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

[Infinitron]

Heh, sounds like handwaving, but whatever.

A lot less than "some people just can't".

Eh, look. There's a quest in Defiance Bay where you find a necromancer vampire in the sewers. You deal with him one way or the other, then you move on.

Later on, in an entirely different quest, you find a book where you discover that random dude in the sewers was nothing less than the apprentice of the man who invented necromancy (well not exactly, but as far as most people know he did it first).

I thought that was really cool (and the kind of BG2 Athkatla-ish moment that haters of PoE swear it doesn't have). You would probably say that it's disjointed and you didn't care. What can be done? You either get that sort of thing or you don't.

 

[Perkel]

Heh, sounds like handwaving, but whatever.

A lot less than "some people just can't".

Eh, look. There's a quest in Defiance Bay where you find a necromancer vampire in the sewers. You deal with him one way or the other, then you move on.

Later on, in an entirely different quest, you find a book where you discover that random dude in the sewers was nothing less than the apprentice of the man who invented necromancy (well not exactly, but as far as most people know he did it first).

I thought that was really cool (and the kind of BG2 Athkatla-ish moment that haters of PoE swear it doesn't have). You would probably say that it's disjointed and you didn't care. What can be done? You either get that sort of thing or you don't.

Imo late quest outcomes is best stuff in RPGs.

 

[Cosmo]

I thought that was really cool (and the kind of BG2-ish moment that haters of PoE swear it doesn't have). You would probably say that it's disjointed and you didn't care. What can be done? You either get that sort of thing or you don't.

Well there's a problem, because i fail to recognize myself in what you're saying. Of course this revelation a cool thing, à la Arcanum you discover a little secret in the universe, and it's even the contrary of disjointed because it goes a long way to show that the world is secretly coherent. I don't mind having to connect the dots, all the more so when it's thematically appropriate (here a secret art being, well... a secret). That's more of the context i'm asking for.
Go back to my first post, you'll see all i ask is that the writing feels more tangible and adds more buildup to the important plot points. By way of characterization (which doesn't mean everything becoming character-centric), but really any mean to achieve that end would suit me.
Remember we're introduced in a new game world : i totally agree with the remark in the interview that its big secret is unveiled before it could have the occasion of becoming properly fleshed-out. Now it concerns the overarching structure, but i feel the problem is also present in all the other subelements.

 

[Septaryeth]

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!

That quote is one of the biggest gripe I have with PoE.
The question itself is fine, the gods-on-alternate-plane plot twist is okay, not the most outlandish thing we seen, but this quote answers nothing about the final confrontation.
Thaos implies that humanity require a natural order to remain civilized. Iovara rebutted the idea of manipulation and believed she has the responsibility to speak the truth.
No matter which side you’re on, one thing is certain, the gods, manmade or not, have incredible power over humanity and are here to stay.
I can be fairly assured that if I cross anyone of them I'll be screwed divinely. That quote is simply not true and didn't have the impact it should.

So technically you can agree with both of them, and the only real reason you want to stop Thaos was to prevent some evil overlord reborn.
Or was it to stop you from going mad? For some reasons I can't remember how confronting Thaos will stop your awakening.
I found myself really confused at that scene, not because I was pondering the meaning of faith, but at a loss for direction.

 

[Infinitron]

I thought that was really cool (and the kind of BG2-ish moment that haters of PoE swear it doesn't have). You would probably say that it's disjointed and you didn't care. What can be done? You either get that sort of thing or you don't.

There's a problem, because i fail to recognize myself in what you're saying. Of course this revelation a cool thing, à la Arcanum you discover a little secret in the universe, and that even goes a long way to show that the world is secretly coherent.

It's more than just cool for its own sake, that's not why I brought that up. It's an example of the kind of narrative detail that can serve as the "tangible buildup" you speak of. If you can find something as subtle as that to be a motivating factor, the people hanging on the tree in Gilded Vale and a murdered wife should be enough to make you care about Raedric.

I can be fairly assured that if I cross anyone of them I'll be screwed divinely. That quote is simply not true and didn't have the impact it should.

Hmmm, might be worth keeping in mind that Iovara is in fact a fanatic who has been buried underground for millennia. Her perspective might be a bit skewed.

So technically you can agree with both of them, and the only real reason you want to stop Thaos was to prevent some evil overlord reborn.
Or was it to stop you from going mad? For some reasons I can't remember how confronting Thaos will stop your awakening.

It's both of course.

I think confronting Thaos stops your Awakening because it resolves the trauma of your previous incarnation, who failed to do so.

