS, why aren't multiple origin stories okay in DOS:2? What's more, the origin stories are entirely optional but can still be witnessed via companions. So you can choose whether you like the idea of an origin story and play it yourself, or decide whether you want to see it in a companion with a detailed backstory. More choice = decline?

And origins in DOS:2 actually seems to add lots of reactivity with the tag system.

 

[Lacrymas]

Since you can pick a generic "origin" the "origin stories" are incline (with a huge asterisk I won't go into). I'll probably only play through MCA's story anyway.

 

[Zanzoken]

The main new feature -- Origin stories -- is a massive decline. D:OS core audience is a bit more monocled and doesn't want to RP a pre-written Chosen One or hang out with Bioware imaginary friends.

I can't really follow the logic of your complaint with the origin stories. You claim it's a decline to the core audience, and yet the first game was pretty much just an origin story in itself. The protagonists had a single background story that was unfolded during the main campaign. If a singular, unavoidable origin story was good for the core audience in D:OS, why aren't multiple origin stories okay in DOS:2? What's more, the origin stories are entirely optional but can still be witnessed via companions. So you can choose whether you like the idea of an origin story and play it yourself, or decide whether you want to see it in a companion with a detailed backstory. More choice = decline?

Yes, by that criteria most cRPGs have an "origin story" in the sense of a main character(s), a premise, and a plot. I think it's pretty clear that this is something different though.

It seems to me they have written a bunch of Bioware companions and then given you the unique option to play as one. They've tried to make it interesting by incorporating a lot of reactivity into the narrative for these companions, purportedly both as PCs and NPCs. This appears to have taken a lot of work, and is being advertised as a major feature -- for instance, it's the first thing listed on the game's Steam page.

However I think this is just wrong for a cRPG. The whole point is to play a "blank slate" character and experience the game in a way that gives you a high degree of choice, both in your skills and personality -- and if you can roll a whole party a la Icewind Dale, even better. Playing a pre-generated character takes away freedom and in my view just defeats the purpose of what makes cRPGs unique and interesting.

D:OS had a story where you play as "Source Hunters" who are former deities, but those are vague characterizations -- barely more than just labels. They don't sharply define who the character is -- that is left up to you as a player, as it should be.

I feel it's an easy and notable distinction but of course you are free to disagree.

 

[Deitti]

In general i think it will do about the same. Maybe little less in sales department.

Personally i think it's gonna be good.

 

[Rev]

I think it will sell about as much as D:OS, so around 1 million copies. The game has already sold a lot during early access (more than T:ToN, lol), so it's really unlikely that it will fail commercially.
The press will also like it, but maybe a bit less than the first because it won't be as fresh in their eyes, despite the new features like the DM mode (which I don't think will be played by many consumers, but we'll see).

 

[JasonNH]

They've tried to make it interesting by incorporating a lot of reactivity into the narrative for these companions, purportedly both as PCs and NPCs. This appears to have taken a lot of work, and is being advertised as a major feature -- for instance, it's the first thing listed on the game's Steam page.

I've tried playing both with an origin story and a generic character in EA. I would say that for the most part the reactivity is the same. The majority of the custom dialogue is race and/or tag based, though the origin stories do have some unique branching obviously. I don't think the majority of people share your view that cRPG = clean slate background so that's not going to be a problem for D:OS in terms of it having success. If anything, it seemed to be one of the aspects about DA:O that people most enjoyed.

 

[Infinitron]

People who think the D:OS 2 audience is a "hardcore" audience that doesn't like BioWare Chosen One Origin stories may wish to remind themselves of this poll: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ickstarter-retrospective.105392/#post-4284003

 

[YES!]

I say journos will heap on the praise but players will be less enthusiastic than last time.

- The main new feature -- Origin stories -- is a massive decline. D:OS core audience is a bit more monocled and doesn't want to RP a pre-written Chosen One or hang out with Bioware imaginary friends.
- Larian will wish they spent more time building on the strengths of the first game -- reactivity, exploration, and co-op -- and improving the writing.
- New GM and PvP modes will barely move the needle, nor will mod tools. Sequel fatigue is also a factor.

The game will not be bad necessarily but it will be as flawed as the original, if not more so -- definitely not the sequel we wanted.

