Wormerine

Nah, I guess it depends what you like. I replayed Fallout1 couple months ago and its as good as I remember it being. However, I never found Fallout games to be immersive or got emotionally invested in them. For me fallout is about creating character, and approaching problems in various ways and it is still very much in the game and still on of the best implimentations of "freedom" in RPG i have seen (of course Fallout2 more so.) Its also a smaller game than I remember it being.

Yes, but I have a feeling they are not going that way. Cetainly there won't be any powerful spells (like "Wish") with "per encounter" mechanic, as that would mean they would be unlimited outside combat. But one of the things I would love to see in PoE is consistency and usefulness of skills and spells in all branches of gameplay. When game uses multiple gameplay mechanics there needs to be something to tie them together, otherwise game feels disjointed. For a long time I couldn't figure out why none of Arkham clones were that satisfying and I came to conclusion that it was due to gadget/skill design. Arkham uses fewer skills/gadget but they come into play with all branches of gameplay - combat, stealth, exploration, puzzle solving. Thanks to that game feels unified and consistant and all aspects of gameplay get expanded on throughout the game. PoE1 was good but division between various gameplay branches (combat, expoloration, NPC interaction, scriprted interactions) felt seperate. I would really like to see those mechanics overlap more and translate character's skills into different scenarios.

I do see interactivity (and therefore certain amount of freedom) as an important part of an RPG. I am a big fan of narrative, more linear games, but I prefer my RPGs to be more open. If you provide a character for me I am completely fine with experiencing the story and world through their eyes. If you ask me to come up with the character I want to be able to decide how he/she will interact with the world.

Yes, I found Tyranny's approach to story and choices impressive but unsatisfying (similar to Witcher 2). I much prefer multiple smaller choices throughout the entire game with their own repercussions than couple world changing big choices. In both games commitement to making your choices impact the world were impressive but in the end felt underwhelming. Tyranny's opening act is spectacular but the rest of the game you don't get to make interesting choices but rather see results of the first act choice. That is not too entertaining to me. As an extension of that thought I did notice I enjoy RPGs without defined villain more. I get the need for a "hook" and a defined antagonists like Thaos, Darth Malak or Irenicus do restrict your story and purpose. "Pick your antagonist" while you play is much more interesting idea. I get that creating a motivation which your custom created character will follow is a tricky thing to do over and over again. But flexible finale is much more interesting than multiple ending slides. If you make multiple endings "choose your ending" button is not very fun. Original Deus Ex managed to make last level of the game engaging making you go through different objectives depending on what faction you wanted to ally with. "press the button you want" from Human Revolution or PoE feels contrived.

Out of curiosity: is it pure in game time or are you one of those people who leave the game running for hours in the background?

Hmmmm I thought Witcher3 did a great job balancing urgency vs exploration. Yes, you were looking for Ciri but there never was a push for hurrying. Leads were vague, sidequests were paced via lvl system making sure you never were away from main plot for too long. Bigger sidequests would come back later on becoming relevant to the main story. Smaller quests would flesh out the world giving you a better idea of people around you. Gwent was silly but as it was a 4th wall breaking joke I treated it more like a break for myself rather than something Geralt is actually doing. Even Heart of Stone found a really good way of involving player in major sidestory while not taking player away from main game like White March did. Still Witcher3 is a very directed and limited experience, but I did like small details like that you could start a quests from multiple points. The proper starting point was usually message board, but you could just talk to quest giver, stumble upon monster tracks or monster itself and quests would adjust. There is nothing more frustrating than finding an empty cave (or perma locked doors) only to be sent back there 10 minutes later after talking to quest giver.

Yes, Dragonfall was better then PoE. In fact the writing was on a much higher level, I'm not sure Deadfire will even reach it. I disagree. I did enjoy Dragonfall a lot but I found it too much on rails for my taste and it was a pulpy story is really silly world. Characters, world and gameplay of PoE are much more engaging to me. Dragonfall was also a sequel, and original Shadowrun was a big disappointment as it was more of a point&click than an RPG. Bloated Hong Kong didn’t manage to engage me either. Dragonfall is absolutely worth a playthrough but it’s so limiting it loses its appeal very quickly. UI is terrible.

Sure, but there is also world building and thematic consistency. PoE while has side stories they all explore similar themes and add to overall experience. While sometime stand alone adventures world well (BG2) often they can feel like they don't fit the game or main story.

True but DA:I has EA's money and Skyrim has Bethesda's. D:OS2 ruins any argument I make whenever it is full voice acting or singing so good for them:-).

Still didn’t play D:OS2. I do have high hope for Deadfire, but RPGs (and Obsidian) can do much better than PoE. Not a fan of scores and I really don’t care who scores higher metacritic though I do understand that lower score might impact sales and therefore PoE future. Competition is good (for us). FIGHT!