 

[Cosmo]

It's an example of the kind of narrative detail that can serve as the "tangible buildup" you speak of. If you can find something as subtle as that to be a motivating factor

Precisely what i just said. You're reading way too much in my using the word "disjointed".

, the people hanging on the tree in Gilded Vale and a murdered wife should be enough to make you care about Raedric.

Except it's not that simple : the point here is that you're supposed to care in a way that makes you have a dilemma when finally meeting the guy. Seeing the murdered wife is precisely anticlimactic because you've already witnessed his cruelty, overwhelmingly more so than his "human" side (but i grant you the former was appropriately shown, a thing i'm indeed asking for). On the other hand, there's nothing really tangible to make us veer towards his "human" side : only words, his own and the priest's, nothing really palpable in the world. That's the kind of discrepancy that hurt the game, and it is a matter of dramatization and characterization. Another example : the way animancy is presented by the various character's speeches ; it seems balanced an two-sided, when what is actually shown in the actual game (i.e. in the quests) is extremely one-sided : every animancer whose "work" we actually get to see first-hand is some variation of the mad scientists experimenting on helpless people.

 

[Infinitron]

I agree that animancy could have gotten a better viewing. I think it could have used a Leonardo Da Vinci-like character, or somebody like Sokolov from Dishonored, to explain why the nobles in Defiance Bay seemed so fond of it. (Caedman Azo may have been somebody like this at some point in the past, though)

But I don't agree about Raedric. That part of the game is just good enough and I think nitpicking it weakens your entire argument because it makes your standards seem too high.

 

[Cosmo]

But I don't agree about Raedric. It's just good enough and I think nitpicking it weakens your entire argument because it makes your standards seem too high.

Ok, maybe i'm blowing this out of proportions (i omit the fact that, representing the idea of authority, he is unapologetic and doesn't feel the need to justify himself, a thing that naturally won't tilt the scales in his favor), but his actual actions vs some character's word, admit that there's some imbalance there.

 

[Tigranes]

I was so delighted in the opening because i love the stillborn plot. I loved the idea of a setting dealing with such a problem, the scientisation of magic, the conflict forcing moral dilemmas, etc. I thought the gods/eothas thread was less interesting, but either way they needed to pick one and really build on it. As it is the madness and stillborn basically become backgrund.

 

[Fenstermaker's Folly]

You really didn't need to make your username Roguey's nickname for you, though I suppose signing up on the Codex could be considered folly as well.

I liked the sound of it. Good name for a racehorse or a yacht.

Plus "Neckbeard Shitlord" was taken.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Eh, look. There's a quest in Defiance Bay where you find a necromancer vampire in the sewers. You deal with him one way or the other, then you move on.

Later on, in an entirely different quest, you find a book where you discover that random dude in the sewers was nothing less than the apprentice of the man who invented necromancy (well not exactly, but as far as most people know he did it first).

I thought that was really cool (and the kind of BG2 Athkatla-ish moment that haters of PoE swear it doesn't have). You would probably say that it's disjointed and you didn't care. What can be done? You either get that sort of thing or you don't.

I also really liked this detail when I saw it. Sadly its being there was an exception, rather than the rule in the game.

Regarding the Raedric quest - I think in general creating situations where the writer places the player (or reader, or viewer) in the shoes of a judge should be approached carefully, especially in a computer role-playing game. Some people want to roleplay a classical "cultural hero" type of charater, who rights wrongs, and takes an active role in setting things right. This type of player is okay with often being in the shoes of a judge over the problems presented by the writer.

Other players also want their characters to take an active and overt role, but not in the classical "fixing the world's affairs" way, but in some other way, in accordance with their character's worldview. And there is another type of player, the one who roleplays an aloof character, a more egoistic, or more self-centered character, and so on.

Not that these characters don't affect the world, they have to affect it, even through their refusal to act, if the plot is to advance - but scenes where a bunch of information is served to them, the scene is set, and they have to "Make The Call", by choosing some dialogue option, such scenes don't suit these characters.

At some point in DA:O I had gotten tired of this theme that nobody can sort their shit out, and is waiting for me to arrive and tell them how to organize their lives. In some cases in PoE, I've also felt forced to make decisions on mattes which do not necessarily interest my character. It felt bioware-ish in the wrong way (if there even is a right way). So, I would appreciate having this role of the player character better obfuscated by the writer.

I'd give extra points for the writer putting my character in situations where he creates unintended consequences which solve a problem somewhere other than expected, without achieving the intended goal. One of the most memorable side quests in BGII was the Temple of Helm asking my character to help enlist the sculptor Sarles. Look it up, it's a great case study of a fun RPG quest.

