Wormerine

No one is speaking against crowdfuding. I am speaking against giving money, when being blackmailed with an IP I like, by a corporation, which as far as I can remember didn't publish a decent game in a while. There is no crowdfunding, because Obsidian is owned by Microsoft and is funded by Microsoft. No matter if you pay Microsoft for PoE3 after release, just before, or before they start production, Microsoft will fund it and, if it wishes to, influence PoE3 developement. If Microsoft would decide to crowdfund PoE3 I would hope there would be an uproar. Not from PoE fans, but anyone interested in crowdfunding and gaming in general, because that would be a new cAAApitalism audacity.

No they are not. Microsoft is the parent company, Obsidian is the subsidiary. I have been ignoring Obsidian in this conversation, becase, they are not the ones I take the issue with here. Hopefully, Obsidian are allowed to do their thing, in which case crowdfunding is unnecessary - their payroll is from Microsoft and they will produce games that Microsoft will {hopefully] profit from. My understanding is limited, but I think Obsidian is not financially independent in any way. I don't think you can just give money to Obsidian and bypass Microsoft. You give money to Microsoft, and they include it in PoE3 budget - be it by allowing more people to work on it, allowing them to work for longer, or just they have "free" money to pay wages with and project stays unaltered. Purely speculating here.

As far as I know, no multi billion dollar corporation as of yet went to Kickstarter requesting funds to be able to develop the project “they believe in”. It has been common for independent developers to use crowdfunding success as a proof of interest when seeking additional investors. The most controversial situation I am aware of is funding of Shenmue III, which was announced on Sony e3 stage, while not disclosing Sony’s investment into the project. I am still a bit fuzzy what the exact relationship between Shenmue team and Sony is. Here is Jim Sterling somewhat mirroring my feelings on the subject, especially a prospect of corporations dipping into crowdfunding. https://youtu.be/nXqrYx-04Ok EDIT: hilariously, at the end he advertises “We Happy Few”. oh boy

Yes, I did and tried to hint at it that it’s just my personal perspective, which I know is inaccurate. As a side not, Non-profit doesn’t mean they don’t aim to make a profit - it is just that their singular goal isn’t making as much money as possible. However, I did trust that Obsidian wanted to keep making games, while I don’t see how giving away your money to publisher is supposed to incentivize them to do anything. If it’s is a niche title, and it not expected to sell well enough to be worth investing in... they already got money from this niche market, so why bother investing to much into the game? Of course, if the end product is what you backed then it is a-OK. As to the notion, that somehow backing a corporation is more secure. Have you seen pre-orders and how misleading the end products are? Just recent go-to example: Anthem and it’s entire advertisement has been one big lie, going all the way back to announcement trailer. Microsoft ain’t EA, sure, but you would really just give money upfront and cross your fingers for the best? I mean you would, that what you’ve been telling for the last couple posts. Always preorder games then, huh? It’s not like anything shady ever happens.

Publishers don't need to get encouraged or convinced to do single-player story driven games. Those have a record of selling really well. It is just that they are not as profitable as having Devs working on exploitative ideas. Money is king - the hope is that Microsoft will use Obsidian as Sony uses its Devs to create great game to promote their platforms. No, giving publishers money before they even start developing the game doesn't give you any power over what they do. They promised Linux release? They can change it. They promised steam/got release? Sorry, Epic paid us. We said we will have no microtransactions? We do now. I am sure publishers would be happy to get as much money as possible from hardcore fans and the do what they want. Banner Saga guys are indies. There are benefits to being indy. Corporations don't get to do that. I see Crowdfunding as a sort of non-profit system (maybe because I work in a non-profit). You can't be a corporation and pretend to be a non-profit organization (ask for contributions)

I think where our opinions widely diverge is of Microsoft would honour promises made in a crowdfunded campaign. I see crowdfunding campaign in that situation as a purely anti-consumer, just as aggressively pushing pre-prders is anti-consumer. Corporations constantly walk back on their promises. I don't trust them in any capacity. Well, one thing is certain: I won't be joining any crowdfunding campaigns for a corporation. You do you.

