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Alessio

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Everything posted by Alessio

  1. IMHO it's worthy. It's less polished than big budget projects like POE, however it has original ideas and no plot loopholes. Also a true replayability, in the sense that you can't possibly experience everything that is in the came with a single character build. Depending on your choices you see a very different game. I know that many great games in the past had little original ideas... despite my love for BG I have to admit that the backstory is quite a cliche... however it was perfectly made. The story of POE is more original than BG, however it's the realization that is lacking. I still believe that they have a poor (lazy) main team and a fantastic subquest team. They only have to switch the two.
  2. The whole point in doing all the other quests is to "level up", which clearly breaks roleplay. It is really bad because there is a lot of well-done work behind this game. It is sad to see that with little more effort (just brain effort) you would have achieved a masterpiece. The ideas behind the plot are quite good. It seems they had a good writer for the "global" plot and poor writers for the actual implementation of the main questline. Or the same person become lazy at some point and rushed the work. I often do the same when writing my own Pen&Paper adventures, but none is paying me for this ). People working on subquests were not so lazy. Maybe you should switch the teams... Don't take it personally, but from experience, and judging the RPGs that went out in the last few years, I think that US companies are not in a good shape, after the sparkles of the start of this millennium. European companies, despite much lower budgets, are producing much more innovative and original games, especially from the "plot depth" point of view. Again see "Age of Decadence" for reference. I think you should hire an European team to write plot and quests, while you could do the programming and graphics (which shouldn't be the selling point of a true RPG, it's the "roleplay" that counts...). BTW, another important critic: Who did the translations?? Did you translate with google? I can't speak for all translations (I know only english, french and italian, with just a bit of german and spanish), however the italian one is terrible. Apart for clear mistakes, the sense of the whole translation is awful. It seems like playing Harry Potter with those silly names... You know that you can't translate literally word to word... do you?
  3. I just finished the game (VTC controls Ukaizo, empowered animancers around the world) and I want to share my impressions together with suggestions for a better POE3 THE GOODS: Let me start saying that is is a very well done game. There is a lot of attention to details and this is MUCH appreciated. Subplots are complex a rich and there are tons of lore disseminated around that are really deep. BTW this was also true for POE1. You managed to deliver a game that almost stands together with the great infinity engine games (BG1/2, sorry Planescape is out of reach). Graphics are good blah blah... none really plays these games for the graphics, really. However good graphics are always good to have, provided they don't steal time or resources from the game itself. I don't want to spend to much time praising you because I feel that it's more productive to understand what was done bad in order to improve. Praises are unproductive. ) Overall I repeat that this is really a good game (for contemporary standards its a masterpiece, but you get judged against everything that came before you...) THE BADS: I'll make a lot of reference to BG series because I think this is your target. I mean the classic fantasy roleplay that aim to be a blockbuster. There is a note to make: BG is a fantastic game, a "pillar of eternity" in the real sense. Planescape Torment is the best RPG ever made, but that is art. I guess that Tyranny falls in the same category of Planescape (I mean, trying to make a masterpiece of art, not actually achieving the result). POE aims to be a blockbuster so it must reach compromises between originality, innovation and the satisfaction of the average gamer. 1) The main plot is shallow and uncompulsive. In BG1/2 you had reasons for going around because someone was actually chasing you and each "chapter" of the game sort of compelled you to move. In POE1 and POE2 you don't really feel compelled to do anything, despite wanting to see what comes next. Here in POE2 basically you go around following a giant statue that did something to you but that is out of the game. The gods aren't much present. This thing of the "Herald of Berath", which seems quite cool, actually isn't exploited at all. After the show on the docks of Nekataka you actually never see Berath intervention anywhere. Also, apart from casual boasting, you never really play out this herald of death title. It's just a tag. You should at least had the game to start in your castle and play out the coming of Eothas, so that you could actually feel more the loss of your manor. Also you should have placed more real contrasts between you and the gods, forcing you to do hard choices well before reaching Ukaizo. Finally you should have planed a more rich interaction between you and Berath, including the herald thing. 2) Despite having a lot of details and good lore, the game misses the important plot points. Unanswered questions are ok, badly answered questions are worse that anything. They say that breaking the wheel will make the world slowly die, however the life existed for (probably) billions of years before the engwitians and the gods, so this is clearly false. Why none comments on this in the game? Also, why anyone vaguely rational would risk really dying over the (bugged?) reincarnation circle? Answers here are ridiculous. There is no way to dissuade Eothas from destroying the wheel, however it is assumed that a world without the wheel is better. He says that something marvelous is coming... marvelous? Are you mad? He says to Xoti that she doesn't have to worry for the fate of the souls, why this is clearly false in the end. It is illogic, which is worse than stupiid. It seems to me the "Mass Effect 3" ending, where the justification is "The machines will kill anyone because else there is a risk of the machines rising and kill anyone"... WTF??? The gods here seems powerless and stupid, never making an actual useful to any purpose, even their own good. They actually calls you from time to time making useless boasts and then waiting for your opinion lion crucial matters of which you are supposed to be ignorant, like childrens. Also if gods were created by the engwitians to make the world turn around in a supposedly good way, what is the purpose of gods like Skaen or Rimgand? They are ridiculous gods that serve no purpose apart from being evil for no good reason at all. 3) There are tons of little choices, but no real big choice. Also the vision bias of the developers is present everywhere. RTC, VTC, Natives, Pirates... it is clear as the sun which is the right choice. RTC are clearly the bad guys, providing stability at all costs and using any dirty method to obtain supremacy (a sort of evil dictatorship), with little care for innovation. Pirates are basically criminals. The Natives are an undeveloped civilization relying on tradition. Since Eothas is destroying the wheel, and there is no choice about that, the only way to avoid the slow death of all life (see point 2 about its inconsistency, but let's assume this is true) is to point everything you have on scientific research on animancy, so you are forced to go with VTC and governor Caizo. Every other choice is irresponsible since it will lead to everything dying, including eventually you. I would have appreciated the possibility tho choose between viable alternatives with rationally justifiable reasons. 