 

[DeepOcean]

As Eric is reading this thread, I will just say if PoE fully focused on Eothas and on figuring out his mystery, WTF happened to him instead of Durance just plainly saying to you, would be a much better as an introductory story. The whole crisis of faith, Eothas and his death, the religious war and the scars left after it was strong stuff that was getting outside of the usual escapist fantasy with elves and I was liking that stuff very much until you guys shifted focus to the Hollowborn and just got back to the escapist fantasy with elves territory again.

I didn't like how Thaos looked like a Doctor Evil character by having him using the machines to cause the Hollowborn on some evil genius plan, I didn't took him seriously, sure he was trying to bring Woedica back but I didn't respect him as a villain for the petty ways he acted, he looked more as a petulant child and didn't shown his supposed age and wisdom, he wasn't relatable. The Hollowborn wasn't a bad idea but having the machines causing it and revealing it to the player potentialy at the start of act 2 was a really bone deflating anticlimax that destroyed a pretty fun mystery to figure out.

Eder has a pretty cool backstory but he was underdeveloped, how about tying the companions with what is happening? We had a guy that fought on a religious war and was on a crisis of faith after his god died and we were on a plot about the nature of the gods and he barely related with what was going on, he was almost a ghost.

When you guys included the other gods and their nature on the mix, it became too much, too fast and too late. For PoE 2, you guys should focus on just one thing and go to town with it, from start to finish. I didn't like the story of PoE and I was furious at release but I was furious because I saw potential on it and pretty cool stuff in it that got bogged down on a ton of plotlines that got nowhere or ended on unsatisfying anticlimaxes.

Another thing, I would love a guy like Eder as the villain of PoE 2 and not another Thaos, Thaos was too much of an DnD stock villain, was much more interested to know what a broken man could do if pushed too far, much more interested than on some 1000 thousand years petty and childish asshole.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

That was a very good and honest interview once it got going. It sounds like Obsidian have a grip on what went right and what went wrong, and hopefully PoE2 can learn from the mistakes of the first. I skipped a couple of sections with potential spoilers since I still haven't finished the game, but this made me want to start playing it again from the start. If the latest version really does improve on the initial release (which I got tired of after 20 hours or so) then I can see myself enjoying it this time round. I never really got far enough into it to reach any major plot points - I think I did several levels of the megadungeon and wandered around Defiance Bay before losing interest since there seemed to be no reason to keep going.

 

[Shadenuat]

A separate, but equally large part of it was the exposition. Nobody likes writing exposition. You feel unclean when you've written it. It's boring and it doesn't advance plot or do anything worthwhile at all. Unfortunately, in this case, there was a lot that had to be conveyed for you to even understand what was going on. You had to know what a bîaŵac was before it struck. You had to know what adra was. You had to know what a Watcher was very shortly after becoming one.

If these people made BG1, instead of harpers&zentarim fighting inside your own party, they'd quote half of Power of Faerun in their game.
IE games had huge established setting, but I felt most of what was in them was understandable enough in their context. Aside from PST, which was overwhelming, but that's Planes for u.

Later on in development, we got kind of a hyperlinked tooltip system that explained certain highlighted words when you'd mouse over them. This was used to explain systems primarily, but if I'd have known about the system early on, I think I could've made a lot of the early dialogue cleaner by offloading those explanations into some database the player has to opt into.

Yes civilopedia is even better idea for explaining setting



But to be fair, a lot of that may just come from setting being new and incomplete
Then again, after you learn what biawac is, what good does it for you? You see it once in a cutscene in the beginning of the game, and that's it. Same with many other things. Weapons breaking from iron crisis seems like a pinnacle of game design now in comparison.

I'm surprised even Obsi with their mega experience had to do some sort of pitches and so, and didn't have a solid script for whole game. That's why game turned out that way and feels like when you change acts, you change game CDs and play new game in a way.
Democracy sucks for writing. And game design.
Maybe everything, really. Unless it's roman democracy, with a princeps. Everyone gives ideas, but then he decides.
Lead Writer should be able to hit people in the head with a rock if he wants imo. But whatdoiknow.

 

[Prime Junta]

About all that exposition.

I disagree that it was necessary for you to know, for example, what a biawac was before it hit. Odema's "Run for your souls! It's a biawac!" would've been entirely sufficient, leaving you to puzzle out what the fuck happened later on. All it would take is to have the possibility to ask "What's a biawac?" from suitable people.