All the positive and desirable things you mention, are a reality only if the party organising he crowdfunded is bound by a need of backers support. You are not taking the project away from Microsoft and you don’t replace company investors. Microsoft doesn’t need your money, and lets be honest, $4,000,000 is probably a pocket change for them. Does your feedback matter at that point? They don’t need your money, they don’t need you back for future project, because if you won’t shop up to back the project and they won’t to do it, it is no biggie. As a backer you don’t replace higher ups and investors. PoE1 sold great. Deadfire apparently didn’t, but got successfully crowdfunded. There is no need to “convince” Microsoft that there is interest in those titles. Now, it all depends and what their proprieties are - and that none of us is able to change. I will be shocked if any future Obsidian games won’t be locked to windows.

Endless Paths are sort of meant to be tackled continuesly throughout the game. Early on will find it difficult if you go too far, and it is a good sign to leave it, level up and return later on. If you wait, until you will be able to complete all (or most) of the dungeon the early levels will be extremely boring by that point. What I do, is try to get as deep as I can soon after getting access to it, and poping back every few levels throughout the game, when I want to break away from the main story.

"You, as a backer, give money and receive the game as reward" That's incorrect. What you describe is a pre-order. As a backer, you offer money for the project, which the party organizing the crowdfunding has presented to you. Sure, ideally, you want to see the pitched project become reality and receive the final product - most common motivation for backers is to get their hands on said product. However, being a backer doesn't guarantee that you will get that product, or that it will be in the form that was originally pitched. Depending on the project you might get your money back, you might get some kind of product, you might forget that the project exists, until someone reminds you of it (cough, Mandate, cough). Does Microsoft need money to be able to fund PoE3? No. If Microsoft doesn't care to produce PoE3, even though they can afford it, do I trust them that they will care, if consumers pour their money into the game even before the project was created? No. Do I trust Microsoft to keep creative integrity of the project, and put player experience first, before making business decisions, like adding undesirable features, limiting platform on which game will be released, or taking resources away from the niche title if it suits them? No. Microsoft is Obsidian's owner and publisher. Their job is to fund and advertise games and profit from their sales. They bought Obsidian, most likely have a power to dictate (or choose not dictate) what Obsidian, can/will do, decide what platforms they will release on, and how their business model will look like, and the OP suggests that consumers should take the responsibility of funding a game for them? Now, I do hope that the Obsidian's aquisition happened with mutual understanding and that games Obsidian wants to make are games Microsoft wants them to make. I do wish for PoE3 to have place someplace in that understanding. But Obsidian's position has changed, because it is not Obsidian who is calling shots anymore - or in the best case scenario, has a boss which allows them to do as they please, but still has power to change their course if they wish to do so. Trusting folks at Obsidian is just a part of potential crowdfunding - you have to trust Microsoft as well. Would you crowdfund Disney to produce a movie you like? Or EA? By crowdfunding you don't get rights to the title, nor have real influence on its direction. All you can do is hope that the party you gave your money to will held up its end of the bargain, and that they will be interested in listening to your feedback. And it will be a sad day, indeed, if publishers will start extorting money from consumers, even before the production of the game started. Didn't that happen with Shenmue III already? "Give us money so Sony will be kind to allow me to work on a game for them?" We will see how this one will turn out.

Sorry, Obsidian isn’t an independent studio anymore. While I am happy to support developers I trust, I am not willing to create risk free environment for a major corporation. And that is exactly what a crowdfunded PoE3 would be - a fan funded project from which Microsoft can only benefit. If PoE3 would be funded via crowdfuding I would see it as a major abuse of their fans and wouldn’t support them in it. If Microsoft will invest into “niche” title I am interested in, I will support it by purchasing it (as long as it is released on an acceptable platform). They can afford to take risks and have a varied library of games.

Don’t worry, we might be on a verge of the Great Storefront War instead. Exciting times.

If you remember colonial duels then you lived for far longer then I did. It might also explain why you resurrected a thread which was dead for a year and a half - for us mortals the conversation is long dead.

It's Obsidian, remember? Surely, they will complicate things for themselves by being creative.

Considering that Deadfire clearly leads into PoE3, it would be sucky if the game to be not released in the near future. I would hope that folks at Obs are interested in continuing the series, even if they might change a wee bit. Even though Deadfire was released a year ago, the last content drop was just few months ago, and there is still a team working on Deadfire. If one of the secret projects is PoE3, it is in very early stages, and we might not hear details about it for a while - probably even longer if they won’t use crowdfunding (which considering they are owned by a corporation, i don’t think it would be appropriate to do so).

