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

[AwesomeButton]

Great interview, thanks a lot for doing it to both involved! Throws light on some things I've been very curious for.

I had little doubt as to whether or not my impression is correct, but I was surprised by how accurate my guess turned out to be - every other answer Eric gives explains some feature I disliked in the game with lack of time/budget to iterate and polish content. I didn't realize the team was so badly pressed for time, that Eric was jumping between projects, and even in my most skeptical vision of how work was organized I didn't imagine that "Most of the dialogue in Pillars is first-draft with a cursory editing pass." Some of my summed up points on TWM1 just became so much more relevant.

I was going to criticize some specific instances, like one I had yesterday, where the Devil of Caroc's lines were so bad (especially when you add the horrendous voice acting) that I had to leave the game for a few minutes and calm down, but I guess there is no point.

I've stated many times that I don't think players should expect artistic and literary quality of a game's writing, or that a game's story should give them moral guidance and life lessons, but hell... Stuff like "scars faded like lost memories" goes too far in the cheesy direction.

I must also say I was outraged when I read that voiceacting parity between companions was partly the reason for writers to cut actual written dialogue?! Man, fuck voice acting! I want to know those characters, voiced or not.

This reinstates my impression that too much companion content has been voiced in PoE. This is one aspect of the game's design where the team should not cave in to new players' preferences. They are not fully aware of what voicing characters involves.

Creatively, I think it's boring to not try and push the envelope in one way or another, and a fool's errand to try and make a game that tries to trade punches with a formative childhood memory. So, personally, I'd like us to go our own way, taking what lessons we can apply from the IE games, but ultimately making decisions that result in the best Pillars sequel we can manage, based on everything we've learned in our combined experience. I don't think you can make a new classic by emulating an old classic. Or at least I don't think it would work in this case.

I very much agree with this, and as I've said some time ago - PoE2 should only be advertised as "A successor to PoE" now. Name-dropping IE games to market the sequel to a game you've already published, instead of name-dropping what you yourselves just made, would not be a good recommendation.

If you're looking for a reason to hope for good stories in Obsidian's games to come, I have this to add. The best weapon we have - and it's by no means a guarantee - is to hire good people. In the past few years, we've set ridiculously high expectations for our narrative design candidates, and the ones we've hired are truly a cut above. So I can say that I personally am very excited to watch these talented writers grow into their roles and make stellar contributions to our next titles, and to hire more people like them, as we find them. I believe there is a lot to look forward to on that front.

I'm sure that Eric and the rest of the writing team did wonders, within the timeframe and scope they worked with, and congrats for that. But as a player, that doesn't make me feel much better in-game. I don't doubt Eric's intelligence or ability, but what use of these qualities, when he is being rushed to provide "some text" which won't even get a polishing pass, on a project which, as by now is clear, should have spent another year in development. I hope they will be able to show their full potential in a PoE2, and I think the project managers owe them one for PoE.

 

[Infinitron]

I for one think that PoE2 does need to try to emulate BG2 at least on a mechanical level. It's Josh's decision and he did already decide to make an Icewind Dale-inspired expansion, so we'll see what happens.

 

[Rivmusique]

Icewind Dale-inspired expansion

Is it because it has snow?

I don't see how it's anymore Icewind Dale than PoE vanilla.

 

[Infinitron]

Icewind Dale-inspired expansion

Is it because it has snow?

I don't see how it's anymore Icewind Dale than PoE vanilla.

It is because Josh has said it is.

(inb4deathoftheauthor)

 

[Athelas]

Icewind Dale-inspired expansion

Is it because it has snow?

I don't see how it's anymore Icewind Dale than PoE vanilla.

 

[Rivmusique]

So it's snow?

Would like to see what Sawyer views as IWD-y about it.

