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This. Like ... really. Don't people see that? Making a sequel based on the exact same engine is absolutely 100% guaranteed to be more massive than the prequel ever could. Except if thy name is Dragon Age. But lol, the devs even admitted already that Dragon Age 2 was rushed out in less than a year: http://www.giantbomb.com/dragon-age-ii/3030-30995/forums/bioware-senior-developer-da2-was-a-one-year-produc-487429/

Yeah, you're probably right. But I was just giving my oppinions on that one. And yet I remember none of these things. I actually had to look up the characters on the game wiki to even remember their names. That's how forgettable they were. On the contrary, I don't have to look up Dakkon, Morte, Jan Jansen or Viconia to know exactly what backstories they had. I don't have to look up Garrus or Wrex. Heck, I even remember HK-47 despite it being 10 years or even longer since I played KOTOR (though the latter is probably because his personality basicly resembled an AK-47...).

Bump for visibility.

Habt ihr evtl die Schriftgröße im UI verstellt? Ich benutze seit Tag 1 Schriftgröße 120% und bisher war noch nie etwas "aus dem Rahmen". Vielleicht tritt das nur bei Standardgröße auf?

http://www.jasonseow.com/poeportraits I love how the style of his portraits almost perfectly match Kaz's. The JE Sawyer one is great! Holy**** this guy is amazing!

There is little difference between that, and adding other content to the base game. By improving upon the base game in a meaningful way, you're essentially creating new content to be experiences by replays - no different than if an expansion would add content on to the sides. Pillars of Eternity (and CRPG:s in general) are finite experiences with a beginning and an end. Whether the "one-shot players" play on the sides of the game or at the end of the game, or play content added to the core game, doesn't matter in that context. The reason it would be a good practice - from a developer point of view - is the same reason "a delayed game will eventually be good, but a bad game will be bad forever" exists as a proverb. If the interest is to make a great game, release should not be a reason to stop making it one. If a developer keeps working on core aspects of the game as well as adding new content, it has the potential to be remembered for decades as the best of the best, instead of "that rough start", or "the core game is meh, but the expansions were better": A game is judge by the merits or lack thereof of it's core, and everything around it will only ever be judged by comparison. There are many things in PoE that could be better, and I think PoE deserves the chance to be all it can be as a game in it's own right. And yet nobody remembers MotB for what it added to the base game, only what it added after the base game. Storm over Zehir, which was basicly what you described as side-content (note that it wasn't supplementary content for the NWN2 main campaign, but rather a second campaign) wasn't even close as popular as MotB.

I recall an interview where they said they had basicly only 12 permanent members sitting on this game. From those 12, we have basicly confirmed 2 2d-artists, a project leader, 2 dedicated writers and at least 3 programmers. There's literally not much room left for 3D artists that weren't busy with the area design. I'm actually amazed at how good the game looks given the budget.

That the dog is probably the best companion out of the DA:O roster doesn't really certificate a good quality of writing. If anything, it means the opposite. That Morrigan, Leliana and Zevran are "loved" companions, is a joke in itself, except if that was a pun you were going for. Literally, the only thing that defined these characters was the romance plot. And even that wasn't deeper than the average episode of your favorite sitcom. Take the cheesy romance plot away and there was no substance left. It's funny you mention Shale's hatred towards birds. Because that's literally the only thing that I remember about Shale's personality. A whole character basicly reduced to a single cheap slapstick joke... Yes, all those characters had loads of banter. But PoE still delivered way more personality in it's few lines of dialogue than DA:O delivered in thousands of lines of voiced banters. I agree that PoE could have needed way more banter. I'm totally in for that. But please at the same level of quality of the current dialogue, not just for the sake of bloating up content or to satisfy the promancers and waifu-crowd like DA:O did.

The reason why this is not a good practice - from a developement point of view - is that you want a maximum amount of players to see the content you've created. You definitely don't want "limited" content in a way that it's restricted to only a small number of players. Many players will only play a game once. If you add too much backtracking content that isn't relevant to the continuation of the game, lots of players will skip these content pieces. Supplementary content expansions only make sense for sandbox and rogue-like games, where the player is expected to play the game multiple times. It works for games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown, simply because you don't play XCOM for the story and roleplaying, but for the mechanics. An expansion with supplementary content basicly forces the player to restart the game to see all the new stuff, which will affect your sales by making the expansion less attractive for one-shot players.

I have to say I enjoyed that part in BG2 a lot. It creates a nifty little meta-game on your consecutive playthroughs. So far, I managed to pick up all characters on level 2 and level 3, except for Pallegina. But I'm pretty sure you CAN get Pallegina on level 3 if you try really hard.

