Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity - By Vault Dweller and the Spirit of Grunker

[Sceptic]

You absolutely can lose. Kickstarter projects have failed in the marketplace and their developers gone bankrupt or abandoned further projects of the type.

Because they suck at budgeting, and no other reason. If you budget properly, and achieve the funding goal, then you're set. The behaviour you're condoning is double-dipping; market your KS for one audience, take their money, then make a game for a completely different audience, and take their money too. I don't think I need to explain why this isn't exactly going to lead to a great CRPG revival.

Yes, I am stating that mid-sized "genre resurrection" Kickstarters are practically calculated by design to disappoint the hardcore.

After designing the KS itself to take their money.

Do you see any problem at all with this?

In any case the logic you're presenting isn't even specific to CRPG KS. Broken Age hit on exactly the same tune. Tesla Effect almost seemed like it might go this route. It made some concessions towards it, and I'm not happy about some of them, but the reason I consider it to be the best Kickstarter is that Chris Jones et al were smart enough to stick to certain core tenets. I'm sure they could've sold a lot more copies post-release had they gone a different direction. I'm also glad they didn't because they delivered a good game, a good Tex adventure, and they ended a 25-year-old series on a high note. They won't revive the FMV genre, but then a Walking Dead-style commercial success would've revived it as much as Mass Effect revived the turn-based blobber.

 

[Prime Junta]

IMO the really big thing about the KS phenomenon is that it's demonstrated that there is an untapped market here. That niche PC games with budgets between say $1-8M or so with decent but nowhere near AAA-grade production values can be profitable. I have a hunch that crowdfunding will become more of a marketing tool than an actual funding mechanism.

I'd like to see more creative stuff there too, rather than just appeals to nostalgia. I'd throw a bunch of cash at MCA's, Tim Cain's or JES's dream RPG, with everything else left completely open. I might end up hating it, but then I've ended up hating (or at least not liking) a number of games I've backed.

 

[tuluse]

I don't think it's as simple as "budgeting". If you want to go crazy you need to pay for going crazy.

Also, the nice art was a big part of the pitch. Obsidian couldn't not do high quality pre-rendered art and that costs money and takes away from "going crazy".

 

[Infinitron]

More importantly, mediocrity won't lead us anywhere. Do you really, REALLY think that the takeout from PoE is "let's give them 2-3 more games to get it right"?

Yes.

Seriously, you're talking about a company that SPECIALIZES in slam-dunks, more interesting sequels that use existing engines. And the game's lead designer established himself as the king of slam-dunking with FO:NV. Why this sudden belief that they can't slam-dunk their own game? Use common sense, people.

Do you see any problem at all with this?

I'd say it's unfortunate, but your sacrifices are appreciated and hopefully, will not be in vain in the long run even for you.

 

[Cosmo]

You laugh, but I'm dead serious here. They HAVE to be careful and cautious, yes, even to the point of "blandness". Especially Obsidian, with their reputation. If these Kickstarter RPG projects had turned out Troika-calibre bug-riddled flawed gems, your RPG revolution would have been snuffed in its cradle before it ever had a chance to walk.

So it's not just about resurrecting a genre, but also ensuring that it doesn't die again.

That's only the developer's rationale you're describing, and they're partially blinded by their cautiousness. Obsidian's fans are not fans of Obs per se, but of a dream team led by Avellone, because they deliver stellar storytelling (almost always based on deconstruction as Grunker pointed out, which is a always a risky thing compared to the traditional route). Obsidian misread people's expectation and instead decided to go full reasonable.
Except every time they "underreached "they came up with something mediocre (NWN2 and DS3).

That said, game was allright and i hope PoE 2 will be for the first what BG2 was for BG.

 

[tuluse]

I also believe this first round of kickstarters was kickstarting developers learning to make games the old way again.

It might be shitty, but that's the world we live in. Look at how improved Dragonfall was compared to Dead Man's Switch and apply that to Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity and you can see how their next projects might be a lot more interesting. Even Kevin Saunders sort of confirmed this (can't remember if it was an interview or forum post now) where he points out InXile had a lot of inexperienced people working on WL2, but now they have said experience.

Quick edit: Maybe you have to make a Descent to Undermountain or Rags to Riches: The Financial Market Simulation before you can make Planescape: Torment or Fallout.

