algroth

OMFG I LOVE THESE pleasepleasepleaseplease tell me how I can implement these in-game Edit: please no politics smileyface If it works at all like Pillars, you should be able to by going into the portraits/companions folder and merely replacing one image for the other. In the first Pillars you should be able to do this by heading over to Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\art\gui\portraits\companions. I've never tried it though so I could be wrong - and of course things could change in Deadfire.

I have no qualms with what you write here, really, since a lot falls down to how we empathize or connect personally with each of these characters, with the exception of the part about the characters in Pillars being less fleshed out than those in Baldur's Gate II. That's just something I do not see at all, and is rather demonstrably untrue as well. Whilst there are certainly great moments or memorable qualities to all of the characters in Baldur's Gate II, the ones that actually show an arc or a transformation, or actually show many facets to their personality are few and far between, whilst *every* character in Pillars is made sure to have a well-developed arc and a personal story that connects to the many events pertaining to the story and setting. Minsc or Jan Jansen or Keldorn may all have likable personalities, but do they actually grow or develop throughout the journey? Does Minsc ever stop being the one-note (if still funny) quixotic hero who shares his every thought with his pet hamster? Keldorn at most takes the role of some sort of mentor for the young and brash paladin wannabe Anomen, but that hardly presents a change in his character from the "veteran paladin" - not even his brief stint with his family moves his character from this role or else. In Pillars even the likes of Kana, who's in my opinion by far the least fleshed out character in the original roster, is still one with a rich background, an inversion of his own to the "big race" fantasy archetype, and more importantly a character with motivations of his very own who, through his personal sidequest, can find a shift from his initially starry-eyed, optimistic and idealistic person to several of many outcomes that can lead him to adopting a more conservative and isolationist perspective, to a sullen individual with shattered hopes, or a man with more tempered ideals but with a stronger sense of conviction informed by his discovery and the answers presented to his questions. He has a philosophy and outlook of his own which he goes into in fair depth when engaging with him in conversation, which in turn also lends us the most comprehensive idea of Rauatai's culture, history and politics found in the game. Now, overall I will say that I like Baldur's Gate II a great bit more than I do Pillars of Eternity, and sure, I do find some characters in the former more to my liking than some others in the latter. Still, more fleshed out they are definitely not. And again, I don't really hold this against the former either because, really, it was arguably the best (or second best) at this aspect in its time as well, and no one else was doing it quite like this at the time.

I liked her quest a lot but didn't enjoy her much as a character myself either. She came across a little too much as some kind of crazy "oxygenate your wombspace" new ageist, and felt that most of her dialogue interjections were extremely heavy-handed and merely made explicit the underlying impressions to the other character's words (one example that stuck to my mind is when we speak to the woman at Brackenbury Sanitarium that tells us about how the Hollowborn are often referred to as buoys and why, to which the Grieving Mother proceeds to gag and state something along the lines of "HOW HORRIBLE, TO THINK OF ALL THOSE BABIES FLOATING ON THE WATER, POOR POOR CHILDREN!! WATCHER, WE MUST PUT AN END TO THE HOLLOWBORN PLAAAGUE!!"). I also felt that her "invisible peasant woman" shtick, whilst interesting, also made her feel entirely separate to the rest of the party, hardly interacting with them in response and thus not adding much to the party dynamic. Through the last two playthroughs I've only kept her in my party for only as long as I needed to resolve her quest.

pallegina is actual one o' the characters am seeing most difficult to easily slip into deadfire as her endings were resulting in her having significant variation in her standing and relationship with a key player in the deadfire: the vallian trading company. is difficult to envision pallegina as a static or fixed quantity, which is kinda what she needs be at the start o' deadfire. the other characters, other than devil, is requiring only a bit o' imagination or creativity to get 'em into deadfire in such a way as is plausible, but pallegina, while having good reason to be involved in a story involving the vtc as a major player, is gonna be the character am most concerned. no plausible reason to be in deadfire is hardly a significant hurdle to a decent writer, particular in a fantasy story where the implausible is ordinary. converse, pallegina has history and baggage, and her relevant history and baggage is gonna be different depending on how a player concluded her poe companion quest. in addition to the fact we did not like how pallegina were written, she appears to be one o' the more difficult poe companions to integrate into deadfire. sure, the obsidian folks could functional ignore the poe endings for pallegina, but such would be a rather unsatisfactory starting point, no? HA! Good Fun! I think I recall Josh saying something about Pallegina's way back into Deadfire being pretty difficult/convoluted if she was banished (edit: oh, right, that was the most recent tumblr post he did on the subject - "a little tricky" was his expression), which makes sense because why would the Vailian Trade Company send a disgraced Five Suns paladin who in the past invented a whole new trade agreement with a neighbouring nation to represent them in this expedition and so on? Maybe her role will be rather different if that is the case, so I agree that it'll be interesting to see how the game handles the ramifications of her character from the various endings available in the original game. And certainly the options I have mentioned above don't preclude former companions from making an appearance for wholly different reasons than the ones I listed above, I was just listing ways in which their respective epilogues could suggest their presence at the Deadfire, were we to find them there.