The same goes for a lot of exposition like that. Basically, the Pillars early-game made the same mistake T:ToN is making -- dumping a shitload of information on you from the get-go, where it would've been much better to dump you in the middle of a mystery and sprinkle the information around where you have to actively pursue it.

I know this would kill most AAA games dead but I'm pretty sure the intended Pillars audience could've handled it, just like I'm sure the intended T:ToN audience could too.

It is difficult as fuck to avoid that though especially if it's a new setting. I'm currently cowriting a screenplay set in a world with some rather unusual background and logic, and my much more experienced co-author told me to write a first draft with only directions for the actors and camera, but, no dialog, voiceover, or text at all. That made a lot of things click into place and I think would be a highly useful exercise for the other folk who tend to fall into this trap as well.

 

[Shadenuat]

I disagree that it was necessary for you to know, for example, what a biawac was before it hit. Odema's "Run for your souls! It's a biawac!" would've been entirely sufficient, leaving you to puzzle out what the fuck happened later on. All it would take is to have the possibility to ask "What's a biawac?" from suitable people.

Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with people being a little bit lost (for a while at least). Worked for Dark Souls for example, not to mention other setting heavy RPGs like Morrowind.

 

[Roguey]

I know this would kill most AAA games dead

Didn't kill Dragon Age Inquisition. You see mages and templars walking to a temple in the title screen, you click on new game, boom explosion, you're the only survivor with a green glowing hand. Explanations about what exactly caused that explosion and what that thing on your hand is/does come much later.

 

[Infinitron]

I think this discussion of the game's opening, while interesting, is possibly missing the point. My impression is that the people who complain about PoE having too much "expository" writing (the people I referred to in my question) are not thinking about the opening in particular. They think the entire game has too much writing like that, not just the opening. In fact, they're probably forgiving towards the opening since it is, in fact, an opening.

 

[Prime Junta]

I think this discussion of the game's opening, while interesting, is possibly missing the point. My impression is that the people who complain about PoE having too much "expository" writing (the people I referred to in my question) are not thinking about the opening in particular. They think the entire game has too much writing like that, not just the opening. In fact, they're probably forgiving towards the opening since it is, in fact, an opening.

Well... it kind of does, you know.

 

[Infinitron]

I think this discussion of the game's opening, while interesting, is possibly missing the point. My impression is that the people who complain about PoE having too much "expository" writing (the people I referred to in my question) are not thinking about the opening in particular. They think the entire game has too much writing like that, not just the opening. In fact, they're probably forgiving towards the opening since it is, in fact, an opening.

Well... it kind of does, you know.

Well, that's what I really wanted Fenstermaker's Folly to address, but I guess the wording of my question didn't make it clear enough.

 

[Ninjerk]

Well, that's when it's really the most obvious, because you don't have a bunch of subplots introduced yet.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

There's this thing about good writing is that it's almost instantly recognizable.

Opening, shmopening, it doesn't matter. It wasn't there.

 

[Prime Junta]

There's this thing about good writing is that it's almost instantly recognizable.

Opening, shmopening, it doesn't matter. It wasn't there.

It was uneven. Some of it I liked a lot, some not so much. By game standards it wasn't half bad, but could definitely have used a few editing passes.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I disagree that it was necessary for you to know, for example, what a biawac was before it hit. Odema's "Run for your souls! It's a biawac!" would've been entirely sufficient, leaving you to puzzle out what the fuck happened later on. All it would take is to have the possibility to ask "What's a biawac?" from suitable people.

Thanks. I was planning to write the same reply to the same paragraph of the interview, but got dissuaded, because Eric explained it with the team being short on time. I thought - "so short on time you couldn't provide the player character with dialogues where he learns those things bit by bit, from separate people who give him only partially right information, until he meets someone more knowledgable like Lady Webb for example? Well, if you say so, you know best. You were there".

Didn't kill Dragon Age Inquisition.

But DAI had Awesome explosions of magical energy to keep the player hooked until he learned who the bad guys are and who he needs to click on until dead. I think the PoE team may have felt a bit short in the Awesome department while striving for the IE games' "feels" and this reflected in its writing aiming to serve as a guide for the player a bit too much for comfort. Josh's words in some recent interview, about how they had to provide for different players with different attention spans, also made the same impression on me. What attention spans? I doubt Black Isle and Bioware used to think in terms of attention spans when they were making the now-classics. You should chill and just trust your own experience and ability to direct the player's attention and make the impressions you want to make.

 

[Roguey]

I doubt Black Isle and Bioware used to think in terms of attention spans when they were making the now-classics.

You should check out the vision docs for Fallout and Torment.