The major differences IWD has with BG as I see them are:

1) Linearity: Sure, there are optional sidequests in IWD but they take place in areas you're already in for the mandatory missions, you do them on the way. No maps just for sidequests and no "A needs to be taken care of right here, B way over there and C down that way. Get it done, whatever order" moments. I guess HoW + TotLM content serves as sidequests for the vanilla adventure, but that doesn't really count.

2) Not PC-centric: Your PC doesn't really matter in IWD, the whole band of adventurers are the ones that get shit done just because they happened to be there. It could have been any adventuring party.

3) No companions: IWD heroes are a personality-free group, make them up yourself.

Areas in PoE-TWM like the Ogre Cave, Ondra hidden temple, Raedceran war camp sort of remind me of those areas in IWD1/2 where you could choose between fight/stealth/talking your way through for some different reactions (icetroll/salamander/giant place in 1, monk abbey, severed hand, snake temple in 2) more than anything in BG, but those elements were also in PoE vanilla (Raedric, leaden key sewers, frost temple etc.)

 

[Cosmo]

Hey dudes it's Eric. Bester, fwiw I basically have a minor in English as I spent almost all my electives in it but my college doesn't give out minors, because who gives a shit about a minor?

Hey man, I appreciate very much your honesty and attention to detail in the interview, truly a great thing when devs realize those things are interesting for others.

While we're being honest, the writing in PoE was indeed a problem for me. First, about exposition and "loredumps" : it's THE most common problem in fantasy and science-fiction writing (in the latter we call it "didactic paragraphs", at least where i'm from), so you're not alone in that.
It's so prevalent that a number of well-documented ways exist to circumvent the fact they tend to feel unnatural and bring the narrative to a halt. But IMO you could have simply used the specificity of your medium versus litterary prose, namely the fact that game writing can be more dramatic than narrative.
And i feel your problem is that PoE's plot was globaly envisioned as a narrative rather than a drama, that's why its various element, while thematically and narratively linked together, felt disjointed anyway. I mean everything works "in theory", or when i dissect the plot, but it wasn't grounded enough : it lacked buildup and characterization. And i say that in that order because i think a better characterization, in that it would have produced a plot grounded on characters rather than purely narrative elements, would have come a long way in resolving that buildup problem.
Now what i mean by characterization : i feel the game wasn't properly conveying the "here and now" and the immediate motivations of the characters. I mean, they all make sense relatively to the plot, but not to the living, breathing world they're in. For example i appreciate Sawyer's efforts about the language, but there weren't enough profanities, colloquialism and idiomatic expressions that would have made us feel it truly existed in the character's minds and mouths, or anywhere beside some academic's dictionnary (boy, did he really want me to pronounce things correctly). Likewise, why should i have cared about Maerwald, when i meet him only once, and it's already too late for him ? Sure, other people talk to me about him, but again it creates an absolutely theoretical character ; and if you were adamant on the player only meeting him once, you could at least have made us feel the actual weight of his previous actions one way or the other, rather than presenting us with a bunch of words waiting to be summarily actualized by the plot.
And if all of it was only a question of focus and financial means, then yeah i would have preferred a shorter game (though i still felt those problems were prevalent, even in the better fleshed-out parts of the game)...


Lastly let me say i'm totally on board with PoE 2 having fewer but deeper companions ; take Kotor 2 for example : it eschewed all of the above problems almost purely by giving enormous importance to the companions. By the way if you want to have every class represented as a matter of principle, just let us choose each character's among a limited panel at the beginning of the game (a character could either be a barbarian, a rogue or a warrior, another a paladin or a priest)...

 

[Sam-R]

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!

 

[Infinitron]

a plot centered around characters rather than purely narrative elements

Eh, you have to be careful with this. It reminds me of that poster (I think it was Azarkon?) who contrasted Raedric's Hold unfavorably with the Bloody Baron quest in Witcher 3, saying that the Bloody Baron had an extended character-driven story full of great writing while Raedric is "just some guy you sneak into his castle and kill him". In a game with full player agency, where you can walk up to any character and stab him in the face, creating the character-driven drama you seek is not as easy. That's why these games focus on the big narrative picture of themes and events.