Based on the endings to the first Pillars, I can see the following ones making a return appearance: Durance - the ending in which he survives states that he's become a wanderer, which means his search for a "mechanism of revenge" *could* bring him to the Deadfire. Kana - he's the most likely in my opinion, simply due to the sisterly connection. At least one of the endings also mentions that he "set sail on yet another expedition". But several others do suggest he simply returns to Rauatai, and unless his business brings him to the Deadfire for some unknown reason, we might simply hear of him through Maia instead. Sagani - ehh... Maybe. It really depends on whether we get to explore Naasitaq or not at all. Maybe in an expansion. Hiravias - much like Durance's ending above, Hiravias also becomes a wanderer, regardless of having followed Wael or Galawain. Wael's ending says he "ventured beyond the sights of the mountains of Eir Glanfath", which suggests he didn't just remain wandering within the Dyrwood/Eastern Reach. Maneha - in two of the three endings she remains either an adventurer or a Giftbearer, thus meaning she could be anywhere and very well be in the Deadfire. If you dissuaded her from forgetting the memories, however, she does return to Rauatai and it's thus unlikely that she'll be seen in the game. The Devil of Caroc - ehh... I seriously doubt this one, but if we killed Harmke she eventually makes her way into the ocean - we *could* therefore find some remains of her body, but doubtful that we'll be able to interact with her still alive though (maybe through Watcher senses?). Zahua - if we do not complete his quest he also becomes a wanderer. However there are also a few ways to complete his quest and have him go to Defiance Bay - if we are able to explore Defiance Bay at the beginning of Deadfire we *could* cross him. Doubtful though. So with all of these in mind it turns out that the *only* one I do not see returning whatsoever is the Grieving Mother (edit: there is a way in which she can return, which is if we get to visit Dyrford at the start of the game, and she in her epilogue returned to Dyrford herself). As for the options above I also don't think all of them will make an appearance - we might see a companion or two making a cameo only. Venturing a guess I would say Sagani in an expansion, and Kana and Maneha if the endings justify their appearance. But all the same, each do seem to leave an option open with which to return in either Deadfire or a future Pillars game.

Oops, nvm.

I wouldn't hold Baldur's Gate's two-dimensionality against it mostly because I feel that at the time the game set a golden standard for fantasy RPGs and games have since had to work upon that standard, either replicating, matching, expanding or breaking it in some fashion. But its simplicity does make it a weird game to evaluate in today's standards or when comparing it to a game like Pillars of Eternity, where the focus has shifted more from making RPGs as a tabletop campaign simulation with an automated dungeon master, to making an interactive epic with its own thematic concerns and narrative ambitions, centred around the single character where they are at the heart of the story and where companions are built as fully-fledged secondary characters with their own personal arcs that you must help resolve in some fashion or other. One thing I recall being slightly disappointed about early on was in the "small" number of companions one could recruit... Then I also realized that I was expecting a roster of companions as big as those in the Baldur's Gate games and was ignoring that the characters in Pillars or just about any modern RPG for that matter tend to have three times as much writing and interactivity than the characters in the former series did, if not more. Without a doubt a character like Edér or Hiravias or Durance is much more involved with the story of Pillars and tends to react more often to environmental and dialogue prompts than the likes of any character in Baldur's Gate, regardless of romance - and most of all, they each have their own character arcs and transformation whereas, with the exception of a small handful of characters in Shadows of Amn, most characters in the Baldur's Gate series would remain rather static throughout. I do on the other hand agree that romance is pretty well-written and involved in Baldur's Gate II, but above all else it's also because from what I can recall it's the mechanism with which the few companions with a possible arc in the game actually developed and changed. If I'm not mistaken, Viconia's "redemption" only comes about through her romance plot, for example, whilst Aerie only really strengthens as a character and becomes a more powerful and independent person through her relationship with the Bhaalspawn. Whereas in most videogames with romance these usually feel aesthetic or superficial, like adding in some affectionate names and some gratuitous 3D sex scenes, in Baldur's Gate II it feels as if the romantic subplots act as catalysts for change and that makes them overall much more rewarding and "deeper". The issue, perhaps, is that I don't feel like these character have much going for them beyond these romances and a couple of sidequests. In Pillars on the other hand, the companion arcs still exist regardless of whether they were romanceable or not. I personally do not see how, say, Durance (to take an extreme example) is a shallower character than any of the Baldur's Gate ones, or would be better served by giving him some manner of "romance" (as if that'd apply for this particular character). But to go for a more "expected" romantic partner, I don't see how the likes of Pallegina or Edér suffered for the lack of one either - their depth as characters and with regards to their own specific stories and conflicts still made up for any romantic catalyst prompting a transformation in them. Anyhow, I feel this is all mostly a digression. But generally speaking I don't think either games are very comparable in this regard. Pillars' character design is clearly much more complex and involved than that of the Baldur's Gate series, but that has also sort of become the norm nowadays thanks to the likes of Baldur's Gate II and Planescape: Torment (the latter of which I feel was used as more of a basis for Pillars and most Obsidian games anyhow) and the possibilities they first hinted at or succeeded in with their own. Deadfire on the other hand does seem to promise even deeper and more involved companions as well, so we'll see how that goes.

