Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Eric Fenstermaker on Pillars of Eternity​

[Irenaeus III]

My dream game would combine PoE aesthetics, lore depth, writing style and sheer size coupled with AoD CYOAness, skill checkness and replayability. Turn-based combat and less but more important (harder) fights, obv, like AoD also.

Maybe possible with AAA budget given to the right people (Iron Tower + Obsidian) with this clear goal.

 

[Excidium II]

Sounds like bankruptcy.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Break the bank, I don't care #LMAO #MakeCRPGsGreatAgain #NeverBethesda

 

[Azarkon]

I'd blame it on Sawyer but... I can't. The problems with the game aren't entirely the system. The narrative had a lot to do with it.

Fenstermaker talks about big ideas. The game did indeed have big ideas. It is about time that we had a game challenge the cliche dogma of fantasy religions and certitude. But the execution is not there. To his credit, he understands why we could care less about Abydon, Ondra, Woedica, Eothas, etc. That's not us being indifferent, that's them being absent for virtually 3/4th of the game outside of "lore." I didn't give a shit about Helm, Mystra, etc. in Baldur's Gate, either, despite the "lore," so it's not a benefit of familiarity. It's a problem with the narrative having little to do with the gods until Thaos lays it all out for you, and at this stage you've not known the gods for long enough for them to matter. I'll hope for improvement, to this end, because he understands the problem. Still, judging by what I saw out of the Ondra interaction in White March 2, they still don't quite get it.

This leads me to the bigger problem: he does not understand, and continues to ignore, that the characters in Pillars of Eternity were, by and large, boring, and thus depending on the characters to make the player emotionally invested/involved is not going to work. Why should I care about people such as Aloth, Sagani, Hiravias, etc., who just randomly hook up with the main character and barely says/does anything of value early on? Characters are not compelling just because they have their own personalities, motivations, and help to develop a theme. Characters are compelling because they make us sympathize with them, or like them, or hate them, or get a kick out of talking to them. Very few characters in Pillars of Eternity are able to do any of this, and that's a basic weakness that the writers need to address before talking up the big ideas for the second game.

As for Fenstermaker's description of how they came up with the story for Pillars of Eternity, I don't think it's as much of a problem as it is that they ended up with a story that no one felt too excited about. That should be a warning to you, right then and there, that the player might not respond very well to the story - when your own design team had issues warming up to it. Next time, don't just settle for "okay," especially in a project for your long time fans.

Finally, it sucks that we still don't know anything about what exactly they cut from Chris's design, outside of it not being necessary, but by this time we've come to accept that Avellone and the rest of Obsidian just wants to move on. Fine by me, but I'll forever wonder whether the man who gave us Planescape: Torment could've saved this project from emotional irrelevance.

 

[Azarkon]

I still have no idea what the two themes were. And stuff certainly didn't feel very connected by themes when I played the game..

The primary theme is definitely "What if we can be assured of nothing"?. It's tied into the main narrative, tied into the twist, Iovara explictly states it, and every companion quest revolves around it to some degree.

No clue on the other theme though. Would appreciate some help there!

There is a major theme running throughout the game about knowledge being destructive. It is central to most conflicts in the game, for example the animancy trials as well as the main story behind White March 2.

 

[Infinitron]

This leads me to the bigger problem: he does not understand, and continues to ignore, that the characters in Pillars of Eternity were, by and large, boring

As he should, because by and large, nowhere, not even on the Codex, did people have a particularly negative reaction to the game's companions, and I can point you to a bunch of squealing Aloth fangirls on the Internet if you want.

(Admittedly, in the Codex's case this may have been because people were too busy complaining about a million other things.)

 

[Azarkon]

This leads me to the bigger problem: he does not understand, and continues to ignore, that the characters in Pillars of Eternity were, by and large, boring

As he should, because by and large, not even on the Codex did people have a particularly negative reaction to the game's companions, and I can point you to a bunch of squealing Aloth fangirls on the Internet if you want.