 

[mindx2]

(Also, just made this account, so there'll be a delay until the mods approve )

Welcome to the party, Eric!

Welcome to the Codex, Fenstermaker's Folly. Hope he survives the experience!

 

[Trashos]

I am not sold on the "fewer companions" thing. I don't like playing with completely blank "adventurers", so I need the companions. For combat purposes, I need many to choose from. One from every class is the minimum for me, and I hated it that the base game didn't include representatives from all classes.

I loved the depth of PST companions, of course, but combat was irrelevant there.

By the way if you want to have every class represented as a matter of principle, just let us choose each character's among a limited panel at the beginning of the game (a character could either be a barbarian, a rogue or a warrior, another a paladin or a priest)...

OK, this is an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work for me. Class is already a big part of a companion's personality, is it not? What else could Annah have been except for a rogue? What else could Edwin have been instead of a mage? And, while I liked him as a dude, I always found it silly watching Alistair, a guy with so many sensitivities and insecurities, tank for my group in DAO. You fuck up a companion's class and you fuck up the whole companion.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

"So I would say this. Whatever omens you're trying to read to determine if the company is on a good or bad trajectory, it's not enough information to make a sound judgment. It's a blind guess. Better to wait for the games, and see for yourselves if you like them, and judge every one independently of every other, because they're all different and made by different combinations of people. Otherwise you're just cultivating confirmation bias." - This sounds like "buy all of them to judge and if you don't like them, it's not our fault". Pfff.

Still, it was an interesting read. NWN mod must be the coolest way of getting hired I've seen. :D

 

[Cosmo]

a plot centered around characters rather than purely narrative elements

Eh, you have to be careful with this. It reminds me of that poster (I think it was Azarkon?) who contrasted Raedric's Hold unfavorably with the Bloody Baron quest in Witcher 3, saying that the Bloody Baron had a character-driven story full of great writing while Raedric is "just some guy you sneak into his castle and kill him". In a game with full player agency, where you can walk up to any character and stab him in the face, creating the character-driven drama you seek is not as easy. That's why these games focus on the big narrative picture of themes and events.

I haven't played W3, but i was more advocating for plot devices derived from character's actions and motivations rather than pure narrative prerequisites. To follow on your example, i would have liked Raedric's hold to have been populated with more non-combattants, characters that wouldn't necessarily have given me quests, but would have provided commentary, and some direly needed context and dramatization to the fact the guy ends up killing his family (again you see there's a serious buildup problem). It's really more a problem of minute writing philosophy rather than game designing as a whole. By the way i corrected my formulation to reflect that.

OK, this is an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work for me. Class is already a big part of a companion's personality, is it not? What else could Annah have been except for a rogue?

It's just an example of companion writing fitting into a preexisting ruleset. Nothing prevents writers to go the other way around.

 

[Neanderthal]

Make shorter games more like Fallout an less like Baldur's Gate an I wunt fuckin mind at all, Fallout is fuckin tight in every meanin o word, still think its one o best designed games i've ever played. All them skills, ways o doing shit wi em, course don't want Ian burstin me again in back but that goes wi out sayin.

 

[Perkel]

Great interview.

Duke death was obvious "missing choice here" for anyone that played it and was one of the reasons why i didn't like the plot a lot.
On other hand mentioned reactivity of Raderic hold was best moment in game along with gods shenningans.

As for gods themselves imo like i said after finishing it it really does give you leverage to do something interesting like actually becoming god in nonbullshit way (you mother was raped by hedgehog thus you are now half god). This also means that cult of personality and god can be that much more fluid and maybe in PoE2 some new gods will be around or few of old ones will be forgotten.

Especially since they resemble more shamanistic type of gods unlike most of gods in games which are based on greek mythology archetype.