Inb4 Lebron gets a Golden Palm ten years from now. Also congrats to Del Toro. My feelings for the film aside, it's nice to see a director who's had such a troubled career with studios and finding success with a wider audience to be finally recognized this way.

This, you mean? https://www.darkhorse.com/Books/3001-991/Pillars-of-Eternity-Guidebook-Volume-Two--The-Deadfire-Archipelago-HC

It's a very little thing to get *worked up* over, I agree, but also there's no harm done in talking about them. Personally at least, that's where I'm standing on this matter. I enjoy the discussion (so long as it's civil anyhow).

I don't disagree with your comments regarding the changes, but I also feel that, if the idea in Obsidian's portrait is to represent a conflicted and divided individual, then it too is dissonant in the portrayal of Pallegina's personality therein. Her pose inside is a very stoic one, her gaze fixed directly at the viewer with a half-lidded expression that suggests impassivity above all else - more so, as with the other portraits the art is favouring a wider, squarer and stouter contour, and as per traditional visual language this is an indicator of firmness and steadfastness instead, or even sheer might for that matter. All of these are indications of a character who is at peace with this duality, who is strong and steadfast, who is determined and undivided, not someone whose, as per the a few of the epilogues in the game, "strange appearance made her feel like an outsider wherever she went". Granted, the above is also the portrait for a Pallegina who remained in the Frermàs mes Canc Suolias, and maybe this conflict would be more visible in a Kind Wayfarer portrait instead. Mind that I'm not exactly championing the user-made portrait either, certainly the main criterion guiding it seems to have been to make her "pretty", which seems all the more pronounced when you compare her to both the male portraits, which were clearly guided with an intention of "restoring" an original appearance instead, or with the new female character for that matter, of whom we know next to nothing and we thus cannot determine whether, say, the fact that Ydwin is not conventionally attractive or appears of an older age are in fact parts of the character's design (which would be in complete discord with this "waifu" reinterpretation of her). Not to mention that I cannot for the life of me tell why the red banner on Pallegina's armour was recoloured into a cooler violet. But I will say that if there is one thing that the user portrait strikes true at for me, even if accidentally, is in her more wide-eyed stare, which seems to on one hand add a bit more hesitation to her expression but on the other reinforces a certain perceptive and attentive quality that is extremely prevalent in the character as per the original game. All in all this is why I also feel like an ideal Pallegina portrait for me would probably be somewhere between the two, or have elements of both at least.

Totally disagree. Again, Baldurs gate is a great example. Minsc was the standout star of the companions and he had very littl added to his character other than exactly what we will get with the sidekicks. Minsc had a hamster. Maia has a parrot? Granted, that's probably why she's a companion.

With regards to time, my second playthrough clocked in at 198hs, and my latest (which I finished yesterday) at 146hs, also with the added mention that I streamed its entirety and read it all out loud as well as commented on a number of things regarding its lore and ideas, all of which will have likely stretched the duration of the same. For lore specifically I guess it'd be best to use either the wikis or some forums here to read a little deeper into them. Personally I can only really recommend this other video I've seen, which is something of a revies/analysis of the game, even whilst keeping in mind that I don't agree with all of it (though it has SPOILERS too): Not sure if it's what you're looking for. Also, for the nth time, I'll repost my own review of the game if it helps out a lot with regards to approaching lore, themes and so on in the game (again, SPOILERS): Though really, the best source of lore is... The game itself. It really, *really* doesn't save time in skipping over everything there is to know about the region and its history, and the conflicts and faith and so on. I'd dare say that piecing it together is part of the fun. Give it a try before you dig too deep into its background!

