Sven_

https://wccftech.com/third-pillars-of-eternity-game-happen-excited/

Weirdest thing, just two days ago I had a dream of ending up at Obsidian office somehow (dream logics), and them announcing another Pillars related project via a teaser trailer thing of sorts. Immediately when the trailer went live it seemed obvious what was going on, and I was like "So Faergus got his wish (Skyrim RPG set in Eora)". I don't usually dream about games, or anything like that. Like, at all. Though, the longer the trailer went on it hinted at a possibility of an actual party based RPG (closer to Dragon Age) rather than a first person one. I remember talking to Josh about the possibility of an optionally tactical 3d camera, and whether that would be a design challenge and he agreed it was. Tonight I had a dream where I ended up at either Tim Cain's or Leonard Boyarsky's house (can't remember which), where over dinner they talked about that new Fallout game they had in the oven. I tried to convince them why quest markers are evil, and even the missus (dunno which one it was) got involved in the debate, but then I woke up. So, if that comes to pass as well, you heard it here first.

Teaser looks actually fairly "generic" overall, which then again were what they may have been aiming for. There's no actually big reveal, except for the First Person (which tons of game have) and bits of Eora lore. Faergus has been going like "Imagine Skyrim..... in Eora" for years. So far Sawyer's project still sounds the more intriguing one to me. I had completed KCD with an old Core i3 (from 2011ish), basically below the official specs, and it was mostly surprisingly fine. As an open world, and as sort of an AA/A/RPG, it's a lot more interesting a game than the action-adventury Witcher, for instance. Quests are also more open. However, yeah, it may not be for everyone (which is a good thing). I had also spent a good amount of time just hunting in the woods to upgrade my bow skills, which I personally enjoyed. Speaking of skills, the game too has a skill system proper.

I've found something about this: - game was released April 2017 - had a (dev-)estimated bugdet of at least 5 times less than PoE1, if not more - still hadn't broke even by September 2017 though https://steamcommunity.com/app/445190/discussions/0/1473096694436181731/ Personally I hadn't been sure what to make of this series in general before trying Viking, but I wish I had tried. Viking is apparently more classic CRPG-like than its predecessor and more narrative- and choice-driven (and they intend to go back to the style of that predecessor). If you're unsure, like I was, it's currently part of a bundle over at Fanatical. The devs, Logic Artists, have been also co-developing Divinity: Fallen Heroes alongside Larian (which is now being put on hold, likely due to BG commitments). Personally I've now bookmarked these guys. Interesting insight also about getting funds post Tyranny's failure, and what impact higher profile games have:

Disco Elysium + Expeditions: Viking In particular with the latter, I'm wondering whether that's a format that would be viable for Josh Sawyer's Dream turn-based historical RPG. Would be interesting to see what their dev budget was... but in either case, that's a pretty good soundtrack and composer for an indie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9FkldqiH5Y

As to managing expectations, inXile sort of went all-in with The Bard's Tale 4 (playing right now) too. According to Fargo, the budget for that one was over ten million Dollars -- for a "blobber" type of game and a sequel to a series once reknown 30 years ago... There's one thing in common with Obsidian too, which is that their first game/s were a success in Wasteland 2 and PoE. WIth their first projects, things worked out. But what are they trying to prove now? Back in the day, Ultima was considered a hit at over 100,000 units or something and even later on, a couple hundred thousand units of Icewind Dale et all was considered profitable. Games development isn't cheap, in particular not in that area, but... to be honest, now with Microsoft I don't see both of them ever scaling back. The core audience is still there, as shown, and it's likely not purely old folk. It's just not grown any much bigger.

Does anybody know where to get the fungal growth from to combine the cream with?! edit: Never mind, found it.

I actually think the amount of players who hadn't played those games upon their initial release but came in later to the show would be surprisingly high. E.g. "It's only the old geezers in their 30s and up who play this type of game anymore." May have been worth a poll when the forum was a bit more busy, e.g. by the time of release. This doesn't merely imply players of the Enhanced Editions, mind. There's likely quite a few of players who've played Pillars as their "first" for instance because it was an Obsidian game, a new RPG to play, etc.

Doing VO itself seemed to have helped preciously little though. Doing VO is the same game albeit with a somewhat different coat of presentation paint. This is a good topic though. It would be interesting to see how much players of Pillars, or Pathfinder used to Play the IE games back in the day. It would be also interesting to see how many newcomers these games managed to bring into the fold. My guess is, the overlap between IE players and pillars would be somewhat higher, as it was specifically sold first as a "nostalgia thing". That was a strong selling point in the entire Campaign back then. Pathfinder meanwhile, well the Pen&Paper is pretty popular in itself, and Pathfinder was at its Peak when D&D was entering its 4th Edition, so well past Black Isle had folded. And this goes out to Beamdog, how many newcomers their Enhanced Editions brought in. On the topic of Pillars, it is/was in big ways a nostalgia thing. Maybe a third game could wrap it all up, and then let's see where we're going next.