 

[Prime Junta]

I would love a game set in the Malazan universe by the way.

The series kind of falls to bits towards the end (actually I never managed to finish the final volume), but some of the books are actually good and the world is way-cool. IMO it would've been a far better fit for a PS:T successor than Numenera as a matter of fact.

 

[Perkel]

I haven't played W3, but i was more advocating for plot devices derived from character's actions and motivations rather than pure narrative prerequisite. To follow on your example, i would have liked that Raedric's hold to be more populated with non-combattants, characters that wouldn't necessarily have given me quests, but would have provided commentary, and some direly needed context and dramatization to the fact the guy ends up killing his family (again you see there's a serious buildup problem). It's really more a problem of minute writing philosophy rather than game designing as a whole.

I think simply more interaction with Raedric could lead to better attachment thus every choice having more value.

Bloody Baron quest in TW3 is basically tutorial how to actually make engaging characters.

In TW3 Bloody Baron is wife beater, drunkyard who could kill a man for looking wrong at him. But at the same time he is product of life he lived, being in army for a long time teach him that life doesn't hold much of value, oders you receive clean you our from punishment and so on.

So at first you take Bloody Baron as what he looks like but later you learn more about him and his character isn't that simple and the more you spend time with him doing various task you understand that he is just like you embroiled in his life making mistakes for which he must pay.

This is why his endings are soo good. Because each and every one of them is something you take personally and each tells a story.

Now let's contrast it to Readric which is just plot figure you see only maybe once or twice in game. And you can learn only about him from his victims.
There isn't any reason to side with him other than "muuhahahaha am evil character".

Now if you would for example spend some time with his character, learning that maybe what he does is simply way things are and changing him for someone else won't change anything really.

This is why TW3 was brilliant from narrative perspective. There wasn't many actual choices but each time you had to choose something usually there were people on both sides that you knew that made those choices hard.


edit:

similar situation is choosing faction in PoE.
None of those faction feel personal. There aren't any characters that you give shit about in them so that choice of faction is more about what you will get out of your faction that choosing something you believe in or people who you care about.

How to fix that.

Let's say that several times in game you will meet knight "xxxx" that knight in similar fassion to Solare of Astora in Dark Souls would help you in bind. Not only does he help you but he isn't broom up to his ass knight, think more like Sigfried from The witcher 1. He has his motives driving him but at the same time he can see problems in it or factions he is part of.

Then for other faction let's say that one of your companions is actually part of.

Sudenly choice between Faction A and Factiob B isn't some "well let's look what buffs i will have"

Then you drive a point with later events where due to your choice maybe knight xxx will be executed or killed by you, or your companion will be betrayed by you and so on.

edit:

hell even FNV did much better job considering that all factions had people in it who you could know and understand motives behind their actions (aside from ceasars because you get his motives very late into game)

you don't see factions, you see people behind them and their motives, ideas for faction.

 

[Cosmo]

This is why TW3 was brilliant from narrative perspective. There wasn't many actual choices but each time you had to choose something usually there were people on both sides that you knew that made those choices hard.

Thx mate.
Anyway, answering to Infinitron i don't think a better Raedric would have necessitated more interactions with him, more quests or even making the man artificially non-killable for a time : just show us more how the world and other characters have already been changed by his actions, rather than just a necromancer standing in a room and a woman dead on her bed. You cannot care without enough context.

 

[Niektory]

Great interview, to everyone involved.

Personally, I would like to see us make shorter games (e.g. 30-40 hours instead of 60-80) where we cut the worst of our content and spend time iterating on the best. But there is pressure from the market itself (or at least perceived pressure) to make longer games so as to justify the game's sticker price with its "value" as measured in dollars spent per hour of gameplay. And I'm not sure if people understand that when you're on a budget, there's a zero-sum tradeoff between gameplay length and gameplay polish. There was some backlash for Stick of Truth, for example, for being "too short" at 12-20 hours. But that was a game where we cut the bad stuff and spent extra time on the good stuff, and I prefer that model. As a gamer, I'm getting old. I'm short on time. I'd rather spend $60 on a 12-hour experience that makes me laugh my ass off than on a 100-hour experience that routinely wastes my time. If any of you are in agreement, be vocal about it, because I think the dollars/hour guys are usually louder. Come to our forums and ask for a shorter, more polished game. If you don't feel that way, shhh, you, shhh.