 

[Infinitron]

Even Kevin Saunders sort of confirmed this (can't remember if it was an interview or forum post now) where he points out InXile had a lot of inexperienced people working on WL2, but now they have said experience.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/wasteland-2-megathread.94233/page-125#post-3988358

 

[Prime Junta]

There's also the tools aspect. Unity has been a pretty important technical enabler. Obs now has cheap a workable RPG engine and shares that tech with inXile. There will be other platforms as well. Making these kinds of games is only going to become technically easier. For this first generation, a lot of stuff had to be built and added to systems not really created for this type of game.

 

[Sceptic]

I'd say it's unfortunate, but your sacrifices are appreciated and hopefully, will not be in vain in the long run even for you.

Oh hey just like buying Brotherhood of Steel will totally ensure we get a new "real" Fallout.

I'm not stupid, I don't keep throwing money at someone who is delivering a product I do not want in the blind hope that they will eventually do a 180 degrees and deliver what I do want, which they had already promised and didn't deliver. The KSs I backed have been at least "fine". I do feel sorry for those who still believe in this line of reasoning, who still believe that buying a remake of a remake will encourage the marketing department to believe people want experimentation and new things (as opposed to, oh I don't know, REMAKES OF REMAKES).

I honestly have trouble telling if you're full-out trolling, if you truly are condoning false advertisement, or if you truly believe that these "sacrifices" actually lead to something, despite 20+ years of this industry proving the exact opposite.

Look at how improved Dragonfall was compared to Dead Man's Switch and apply that to Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity and you can see how their next projects might be a lot more interesting.

For that to happen they'd need to realize something's wrong with the current iteration. HBS did. Double Fine did not. I don't know if Obsidian think they do, but I do not see any reason to give any developer the benefit of the doubt. I did that in the 90s, and look where that brought us.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I also believe this first round of kickstarters was kickstarting developers learning to make games the old way again.

Yeah, I too share this sentiment. People expecting that knowledge and expertise you used 10 years ago remains 100% fresh in your brain are either children or... some other word that equates sub-30 yos to children.

 

[felipepepe]

Seriously, you're talking about a company that SPECIALIZES in slam-dunks, more interesting sequels that use existing engines.

A manipulative simplification, but it's precisely the opposite of what you're saying.

The engine is the least important thing here. For every "slam-dunk" Obsidian released, they would always cry about how they had to deal with an existing game engine, handle with the limitations that came with those, follow the publisher's orders, obey the design rules established previously, rush things out, etc... all their sequels had big problems engine-wise. What they would indeed make great use of was the setting and ruleset that came with those engines, deconstructing Star Wars philosophy, fully employing the D&D ruleset or showing the tr00 Fallout spirit - since, you know, they created the series.

This time however, they created the rule & setting. We've already seen their vision of it. MCA ain't gonna deconstruct all high fantasy lore - he isn't even there anymore. Sawyer won't save the ruleset - this is already 105% his creation. What we might indeed get are engine optimizations, like individual stealth or maybe decent loading times. But that alone won't save PoE or an eventual sequel.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh hey just like buying Brotherhood of Steel will totally ensure we get a new "real" Fallout.

No, because Brotherhood of Steel wasn't from the same genre as Fallout, so all that supporting it would have done was prove that one genre was more popular than another. Again, it's about resurrecting genres.

That said, since the games have been a success, the donations of the hard-hardcore are no longer necessary, so this is a moot argument. It would have been relevant back in 2012, but we were all a bit innocent back then.

I don't know if Obsidian think they do,

Well, besides what's been said in interviews, Sawyer has also called his own writing a failure in another forum. We're really not talking about egomaniacs here. FFS they even lurk this forum despite all that's happened.

 

[tuluse]

Oh hey just like buying Brotherhood of Steel will totally ensure we get a new "real" Fallout.

I'm not stupid, I don't keep throwing money at someone who is delivering a product I do not want in the blind hope that they will eventually do a 180 degrees and deliver what I do want, which they had already promised and didn't deliver. The KSs I backed have been at least "fine". I do feel sorry for those who still believe in this line of reasoning, who still believe that buying a remake of a remake will encourage the marketing department to believe people want experimentation and new things (as opposed to, oh I don't know, REMAKES OF REMAKES).

