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

[Anthony Davis]

Now that TWM:part 2 has been released, and the game is at version 3.0+, I started over with a new party - and the game is SOOOO much better now. The stronghold is so much better now. There are a lot of reactivity cracks that have been filled in. It's still not perfect, and there are still lessons to be learned and improvements to be made for future Pillars games, but if you are waiting to play it or replay it - now is the time.

Anthony Davis, I really do have a lot of respect for a developer posting here, thank you for that!
But I'm going to have to ask an... uncomfortable (right word?) question (which probably won't be answered):

Can you understand that some people (most of us) were extremely hyped and anxious for this game, immediately played the 1.0 and thought it was <see GOTY vote result>, ended up extremely disappointed and are now very, very hesitant to spend another €30$ on this game just to see if it's finally fixed... Maybe even stay away from any future Obsidian game out of fear for the same kind of disappointment?
Or -lesson learned- maybe pick it up a year or two later, after the game has been patched to what apparently is the state it should've been in at release; but by then also dropped to the price of a bag of peanuts?

Yeah, I get that.

I had personally had no large issues with 1.0, again, personally.

The patches to 3.0 are all free, along with their new features, without the expansions. For example, you can get a soul bound weapon without any expansions. You get the new polish without any of the expansions.

Just for me coming back to game, I was really pleased at how much work continues to be poured into the game, and that work is only possible because of how successful the game was.

 

[Crichton]

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.

I had this exact issue myself. No one denies that the gods are great and powerful beings, dangerous to mortals and as good or evil as the ancient tales make them out to be. The only revelation is that they were created by the ancient and wise lost civilization #4352345 rather than...... than what exactly?

If you landed on Middle Earth and convinced the elves that the Valar, while being otherwise exactly as advertised, were not created by Eru Ilúvatar but instead by some previous elven civilization, then I can understand why there would be some consternation. But what exactly is the creation myth of Edora? I never encountered it that I can recall and when you get hit ZE BIG REVEAL, your character is basically required to act like this is some huge crisis. There is no "oh, that's where the gods came from, good to know" dialogue option. Even when your character is a priest and described as receiving his powers from his faith, he's unable to tell either exposition chick in prison or Thaos that this isn't a secret worth keeping, not because of some idea of Kantian idea of letting people make their own decisions, but because there's no reason to believe anyone gives half a fuck; after all, no one in your party does, including the priest who wants to kill his goddess anyway (and when he tries, he'll still be aided by his accuracy bonus from "Inspired Flame" ).

TDLR: If you already knew that "the gods" could be slain (or at least scattered) by mortal weapons, but that this was a dangerous thing to do since they could harvest your soul for various purposes, would you care that they were created by an ancient race of super-advanced men as opposed to...... not knowing where they came from?

 

[Gord]

I had this exact issue myself. No one denies that the gods are great and powerful beings, dangerous to mortals and as good or evil as the ancient tales make them out to be. The only revelation is that they were created by the ancient and wise lost civilization #4352345 rather than...... than what exactly?

I think you are approaching this from a too modern, secular angle.
If you are a believer of a faith that revolves around (according to your respective gospel) primordial beings that created sentient life and all or at least part of your world/reality but you then find out that in fact it's the other way around - fallible, weak humans created those gods - of course it will be a shock to you.
It turns your entire outlook on life/religion upside down.

That gods can be killed (or at least temporarily banished) might have been a shock, but it did require divine intervention, after all - the Godhammer was not a simple manmade weapon but influenced by another god. Gods killing other gods is not impossible in polytheistic religions.

 

[Crichton]

I had this exact issue myself. No one denies that the gods are great and powerful beings, dangerous to mortals and as good or evil as the ancient tales make them out to be. The only revelation is that they were created by the ancient and wise lost civilization #4352345 rather than...... than what exactly?

I think you are approaching this from a too modern, secular angle.
If you are a believer of a faith that revolves around (according to your respective gospel) primordial beings that created sentient life and all or at least part of your world/reality but you then find out that in fact it's the other way around - fallible, weak humans created those gods - of course it will be a shock to you.
It turns your entire outlook on life/religion upside down.

That gods can be killed (or at least temporarily banished) might have been a shock, but it did require divine intervention, after all - the Godhammer was not a simple manmade weapon but influenced by another god. Gods killing other gods is not impossible in polytheistic religions.

But where in Pillars are we told that the gods created humanity or the world or anything really outside of the occasional super-spiffy unique golden weapon? I never found any tale about the gods inconsistent with the idea that they were created by men, or some random irreproducible event or a long-lost race of sentient walruses.