Sorry, I can't take you seriously if I read something like this. I'd say that both BG1 and BG2 had a pretty weak story, so saying that BG1 was slightly better due to a better pacing is justified. I'm totally okay with that. But saying that BG1 had better quests... really? I mean; really? Name me just one quest that wasn't just "go there, beat **** up" in BG1? Certainly not clearing the endless levels of Nashkel Mines. Or all the pointless dungeons filled with hordes of copy & paste encounters. I can name you dozens of memorable quests in BG2: The Unseeing Eye, the De'Arnise Keep, the Planar Sphere, Getting the dragon eggs in Ust Natha, the Skinner of the Bridge district, the Umar Hills deaths, etc. Literally every zone of BG2 had at least one memorable, multi-stage optional quest that you will definitely remember in almost every single detail. In comparison, I can't even remember almost any of the sidequests in BG1. Like literally, I played BG1 at least 5 times now and I still struggle remembering the quests. QFT. Anyone who says that BG1 had better quests or better dungeons than BG2 or PoE is clearly not talking about BG1 the actually existing game, but rather about BG1 the sugarcoated memory of how playing a fantasy cRPG for the first time as a teenager made them feel (when it had no prior expectations to measure up to). Also, I have to say that PoE at least offers some quests that will probably stick to my memory for an extended time. Most of it was pretty generic, but some few quests definitely stick out, like the Sanitarium or Raedrics Hold.

I would change this to following: Increase DR by 2 for every wound that monk has. Hmm... would probably make it OP as then you can stack it on top of armors. But I see what you're going for. Maybe this could be a default class passive...

So, let's see ... We have Alistair, kind of the token warrior companion and very similar to Eder, honestly. But I agree that he was an overall well-fleshed out character. Morrigan, a very one-dimensional "Oh, I'm such an anti-hero" cliché. Literally the only interesting thing about her was the final twist with her pregnancy. And let's not even start about how absolutely out-of-character this twist was. Leliana: A mary-sue of the worst possible kind. She was basicly only there to fullfill the teenager waifu-fantasies. Zevran: Errrgh. This guy was just weird to the core. And not the good kind of weird like Grieving Mother or Durance. Just the bad forced-bisexual-because-of-reasons kind of weird. Did he actually have anything to offer besides the stupid love interest? Wynne: Actually the only unique character in the entire roster. I liked the idea of a grey-haired grandma-type character. Unfortunately her backstory was pretty boring. Oghren: A cliché dwarf with some tacked-on slapstick gags. Sten: "Oh, I am so in regret for my past-deeds... please let me make up for killing a family by killing other random people that possibly have families...". *Jawn* Shale: A friggin' golem... seriously, how much character depth can you expect here? Funny trivia: Shale had probably still more personality than Zevran. Dog: A ****ING DOG!! It can't even speak. It just barks. And still I liked it more than most of the other characters. Because who doesn't like a doggy?

I highly doubt that they would revisit old content in a possible expansion. That's not a good idea from a developer perspective, as it takes away production resources from making new content and - let's face it - the current content is functional. Any improvement would be a waste of effort. What I could imagine in regards to the old content, however, is a makeover of certain gameplay elements (that will in turn affect the old game aswell) that will still matter in future content. Possible candidates for that would be the stronghold or the enchanting system/item system. Or more variety in talent selection. What is very unlikely are changes to quest/encounter design or dialogue in the present game. They will probably focus on new areas instead and put all those improvements there. And this is fine to me. No reason to stick to the past needlessly. The only exception would be if they intend the first expansion as a supplement to the original game, instead of a direct continuation. So basicly, instead of continuing the story after Thaos, they would add new dungeons and side-quests to the original game, not raising the level cap. But that would be extremely lame imho, so I hope they don't go that route. I'd be fine with one new dungeon/quest for the original game (kind of like the Watcher's Keep in ToB, which was also accessable from the original game), but I would definitely prefer the developement focus on epic level content.

Armor Focus Reduces Recovery time penalty when wearing armors by 15%. Greater Armor Focus Reduces Recovery time penalty when wearing armors by additional 15%. Duelling Increases deflection when wielding a single one-handed weapon without a shield by 12. Offense is the best defense Increases deflection against all engaged targets by 10 when dual-wielding or using a 2-handed weapon. Modal ability (so does not stack with other modals like Defender). I like this idea... it offers some great synergy with engagement talents on offensive characters and allows for some hybrid tank builds aswell. Mind over Body (Monk) Increases DR when wearing Robes or Cloth Armors by 6 (+1 every 2 levels). Pin Cushion (Ranger) Decreases DR against piercing weapons of attacked enemies by 1 for every attack made against the target by the Ranger.