4) The main quest is short. Basically 4-5 quests, each short in itself. Basically you follow Eothas around and are given instructions on where to meet next. I know that there is a basically unsolvable dilemma: giving players freedom in going around the world VS compelling them to follow the main quest. However, being a good storyteller means dealing with this dilemma and find an optimal compromise. Here the compromise is poor. How you rationally justify the fact that you are spending months going around and doing menial tasks (like bounties) while there is a giant statue that ate your soul headed full speed to destroy the world? There is no "plot pause" in between the main quests that allows you to take your time. I feel that you spent a lot of time caring the little details of the world while taking too little time thinking about the fundamentals. 5) You are one of the few mortals that know a secret that gods desperately tried to hide from the rest of the world because of its supposedly disruptive content. Gods aren't real. And what you do? You spend your time in leisure in your castle until the only god that wanted to reveal the secret to the world kills you. Never in the whole game you get the opportunity to reveal this grand truth to the world, apart few casual dialogs. Also the gods are fine releasing again the world the one who can reveal their secret. Berath, really you couldn't find anyone better for such a small task of following a massive giant statue that you can see from miles away? What happened to POE1 plot? Ok we stopped Woedica (still not clear the reason why we did it, apart for her personal antipathy), did we forget something important? 6) Companion relationships are practically nonexistent. Apart from the fact that the level of inter-character interactions is really low, just a quick example: I remember that on BG my romance with Jaheira was long and had a lot of interactions behind it. Now I got in a relation with Xoti more by chance than by real interest, and then got no more interactions from here after doing her (short) quest. The whole romance was done in basically a couple of dialogs. 7) Spell system is boring. I know that I'm a picky guy here, but I really think that the applications of magic in a vaguely realistic (rational) world are many more than simply causing damage. I appreciate the rework done from POE1, with the new tome mechanics, however spell variety is nonexistent. All you can do is causing damage in various forms, but little else. It ends with most spells being never used since they are really useless in practice. An example of good magic system is BG2. There mages were really hard to take down, unless you had a mage (or two) to start tearing down their multi-layered defenses. Please take inspiration from BG2 to calibrate the spell mechanics in POE3. Also the new book system is good (I mean, better than POE1), however I think it's not so realistic to have all books contain all 9 spell levels. You should have the option to have powerful books (with spells up to level 9) and common books (with less spell levels). Also you should have the option to enchant your own books. Cyper should be reworked in order to have more spells to buff itself rather than being a party-support character. CLOSING: I'm closing here since I covered the main topics, however please keep in mind that despite the bad points, there is a lot of good work done in this game. For the next one, please continue doing all that you did with POE2, but please address the previous topics. If you don't pay to the main plot the same level of attention that you pay to the subplots, the final product will have a reduced impact. Also try playing out radically different characters (I mean roleplay, not playing different classes) in order to understand if the game experience is enjoyable from multiple points of view. I suggest you to take inspiration from Tyranny (which is a great game for its originality and plot depth, despite fundamental flaws which are partially similar to POE1/2) and Age of Decadence (which is a game with a fantastic plot complexity). The latter has still flaws, however it has none of the above.
  4. I run the game on Ubuntu 18.04 and btrfs filesystem and it works perfectly
  5. Scusate se mi permetto di intervenire, ma a mio parere i problemi della traduzione italiana sono ben altri che pochi termini qua e la. Andrebbe rifatta completamente da zero impostandola in modo totalmente diverso. Sono solo io oppure a partire dal nome "arcipelago mortafiamma" sembra di giocare ad Harry Potter? A questo punto meglio giocare in inglese. Chi ha fatto la traduzione รจ chiaramente un illetterato totale oppure si chiama google translator.
  6. I'm supposed to receive the quest "Of Like Minds" after "Dirty laundry" from VTC, however I already did "A shrewd proposition" and killed all the slavers. I finished the dirty laundry quest but I'm not getting any new quest from VTC. On the main quest I'm just waiting to do Ashen Maw after I finish all the rest of the quests. Am I stuck with the VTC questline? Do I have to reload a save from before doing the Principi quest? It was very far in the past and I'm already almost done with all the sidequests. It would really be problematic and boring to go through half of the game again. Is it possible to get "A vote of no confidence" even by skipping "Of like minds" due to this fact? Do I have to wait for a patch? Thanks Off topic: By the way, despite these possible bugs, let me express my gratitude for delivering a game that stands on the same level as the unforgettable Baldur's Gate 2. It doesn't stand anywhere near Planescape Torment, but I fear than nothing stands near Planescape. Last game that had such a chance was Tyranny (and Age of Decadence, which isn't yours but may be an inspiration), but it is still too unpolished, despite the potential. Still please continue trying! A last question: Who did the Italian translation? Google translate? It is terrible!
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