 

[Infinitron]

I think PoE's endgame can be misleading, in that it can easily lead you to assume that the player is meant to be shocked, SHOCKED by the revelation that the gods are artificial. And then when it fails to do that, you feel disappointed.

But I'm not sure if that was the intention. I'm not sure Obsidian ever thought the player would be all that shocked by it. After all, the player could be an atheist who doesn't care for gods one way or the other. But it is shocking for the characters in the game's fictional world.

I would suggest that the revelation that the gods are artificial is meant to be an interesting in an intellectual and storytelling sense ("Okay, what happens to this world, now that we know this? What happens to its societies? How will my companions deal with it?"), not in an emotional M. Night Shyamalan EPIC TWIST sense.

 

[Bleed the Man]

I think PoE's endgame can be misleading, in that it can easily lead you to assume that the player is meant to be shocked, SHOCKED by the revelation that the gods are artificial.

But I'm not sure if that was the intention. I'm not sure Obsidian ever thought the player would be shocked by that. After all, the player could be an atheist who doesn't care for gods one way or the other.

I would suggest that the revelation that the gods are artificial is meant to be an interesting in an intellectual sense ("Okay, what happens to this world, now that we know this? What happens to its societies?"), not in an emotional M. Night Shyamalan EPIC TWIST sense.

Well, the twist grants you a whole new perspective to the entire plot as well as lore, and reveals Thaos true motive, I count that as shoking.

 

[Crichton]

I think PoE's endgame can be misleading, in that it can easily lead you to assume that the player is meant to be shocked, SHOCKED by the revelation that the gods are artificial. And then when it fails to do that, you feel disappointed.

But I'm not sure if that was the intention. I'm not sure Obsidian ever thought the player would be all that shocked by it. After all, the player could be an atheist who doesn't care for gods one way or the other. But it is shocking for the characters in the game's fictional world.

I would suggest that the revelation that the gods are artificial is meant to be an interesting in an intellectual and storytelling sense ("Okay, what happens to this world, now that we know this? What happens to its societies? How will my companions deal with it?"), not in an emotional M. Night Shyamalan EPIC TWIST sense.

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.

 

[Infinitron]

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.

Depends what is meant by "moral compass". I think a pantheon like this is meant to represent a kind of Platonic ordering of reality, which as a whole of provides a framework for "moral stability" to a formerly nihilistic world, even if some of its gods are actually amoral or even immoral.

Re: afterlife
Your soul goes to another body after you die, that's kind of a big deal. Berath is in charge of regulating that.

 

[Tigranes]

I agree with Crichton in the sense that when you think about it, the people of Eora don't seem to have a clear idea about where the gods came from anyway. The players I think mostly use real world projection to assume that everybody thought the gods were eternal. It would have been nice if there were dialogues littered throughout the game about how timeless the gods are and how they were around since the creation of the realm, etc.

I do think it does a good job of building it up on another front, with Eothas/Waidwen arc - the whole uncertainty that the people feel, did a God really come down, did it die, who was Waidwen, can Gods die - is expressed by many people all over.

 

[Gord]

But where in Pillars are we told that the gods created humanity or the world or anything really outside of the occasional super-spiffy unique golden weapon? I never found any tale about the gods inconsistent with the idea that they were created by men, or some random irreproducible event or a long-lost race of sentient walruses.

It's a reasonable assumption, imo, that the gods are somehow involved in the creation myth of the PoE universe*, but sure, you don't see it referenced in the game as far as I know either. However, the label "god" has a commonly agreed upon implication that usually rules out them being created so easily by humans/elves/orlan/etc. as opposed to it being the other way around.

Basically, what were people "assured of" when they had no idea where the gods came from that they've lost now knowing their origins?[...] 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.

Also, just because Obsidian didn't put the respective lore into the game (or we missed it in case they did) still doesn't mean that the people in PoE aren't assumed to have some lore about their gods which might include some creation myth*.
Anyway it is imo clearly implied by PoE that the gods are understood to be a authority not only due to them being powerful beings, but also due to their origins - because otherwise it would indeed make much less sense about how it would be such a big thing for people if they knew that gods are man-made, which would question their authority somewhat.
A lot of the afterlife in PoE revolves around being reborn, that much we are told frequently. I would guess that the gods are understood to potentially influence this circle to some degree (although some gods and by proxy their followers seem to actually want to end it?)

* it should be noted that also in our world there exist very different answers to this aspect. Greek polytheistic gods vary notably from the judeo-christian God, for example - both in the role they had during creation, how they came to be (or are assumed to simply be), whether they could die and how they "behave".