It's comparable. On occasion I skip the voiced dialogue early though as you're usually faster reading than listening.

IIRC VO Questions were part of the Survey Obsidian did back in 2015ish, around the time of PoE's release. This discussion shouldn't be side-tracked by the merits of voice overs specifically. It would be interesting for instance what the actual VO budget was en detail, but we'll never know exactly. It obviously was a time consuming thing, as also outlined by the Shacknews article linked to earlier. The cast was also pretty big. As for my own experience, I liked the VO in Deadfire (I'm reading/playing in German, actually). Good Job. It's not a make or break feature to me though. Some lines of VO are pretty nice, as it manages to convey a character better if decent casting is involved (IE style). However, at the end of the day, as with anything -- budgeting. And about how much text there's going to be, that's up to the writing department. I'd rather play a decent game on a budget than no game at all.

Selling 600k copies of a game which main audience is bound to be PC based. As argued, outside of Baldur's Gate (plus ist Sequel), none of the Infinity engine games got anywhere near to selling 1M during their entire lifetime (nor any of the original Fallouts). They were still seen as being profitable, so was Black Isle as a division. Not sure what inXile's Goal for Wasteland 3 is likewise -- it seems higher than for 2 -- they're likely eyeing the X-Com/Original sin crowd too. However, back when Kickstarter was still a hype, IIRC Fargo would argue they'd be happy to ship ~200k additional copies of their games (that plus the backer copies, naturally). I could be wrong of course, but Wasteland 3 seems another project that sets itself up to "fail". Full VO expectations may be "real", but it seems you're not going to convince anybody outside the core audience of these game's to suddenly pick them up in masses just because that stuff is all voiced. Pathfinder didn't have it, and won't have it for Righteous either. If the aim is truly to expand this core audience, then you've got to change the games, but given that the entire premise was proving the audience is still there, what's the point?

According to that Fig Investor "leak" in late 2018, the game would have needed to sell close to 600k copies for the Investors to make profits. E.g. the break even for Fig Investors was 580,000 copies sold at 50$. Not sure if both are the same shing, but that really is a lot considering how the Infinity Engine games sold on average (and still managed to turn out a profit each). Sure, hindsight bias. Still there were decisions made by the management which also should be questioned.

Doesn't surprise me that there's a significant amount of actual dislike for the DOS games. (I've only played the first but the 2nd is said to be similar in structure). Apart of the narrative stuff: Their entire world design is essentially one tactical combat puzzle (where do I go next, and how do I deal with the foes there?). With areas being strictly level gated in an extremely linear fashion (due to how hugely damage scales with levels/items). Also google "Level Maps original sin" if you want to see what I mean in a Picture. The Pillars game, whilst they have lots of combat, are nothing like that. Sure, you can meet opposition yet too strong, but there's usually a) several places to go next and come back later (not all with a heavy focus on combat) and b) progress isn't always halted by opposition deliberately placed straight into your pathway. Additionally, you can actually beat opposition above your tier every once in a while, whilst on DOS, it's oft a straight party wipe. I've pointed this out probably before, but Larian Marketing found more of an overlap with the audience of tactical game's such as X-Com than with Pillars.

Awesome based! Reminds me, I've still yet to try a fully playthrough on TB myself….

Wild West sounds awesome. Btw, there's gonna be Weird West from the new Studio of Raph Colantonio (Arkane of Dishonored fame). It's not AAA naturally though. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1097350/Weird_West/ As for Josh, I'd personally prefer him to keep working on his smaller project. I suspect he's the same at the Moment. No pressure, no high demands -- and this includes backers, who have their wishes too. Could be really interesting. Perhaps much more interesting than Obsidian's yet to be announced next AA/A game.

I've just bought the 5e beginner's box (German edition). Actually, I wanted to buy the Dark Eye beginner's box, knowing that there were a couple solo adventures (actually 5 small ones IIRC) in the box which introduce the basic rules and classes each. However, neither shop I visited had that on stock, and unlike Dark Eye in the 90s, I'd never played D&D except the Computer games, so... I gave it a shot. I assumed the adventure in the D&D beginner's box would be of a similar ilk, since it's a beginner's box, but it's one for the DM and for a party already. - Are there any solo adventures for D&D, preferably low-level? - Is there a way to play the box adventure solo (maybe somebody has experience with converting such?) inb4 anybody says that playing D&D solo would be silly. The Dark Eye has/had actually a couple decent solo adventures, and I want to learn the thing first before trying to find a group to play with..

