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

[Delterius]

I believe their big quality push will come with the expansion. It's already been delayed a few months, even though the areas and enemy models are very obviously recycled from the base game. Where could all that development time have gone? Into quests, story, and c&c.

Never change Bubbles.

 

[lurker3000]

And RPGCodex goes full mainstream with its reviews:

Well, I stopped playing at the end of Act 2, so I can’t really tell you what that might be.

 

[Infinitron]

I believe their big quality push will come with the expansion. It's already been delayed a few months, even though the areas and enemy models are very obviously recycled from the base game. Where could all that development time have gone? Into quests, story, and c&c.

Never change Bubbles.

Inb4 he turns out to be right. I mean, not that it'll be an MotB (it won't), but for instance, Heart of Winter's setup was kind of more cool/interesting compared to IWD's.

 

[tuluse]

Really? I can't always tell when you're fucking with people, so I assume you're always fucking with people just to be on the safe side.

He's fucking with you, it's going to be Tales of the Sword Coast esque.

 

[tuluse]

I believe it was nothing but a bridge to last until the next publishers' payment/contract.

I think Obsidian wants to go with a dual approach. Have their smaller indie projects they self-fund/crowd fund, and have AAA projects they also work on.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to get a publisher deal for a PoE spinoff either where Obsidian owns everything and get real royalties.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Like all great RPGs, Torment sold fuck all, while the Baldur’s Gate series went on a world tour, sold millions of copies, and turned Bioware into a powerhouse, EA’s favorite bitch, and a true champion of diversity.

I read somewhere that Torment sold okay.

I was all the licenses Interplay had to fork out for that stopped them from being considered profitable.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

From a storyfag perspective, who's left at Obsidian that can deliver good writing, interesting characters and the like? It was always my hope that Avellone would be involved much more heavily in a weirdass expansion/DLC/sequel after the "safe" introduction to the world of the original game but he's gone, so is Ziets and I think the guy that wrote FNV? Any young talent at OE? PoE writing could have suffered to a degree from maybe not having a time to do another pass and get rid of redundancy, they'll obviously have more time for the sequel.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I would point out the 4 million dollars was an opportunity to get ahead and save something for the future, provided they have other work going on at the same time.

I believe it was nothing but a bridge to last until the next publishers' payment/contract.

That doesn't make sense even from the perspective of a greedy capitalist, though. Everybody will tell you, developing your own IP is key to survival, independence and growth. IP, IP, IP.

I wouldn't know, but here are the facts as I see them:

- Obsidian is on the verge of layoffs; they start a KS (the effort isn't there at first) and get 4 mil
- Feargus stated in the past that Obsidian's burn rate was a mil a month, so the money they got was good for 4-8 months not 2.5 years.
- Instead of pouring all their effort into this new IP as we all hoped, they work on something else. If there is one thing Obsidian always did well it's the dialogues and unique settings/twists of familiar settings. I'm truly surprised that they fucked it up so badly. The only logical explanation is that this game was never their priority.
- I don't know what Obsidian's average contract is these days but if it's 15-25 mil, for argument's sake, it's easy to see why a 4 mil game wouldn't be at the top of their list. InXile is smaller and faster and can take advantage of KS and live off it for the next 20 years. Obsidian is too heavy and too publisher-oriented.
- Avellon left Obsidian for a reason.

 

[Ovplain]

Nicely done.:*

 

[tuluse]

Like all great RPGs, Torment sold fuck all, while the Baldur’s Gate series went on a world tour, sold millions of copies, and turned Bioware into a powerhouse, EA’s favorite bitch, and a true champion of diversity.

I read somewhere that Torment sold okay.

I was all the licenses Interplay had to fork out for that stopped them from being considered profitable.

Black Isle was profitable the entire time. Interplay as a whole wasn't because all their AAA console games turned out to suck, went over budget, and didn't sell.

- Obsidian is on the verge of layoffs; they start a KS (the effort isn't there at first) and get 4 mil
- Feargus stated in the past that Obsidian's burn rate was a mil a month, so the money they got was good for 4-8 months not 2.5 years.

Well they weren't funding the whole company from KS. They still had South Park, Tank MMO and some secret project.

- Instead of pouring all their effort into this new IP as we all hoped, they work on something else. If there is one thing Obsidian always did well it's the dialogues and unique settings/twists of familiar settings. I'm truly surprised that they fucked it up so badly. The only logical explanation is that this game was never their priority.

