Alesia_BH

Ok, everyone: It's done! The challenge is now open! Hope to see you there soon! https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/106596-the-pillars-of-eternity-no-reload-challenge/

Greetings, fellow wayfarers! Welcome to The Pillars of Eternity No Reload Challenge! Have you ever dreamed of completing the Pillars of Eternity saga without a single reload? Have you ever wanted to share your adventures -triumphs and failures alike- with fellow adventures in a friendly and supportive environment? If so, then this is the place for you! The purpose of The Pillars of Eternity No Reload Challenge thread is to provide a platform for players to share their attempt to complete the PoE saga without reloading for death, calamity, or, well, any reason at all. This will be a familiar concept for those from the Baldur's Gate community. For others, it may seem odd at first. But trust me: It's a lot of fun! The BG Reload Challenge has been running for over a decade now, across three forums- accumulating thousands of pages and millions of views. As the founder of the original BG Trilogy No Reload Challenge on the old, old Bioware forums(*), I'm hopeful that we can achieve something similar in PoE-Land. Here's how it works! Entry Procedures: Players will enter by posting a character introduction in this thread. The intro should include the following: A) Name B ) Race & Subrace C) Class D) Culture E) Background F) Attributes (If you'd like to post a picture of your character and a description, from either a gaming or roleplaying perspective, feel free! That's highly encouraged, though not required!) Entry posts should also list: i.) Version ii.) Difficulty Level iii.) Settings (specifically: Maim Before Death- On/Off; Injuries On/Off; Expert Mode On/Off) iv.) Mods (if any) Upon entry, you can expect a warm welcome and well-wishes from your fellow challengers. The next step is to start playing and posting! Posting Guidelines Challengers should post written progress reports on their adventure, enhanced with pictures, and, perhaps, video (though exclusive use of video is discouraged). Progress reports can be brief or they can be detailed: share as much as you like in whichever format you like. If you'd like to focus on combat mechanics, great! I'f you'd like to role-play your character, and write a story, awesome! If you'd like to do both, together that would be double-triple awesome: that's the ideal. Confused? No worries. Check out example reports at the BG No Reload Challenge links below: Archived Bioware BG NR Challenge: http://blackstrider.net Active Beamdog BG NR Challenge: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/40393/ Completion A challenge attempt can end in three ways: 1) death; 2) abandonment; 3) success. Whatever happens, let us know! There's no shame in falling- it happens to all of us! Upon successful completion of Pillars of Eternity, in this thread, in the PoE I forum, players will graduate to a to-be-openened Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire No Reload Challenge thread in the PoE II forum. Challengers who successfully complete both stages of the saga will have their achievement commemorated in a Hall of Heroes: a public list of each and every full triumphant run, which will appear in the post just below this one. Hooray for the heroes to be! (Be aware that Hall of Heroes entries will note the difficulty level, mods (if any) and party composition) Let's move on to the rules. Rules & Norms 1) On Reloading. Very strict. No reloading for party deaths. No reloading for NPC death. No reloading for misclicks or player error (in combat or dialogue). No quiting or inducing crashes to evade death or an undesirable outcome. No reloading for minor bugs or bugs that are widely understood and largely accepted as part of the mechanic of the relevant edition. The only exceptions to the no reload rule will be: 1) hardware failures/crashes; 2) major game breaking bugs that unequivocally subvert developer intent. 2) On Difficulty Level. Highly flexible. Players may enter on any difficulty level they like. Hall of Heroes entries will note the difficulty level. 3) On Settings. Highly flexible. Players are free to use whichever settings they prefer. Gameplay relevant settings should be noted in the intro post. Particularly important settings may be noted in the Hall of Heroes entry. 4) On Party Composition. Highly flexibile. Players may use whichever party composition they desire. Hall of Heroes entries will note composition. 5) On Character Creation. Strict, but slightly permissive. Players are encouraged to use the standard, unaltered player creation mechanism. Hacked characters are not allowed. The only avenue to creation of a non-standard character will be through mods, see mod guidelines below for further details 6) On Item Set Manipulation. Strict, but slightly permissive. Gratuitous item set alteration is not allowed, although introduction of a minor, low powered, flavor personal item, similar to the NPC personal items, may be permitted, with community agreement. The only other avenue to use of a non standard item set will be through mods. Again, see mod guidelines below for further details. 7) On Mods. Moderately permissive. Players may use mods to enhance the gaming experience, but they are encouraged to use mods that are widely known and understood by the community in the interest of insuring mutual understanding and community respect for player achievements. All mods must be declared and described in the player's entry post. Links to the mod should be provided. Any mods will be noted in the Hall of Heroes entry. 8 ) On Tactics. Highly flexible, but with guidance. Players may use whatever tactics they desire- we don't want to be in the position of policing tactics. That said, players are strongly encouraged to keep community sensibilities in mind. Egregiously cheesy or exploitative tactics can alienate audiences and undermine respect for the accomplishments -past or present- of challenge participants. Do what you like, but keep your audience in mind and be respectful or each other and the challenge. Be thoughtful, be considerate, but, by all means, be you. 9 ) On Resolution Procedures. Accommodating, but firm. All rule issues will be addressed through a jury of peers/community consensus method. If a question or issue emerges, ask. Challenge participants will share their view, keeping the rule set, prior judgements, and community norms in mind. The final authority for all rule issues will be the player, in recognition of the fact that the thread is, in the end, no more than an avenue for players to share their adventure. Nonetheless players are highly, highly encouraged to abide by and respect the community consensus ruling. And that, my friends, is all you need to know! So, let's get this party started! The Pillars of Eternity No Reload Challenge is now open to entries! Best, A. (*) Credit to Retet for starting the very first no reload challenge, a BG2 only thread on the old, old Bioware forums.