(hopefully I will be proven wrong)

I disagree on two of your three points on what the strong points of D:OS were, or that any of the three you listed should have been built upon more. To any semi sane rpg fan the weak points were character development, party building, way overpowered crafting, and lack of challenge even with the console edition's failed attempt to make a challenging mode.

I picked about the same as the "journalists" will say it has good combat without knowing what good is (and I'm not saying it won't, just that gaming journalists are fucking idiots who just pretty much regurgitate what the loudest voices in the community state). They will praise reactivity, exploration, and co-op, and knock the new features of having a more involved character generation as bogging the system down, or any other system that could be conceived as adding complexity instead of removing it. Larian will then make a super console version making the game more extreme with super flashy voice overs instead of making the game better and actually knowing what the weak points actually were and what actual rpg fans would want to make the game better instead of making it more consoley for the fucking idiots on console who are barely going to buy it anyways.

And I think it will have less sales initially but a longer tail if it is much more mod friendly, resulting in this game being the new outlet for mod makers who haven't had shit to mod since NWN2.

 

[Aenra]

Definitely better than D:OS, we get more of everything this time around and (because quantity alone isn't necessarily a good thing) at a higher quality/more depth. Also, them new 'tools' and GM mode pretty much guarantee younger audiences (used to multiplayers) and console tards getting the full monty this time around, so add them on top of our lot. Last but not least, word of mouth. Always helps when your last game fared as well as D:OS did. Not talking just about customer satisfaction, but also perception. Most people really love Swen and with good reason. Nothing helps more than that when you've got a new game to sell.
So definitely better, possibly spectacularly better, we're talking about a lot of shit no one's tried to do here. I still think people give devs chances when envelopes are being pushed and i know it will be the same here.

Really can't see it faring worse (how could people think that..), no matter how i spin this.

 

[Lacrymas]

However I think this is just wrong for a cRPG. The whole point is to play a "blank slate" character and experience the game in a way that gives you a high degree of choice, both in your skills and personality -- and if you can roll a whole party a la Icewind Dale, even better. Playing a pre-generated character takes away freedom and in my view just defeats the purpose of what makes cRPGs unique and interesting.

This fails to acknowledge that most of the best written (in terms of plot and drama) RPGs didn't have blank slate characters - PS:T, MotB and Kotor 2. The Nameless One wasn't a blank slate as such, he had a background life which the entire game was focused on, his palimpsest-like quality was the story; the Shard-bearer in MotB had the entire first half of the game's story in them and, more importantly, the curse was the driving force, which was both the player and Akachi's history (i.e. they had to attach a background to your character for the narrative to work); The Exile in Kotor 2 has an entire history behind her (followed Revan, fought in the Mandalorian wars, went on her own accord to the council to be exiled). You had the opportunity to "change" or, more accurately, form their personalities and skills, but that's different than a blank slate.

Blank slates would be the Watcher from PoE, D:OS' Source Hunters (their past doesn't really come into play with the story, so it doesn't matter, they could've easily been farmhands somewhere), BG1's PC (BG2 is a bit different), Arcanum's PC etc. People whose histories don't matter and are at best footnotes, coming into existence only with the new game button. Which means your character can't be the center of character-driven drama because they are non-entities (this is why PoE's flashbacks with Thaos were nonsensical vestigial elements which don't gel well and don't create a plot), "God-hands" which solve problems but are "outside" the narrative in a way. When that happens we have the VtM:B situation where the setting, "atmosphere" and background happenings are what fuels the action, with your character literally being an outside force violently crashing into the affairs of others. This is so pronounced in VtM:B that even the other characters in the story mention it. If only the thing in question is well-written I mean, which VtM:B is, even if most of that comes from the setting itself. I don't think D:OS2's pre-generated characters will have an impact on the main story, since it has to work with a generic one, so they are as blank slate-y as they come, they don't have pre-defined builds afaik, you can choose it for them. The way they are made and integrated makes the "origin stories" a non-issue, for good and bad.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

2) Writing was good in the original (a lot better than POE or Tyrany)

 

[anvi]

I think it will be similar to DoS, maybe a bit more.

 

[Valky]

People who think the D:OS 2 audience is a "hardcore" audience that doesn't like BioWare Chosen One Origin stories may wish to remind themselves of this poll: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ickstarter-retrospective.105392/#post-4284003

This fills me with disappointment and depression.