(Admittedly, in the Codex's case this may have been because people were too busy complaining about a million other things.)

Apathy is death.

 

[Excidium II]

I don't think the companions were really "boring" for what the game is. Want boring companions check TToN.

 

[Infinitron]

Uh, in any case, by saying that he wants to have fewer, deeper companions in the sequel, isn't he implicitly admitting that the companions could have been better?

Hypothetically, I have a few things I would want to play with. I don't want to tip my hand, so pardon the vagueness. One would be having fewer, but far deeper and more interconnected companions - interconnected both with respect to one another and with respect to the overall plot. "FEWER?! FUCK THAT," you say. But everything is zero-sum in this business, and every companion we add takes a ton of time to write and implement. So yes, fewer. But better. More memorable. More like a real group of people. Less likely to be collecting dust in your stronghold.

 

[Trashos]

This leads me to the bigger problem: he does not understand, and continues to ignore, that the characters in Pillars of Eternity were, by and large, boring, and thus depending on the characters to make the player emotionally invested/involved is not going to work.

I like your post, but here you are being unfair. He explicitly asks for our support in order to have less companions with more depth (zero-sum game, as he calls it) in future games.

 

[Azarkon]

Uh, in any case, by saying that he wants to have fewer, deeper companions in the sequel, isn't he implicitly admitting that the companions could have been better?

Hypothetically, I have a few things I would want to play with. I don't want to tip my hand, so pardon the vagueness. One would be having fewer, but far deeper and more interconnected companions - interconnected both with respect to one another and with respect to the overall plot. "FEWER?! FUCK THAT," you say. But everything is zero-sum in this business, and every companion we add takes a ton of time to write and implement. So yes, fewer. But better. More memorable. More like a real group of people. Less likely to be collecting dust in your stronghold.

Not unless he is aware of the fact that compelling characters need to evoke emotions from us. This is what I've always appreciated about Chris Avellone. He understands this simple, yet profound, concept, and after, indeed even before his exit, this is the one absence that prevents me from enjoying Obsidian games on a narrative level.

 

[Excidium II]

Emotional Engagement™

Uh, in any case, by saying that he wants to have fewer, deeper companions in the sequel, isn't he implicitly admitting that the companions could have been better?

???

Game development being all about compromises due to resource constraints, isn't it obvious having less companions would result in better ones?

 

[Infinitron]

Not unless he is aware of the fact that compelling characters need to evoke emotions from us.

Well FWIW, Eric's companion is the one that evoked the most emotion from me

Game development being all about compromises due to resource constraints, isn't it obvious having less companions would result in better ones?

Sure it's obvious, but the fact that he thinks it's a compromise that needs making tells you something.

 

[Excidium II]

Well I'd be completely ok with it. PoE is one game where having a ton of companions makes no sense because

a) classes can be built in ways that fit any party
b) to my knowledge there's no BG-style infighting

 

[Neanderthal]

Be honest, I were fuckin glad wi dint hav usual bunch o squeein retard companions spewing Joss Whedon "wit" all over place, bit o restraint or different kinds o wit or archetypes are worth explorin if you ask me. Only thing I found wrong wi New Vegas, that annoying "please like me" bitch squealing all fuckin time, eventually I took power fist off her and beat her into paste wi it at side o road. Fucking satisfying, if only I coulda pissed on er corpse like in Postal.

 

[Azarkon]

Not unless he is aware of the fact that compelling characters need to evoke emotions from us.

Well FWIW, Eric's companion is the one that evoked the most emotion from me

Game development being all about compromises due to resource constraints, isn't it obvious having less companions would result in better ones?

Sure it's obvious, but the fact that he thinks it's a compromise that needs making tells you something.

He can't write every companion in the game, and no where in his interview did he address emotional engagement as an issue of characterization, which it is, because how much you care about the characters is just as important/more so than how much you care about the "big ideas." Both Eric and Josh strike me as intellectual types, and the way they present their ideas in-game also strike me as being how an intellectual might. This is a problem, because games aren't research papers/essays.