On the subject of The Shape of Water, this is a rather interesting video:

I was of two minds with regards to The Shape of Water. I really disliked the Amélie-brand whimsy through most of the film, and feel like many of the "minority struggle" snippets seemed altogether too content with simply tossing platitudes about than actually making an interesting point about racism, homophobia and so on; likewise I also felt the film rushed its setup and felt like the bonding between Elisa and the asset came about too quickly and smoothly to generate much for me. But once the setup is done with and things relaxed by the second act, the scenes were given a chance to breathe and allow the characters to build some chemistry with eachother, and it is ultimately their interactions with one another that really kept me hooked. That and, as always, Del Toro's rather unique eye. I liked it overall but it's not one of my favorites from him (my fave still remains Cronos). Re: nudity, Sally Hawkins gets naked a couple of times and Strickland's wife shows a breat at some point. I didn't find it at all distracting, or particularly notable or relevant really.

Are you having a rough day or are you just a bit of a sea word all the time? OP makes a post trying to discuss game mechanics and literally the first post in the thread is you making unconstructive posts and antagonizing the guy. You deflect any posts disagreeing with you and never actually address anything he says with legitimate arguments. I think you've actually been served piss in water. Was it OP who pissed in it? Is that why you're acting out? Sounds to me like you don't know Sonic.

Facts! Like, y'know, Sonic's opinion? Facts, of course!

Ah, apparently there's one more for Aloth. Here's all five modified portraits with comparisons, uh, "courtesy" of the 4chan thread that originally produced them (those words sound so weird in the same sentence... Anyhow, let's carry on): Here's the thread for further digging (I think I saw a couple of curious orlan portraits too): http://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/408607021 I was wondering whether Maia's portrait from before had been changed, but apparently that's just vanilla Maia.

Sonic, I am disappointed. This title isn't click-baity enough! It should have been "Ship mechanics SANK Deadfire!!" or some such variation. This is weak!

Not that I've found yet, but I'll have a look again later.

That's really good, except there is a bit too much Neil Patrick Harris in there. Dunno... He seems still a bit Max-like. Maybe Max is a bit NPH too?

Apparently the same guy who did those made one for Edér too: I quite like it.

This. I did what I could to support Kana's confidence, curiosity and positive view of the Engwithans, and still ended up with the 'affable eccentric' ending for whatever reason. I really don't feel like having another 100-hour playthrough just to fix that, but it bothers me like a tiny, black stain on an otherwise perfectly clean window. Shame we won't be able to edit that kind of stuff on import. Wait, I thought you could edit stuff like this on import?

No, the Crones' true forms are freaking disgusting. Like, revolting. I am not a native english speaker, so my intuition might be off, but calling someone "ugly" is quite rough, isn't it? Someone who is really unpleasant to look at. They don't sell intended character - thats what I am bother by (and by bothered by I mean: roll my eyes. I really don't care enough to have any strong emotional reaction). PoE is not a gym or a mall simulator. I find it just as absurd as I would an attempt to sexy up Durance. Just... why? Why can we have Humphrey Boghart or Jack Nicholson but every female character gets reduced to: "is she bangable or not". I think she looks spot on. Her skin seems a bit darker in the new portraits but thats about it. Same hard and proud expression. EDIT: I am sorry for messing up the thread. If I knew consequences of my snark I would keep it to myself. I honestly don't understand what the problem is. Why are "dolled up" characters less likely to be adventurers than less attractive ones? No way. PoE1 Pallegina looked like Rihanna with feathers. The Deadfire version looks like a man. If you are getting your face smashed in (burned/frozen/etc) on a regular basis you aren't going to stay pretty for long. And lightning bolts are terrible for the hair! In fairness to realism, if you were adventuring and getting smashed the way you usually are in the game's combat on a regular basis, I doubt your body could last a week without permanent injury serious enough to put a short end to any adventurer's career. And in fairness to setting, it also depends how effective magical healing can be - as in, can you be mended all the way back to normal?

Ooooh boy... I'll go make some popcorn. Edit: So in all seriousness, I'm inclined to agree that the skin tone is closer to the original portrait if a little on the light side as well, but let's drop the pretend indignation, alright? No remark was made about race or anything resembling some ethnic generalization, so there's no need to assume it's speaking in those terms either.