On the Rule Set. In light of Serg's support, and in the absence of other commentary, I'm inclined to go ahead with the rules above. Agreed, everyone? On Maim Before Death. The more I think about it, the more I see Jaheiras Witness's point. I do still think it should be at player discretion, but I also think it's important enough to add to the Hall of Heroes entries. The MBD setting will be part of the Difficulty setting line in the Hall of Heroes. The full list of game critical settings will appear in intro posts (MBD, Injuries, Expert Mode, AoE Highlighting). On Tactics. As mentioned earlier, I don't think we should police tactics, but I do think we should encourage players to avoid egregiously cheesy or exploitative tactics that could be off-putting to our audience. In the intro post, I'm inclined to use one exploit as an illustrative example: moving conscious characters out of the fog of war to end combat and thus revive the fallen. Does the PoE community have a name for this? I've taken to calling it the "Rope-a-Dope," after the boxing move. Ok! If there are no further comments, I'll upload the founding post later today. I'd like to get this off the ground, ASAP (Note that we can always tweak things later, if need be). Best, A. Btw: It's good to see you here, BelgarathMTH! I'll make you a deal: you post in mine and I'll post in yours!

Thanks, Enuhal! It's great to hear from you! We appreciate your support. Double thanks for sharing the link to the current iteration of the challenge! I hope you'll get around to posting a run! Best, A.

Noted. Thank you for your perspective, Jaherias Witness! I'm inclined to see the "maim before death" option as a difficulty setting choice: it's among the parameters that provide the conditions for the no reload. I don't see it as violative of the no reload concept in and or itself. Large scale difficulty settings are up to the player (Normal vs PoTD, for example). I think minor difficulty settings should be up to the player, too. What if we took this approach?: 1) Require players to announce critical game settings choice, such as "maim before death," in their intro post; 2) Note especially critical settings, such a "maim before death," in Hall of Hero entries, along with difficultly setting and mods (if any). That would grant players flexibility while simulatenously permitting viewers to fully understand and appreciate the tenor of the challenge that the player has undertaken/completed. Would that satisfy? What other settings would you add to the "critical gameplay" list (in other words settings that should be publicly declared)? Thoughts from anyone else? Best, A. NW: While I have an opinion on this presently, as stated above. I could definitely go either way ultimately. Further, it isn't really up to me, but to us, as a community. I'd really like to hear from others on this. Thanks for bringing it up, Jaheiras Witness!