I think this is true, they had 10-25 people working on it at any one time in a company that was around 100 people when they started and is almost 200 now. Also the documentary reveals that Fenstermaker was splitting time between South Park and PoE.

 

[Infinitron]

I would point out the 4 million dollars was an opportunity to get ahead and save something for the future, provided they have other work going on at the same time.

I believe it was nothing but a bridge to last until the next publishers' payment/contract.

That doesn't make sense even from the perspective of a greedy capitalist, though. Everybody will tell you, developing your own IP is key to survival, independence and growth. IP, IP, IP.

I wouldn't know, but here are the facts as I see them:

- Obsidian is on the verge of layoffs; they start a KS (the effort isn't there at first) and get 4 mil
- Feargus stated in the past that Obsidian's burn rate was a mil a month, so the money they got was good for 4-8 months not 2.5 years.
- Instead of pouring all their effort into this new IP as we all hoped, they work on something else. If there is one thing Obsidian always did well it's the dialogues and unique settings/twists of familiar settings. I'm truly surprised that they fucked it up so badly. The only logical explanation is that this game was never their priority.
- I don't know what Obsidian's average contract is these days but if it's 15-25 mil, for argument's sake, it's easy to see why a 4 mil game wouldn't be at the top of their list. InXile is smaller and faster and can take advantage of KS and live off it for the next 20 years. Obsidian is too heavy and too publisher-oriented.
- Avellon left Obsidian for a reason.

I understand what you're saying, but it still doesn't make sense to me that they'd just leave Kickstarter forever. Larger companies just move slower.

I mean, let's look at a list of them, sorted by size from largest to smallest:

Obsidian: Developed and released one KS RPG. Teased more, but never delivered.
Larian: Developed and released one KS RPG. Teased two more, but ended up going to E3 to talk about the console EE of their first game instead.
inXile: Developed and released one KS RPG. Have two more on the way, but it's taking forever.
Harebrained Schemes: Developed and released two KS RPGs, with another one on the way a couple of months from now.

So, if you were an HBS fan, you could be mad at all of the developers above them, saying they aren't serious about bringing the incline. And from a certain perspective you'd be right, I guess.

 

[Bubbles]

From a storyfag perspective, who's left at Obsidian that can deliver good writing, interesting characters and the like?

Josh Sawyer.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Josh Sawyer.

By characters I don't necessarily mean robots.

 

[Infinitron]

Josh Sawyer.

By characters I don't necessarily mean robots.

 

[Mortmal]

After reading all this reviews on the Codex, it seems that many had very high expectations for PoE and were disappointed by the final game.

My case is the reverse thing. I had very low expectations, because I saw some fundamental flaws in the 'balanced' character development and RTwP combat before release.
I was positively surprised by the game and had fun to finish it. It's a not a great, but a good game which is better than the sum of its parts.

Is it better or worse than DA:I?

You went faster than me. I had the same state of mind when trying dragon age inqusition, not expected anything really, anything at all, but it ends some fun popamole for me. While sadly i had great expectations for POE , kickstarted it expansion included . Then the disapointment made me probably more bitter and hateful than the game really deserves.

Now that said VD/grunker did a damn good review there, thats what codex content should be.

 

[Athelas]

From a storyfag perspective, who's left at Obsidian that can deliver good writing, interesting characters and the like? It was always my hope that Avellone would be involved much more heavily in a weirdass expansion/DLC/sequel after the "safe" introduction to the world of the original game but he's gone, so is Ziets and I think the guy that wrote FNV? Any young talent at OE?

Carrie Patel.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Carrie Patel.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I understand what you're saying, but it still doesn't make sense to me that they'd just leave Kickstarter forever. Larger companies just move slower.

I mean, let's look at a list of them, sorted by size from largest to smallest:

Obsidian: Developed and released one KS RPG. Teased more, but never delivered.
Larian: Developed and released one KS RPG. Teased two more, but ended up going to E3 to talk about the console EE of their first game instead.
inXile: Developed and released one KS RPG. Have two more on the way, but it's taking forever.
Harebrained Schemes: Developed and released two KS RPGs, with another one on the way a couple of months from now.

So, if you were an HBS fan, you could be mad at all of the developers above them, saying they aren't serious about bringing the incline. And from a certain perspective you'd be right, I guess.

I'm not saying they would abandon it. I'm saying they used this one as a bridge/side project, not as an opportunity.