Open design is a wonderful thing, but it takes a lot of work to do properly. Bethesda games never worked for me because they are open, but not reactive. There is a big appeal to having world open to you and be given an ability to explore it at your will. However, if that is a case dev needs to foresee what player can do and prepare for it. If players are given freedom but games randomly restricts them or contradicts player actions it feels bad. Some structure is always needed and interesting choices are much more valuable to me than shallow ones. Story is why I play RPGs but it doesn’t necessarily mean “plot”. I really really love Deus Ex games, I enjoyed KOTOR. Gothic1&2, Fallout New Vegas and Witcher 3 are examples of open design I really enjoyed. One of those was done by Obsidian so I have high hopes for more open structure of Deadfire. To me enjoyment of an RPG comes more from quest design & writing. While it is connected to way world is presented engaging quests can be done in open and more focused game.

Ahh i see. OP mentioned shanties (sailors songs) and ability of collecting them so I assumed inspiration for that request came from Black Flag half pirate, half asscreed game. Top down map/boat traveling with singing is also very reminiscent of Pirates!. Therefore my logic - singing on ship = piratey. And every occasion is good to call for Pirates2 in case, like Beattlejuice, it will appear if you mention it enough times. But continuing conversation, in unlikely case shanties would be a thing it would be silly to put in the game existing songs like they did in Black Flag. A custom written songs of eora would be needed and as fun as it might be for Josh to figure out how sailors song’s lyrics might be in Deadfire and for Justine to figure out how their songs would sounds it probably would be a big waste of time and waste of budget. As mentioned before the travern song for WM is a thing and it was lovely, but I doubt they would create too many of those.

But... are we pirates in this game? Nope. Is singing restricted to pirates?

I did enjoy shanties in Black Flag a lot. I don't think we will be spending that much time on the world map though, so investing in multiple background songs for an interactive map on which we will spent little time at any given time. I am all for all piratey things. Sid Meier please. Where is my Pirates!! ?

Why not? If it’s any good it’s free advertisement. It’s not like they don’t want people to see the game nor give feedback. They will probably showcase it themselves like they did with PoE1.

There is a virtue in figuring out what doesn’t work though. Overall, I do like changes Obsidian made to traditional D&D system. Intent is brilliant, execution is fairly good. However, it is not flawless. Was prebuffing a good thing? I don’t believe it was. Is rest mechanic a good thing? In a context of a game where you can reload or leave a dungeon whenever you want, no, it doesn’t really make much sense. Prebuffing came from consistency of mechanics, where you could use any skills you wanted, whenever you wanted. Knowing your enemy and preparing before battle has its appeal. Rest provides soft resource management. Should prebuffing be a thing? I would say no. But I would like to see more consistency in the game, spells&skills having wider application beyond “kill stuff”. Resting could be much more interesting. The tricky thing is to identify what we really miss about certain aspects of the game. Do we really miss EXACTLY those mechanics or some aspect of them that is missing when you remove them.

At moments like this I think back to Thief&Thief 2 and appreciate the way Looking Glass Studio used map as a world building and storytelling tool rather than UI. Ahhh... those times of wild creativity.

"The new Deadfire Pack DLC will also be made available for free to all existing (and future) owners of Pillars of Eternity on Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs to thank them for their ongoing support of what has become one of the world’s most beloved RPGs."

Its a small thing, but I really do appreciate that they will patch new portraits into PoE1. That way you can create a character and continue it through both games with the same look without extra modding.

That wouldn’t be too much to ask as they are implementing annotation system from Tyranny. Seeing a very short character summary by hovering over the name, is a desirable addition with so many overarching quests and foreign names to remember.

But... but... but... Fish makes you smarter! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8846225/Eating-fish-can-make-you-smarter.html

Not true. At the end of the most recent update Katrina said the next update will be about upcoming “backer beta” https://youtu.be/64U0n2SaNmI 2:48 I imagine it will announce when the beta is happening and what will it contain. When will the next update take place is anyone’s guess.

What i am wondering is... can you murder them?

Backer beta access came with $99 tier and you can purchase it separately as an add on if you want access to beta but got a lower tier pledge.

That’s my stance as well. Not that you should win a tough fight on your first go, but if encounter design requires you to die in order to succeed than it sucks (you didn’t cast that spell before going in, YOU DIE). That’s why I hate roguelights with progression (rogue legacy). It is fun to make a one life run and loose because you are not good enough, but going in knowing that you will loose because you didn’t grind hard enough feels bad to me. Going into combat and loosing, not because I made poor imformed decisions during combat but because I entered combat without necessary protection spells and died within seconds feels bad to me. Now you could include that type of gameplay into the game. In PS:T death was part of the story and gameplay. Dark Souls series famously use death, checkpoint and soul drop as a mechanic. In PoE or BG it is no the case though. Death is pernament failure state from which you can not recover. Reloading allows you to try again but it is not part of the game.