Chris, by contrast, was always in touch with the theatric and the dramatic side of story telling. That's what made his presence a necessity for Obsidian, in my opinion, but we'll see what they do with their next game. It's probably the last opportunity I'll give them.

 

[Azarkon]

That may be, but if you go over that conversation with Iovara, the imprisoned chick (or for that matter, the final one with Thaos), there's basically no option to opt out of all the pretentious bullshit. I can remember sitting there and taking my finger off the LMB a couple times because I couldn't see any way to express a sensible opinion. Basically, what were people "assured of" when they had no idea where the gods came from that they've lost now knowing their origins? Thaos tries to make some bullshit argument about how the moral compass provided by the gods wouldn't work if people saw how the god-sausage was made but these gods aren't the Judeo-Christian God who only invites those who strive to be worthy into his kingdom; they're your typical pantheon of superfolks working at cross-purposes. We aren't told anything about any afterlife in Pillars (unless I missed it) and as for the consequences of defying the gods on earth, people can see them for themselves.

Doesn't Pillars of Eternity work off of the idea that people are reborn after they die? My understanding is that the gods only affect it by helping their believers' souls find decent families to be reborn under, while the people who don't believe just get a random family to be reborn under. So it's not though people were under the impression that your soul goes to hell unless you believe, the way people do in Judeo-Christianity.

I suppose the moral aspects hold in the sense that the gods know best, and that had people known the gods were just constructs, they'd have given morality the finger. But then again, what would they have put in its place? It's not though morality exists only because of religion.

Regardless, Pillars of Eternity's world always felt as though it tried to subvert fantasy cliches, but then didn't go all the way. For example, the secure knowledge - as opposed to faith, as in our own religions - that you're going to be reborn after you die ought to have resulted in a very different society with respect to how people viewed death and insanity, such as suicide being seen as a valid way out of a bad life, for example.

 

[Neanderthal]

Reborn into what, dog, snail, Frenchman? Still seems like a toss up to me, no idea what next life'll be or whether you'll even hav one or whether ya soul'll shatter due to suicide or whatever. Just as much unsurety as owt else if you ask me, even more so wi Wichts around. What we now think on as faith used to be sure an certain knowledge to masses dint it?

Though I agree that this is heart o matter, an you could make a game all about this, wi'out big switcheroo at end an hav it be a right powerful personal journey.

 

[Irenaeus III]

I don't think the companions were really "boring" for what the game is. Want boring companions check TToN.

I'm holding all my hopes on Avellone's boy

 

[Excidium II]

I don't think the companions were really "boring" for what the game is. Want boring companions check TToN.

I'm holding all my hopes on Avellone's boy

You'll still have 4 other slots to fill though.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Eric's companion is the one that evoked the most emotion from me

Which one is that?

 

[Irenaeus III]

I don't think the companions were really "boring" for what the game is. Want boring companions check TToN.

I'm holding all my hopes on Avellone's boy

You'll still have 4 other slots to fill though.

I'll fill them with bone and bones.

 

[Excidium II]

Eric's companion is the one that evoked the most emotion from me

Which one is that?

Edér

 

[Infinitron]

You'll still have 4 other slots to fill though.

Actually no, Torment is supposed to have a lower max party size.

 

[Fry]

He can't write every companion in the game, and no where in his interview did he address emotional engagement as an issue of characterization, which it is, because how much you care about the characters is just as important/more so than how much you care about the "big ideas." Both Eric and Josh strike me as intellectual types, and the way they present their ideas in-game also strike me as being how an intellectual might. This is a problem, because games aren't research papers/essays

Quite honestly, I felt that two Avellone-style characters in the game were more than enough. Maybe I'm just letting my real-life experience of working in teams get in the way of my engagement with the game, but if I had to deal with a Durance or a Grieving Mother in any context in which I actually had to get something done, I'd leave their babbling asses at the nearest flophouse.

Not every character needs to be a bipolar drama queen. To me, that's the opposite of engaging. It gets tiresome pretty quickly.