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algroth
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Posts posted by algroth
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9 hours ago, the_dog_days said:
The problem as I see it is that Obsidian's best stories are those told by the player. There's a lot of impinging on role-playing opportunities in that you have to play human or elf, there are no classes, your employment status is set, apparently you took an oath, and you have to have two party members with you at all times.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I don't think having companions is mandatory? Reckon it'll be more that you *can* have up to two companions with you at once, much like it was with The Outer Worlds.
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In The Outer Worlds the colourful, cartoony vibes fit the overall tone of the setting as well, as it was clearly aiming for a more heightened, satirical approach instead. Avowed and the world of Eora are not that, so the "epic" vibes and the "serious" threat of a plague and so on that the trailer is trying to sell you feel directly at odds with skeletons that look and move like they're straight out of Sea of Thieves. The mushroom garden posted in the OP is straight kitsch in a way that would fit an aesthetic modelled after 1950s sci fi but not a quasi-historical fantasy setting. Not a fan either.
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I've seen plenty of discussion in other places regarding Pentiment, but it's true that this forum has felt a little quiet on it. Not sure if it's just because there's less to discuss/speculate on than a game like Pillars for example, at least in places like this. Which is still odd, considering how rich the game is in terms of history, themes, etc.
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I've shared some of these charts before, but given that I've recently finished this project, here's a thread I made with the whole gallery, with charts of my favorite albums per year from 1965 to 2021...
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Was a great interview.
SpoilerAnd I also made the mistake of staying at Frantz's for supper...
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2 hours ago, Keyrock said:
I finished the second investigation. I was really torn up over the decision on who to accuse. Then...
I wound up implicating Brother Guy. I didn't feel any more strongly about his motivation and opportunity to kill Otto than Hanna or "Martin", but I thought his other improprieties were more grievous than the other 2, plus I thought it was possible he was also involved in the first murder, possibly the one penning the mysterious letters. Stuff went down and ultimately Andreas died in a fire trying to save books. Now I'm playing as Magdalene years later.[/spoiler]
SpoilerI wonder if there's a way to save Andreas from dying, or if this is the way it'll always play out. I can see Hanna and Guy being defended by Lendhart but less so Martin, but maybe he too seeks shelter there.
Personally I don't think Guy is the one to be penning the letters - we already know he's incapable of that type of script from what Andreas has observed. But his motive for the murder feels the most plausible. I'm still not fully convinced that he was the one to do it either, however, and feel the 'thread-puller' was likely the killer in both instances. Still unsure as to who he could be.
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7 hours ago, ShadySands said:
Game is making my degenerate metagaming tendencies itch
I went Basel, Hedonist, Law, Occult, and Orator
Saaaaame. Jesus, this game makes me feel things due to how easy it is to screw up and just have to deal with the consequences right after. I managed to implicate someone, and my immediate reaction is, I was wrong and I want to follow new leads and see who else I can uncover. But I also think all of my reactions, my emotions and so on in response to the consequence of my decisions are an anxious mess in a really, really good way, like the product of fantastic storytelling. I think we've largely grown used to being fed a power fantasy in games, where we manage to solve the murder, to beat the bad guy, to save the day and so on, without question, that it's hard to fully accept a conclusion (to the first act anyway) like this. And it's interesting because it's opening emotions and sensations that most other games don't dare touch because they don't want to engage their audience in this manner, where there's almost a verdict or accusation about the actions *you* commit as well.
Anyway, this is great so far. It's going places...
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On 6/13/2022 at 12:48 PM, Pidesco said:
In that case I'd like for Pentiment to feature a bibliography, and plentiful notes for the optional depth of knowledge.
This might help out somewhat!
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2 hours ago, Wormerine said:
Or a real life scenario in general. Though I suspect it is mechanical flexibility which comes with fiction that makes fiction so common. I think the trick is that if you base your game on history/part of real life you need to look at it's real life counterpart and then find a way to gamify it, rather then come up with mechanics and then slap a theme on it. Not that it is something not worth exploring - art is about communication, so I think games could only benefit from finding way to express new stories and concepts rather then adjusting the stories they tell to their gameplay they already came up with.
For what it's worth, this game is fiction still, just historical fiction.
I'd say it definitely shows there's ways of making more realist fiction intriguing and engaging, which are an area that videogames tend to shy away from far more than many other artistic media do.
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On 11/12/2022 at 9:28 PM, Wormerine said:
Yes, it's good to play with a friend so you can laugh at the story and some NPCs. Cat puns are a bit more managable if you have someone you can groan with. D:OS2 is overall a better game, though I felt they made some unfortunate misteps with some of the combat mechanics. Writing and story got more attention though personally I wasn't a fan either.
I suppose part of the reason I'm not as enthused is that I'm playing solo. The dual protagonist dynamics get especially weird as a result, I feel.
Also, in general the impression I'm getting is that while people tend to lump D:OS along with other isometric RPGs as part of the isometric RPG revival, what the game reminds me the most of is mid-00s RPGs along the lines of NWN2 and DAO. Which is a nice and nostalgic enough as well, I suppose.
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Been a while since I've been playing games, but I figured I'd go back into it, starting by finally getting around to Divinity: Original Sin. And, uh... Hmm...