The change in setting actually reminded me of another series which sequel was perceived to have underperformed, sales-wise. Dishonored. The first Dishonored was set in a gritty Steampunk Version of London ca. 1850ish. The second took place further south and replaced that with vistas that reminded you of going on holiday in Southern Europe-- in a good way. Man, that's one game that really hurt bad to see flopping. Such all around fantastic level design. Such amazing world building. And now there probably will be no more of that.

Can confirm that too. As somebody who rarely buys DLC for games, I've just only bought the season pass for Deadfire, actually. So even if this series is put on hiatus forever, still something apparently decent to play.

I've yet to finish this interesting series, but I found the answer. And yeah, I was surprised too. In particular as there was virtually zero German press regarding this, and you'd expect there to if a German artist would be involved in an international production. No matter how big or small. https://www.shacknews.com/article/103473/beneath-a-starless-sky-pillars-of-eternity-and-the-infinity-engine-era-of-rpgs?page=26 What I did find though -- probably because of the lack of press -- was a German forum where somebody was wondering whether Bell had ripped them off. The guy had also wondered whether he had ripped off another German Artist, as Aim Spirente sounded so familiar to his (they're just both based on an existing sea Shanty). The Shacknews piece is also interesting because it hints at how much the full VO must have upped Deadfire's budget.

Yeah, that "story urgency" thing holds definitely true. It's kinda like the BG2 chapter 2 trap, a bit. But then this was announced as spiritual successor, so. For something completely different, and in an attempt to brighten the depressing tone of this thread some up: Does anybody know how it came about that Obsidian worked together with Frölich Geschray for some of the game's music (in particular the tavern tracks)? Their homepage as well as Facebook hasn't been updated in ages -- one of the last news was about the impending release of Deadfire. Two years, wow. Sounds like a Josh thing. Could be wrong though.

If it was all that sailing around etc. was what kept people away (same as the "unusual" Scenario for such a game), that'd be pretty disheartening. I do love me some fine dungeon crawling in fantasy la-la land etc. , but there's got to be some games that shake that formula up or all that crawling in medieval Europe land would grow old real fast. Btw, as to personal tastes and opinions: Intererstingly, usually I am not that fond of all this "Player stronghold" kind of stuff. But in Deadfire, it felt far more natural, as the ship was your means of exploring the Deadfire. You can trace the origins of the player stronghold straight back to the original Baldur's Gate 2 (same as player romances). It's like some kind of repeat formula usually, and if every game does it, it gets tiresome real quick. I wish the random adventure sections during sailing wouldn't have repeated so fast, as there was so few of them. Additionally, strongholds eat up resources that could have spend on something else. Not sure if Tyranny needed those towers for instance (for PoE1, it was a backer Goal, so..). In my opinion, they added not much to the game -- but again, I'm usually biased against that sort of thing. Deadfire without the ship as such meanwhile would have been a different kind of game. Besides, the traveling as such isn't all that overly different to the original Fallouts.

Just you wait 'til Old Engrim comes knocking at your door!

Those are similar concerns I have for DOS1, actually, which is a bit disappointing. I wouldn't have expected them to drop that items themselves have levels, and as such are that powerful; e.g. a dagger from Level 2-3ish does like twice-ish the damage than its level 1 counterpart. However, perhaps in terms of exploration I would have them expected to do a bit more open. It's the same in DOS1 really, as you can see from These level maps. If damage/items scale this hard, it's no wonder that the game plays like it does. Possible spoiler inside: https://imgur.com/a/uK4zS#KEJXSrE I'd like DOS1 probably better as a tactical combat experience akin to Blackguards. No less as the inventory management and looting is perhaps the most tedious I have ever seen in an RPG, personally -- and this includes pre-Infinity Era 1990s games. Each char has ist own inventory (being a co-op game) plus you are constantly going through all that stuff as your gear eventually breaks or is being outlevelled. I'd like to see a timer of how much minutes an average player spends on the inventory screen and compare that to your average RPG. I'm betting all I have it would go through the roof. Good thing is that they seemed to have improved on their world building, that unlike the first part the freedom isn't as much about how you tackle combat due to reworked dialogue and quest systems -- and honestly, their presentations of it all in terms of "pen&paper like freedom" (which is their end goal) are amazing. All that praise they've received for the 2nd game in particular has to come from somewhere, which why I'm still interested (and have serious hopes for BG3). DOS1 was a make or break game developed on a budget; on BG3 they can go all-in now (plus have to stick to WOTC's rules).

Does that apply for the sequel as well?