I honestly have trouble telling if you're full-out trolling, if you truly are condoning false advertisement, or if you truly believe that these "sacrifices" actually lead to something, despite 20+ years of this industry proving the exact opposite.

This is more like buying IWD to get a real Fallout or Baldur's Gate. It's not exactly what you want, but it's close.

For that to happen they'd need to realize something's wrong with the current iteration. HBS did. Double Fine did not. I don't know if Obsidian think they do, but I do not see any reason to give any developer the benefit of the doubt. I did that in the 90s, and look where that brought us.

Josh already said there are problems with pacing and difficulty past the halfwayish point in the game. Do you really think they believe they made a perfect game that doesn't need any work?

 

[markec]

You have Inxile a company with limited experience in doing RPGs making Wasteland 2 and Harebrained Schemes a company with even less experience making Shadowrun and Dragonfall. These two companies managed to make superior RPGs then a company that has many RPG veterans and have been making RPGs for years, with most of them having RtWP combat.

 

[Irenaeus II]

You have Inxile a company with limited experience in doing RPGs making Wasteland 2 and Harebrained Schemes a company with even less experience making Shadowrun and Dragonfall. These two companies managed to make superior RPGs then a company that has many RPG veterans and have been making RPGs for years, with most of them having RtWP combat.

PoE is better than WL2. Didn't play Shadowrun yet, even if I have it installed and even made a dude in the character creator. Cyberpunk with orks is kinda cheesy and the bad art direction doesn't help. It has still failed to attract me to start the campaign. I still have plans to play it, tho with the lowest expectations.

 

[Sceptic]

No, because Brotherhood of Steel wasn't from the same genre as Fallout, so all that supporting it would have done was prove that one genre was more popular than another. Again, it's about resurrecting genres.

Why? Why is it not about supporting the Fallout name? (which it was back then, if you're recall) How do you know what we're seeing here really is about reviving the genre and not reviving specific mechanics that may not actually have anything to do with the genre? The only aspect of IE that POE copied exactly, and, well, revived, is the background art. Any hope about anything else being revived is wishful thinking. It may turn out to be true, but again, I don't see how this possibility can be used as justification to keep throwing money at several games in the hopes that the parts that actually get revived are the ones worth reviving.

That said, since the games have been a success, the donations of the hard-hardcore are no longer necessary, so this is a moot argument.

The game has successfully made money by double-dipping and shafting many of its KS backers in order to get people who'd have never backed the KS to buy it post release, fuck those losers, all hail Obsidian.

How can you possibly post this with a straight face?

Well, besides what's been said in interviews, Sawyer has also called his own writing a failure in another forum. We're really not talking about egomaniacs here.

Well if they deliver then their next game might be really something. In the meantime, this doesn't really change what POE is (or isn't)

Josh already said there are problems with pacing and difficulty past the halfwayish point in the game. Do you really think they believe they made a perfect game that doesn't need any work?

I don't remember saying this, what I did say is that I did not know what they've said about what they perceive as needing improvement in the game (now I do, thanks to you and to Infinitron). Of course this does bring us back to the original point: are they going to promise to fix all these problems and then keep these promises as well as they kept those to the "hardcore backers"? Or will they use these promises once again to take the "hardcore backers" money, safe in the knowledge that, once they deliver a different system from what's promised in order to appease the mainstream, the argument will once again become moot because the game is a success?

This is more like buying IWD to get a real Fallout

That's a good point actually, but the problem is still there.

 

[markec]

You have Inxile a company with limited experience in doing RPGs making Wasteland 2 and Harebrained Schemes a company with even less experience making Shadowrun and Dragonfall. These two companies managed to make superior RPGs then a company that has many RPG veterans and have been making RPGs for years, with most of them having RtWP combat.

PoE is better than WL2. Didn't play Shadowrun yet, even if I have it installed and even made a dude in the character creator. Cyberpunk with orks is kinda cheesy and the bad art direction doesn't help. It has still failed to attract me to start the campaign. I still have plans to play it, tho with the lowest expectations.

PoE is not better then WL2.

Dragonfall is pretty great and well worth playing.

 

[Infinitron]

The game has successfully made money by double-dipping and shafting many of its KS backers in order to get people who'd have never backed the KS to buy it post release, fuck those losers, all hail Obsidian.