Welcome to the conversation, Hulk O'Saurus! And thanks for sharing! I'm inclined to agree that use of the ToI setting should be at player discretion. Use of the setting doesn't serves a communal purpose, really, and it can impose a personal cost. People should be free to choose. Does anyone else have thoughts on this? Best, A.

Welcome, Jaheiras Witness! It'll be great to have an accomplished PoE player who's also conversant with the norms of the BG NR Challenge here. I look forward to playing and learning with you! On Rules. It sounds like we're all on the same page: strict commitment to the no reload concept, flexibility in other respects, although with community norms in place to facilitate mutual understanding of runs and encourage respect for player accomplishments. Here's a rough outline of what I'd like the rule set to achieve. Once we've reached agreement in principle, I'll compose an intro post for consideration 1) On Reloading. Very strict. No reloading for party deaths. No reloading for NPC death. No reloading for misclicks or player error (in combat or dialogue). No quiting or inducing crashes to evade death or an undesirable outcome. No reloading for minor bugs or bugs that are widely understood and largely accepted as part of the mechanic of the relevant edition. The only exceptions to the no reload rule will be: 1) hardware failures/crashes; 2) major game breaking bugs that unequivocally subvert developer intent. 2) On Difficulty Level. Highly flexible. Players may enter on any difficulty level they like. Hall of Heroes entries will note the difficulty level. 3) On Settings. Highly flexible. Players are free to use whichever settings they prefer. Gameplay relevant settings should be noted in the intro post. Particularly important settings may be noted in the Hall of Heroes entry. 4) On Party Composition. Highly flexibile. Players may use whichever party composition they desire. Hall of Heroes entries will note composition. 5) On Character Creation. Strict, but slightly permissive. Players are encouraged to use the standard, unaltered player creation mechanism. Hacked characters are not allowed. The only avenue to creation of a non-standard character will be through mods, see mod guidelines below for further details 6) On Item Set Manipulation. Strict, but slightly permissive. Gratuitous item set alteration is not allowed, although introduction of a minor, low powered, flavor personal item, similar to the NPC personal items, may be permitted, with community agreement. The only other avenue to use of a non standard item set will be through mods. Again, see mod guidelines below for further details. 7) On Mods. Moderately permissive. Players may use mods to enhance the gaming experience, but they are encouraged to use mods that are widely known and understood by the community in the interest of insuring mutual understanding and community respect for player achievements. All mods must be declared and described in the player's entry post. Links to the mod should be provided. Any mods will be noted in the Hall of Heroes entry. 8 ) On Tactics. Highly flexible, but with guidance. Players may use whatever tactics they desire- we don't want to be in the position of policing tactics. That said, players are strongly encouraged to keep community sensibilities in mind. Egregiously cheesy or exploitative tactics can alienate audiences and undermine respect for the accomplishments -past or present- of challenge participants. Do what you like, but keep your audience in mind and be respectful or each other and the challenge. Be thoughtful, be considerate, but, by all means, be you. 9 ) On Resolution Procedures. Accommodating, but firm. All rule issues will be addressed through a jury of peers/community consensus method. If a question or issue emerges, ask. Challenge participants will share their view, keeping the rule set, prior judgements, and community norms in mind. The final authority for all rule issues will be the player, in recognition of the fact that the thread is, in the end, no more than an avenue for players to share their adventure. Nonetheless players are highly, highly encouraged to abide by and respect the community consensus ruling. What does everyone think? Does that sound good, in principle? Best, A. One question. Should we require use of the ToI setting? The problem I have with it is: 1) It doesn't really serve to verify, since it can be easily circumvented (Further, in any case, a challenge of this nature must ultimately function on an honor system); 2) it can be nice to have the saves of dead characters on file for further out of challenge recreational play and or experimentation. In the end, I don't really see an upside for our purposes (although I do think it's cool that Obsidian included it)