Here is one: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/03/15/valve-to-remove-off-topic-review-bombs-from-steam-user-scores/ I didn’t dig into the subject too much as I have been too busy to game lately and I am not sure if the feature was implemented already or not. From what I understand, steam is to track suspicious comments (speculation: filtering for certain words?, flags?, sudden spike in negative traffic?), then, in an un-like-Valve move, those suspicious reviews are to be inspected by real human and be tagged as “off topic” or not. i remember reading, that users should able to decide if they want this content to be filtered out (not see it among the reviews and not contributing to the overall score) or not.

Liking it. Pretty much as it was before, so no adjusting, but with slicker presentation and some extra functionality.

If you use steam the cloud saving should automatically transfer saves for you. Just to be save you might want to copy saves from the game folder (C:\Users\{your username}\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity Deadfire) and have them ready to copy into the same folder if for some reason cloud won't automatically import.

However, no official announcement has been made. Discord is quite a different environment, then an official forum - I don’t think anyone would treat those discord responses as binding. Moreover, those are posts of individuals, not Obsidian as a whole. Obs will make official announcement, once the patch is ready, while for now we have to rely on discord users to learn the gossips. Not that it isn’t nice every time devs pop up around here.

Compared to attempts at jokey banter in Deadfire, yeah it’s better. Other then that its like comparing apples to oranges.

And that is sort of the problem I have been having with romance RPGs for a while. There is certainly a place for pulpy fiction, and “everyone wants to bang me” power fantasy. Alpha Maybe OuterWorlds would work with shallow but fun romance options (difficult to judge due to how little of it we have seen). But as in general narratives grow more complex and nuanced, while characters’ relationship capabilities remain in James-Bond fantasy territory then something feels off. RPGs isn’t a real life simulation - romance doesn’t need to be part of every RPG, if it isn’t a needed part of the experience. Attaching shallow romance to companions just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore for me. Why not have an RPG which would explore relationships. Still, I would rather see one complex relationship, over multiple choose-your-fetish choice. Just as adding new weapons for combat, without a mechanical difference isn’t enough, adding many romances without narrative/character depth might sound good from PR standpoint, but isn’t worthwhile investment IMO.

There is free "Deadfire Pack", which is incuded in Definitive Edition and which was released for free for owners of PoE1. It's essencially a PoE2 tease by addition of some neat items.

Not quite. You suggest that game got worse after the updates - it didn't. I can understand frustration, when things that worked well for you don't work anymore - to some extend I experienced it myself, when reloading my first character to play DLCs. It is not something I found bad enough, though, to ruin my run or character concept (not being able to wipe out every encounter by spamming Amplified Wave is something I see as an improvement). However, your criticism focused on Obsidian patching the game after launch and not them not ensuring the balance is accaptable before the release? Criticising the practice of "release now, fix later" is something I understand, however, advocating for game to remain unfixed, when glaring issues persist, is not. I am skewed in favour of Obsidian in this particular case as I am a backer, and I am more interested in following the game's developement and seeing it get as good as it can, I was not angry about issues in 1.0 - I was just interested in seeing those getting fixed. Still, even if I was a day 1 purchaser, I would complain that the games difficulty ranged from brainless to easy and that game doesn't engage player with its mechanics. I have some theories as to why Obsidian would plan their developement in the way they did, but I might be wrong so I will keep those to myself. I generally avoid playing most games until they reach GOTY state. Deadfire is getting there, with final patches being worked on. I wish they would find a more transparent way of releasing those titles. In some ways I feel that Deadfire 1.0 was an Early Access titles with lots of testing and patching conciously left to be done after launch, though it's difficult to explain a story-driven game releasing as Early Access.

OP if you found game on launch I suggest switching to story mode. The balance on release was unacceptable. Playing on veteran I didn't have to pay attention to anything and my cipher was an unstoppable monster (pretty much every class was). If you're like looking for "no-challenge" experience, then other difficulties have you covered.

Sonic didn't want to get hugged by Epic. https://youtu.be/lWTRASvleyY

Yup, those are two games: Pillars of Eternity and it’s expansions White March Parts 1 & 2. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire and it’s 3 DLCs: Beast of Winter, Seeker, Slayer, Survivor and Forgotten Sanctum. For both games the expansions/DLC are ingame addons (expand existing campaign, don’t offer stand alone campaign). Two games are connected via optional save import feature, which will transfer choices from PoE1 (not the character!) into your PoE2 campaign.