xzar_monty

Does anyone have any idea of when 1.1 is coming out?

By the way, one additional thing just occurred to me: maybe the thing that ruined all possible success for Deadfire was the fact that PoE was so very rough when it came out. I mean, it took me months and months before I finally played through the game, because it just didn't seem like a good idea to even try earlier than that. Maybe an awful lot of people simply gave up on it? They were charmed by the idea of another isometric CRPG, found out that it was a mess on release and forgot about it. Sounds plausible, but whether it's true I don't know.

It would still be a lot better simply not to respond. There's not going to be any dialogue or exchange of ideas. It's all insults.

I have said this before, but I think it's worth repeating: I believe this is the main reason for Deadfire's terrifying lack of success. Generally in a commercial culture, if people have loved the previous thing (a movie, an album by a group [back when people bought albums], etc.), the next thing is very likely to succeed, simply because people are itching to get their hands to the next thing. Like Roger Waters once said, Pink Floyd could have released an album full of body noises after the Dark Side of the Moon, and its initial sales would have been colossal. For whatever reason, PoE disappointed an awful lot of people. They didn't come back for Deadfire. Also, kudos to you for even trying to argue with @bigbazoopa. Anyone writing with that much vitriol and in a style so blatantly offensive towards the people they are writing to is not worth responding to, in my view.

I haven't finished the game (I'm at level 13 now, with roughly half of the map explored), but I would have to agree with the previous poster in the sense that the main story is in fact among the worst things in the game. Curiously, the game itself doesn't really suffer from it, although it would of course be a lot better if the story was good. But it's just so poorly done: on the one hand, you're supposed to be in a hurry to stop this giant, but on the other hand, you know you have all the time in the world. Every once in a while you get to talk with some gods who behave with all the grace and grandeur of a group of adolescents, and having to take part in that feels just silly. What it comes down to, in the end, is this: I don't effing care about the Eothas thing. Apparently this is a fairly common experience. I'm not entirely sure why I don't care, but the whole plot just doesn't grip me at all. But I am very much enjoying the game. There's an awful lot of good stuff in it. But the main story line isn't one of them.

So, did Obsidian advertise Deadfire significantly less than PoE1? I'm genuinely curious, because I really don't know. And if the answer is yes, does anyone know the reason for it?

Quite possibly its biggest strength. I'm very happy without dungeon crawls, for instance. This side of the game works really well.

Well, just the other day in another thread, someone pointed out that apparently some CRPG players are very conservative and have a very narrow comfort zone.

Given the mechanics of the game, this is probably the best possible answer.

He's playing a paladin. Not an option.

Exactly. The factors that Ancelor pointed out are something that people cannot realistically know before they have experienced the game, which makes the argument a slightly dubious one. This is one of the reasons why I'm inclined to think that the cause for Deadfire's poor sales lies in PoE1. After playing PoE1, they didn't feel the franchise was worthwhile, for whatever reason.

That's not a bad idea, but what would you point to, as evidence?

I don't know to what extent the parallel holds, but you might be asking slightly wrong questions there. The parallel I mean is that in the (former) music industry (since it's currently dead), the sales of your next release were very much dictated by the love people had for your previous release. In other words, if people really loved what you had previously done, you could put out some real rubbish and it would still sell like hotcakes, at least initially. This also holds in the movie industry, at least to a degree. So, assuming that I am on the right track at all, a really good question to ask would be: why were so many people so disappointed with PoE1 that they didn't want to hang around for Deadfire?

You can also mod the level cap up! This is cool because it lets multiclass characters get max power level Mods can actually solve a lot of issues (difficulty too), but instead of using them, people prefer to demand changes from Obsidian. Apparently the thought of modifying the game to suit their needs, without affecting other people, disgusts them somehow. And Obs simply caves in if you scream loud enough. To be fair fixing inherent problems in a game shouldn't be our responsibility. I can understand differing viewpoints on what balanced. Still if the majority of feedback about your game is that it's too easy, then it really doesn't matter if there's mods to make it harder. That's like saying Skyrim should be rated Ao because there's mods to allow for full penetrative sex. The existence of mods shouldn't have any bearing on how you rate the base product. Mods shouldn't be required to enjoy a game fully either. It might be a problem for you and Steve, but it's not a problem for me and John. By tipping the scale in either side, one group will always be left unhappy. Instead, many games have mods that allow you to customize the experience to your liking. If you expect the developers to change something instead of using them, you're just being selfish. https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/9v2nq7/we_now_have_a_sense_of_just_how_badly_deadfire/ And this is the result of trying to please everyone and constantly changing the game. A flop (even though it only counts after-release sales, not backers). Even Blizzard figured out where the money is, shat at their core fans and is making a mobile Diablo game, because they know that will bring in the dough. Mods are unofficial content, and many people have an aversion to using them. (I personally don't, but I think it's a perfectly valid stance to take. Having used mods, I have, like many who have used mods, also suffered some rather dire consequences.) As to your second point, your logic is completely unproven, so you can't really make that argument. Apparently Deadfire bombed, but the fact is we have no way of telling why, at this point. Here's an interesting thing about mankind: we are incredibly good at creating plausible narratives after the fact, and we also have a propensity to regard these narratives as fact, although actually we often have no realistic way of checking whether they have anything to do with what is factual.