@ Serg Blackstrider. I'm glad to hear that you're interested! That's a boon and a huge help in establishing a PoE challenge. It will be great to have at least one other participant conversant with the norms of the Bioware community. Beyond that, it's wonderful to have a friend here! @Hazmy. Thanks for the warm welcome! Have we met over on the Bioware forums or were you a reader only? No matter. In either case, you're more than welcome to participate (as is anyone and everyone!). I agree that the rule set and community norms from the Bioware challenge provide the right template for a challenge here. I'm sure Serg is on the same page. How much PoE experience do you have, Hazmy? Serg and I are experienced BG No Reloaders, but we're novices on the PoE scene. I only started playing PoE about a week ago. And while I have completed a NR already, I still have a lot -and I mean a lot- to learn. It would be great if we could get at least one PoE veteran on board. If you're that person: awesome! If not, that's awesome, too! While having at least one veteran player would be beneficial from an educational standpoint, having players at a variety of skill levels -playing on a variety of difficulty settings, with different party compositions- will aid us in growing the community. I do think three is enough for us to get started. Hooray! That means this is happening! We should discuss rules together soon, perhaps later today. Before we begin that conversation, though, I'd like to invite others to introduce themselves and, if they desire, let their voices be heard in the rule/guideline/norm establishment process. Is anyone else interested? Don't be shy! We're all friends here! Best, A.

Thank you for your reply, Boerer! And thank you for highlighting the ToI setting: that may be a useful tool if and when we do establish a challenge. The ToI setting alone would not, however, provide the experience that I, and perhaps Serg, am/are seeking. In the BG No Reload Challenge, we share our adventures -typically in text, sometimes role-played text- documenting every step of the journey. It's a community experience and a joyful one at that. We introduce our characters, post reports on each session, and follow each other's progress, celebrating triumphs, lamenting losses. The core of us who've participated have by now been friends (close friends, albeit online friends) for over a decade with our sole point of contact being the No Reload Challenge experience. The Baldur's Gate NR Challenge has never been about achieving goals within the game world, really- at least not primarily. It was about -and is about- sharing our mutual enjoyment of the game in a collegial, friendly, and supportive environment. It's allowed us to play together, without competing with each other, to learn from each other by sharing, rather than through a question/answer, teacher/student format. It's been a way to grow as players while having a whole lot of fun, too. I and others who've participated would have tired of BG, long, long ago, were it not for the NR Challenge. And that shouldn't come as a surprise: Playing is always more fun when you play together. That, then, is the proposal: a consolidated thread that would provide a platform for players to share their No Reload/Trial of Iron journeys, with the goal being to establish a community of skilled and fun-loving adventurers, allowing us to derive renewable pleasure from the game, even after the story, mechanics, and foes have become old hat. It's more than a setting. It's about community, fun, and friendship. When the old Bioware forums closed, Serg archived and hosted the content from the original No Reload Challenge. I'd happily share the link to illustrate the concept in practice, but I feel Serg should do the honors: he's the one who did the work of preserving the thread, and we're all grateful to him for doing so. The thread contains hundreds of pages - has received millions of views over the years- and, for us participants, hold a warehouse of memories: good memories, shared with friends. It would be fun to get something similar going in the PoE world. Best, A.

Serg! You're here! I had no idea! That's awesome. Is anyone else from our community around? Have you tried PoE no reloading yet? Best, A.

Hey there, hi there, everyone! Is anyone here familiar with the No Reload Challenge in the Baldur's Gate community, either the legacy Bioware forum edition or the current one on the Beamdog forums? For the uninitiated, the Baldur's Gate No Reload Challenge lets players document attempts to complete the BG Trilogy (now Tetralogy) without reloading along the way. The challenge has been active for over a decade now and continues to be a source of enjoyment for players and followers alike. Is there any interest in establishing a similar challenge here, a Pillars of Eternity Saga No Reload Challenge? If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to share! Best, A. (Oh, and btw, hello everyone! It's good to be a part of the PoE community!)