It has nothing to do with the pacing or linearity. It's the fact that the scripted interactions are engaging and meaningful, with a sound and intensity you don't seem to see anywhere else, there's loads of various choices in the ending dialogue of the prologue; it even matters what weapons you have equipped, when it comes to the final scripted interaction. Nothing in the rest of the game even comes close to the prologue, and it paints a pretty false picture of things to come, unfortunately. It's hard to explain to the intellectually disinclined without spoilers. I was wondering: does anyone of you play with the developer commentary enabled? I did. Basicly, what the commentary says at this point is that the starting area of the game was developed at the very end of the game developement cycle, when all the systems were fully fleshed out and they could play with them to the fullest. This is basicly what makes me believe that a possible upcoming expansion will be a huge step upwards in RPing and complexity. You can definitely see the differences in area quality depending on when they were designed throughout the developement cycle.

Does it really matter than much? You're not seeing much of your character ingame anyway. A little bit of abstraction is okay, imho.

@OP: As of 1.04, the game is very playable and all of the critical bugs are fixed. It's in a state in which I would start an ironman game without worries. And that says a lot.

Again, restrictions of time and money probably had a deep impact here. But even with the low amount of dialogue they have, Obsidian managed to make all the characters (maybe except for Aloth, which I found pretty boring) more interesting than all of the DA:O companions with complete voiceover and thousands of lines of jersey-shore'ish dialogue. I still get the shivers when thinking about Zevran or Leliana, that were promancer-abominations of the absolutely worst possible kind.

Sorry, I can't take you seriously if I read something like this. I'd say that both BG1 and BG2 had a pretty weak story, so saying that BG1 was slightly better due to a better pacing is justified. I'm totally okay with that. But saying that BG1 had better quests... really? I mean; really? Name me just one quest that wasn't just "go there, beat **** up" in BG1? Certainly not clearing the endless levels of Nashkel Mines. Or all the pointless dungeons filled with hordes of copy & paste encounters. I can name you dozens of memorable quests in BG2: The Unseeing Eye, the De'Arnise Keep, the Planar Sphere, Getting the dragon eggs in Ust Natha, the Skinner of the Bridge district, the Umar Hills deaths, etc. Literally every zone of BG2 had at least one memorable, multi-stage optional quest that you will definitely remember in almost every single detail. In comparison, I can't even remember almost any of the sidequests in BG1. Like literally, I played BG1 at least 5 times now and I still struggle remembering the quests.

Seriously? You rate the DA:O Jersey-Shore companions over PoE companions? Literally the only memorable character in DA:O was Oghren. But he also was just a generic cliché dwarf with a little bit of sarcasm thrown in. Maybe the PoE characters weren't on the level of PS:T. I can totally see that. But Dragon Age? Seriously? Which characters exactly did you find memorable about Dragon Age? I take Grieving Mother any day over the entire DA:O roster. And even the pretty straightforward characters Pallegina and Sagani had more personality than any of the one-dimensional ****buddies of DA:O. What I can fully agree with is that Chris Avellone's characters are the best among the PoE cast. I'd definitely like to see Chris more involved in the upcoming PoE expansion. Give us more Avellone characters!

Seriously? Like seriously? I will simply stand here, mouth open, in awe at how someone can possibly say that. I'm okay with people saying they liked BG2 better. But BG1? Really? Did you even play it? BG1 was a collection of boring fetch and kill quests, with an extremely lame story, cardboard-cut-out NPCs with absolutely zero personality and dialogue, copy & paste encounter designs (seriously, how much different enemies were there in BG1 aside from human parties? 10? Maybe 15? How often did you grind your way through hordes of Gibberlings, Hobgoblins and Goblins? Like every friggin' map? Did your character choice change anything about any of the quests, except for those 3 reputation checks across the entire game? I can understand why people like BG1. It's a great game and - when combined with BG2 and ToB into a real trilogy - serves the purpose of "humble beginnings" perfectly. But saying that BG1 is better than PoE is just ridicolous.

So much this. I found the setting of PoE extremely interesting and I can not understand how one can say that it's bland and generic. I liked the soul thing as a unique twist to the high fantasy setting. I liked some of it's quirks; like animancy being more science than magic (the sanitarium quest was great and somehow managed to make me shiver ... possibly also because of the background music) and some of the descriptions of far away places. Yes, Dyrwood was probably the most generic of all the described areas, but it's a great start to get familiar with the new IP. For the expansion, I'm pretty sure we are about to see amazing places. The world lore allows for it. I'd love to see for example the Aumaua city.

I don't think you can compare any of the PoE companions with Morte... that just isn't right.

They abandoned this playstyle because consoles. Nothing else.