Wormerine

Now, comparing both side by side the new portrait is much more similar to original concept than I thought at first. The tone seems much different. The early draft looks playful, cheerful the new portraits looks "older". I like all the new portraits a lot. Good stuff.

What we know sidekicks won't have are following things: 1) relationship system 2) their own story arc I see no reason to suspect that they won't be well implemented into the game. It totally could happen, and I imagine I will much prefer to keep fully fleshed companions around, at least on my first playthrough, but i do expect them to be closer to some of BG2 characters rather than silent BG1.

2017 has been a super strong year for RPG so far, especially if you have a PS4: Nier:Automata Nioh Persona 5 Horizon Zero Dawn Zelda:Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wuii exclusive) Out of that list, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is pretty much the #1 game of all time now, Persona 5 was called a GOTY candidate and Horizon Zero Dawn was said to be the new The Witcher 3 at release. I see no rpg in there These games have a very different target group and, except Persona maybe, they are popular genres. I don't think The Witcher 3 is a RPG, but the people who gave it RPG GOTY and called it the best RPG ever sure did... What a single person think is or not a RPG is totally meaningless when it comes to attribute games awards. People put Assassin's Creed on lists of best stealth games, even though it doesn't have functional stealth mechanic. It's not an RPG either even though you have an upgrade system. Hell, I wouldn't call Diablo an RPG. It's mechanics draw from RPGs but there is no roleplayig in it. Like in any other genre what RPG is can be defined. Many games adopted individual elements of RPGs but it hardly makes them RPGs. Witcher 3 is an odd case as it certainly has many RPGs roots. I heard it described as a roleplaying game where you can role play one character. And before you argue that it could be said about any game Witcher games encourage roleplay, while other games define characters outside players influence. Is witcher the best RPG of all time? Nah, but it's one of the best games I ever player. I would say just like "rogue-like" the term RPG is often misused by people who are familiar with games which use some of the elements of the genre, but are not familiar with genre itself.

I got kickstarter achievement even though I didn't back it via kickstarter...

2017 has been a super strong year for RPG so far, especially if you have a PS4: Nier:Automata Nioh Persona 5 Horizon Zero Dawn Zelda:Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wuii exclusive) Out of that list, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is pretty much the #1 game of all time now, Persona 5 was called a GOTY candidate and Horizon Zero Dawn was said to be the new The Witcher 3 at release. :D There is only one RPG on that list and its jRPG.

Aww I was about to post his picture...

Huh. How did you get that impression? I recall the promotions saying it was a world where the evil overlord won but I do not recall it ever saying you would be evil. True they tag line was "Sometimes evil wins". While it sets the right tone, it doesn't define your role as a character. However, news outlets have painted your role in game as "evil". Whenever it was misinformation on outlets' side or bad communication from Paradox the article titles I see are: "in Tyranny it's good to be bad" and "n Obsidian's new RPG Tyranny you play as a bad guy in a world were evil has won". Which is not untrue. Tyranny is the first game i enjoyed being "bad" as there is more to that than being selfish or mean. Doing a "good" playthrough certainly felt like going against current. Most of the "evil" choices aren't as one sided as they are in other RPGs. You always have a excuse...

Try here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/pillars-of-eternity-console.989/

Wow! How did you get access to Deadfire? And console version of all things! It wasn't even announced yet! Sarcasm aside, you might want to try forums related to original Pillars, preferably console version. I would especially suggest looking for a forum run by paradox. Obsidian themselves didn't do the port and I am not sure how many people here on a forum for PC released games play PoE on console.

Does it? 1. (video games, slang) To reallocate the distribution of skill points on a character's skill tree, changing their specialization. Last night I paid 5 gold to the trainer to respec as a shadow priest. Yes, I would say that is what respec means. Changing a class of your character seems more like recreating a character, rather than altering his abilities. After all, a class, is probably the most defining element of your character. Even race doesn't change that much. Whenever it would be a nice option to change class of your companions mid game (or at least their specialisation) that's a discussion to be had. I won't use it, but someone else might.

Wasn't 70k+ PoE number of backers a bit innacurate as people made multiple small donations to unlock backer related rewards? I remember reading that somewhere, though I didn't follow PoE campaign closely enough to know if there is any truth to that. Original PoE got quite a lot of attention due to being high profile kickstarter and turning out solid. I wonder how many of them will retrun for the sequel, though. I felt PoE was a bit in Firaxis' XCOM situation and was forgiven a few mishaps by reviewers. Deadfire will not have the same advantage but hopefully it will be good enough to win people over anyway. I for one, know few people who didn't back a game but will certainly buy it, if they hear that its better than the original. Whatever, its Obsidian's worry:-). I can't wait to get my hands on it.

I imagine that the respect will take you back to lvl 1 as it did in PoE. So you will be stuck with class/classes you already picked but just level them up all over again.

I certainly remember Tyranny being promoted. What I didn't like about it was how confusing the marketing was. I really wasn't sure what this game is all about, and promises they made lead to me being somewhat disappointed with the game. I remember them talking about time constrained, and how you will have to choose what quests you will do and how it will affect your playthrough. And while game does a long way to acknowledge choises you made in "conquest" and opening act the time constrained is nonexistent and you certainly don't have to decide on your priorities. In the end we got a rather traditional RPG, in complexity somewhere between Dragon Age and Pillars, with 4 preplanned scenarios based on choices and an interesting setting. Something I enjoyed very much, but not something I was expecting. i remember the initial reception was rather cold. It made me wait it out until Deadfire campaign started and I felt a strong urge for some RPGing.