You want us to be vocal, eh? Be careful what you wish for...


But really, I couldn't agree more. Filler content is a plague which too many RPGs suffer from. "I wish it was longer" is a good feeling to have after finishing a game, it's a sign I've had a good time. Certainly better than "I can finally uninstall this".

 

[Bleed the Man]

This is why TW3 was brilliant from narrative perspective. There wasn't many actual choices but each time you had to choose something usually there were people on both sides that you knew that made those choices hard.

Thx mate.
Anyway, answering to Infinitron i don't think a better Raedric would have necessitated more interactions with him, more quests or even making the man artificially non-killable for a time : just show us more how the world and other characters have already been changed by his actions, rather than just a necromancer standing in a room and a woman dead on her bed. You cannot care without enough context.

But, they did it. All Gilded Vale shows all what Raedric has caused and done. You have eothasians purged, as well as their temple, mothers forced to flee because their childs were hollowborn, animancers and charlatans hanged in front of everyone to see... and all of this has some sort of quest to show it in a personal level, and not just simple exposition. Inside the castle, the priest is a lot more relevant to know more about Raedric than the necromancer, who was more to showcase animancy as a subject.

 

[Cosmo]

But, they did it. All Gilded Vale shows all what Raedric has caused and done. You have eothasians purged, as well as their temple, mothers forced to flee because their childs were hollowborn, animancers and charlatans hanged in front of everyone to see... and all of this has some sort of quest to show it in a personal level, and not just simple exposition. Inside the castle, the priest is a lot more relevant to know more about Raedric than the necromancer, who was more to showcase animancy as a subject.

I was limiting myself to Raedric's hold and how it's supposed to prepare to the dramatic reveal that he killed his remaining family, but fails at that.
And yes Gilded Vale has all the right elements, but again they feel weirdly disjointed.

I think Raedric is, well, good enough.

I do feel that the"mechanical" structure was good (the various entry points, the ability checks, the sneaking, etc).

 

[Infinitron]

Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with Cosmo's overall point but I think Raedric is, well, good enough.

But I also don't think a game has to be character-driven in the way that he desires. FO:NV is not a character-driven game and it's fine. Maybe Cosmo is the kind of person who thought the base game wasn't so great but say, Dead Money was better?

I was limiting myself to Raedric's hold and how it's supposed to prepare to the dramatic reveal that he killed his remaining family, but fails at that.
And yes Gilded Vale has all the right elements, but again they feel weirdly disjointed.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ To you. I don't know, PoE is a game that asks that you pay attention and give a fuck and connect the dots together. Some people just can't.

 

[Cosmo]

But I also don't think a game has to be character-driven in the way that he desires. FO:NV is not a character-driven game and it's fine and nobody should have a problem with it. Maybe Cosmo is the kind of person who thought the base game wasn't so great but say, Dead Money was better?

It's more a thing of being properly "grounded" (whatever that means) than being purely character-driven. I had absolutely zero problem with F:NV, maybe because the context of the character's actions and their "raison d'être" in the world was always palpable and clearly established (it helped that the plot was built around faction politics rather than some metaphysical menace). Dead Money i liked but the main game taking the same direction would have been catastrophic.

 

[Infinitron]

Heh, sounds like handwaving, but whatever.

 

[Cosmo]

Heh, sounds like handwaving

A lot less than "some people just can't".
I've no agenda pushing for character-driven plot in general. I just feel PoE lacks flesh in that area.