Response is rather mixed so far, for me. The combat was outright aggravating during the first section of the game, though it's been getting better as I've gradually learnt more about the game's mechanics and the likes. However, a lot of the writing and story is just preposterous, sometimes amusingly so but other times headachingly so. The story is a mish-mash of the worst Chosen One tropes, all to deliver a bunch of fluff that has staggeringly little to say, with motivations from the behalf of villains and auxiliary characters that makes no sense whatsoever. The voice acting is atrocious, everyone seems to be competing with one another to see how much of the scenery they can chew, stretching and accentuating every word of what is already often very flowery prose. Exploration and questing have been decent enough, on the other hand. Still, I'm not surprised so far that the recommendation so often seems to be to skip straight to D:OS2 (which I plan on getting to right after).
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Been a while since I posted here! But anyhow... If anyone's interested, I made a list with my favorite records of the year so far:
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On 6/14/2021 at 11:56 AM, kanisatha said:
One of the articles about the announcement said Obsidian has said the game is set in a new star system.
This would also make sense in terms of trying to respond to a player's choices in the first game, I reckon. Considering how widely the state of the world can vary at the end of the first game, leading up to outright apocalyptic scenarios for Halcyon, it might make sense to account for whatever the player chose as part of the universe's greater lore than to directly follow up on it.
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Hope the "XBOX console exclusive" at the start doesn't mean this won't be on Windows PC after all.
Edit: Ah, never mind, website says it'll be on Win 10 PCs too.
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Strong AOTY contender, and some of the best prog in a while (starts at 6:39).
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Ran across a third 150 locked chest. This sort of loot feels really underwhelming given the skillcheck:
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What's funny is that a lot of players felt like they weren't gated enough when the game first released. They felt they could essentially be good at everything and pass all skill checks rather easily just by improving most grouped categories and such - gave less clear strengths and weaknesses in the character builds and such. I don't mind not being able to specialize all at once (even if I absolutely would love to
), but a problem I find with the way skillchecks are implemented in the base game now is that the difficulty often feels completely arbitrary, and 150-point checks feel like they aren't comparatively more rewarding than your average check either. So far in my newest playthrough I've found three skillchecks of the sort: two locked chests scattered around Monarch which gave absolutely no unique or worthwhile loot, and a persuasion check with Lilya Hagen that granted you an extra 500 bits for a mission. Really, only 500 bits for a 150 persuasion check? The issue with checks of that difficulty is that they kinda set you up for a comparable reward, yet you get nothing akin to that in the above cases. You're setting players up for disappointment there.
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1 minute ago, xzar_monty said:
No.
Might want to give them a go! Planescape: Torment at least. I feel like Avellone is quite fantastic at the top of his game, and some of his work recently has been very good, but he's in a rockstar state of mind at the moment. Feels like he's only coming in to put his name on something moreso than much of what makes his better work special.
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On 4/24/2021 at 3:05 AM, xzar_monty said:
Where did Avellone gain his reputation? This is a sincere question; I really do not know. I am not saying he's poor, but he hasn't especially shone in what I've seen, so I'm curious.
Have you played Planescape: Torment, KOTOR 2 and Fallout 2?
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On 8/21/2020 at 8:47 PM, Wormerine said:
Hahaha! Oh god. I remember playing PoE1 and thinking: "it's great. Just like BG minus permanent level sucking, and rock-paper-scisors pre-buff counters".
Pathfinder be like: "**** youuuuu. Permanent attribute damage for first quest combat encounter. Prepare pre-buffs for every encounters. Which ones you ask? Didn't you memorize rulebook?Though it's been the first encounter I used dispell magic on. It was a must have in BGs, and I really didin't feel a need for it until now. I also wish the game would make it clearer when enemies are buffed. In BG there was a clear visual indication. In Pathfinder: you can't hit this person, you are not high level enough. You can see their stats because you are not high level enough. We wont' show you what buffs she has becouse you are not high level enough. Enjoy our splendid tactical combat. Here, she has +30 wisdom modifier. Defend against dat scrub.
There's probably a good presentation to be made somewhere in comparing Pillars' design with Kingmaker's. Pillars improves a lot on the RTwP base provided by the Infinity Engine games, not least by offering rather extensive tutorialization, by planning out a learning curve and intuitively introducing players to core mechanics and systems and the likes, and largely leaning away from the very binary "puzzle boss" encounter design where not having X in your arsenal is the whole difference between impossible and a cakewalk. Pathfinder feels like it doubles down on a lot of the faults of RTwP and offers virtually no learning curve with which to ease into the game's systems, where most encounters seem to be designed with a single specific solution, and where the key to that solution being available to you is a matter of a coinflip - and yet it also seems to hold some appeal to a specific hardcore niche much in the way ludicrous tactical BG2 mods like Improved Anvil had back in the day. The ubiquitous trash problem doesn't help matters at all either. Personally, it's a game I'd rather not play ever again without cheating, but I'm still curious about the sequel, and whether it'll remain as obtuse in its design.
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On 4/1/2021 at 4:17 PM, Raithe said:
Shame for Rian Johnson not getting a full trilogy to his name (would have been very curious to see a full trilogy with him at the helm, considering The Last Jedi easily had some of the most interesting ideas and aesthetic choices out of any of the Disney Star Wars so far), but at the same time I'm looking forward for more Knives Out films.
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On 3/11/2021 at 8:58 PM, Bartimaeus said:
Incredible album through and through, that.
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I have to admit... I am dissapointed by the interview news.
in Avowed Speculation
Posted
I also wonder how integral Josh and the rest of the Deadfire team are to the possibility of a Pillars 3 as well. Many of them were (and still may be) involved in developing other games, be it Pentiment, Grounded, Avowed or The Outer Worlds 2. I reckon we won't know for a while what the status on a Pillars 3 is whether there's plans on making one or not.