Obsidian tackles this issue in a different way. There is no health/endurance, meaning if you do well and no one falls in battle you will be just as good as you were before the engagement. If one of your characters fell he/she will gain a wound which can be removed via camping. More importantly though, the way spells work has been changed. While we will have to wait until beta to see how exactly it will work, we know that spells are no longer "per rest" resource. Instead you can cast up to two spells from each spell level every fight. More powerful spells will come with cast time and you can get interrupted which will result in loosing the spell. The renewable resource will allow you to empower spells (make them more effective/accurate) or use the same resource to cast a spell from a level you have already depleted. Hopefully, it will make engagements more interesting instead of either not using you abilities in easier fights or burning through tougher engagements by throwing everything you have at the enemy and then resting.

This... seems like a very logical argument. I didn't dive into game mechanics nearly as thoughtfully to figure out whenever my debuffs as effective as I am thinking they are. With limited amount of spells spellcasters will be able to cast in one battle making debuffs more reliable might be a way to go.

You would never even try it? What if you find out you like it? I would give it a shot at least. Lets be honest, this kinda of design doesn't have place in a game like PoE. A danger of going into a dungeon and getting stuck there clashes with the rest of the game. I love rogue-likes. Played way too much ADOM many moons ago. But you either create a game with save states or you create a one-life run. Shaking up core game design that much within the same game is a bad idea. If the game had a more modular nature, it might have been an interesting idea for a "weekly dungeon" feature. That said I would love to see non-indy rogue-like. And I mean rogue-like in its original meaning (we can have nice graphics though!)

I do like descriptive text very much. I wouldn't like for it to go away. What would improve quality of writing is better content design overall. I didn't feel like PoE suffered from too much writing but that they conveyed through writing too much. So many of games concept, events and characters were described to you rather than introduced via game content. Hopefully, bigger budget and more time to develop the sequel will fix that up.

Maybe so, as long as you explain what more hardcore means. I am! *can No, I mean I am explaining, right there at my post lol I see. 1) it doesn't hold your hand. 2) it doesn't highlight interactive objects, while it highlight everything else. I don't know, second one seems more like UI inconsistency rather than game design. Granted, there was one instance where a chest was hidden in/among bushes (might be more but I just missed them) but I would argue that stumbling into it wasn't nearly as rewarding as to force players to hover over every table and shelf to see if they can open it. A minor annoyance - a bit like I appreciate mod for XCOM2 which shows Pod activation tiles and their overwatch range - it's not like it gives you information you are not supposed to have, you just don't have to waste time counting tiles. Point no. 1 - fair enough. Though I feel it is more a case of focus and polish than "hardcore" design. That is why I was curious how do you define "hardcore". In my mind "hard core" means that it takes someone who is very much into the genre or this type of game to appreciate it - not something you can just pick up and play that easily. I feel DOS is very elegant and very approachable. Mechanics are easy to understand, world quite intuitive to interact with. Game is complex but "hardcore"?

Probably it would be better to contact Obsidian itself rather than community forums.

Maybe so, as long as you explain what more hardcore means. I am! *can

Maybe so, as long as you explain what more hardcore means. Its harder? I am not so sure, though I didn't try DOS on harder difficulties. It doesn't hold your hand, true, but that's because DOS is more of a mechanic based sandbox RPG than a storytelling RPG. PoE would fell apart if you could miss critical parts of the story, and DOS would fell apart if it wouldn't make you figure things out yourself as well, the quests themselves aren't all that interesting. I admit that there a parts of DOS I would happily skip. Shopping and inventory management is annoying due to the time it take to go from one shop to another, and how fiddly inventory is (please please Obsidian, can me make sure we can see all of party members' inventory on ONE screen as it was in PoE1? Switching between characters is really annoying). I do share your hope that Deadfire will open up a bit. Various mechanics they expand on (stealth, picking pockets, reverse picking pockets, exploding barrlels, factions, relationships) give me hope that they will make more flexible and involving quests. My favourite quests in the game were Roderick's hold and monastry in WM2 and I hope that they are looking to give that kind of depth to their whole game this time around. We will see. Beautiful thing of having multiple RPGs with different strengths might lead to devs learning from each other resulting in more ambitious game overall. PS. I am refering to DOS as I have not played DOS2 and probably won't be able to play it for a while .

I am actually only now giving D:OS a second shot and I am having quite a good time. I still feel it works much better in coop though. Many of its design decisions are made with two players in mind. While having to create two characters is odd but creating your character, while your friend creates his on the other side of the screen was really cool. I don't hate camera THAT much but it is a much less smooth experience than a old good isometric provides. I actually disliked DA:O camera more - I felt it liked to obscure things with architecture a bit too often. No button to highlight for interactive objects is odd. I missed quite a bit of things on my first attempt due to missing a shelf with important info. What I do very much like in Divinity:OS is how consistant the game is. All spells and abilities are available outside combat (as well as other items are available in combat) and some of them can be used in a creative way to interact with enviroment. Thanks to it, it doesn't have thing clear cut-out - dialogue, combat, expolration - design that PoE has. Things intertwine in a very organic way. The story is nothing to be bragging about but it can get a chuckle out every once in a while.

I do like fixed isometric as I don't feel like full 3D makes game more fiddly to play without adding much. In case of Divinity it helps with making game editable (with GM mode etc.).

Thoughts? I got it. You make a Troubadour chanter, single class, and their name is Cranberry. You can thank me later. Why Cranberry? Sorry to ruin the joke.

Sure, but those are aimed at the very specific crowd only. I doubt they reach a wider audience than those really interested in Obsidian or PoE. Speculation time - publisher might provide various ads on websites, making deals with outlets to get a word out, reaching to audiences of their other titles. Who knows how much paperwork is needed to publish game globally. I imagine that if the work of a publisher wasn't significant devs wouldn't cooperate with them willingly.