 

[Infinitron]

I think the fact that the gods have control over primal forces of physical reality like the death and rebirth of souls or even entropy would lead one to assume that they've always been around. Entropy has always been around, so if Rymrgand is the god of entropy, how did it work before him?

It may be that the game puts too little focus on this aspect and more on those gods who seem like "merely" ultra-powerful beings.

 

[Crichton]

I always allow for the possibility that I missed some bit of lore somewhere, I can't imagine I read every word in the game, but if there really is nothing that states that the gods of Edora have been around forever, or even predate humanity (or orlan-manity), I think it's a false assumption to think that's a given for a fantasy universe. If you think about ancient polytheists in our own world, they often had multiple waves of gods or god-like beings displacing each other. An ancient Greek sailor didn't make a sacrifice to Poseidon because he was the embodiment of the sea and it couldn't exist without him or even because he had always been god of the sea (as opposed to the titan that had the job before him) but because he was the lord of the waves now.

Similarly, as long as its a fact that Berath recycles people's souls (and it is, isn't it? Isn't that how he spits Raedric back at you like Dikembe Mutombo?), why should anyone care that things happened some other way before he was created by the ancient ones? To me, it seems as if the game is trying to pull a "The Name of the Rose" kind of scenario where someone believes in a system but then finds out that its predicated on a false assumption but there's a crucial distinction. In our world ethical monotheism asks people to believe in what they inherently cannot directly observe (a world beyond death), in Edora, there's only one world and the presence of the gods in it is indisputable.

 

[Tigranes]

Well, in a way, that's what makes it interesting: the discovery of the gods' origin doesn't invalidate everything about them. If you find out that the gods don't exist, then there's pretty much only one reasonable conclusion; if you find out that the gods are real but are basically powerful AI with personality modules that are capable of being killed, then the implications are much more ambiguous, to the point that you can't dismiss Iovara or Thaos as downright silly.

I would like to see POE2 deal with this much as Crichton does - people who seek the knowledge to produce new gods or become gods themselves; people who seek to kill the gods; people who now insist they need not obey the gods; people who say the new revelations are baseless; etc.

 

[Cosmo]

I would suggest that the revelation that the gods are artificial is meant to be an interesting in an intellectual and storytelling sense ("Okay, what happens to this world, now that we know this? What happens to its societies? How will my companions deal with it?"), not in an emotional M. Night Shyamalan EPIC TWIST sense.

But with the game focusing on the theme of uncertainty, even that ends up feeling underwhelming : on one hand the epic and large-scope plot burns too quickly through a world we've barely grown accustomed to, and on the other you're often left making decisions with ambiguous or insufficient information.
I mean this uncertainty and the delayed consequences to your actions are mature in a way (the message being that the world exists on its own, is unpredictable and doesn't have to follow your every whim), but it ends up creating a feeling of vagueness when it IMO should have focused on urgency, creating more clean-cut situations that demand your attention right now.

 

[Trashos]

I think the fact that the gods have control over primal forces of physical reality like the death and rebirth of souls or even entropy would lead one to assume that they've always been around. Entropy has always been around, so if Rymrgand is the god of entropy, how did it work before him?

Now, THAT was a mistake. Cold technically does not produce entropy, it produces order (eg, ice is more ordered than water). Magran, the goddess of fire, should have been responsible for entropy (steam is less ordered than water).

I even thought about fliling this as a bug. But it was too late.


(EDIT: replaced "usually" with "technically" for accuracy.)

 

[Gord]

If you think about ancient polytheists in our own world, they often had multiple waves of gods or god-like beings displacing each other.

Yes, that's true in some cases, but I think the idea in PoE (or Thaos' fears, anyway) is that man-made gods would become somewhat arbitrary and exchangeable to their believers if they lose their "divine" origin - something which makes them more special than mere power.
I think that's what the Engwith and Thaos were supposedly intending when they obscured their true origins - present the people with "true" gods, not mere man-made guardians, which could be recreated by anyone who came into possession of the right technology.

Actually that would have made for a somewhat different approach to the theme - in absence of verifiable divine beings, but with the presence of the right technology/magic/whatever, would we make our own gods as "guardians of humanity" and how would we then deal with that?

 

[Apexeon]

POE2 needs to be more focused on what worked and cut what didn't work (which was just filler and silly KS goals).
The isometric art worked so don't cut that!

Ok back to heavy drinking and throwing darts at the fallout 4 poster.