 

[Black]

In general I liked OG Dos more than EE which I will probably like more than DOS 2 which may be better than DOS 2 EE GOTY DC.

 

[vortex]

What if D:OS 2 will sale better that Skyrim ? Huuuge.

 

[YES!]

However I think this is just wrong for a cRPG. The whole point is to play a "blank slate" character and experience the game in a way that gives you a high degree of choice, both in your skills and personality -- and if you can roll a whole party a la Icewind Dale, even better. Playing a pre-generated character takes away freedom and in my view just defeats the purpose of what makes cRPGs unique and interesting.

This fails to acknowledge that most of the best written (in terms of plot and drama) RPGs didn't have blank slate characters - PS:T, MotB and Kotor 2. The Nameless One wasn't a blank slate as such, he had a background life which the entire game was focused on, his palimpsest-like quality was the story; the Shard-bearer in MotB had the entire first half of the game's story in them and, more importantly, the curse was the driving force, which was both the player and Akachi's history (i.e. they had to attach a background to your character for the narrative to work); The Exile in Kotor 2 has an entire history behind her (followed Revan, fought in the Mandalorian wars, went on her own accord to the council to be exiled). You had the opportunity to "change" or, more accurately, form their personalities and skills, but that's different than a blank slate.

Blank slates would be the Watcher from PoE, D:OS' Source Hunters (their past doesn't really come into play with the story, so it doesn't matter, they could've easily been farmhands somewhere), BG1's PC (BG2 is a bit different), Arcanum's PC etc. People whose histories don't matter and are at best footnotes, coming into existence only with the new game button. Which means your character can't be the center of character-driven drama because they are non-entities (this is why PoE's flashbacks with Thaos were nonsensical vestigial elements which don't gel well and don't create a plot), "God-hands" which solve problems but are "outside" the narrative in a way. When that happens we have the VtM:B situation where the setting, "atmosphere" and background happenings are what fuels the action, with your character literally being an outside force violently crashing into the affairs of others. This is so pronounced in VtM:B that even the other characters in the story mention it. If only the thing in question is well-written I mean, which VtM:B is, even if most of that comes from the setting itself. I don't think D:OS2's pre-generated characters will have an impact on the main story, since it has to work with a generic one, so they are as blank slate-y as they come, they don't have pre-defined builds afaik, you can choose it for them. The way they are made and integrated makes the "origin stories" a non-issue, for good and bad.

Role-playing isn't storytelling. If the dungeon master is directing it, it's not a game. Gary Gygax

I play rpgs to play my character, not the be inflecting with a character the developer invented. But I honestly don't see the system as described in D:OS2 as a barrier to me making a character. When good rpgs allow you to make a character, as all good rpgs do, there are always rules and confinements. Rules govern all the systems of game. The more and more complex the systems the better the game. The less hamfisted directing and storytelling jammed down the player's throat and the more viable options to proceed the better the rpg.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I say journos will heap on the praise but players will be less enthusiastic than last time.

- The main new feature -- Origin stories -- is a massive decline. D:OS core audience is a bit more monocled and doesn't want to RP a pre-written Chosen One or hang out with Bioware imaginary friends.
- Larian will wish they spent more time building on the strengths of the first game -- reactivity, exploration, and co-op -- and improving the writing.
- New GM and PvP modes will barely move the needle, nor will mod tools. Sequel fatigue is also a factor.

The game will not be bad necessarily but it will be as flawed as the original, if not more so -- definitely not the sequel we wanted.

(hopefully I will be proven wrong)

Give us your citations.

 

[Iznaliu]

People who think the D:OS 2 audience is a "hardcore" audience that doesn't like BioWare Chosen One Origin stories may wish to remind themselves of this poll: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ickstarter-retrospective.105392/#post-4284003

I think they are just sharing their personal views, not using that to predict the game's sales.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

small studios unwilling to let go.

Spoiler

It's gonna do worse unless they get that DM thing hyped and going.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I like the idea of having origin stories, esp. if they are also optional, and nothing prevents the player from playing without an origin story.

I welcome the switch to a more serious writing and visual style, though my wife disapproves of that.

I actually bought an xbox controller so we can play coop. Now show me how scandalised you are