 

[Infinitron]

Well, it was also an "opportunity" to boost their credibility as a company, which can help with publishers ("Hey, these guys have a fanbase! We should work with them! It's good PR!"). I think in the PoE documentary, where they talk about how the game saved the company, that's what they really mean.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Like all great RPGs, Torment sold fuck all, while the Baldur’s Gate series went on a world tour, sold millions of copies, and turned Bioware into a powerhouse, EA’s favorite bitch, and a true champion of diversity.

I read somewhere that Torment sold okay.

BG1 sold over two million copies and was heralded as the best game evar, the savior of the RPG genre. The expansion sold over 600,000 copies. Combined all BG games and expansions sold over 5 million copies.

PST sold around 400,000 copies.

 

[Kz3r0]

I would point out the 4 million dollars was an opportunity to get ahead and save something for the future, provided they have other work going on at the same time.

I believe it was nothing but a bridge to last until the next publishers' payment/contract.

That doesn't make sense even from the perspective of a greedy capitalist, though. Everybody will tell you, developing your own IP is key to survival, independence and growth. IP, IP, IP.

I wouldn't know, but here are the facts as I see them:

- Obsidian is on the verge of layoffs; they start a KS (the effort isn't there at first) and get 4 mil
- Feargus stated in the past that Obsidian's burn rate was a mil a month, so the money they got was good for 4-8 months not 2.5 years.
- Instead of pouring all their effort into this new IP as we all hoped, they work on something else. If there is one thing Obsidian always did well it's the dialogues and unique settings/twists of familiar settings. I'm truly surprised that they fucked it up so badly. The only logical explanation is that this game was never their priority.
- I don't know what Obsidian's average contract is these days but if it's 15-25 mil, for argument's sake, it's easy to see why a 4 mil game wouldn't be at the top of their list. InXile is smaller and faster and can take advantage of KS and live off it for the next 20 years. Obsidian is too heavy and too publisher-oriented.
- Avellon left Obsidian for a reason.

Best kickstrted game.
Solid foundation to built upon.
PS:
By having Zed in ignore I missed this, LOL at everyone calling this disjointed piece of writing good.

 

[Mortmal]

I would point out the 4 million dollars was an opportunity to get ahead and save something for the future, provided they have other work going on at the same time.

I believe it was nothing but a bridge to last until the next publishers' payment/contract.

That doesn't make sense even from the perspective of a greedy capitalist, though. Everybody will tell you, developing your own IP is key to survival, independence and growth. IP, IP, IP.

I wouldn't know, but here are the facts as I see them:

- Obsidian is on the verge of layoffs; they start a KS (the effort isn't there at first) and get 4 mil
- Feargus stated in the past that Obsidian's burn rate was a mil a month, so the money they got was good for 4-8 months not 2.5 years.
- Instead of pouring all their effort into this new IP as we all hoped, they work on something else. If there is one thing Obsidian always did well it's the dialogues and unique settings/twists of familiar settings. I'm truly surprised that they fucked it up so badly. The only logical explanation is that this game was never their priority.
- I don't know what Obsidian's average contract is these days but if it's 15-25 mil, for argument's sake, it's easy to see why a 4 mil game wouldn't be at the top of their list. InXile is smaller and faster and can take advantage of KS and live off it for the next 20 years. Obsidian is too heavy and too publisher-oriented.
- Avellon left Obsidian for a reason.

Best kickstrted game.
Solid foundation to built upon.
PS:
By having Zed in ignore I missed this, LOL at everyone calling this disjointed piece of writing good.

Wasnt best kickstarted game ironic ?

 

[mindx2]

Vault Dweller Another good read from you my friend... Though I think I enjoy it more than you do (haven't played all that much yet ) your observations are certainly valid and always welcome. I do hope Obsidian learns (and reads these criticisms) and strives to break out of their self imposed mediocrity of always "playing it safe", which was always assumed to be from the publishers, and finally creates their magnum opus.



edit: ...also, what's up with Grunker... what did I miss?

 

[Kz3r0]

From a storyfag perspective, who's left at Obsidian that can deliver good writing, interesting characters and the like? It was always my hope that Avellone would be involved much more heavily in a weirdass expansion/DLC/sequel after the "safe" introduction to the world of the original game but he's gone, so is Ziets and I think the guy that wrote FNV? Any young talent at OE?

Carrie Patel.

 

[Kz3r0]

Though I think I enjoy it more than you do (haven't played all that much yet

Stop now, preserve those precious memories of what could it be before the tragic reality will crush your soul.