 

[Septaryeth]

Well, in a way, that's what makes it interesting: the discovery of the gods' origin doesn't invalidate everything about them. If you find out that the gods don't exist, then there's pretty much only one reasonable conclusion; if you find out that the gods are real but are basically powerful AI with personality modules that are capable of being killed, then the implications are much more ambiguous, to the point that you can't dismiss Iovara or Thaos as downright silly.

I would like to see POE2 deal with this much as Crichton does - people who seek the knowledge to produce new gods or become gods themselves; people who seek to kill the gods; people who now insist they need not obey the gods; people who say the new revelations are baseless; etc.

Couldn't we look at it in the opposite way as well?
If everything you discovered doesn't have any real, dramatic impact, what makes Iovara and Thaos so determined as to imprison themselves for a millennium or reincarnate over countless lifetimes? In that sense they can be viewed as downright silly, because they wasted all these effort for an outcome even the PC wasn't too interested in.

Same can be said about the player experience. While I don't really need a Shyalaman-like ending, there should to be some kind of emotional pay off from all my experience in the 3 acts.
To write off an anti-climatic plot twist as an intellectual decision seems...giving Iovara the apostle of exposition too much credit.

Speaking of perspectives, Asians seem to a lot more open to the idea gods are man-made. Guan Yu and many historical figures are being worshiped as gods despite the fact they "started as men", though they are probably closer to saints for westerners.

I don't know if the revelation would topple civilization by giving them the idea "gods can be made and destroyed", as the latter is already proven in the war. That assumption is also based on the fact the other gods would sit idly back and let you replace them. One literally came down to earth and almost single-handedly conquer a country if not for the butthurt of the other god.
Given how powerful they are and how much influence and champions they have, things more or less would stay status quo. Perhaps people would never dare to build the tower of Babylon in fear that their soul will be lost forever without the god of reincarnation.

POE should have question the outcome of a society without a once prominent god instead of leaving it to POE2. In fact it could have been demonstrated with the whole eothasians scenarios. Too bad most of them got killed before the players could really see what happens. Another villain who tried to make or become god is pretty much a Thaos 2.0 or Waidwen 2.0.

 

[Tigranes]

Septaryeth Roughly in order:

You're equating different things. Gods are real, powerful, have shaped history & civilisation, turns out they were created through magico-technological means some of which are extant today. Not exactly something with no consequence, unless you want to tell me how nobody would care and nothing would happen?

From the player's perspective, I've often said this, but I think the stillborn/animancy arcs in the first half are very powerful, and the delivery gets weaker as it transitions to the Waidwen/gods arc. That's more to do with delivery than in-setting sensemaking.

That's nothing to do with Asians and everything to do with many different ideas of godhood, sometimes coexistent. Remember, Augustus was made a god immediately.

Waidwen was a very recent event and nobody is sure if it was actually Eothas or if Eothas is dead. The revelations is part of a singular event in the setting that begins with Waidwen.

I agree that the gods reveal could easily have been left to POE2, POE1 could have chewed over the various social consequences of Waidwen/Eothas, stillborns, etc. without rushing so quickly to the reveal.

In short: it pretty much checks out setting-wise, but the game ends up rushing some very interesting events and half of it should have been left for POE2.

 

[Cosmo]

Speaking of perspectives, Asians seem to a lot more open to the idea gods are man-made. Guan Yu and many historical figures are being worshiped as gods despite the fact they "started as men"

They're rewarded by a Divine Order, when in PoE it's the whole pantheon, i.e. the same Order as a whole, thah gets undermined by the big revelation.

 

[CptMace]

Augustus was made a god immediately.

God =/= Divinity

 

[Tigranes]

That being my point.

 

[Irenaeus III]

Great long awaited interview!

I'll mull over the answers and this posterior discussion and come up with a new personal perspective of the game (which I loved btw).

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

I think the fact that these gods are false doesn't necesary mean that there aren't any "real" gods in Eora. And in matters of religion people are apt to clutch at a straw. Hence, the revelation about false gods can be an impulse for seeking new gods and establishment of the new religious movements, crazy chiliastic sects, etc. It also can be interesting theme to explore in PoE 2.

 

[orcinator]

BTW this feeds back into the point of how less content is usually better content. Two interesting racial choices is better than six bland ones.

Felt the same way about the classes in PoE, in regards to how your choice doesn't matter outside of combat except for priests(and I guess Paladins?) getting to say extra stuff if they worship the right god (but not when it would be actually interesting, like the temple of skaen or whatever he was called) and cyphers sometimes being able to use their powers on people.