People may not have liked the fact that they discarded all of the systems from Pillars1 for Pillars2, in addition to changing the setting. Personally, I also find this last point quite strange. The PoE1 system was perfectly good, and I can't for the life of me see why they went into all the trouble of removing the best bits from it.

Another one who has kith meat in the stash. You can't drop things in this game. Whatever is in your inventory stays there until you use or sell it. It's completely bizarre, but there you have it. (Will be happy to be proven wrong on this!)

I really don't think there are. I know there are people who say that, but we live in an era of such total media saturation that if someone sees a game and doesn't want to buy it right then and there then chances are they'll forget about it. There are plenty of games in every genre for people to play, this isn't the 90s. It isn't even 2015 No, there are not. After Baldur's Gate II, there was nothing for me in the genre until PoE (the first Neverwinter Nights sort of counts, though, although it was forgettable in the end). Now there's Deadfire and Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and that's it. By and large, though, you are probably correct, and I understand that I am almost certainly in a tiny minority.

I have no idea how Siege of Dragonspear did in the market. I found it quite ok. I wouldn't be interested in BG3, as the story is already over.

tyranny did miserably (my own guide hits/day confirms this). there was some commentary from a dev somewhere that probably there's not too big of a gaming population that wants a IE-style real-time with pause game. PoE1 got lucky because it was one of the first few out the door, but then there have been lots of games and competitors since then. Fair point, yes. Just out of curiosity, what have been the competitors? I mean, in the fantasy genre I can't really think that there have been "lots", as you say, but I'll be the first to admit that I am not perfectly informed. While I am saddend by Deadfire doing so poorly, I am especially bothered when people dismiss it out of hand for having exchanged the usual pseudo-European setting for a tropical one with topics such as colonialism as a gimmick - I feel it speaks to a deep conservatism and narrow comfort zone for many RPG players. Do you remember the furore after Siege of Dragonspear? There is no question that it contained dodgy writing, but the outbreak sadly and incontrovertibly underlined what you just described, i.e. a deep conservatism and narrow comfort zone. Paradoxically, given what these games are ostensibly about, there is apparently a large segment of players with no sense of adventure.

tyranny did miserably (my own guide hits/day confirms this). there was some commentary from a dev somewhere that probably there's not too big of a gaming population that wants a IE-style real-time with pause game. PoE1 got lucky because it was one of the first few out the door, but then there have been lots of games and competitors since then. Fair point, yes. Just out of curiosity, what have been the competitors? I mean, in the fantasy genre I can't really think that there have been "lots", as you say, but I'll be the first to admit that I am not perfectly informed.

Hmm. So if the drop is as drastic as that, it would seem to imply that there were tons of people disappointed with PoE1, and they didn't come back. Or at least that's one of the big reasons, I would guess.

Well, as the saying goes, one never stops learning new things. I actually had no idea English has special grammar to express regrets. Of course I only pointed that out because you were specifically talking about the quality of language in Kingmaker. Otherwise it would have been unnecessarily mean. Languages are marvelous.

I think that that that that that writer used should have been a which.

In a sentence that starts with an "if" like that, "would" is not preferred. The past tense is. In other words, you mean to say "Now if only someone sat down and...", if you want to speak good English. Take it from one who does. Linguistic nitpicking aside, you are indeed quite correct. I have only played through the prologue, but one of the first things I noticed was the less-than-great English. Mind you, there are flaws in Deadfire, too, but nowhere near as glaring. My sense is that they won't ruin Kingmaker, either, but they do appear jarring.

Interesting thesis.