How can you possibly post this with a straight face?

I don't think these KS games (PoE, WL2) disappoint the hardcore edge of their backers because they're trying to appeal to people who would have never backed the KS (ie, casuals or whatever). At least, not in the sense* that you're thinking of.

I think they disappoint because they simply cannot measure up to the best of the old games in terms of development time, resources, etc and to a certain degree expertise/experience as well. In his IGDA talk, Feargus admitted that they thought it would be easier, but they really had forgotten how to make an IE game.

*The sense in which they can be said to be "appealing to the mainstream" is that they're prioritizing polish and non-bugginess over features that the hardcore would like to see. Is prioritizing non-bugginess and safe/cautious project management over the development of more hardcore features (like perks in WL2) and crazier content (like MCA's cut content in PoE) selling out? Maybe to some people it is.

 

[Sceptic]

Ok, this is much better, and now I'm convinced you were at least half-trolling with the phrasings you were using earlier.

I still don't fully agree with you about the appeal to mainstream. It's not necessarily what disappoints the true hardcore, but then I don't agree with your and Roguey's (and Sawyer's for that matter) definition of hardcore and grognard. And if I trust VD's and Grunker's (and Roxor's) review then at least part of the problems in POE are due to playing it safe, in other words, to "appealing to the mainstream". Not by prioritizing polish over features, but by only implementing features that you think will be as inoffensive as possible, by making sure you don't bruise the player's ego with such horrible thing as failure. Appeal to mainstream isn't by itself necessarily a bad thing (I've quoted The Other Josh on commercialization several times now), but it is problematic when flaws in your design can be traced back to this (and even you I think will agree that they can in part, if I recall your stance on difficulty and PotD in particular).

Still, many of the problems are still inherent to KS and stretch goals, especially overreaching to achieve these (see Stronghold, backer items, backer NPCs; every review, including PJ's, seems to agree with this).

 

[ZagorTeNej]

They absolutely are appealing to casuals, from "no bad builds" philosophy to health regeneration, the sheer effectiveness of tanking and spanking against any threat, encounter design, crafting system, per encounter abilities, party members that will never leave/oppose you, knockout instead of death during combat etc.

Yes I know, not all of this was implemented with said goal (making the game more casual friendly) exactly but the end result is the same.

 

[Archibald]

Josh already said there are problems with pacing and difficulty past the halfwayish point in the game. Do you really think they believe they made a perfect game that doesn't need any work?

Important thing is not if they noticed the flaws, but how they are going to fix them. For example you can just throw more mobs at players or double their HP to "solve" difficulty problem, but I doubt that many here would count that as improvement.

 

[Prime Junta]

One issue with Pillars development was that it took them really long to get the combat into a playable state. That means they scrambled to balance it. I was surprised by that actually, especially as Josh had said, like, months before the BB that the first thing they did was to get the "IE feel" into the combat. All through the BB they were madly trying to balance it. Every other build was hard, every other, easy. Eventually it settled into a kind of bland average. I think a lot of the original intent got lost in the process. Status effects for example -- they really did bite hard in the first builds, only to be progressively nerfed into near-insignificance.

 

[AMG]

They absolutely are appealing to casuals, from "no bad builds" philosophy to health regeneration, the sheer effectiveness of tanking and spanking against any threat, encounter design, crafting system, per encounter abilities, party members that will never leave/oppose you, knockout instead of death during combat etc.

Yes I know, not all of this was implemented with said goal (making the game more casual friendly) exactly but the end result is the same.

I don't think any of these are appeals to "casuals", but rather things JES considers good design and reducing tedium.

 

[Irenaeus II]

They absolutely are appealing to casuals, from "no bad builds" philosophy to health regeneration, the sheer effectiveness of tanking and spanking against any threat, encounter design, crafting system, per encounter abilities, party members that will never leave/oppose you, knockout instead of death during combat etc.

Yes I know, not all of this was implemented with said goal (making the game more casual friendly) exactly but the end result is the same.

I don't think any of these are appeals to "casuals", but rather things JES considers good design and reducing tedium.

+1

 

[Darth Roxor]

Regarding "maybe they'll get it right the next time!!!" I would like to point you gentlemen to this review and look at its conclusion. That's 6.5 years ago. Go ahead and draw the necessary conclusions.