Triple - A Foxy Lad

ah sorry lads. ive gotten too used to winding folk up in mobas. ill behave myself.

count me among those cats whod like to see a fun ending to the watcher saga - then after that obs/microsoft can do whatever tf they like. if they pivot to making stuff that aint my bag ill be on my merry way with no hard feelings. nothing is forever. nothing should be forever. though i suspect theyll keep me interested for a while yet. i hope they dont freeze out loyal followers through game store shenanigens tho. that would be sad.

lmao this guys like dril. im enjoying this routine.

They promised nostalgia but thats at odds with obs established tendency towards subversion. for the nostalgia driven, poe was too wonky, for the obs/black isle fans wanting subversion, poe was too conservative. think a lot of people wanted a bg revival made, but they either didnt realise - or didnt respect - that obs were never going to go in a straight line. poe's fussy tension, compounded by sawyer's tendencies, really is a thing of very precise tastes. i love it personally. im finding the series endlessly fascinating and i can see myself replaying it for many years to come. but unfortunately game is bloody-minded and strange without being outlandish enough to draw appreciation. its a hard sell outside of its strike zone. ye, i dont think u could accuse them of not trying hard enough. i think the main point where i thought 'jesus wept, u guys are making life hard for urselves' was the inter-companion relationship system. that must have been an absolute nightmare. relatively linear progression would have been so much easier. tbh im not the biggest fan of 'influence' systems in general, and i think they can frustrate the capacity for antagonistic, yet close relationships. i feel DA2 actually made a step in the right direction with the 'rivalmance' option, but that got dropped and instead were kinda stuck with the 'behave like a psychopath to keep everyone happy' to this day. sorry tangent tangent tangent. deadfire is certainly the sprawl, where the devs tried everything at once - it can be a necessary, but frustrating, creative step - in pop album terms, we now need a 'scary monsters' where they consolidate everything.

First off, if u were involved in tslrcm, u have my thanks for that chief. i stanned kotor2 since release and im glad other people poured their time and efforts into polishing it for the wider audience it deserved. point i was making was less to do with quality of main plot and characters - more that it dont give the fandom much to salivate over and get the word of mouth going. like atm, my twitter feed is bubbling up with kingmaker stuff - specifically pictures of peoples custom-drawn baronesses and dreamy tristian. theyve been given a fantasy, and now theyre out there celebrating it and detailing it. other peeps are likely to see this and think 'oooh, i want in on that action' obs dont like throwing people those kinds of bones. they provided a bit of oestrogen bait in aloth and tekehu, but generally they dont do that, and theyve *long* had a reputation for not doing that. they dont give the fandom inclined warm feels and really lovable characters to bond over. they dont give streamers and youtubers epic moments. they dont give circles of friends multiplayer moments to bond over. for better or worse, they want to be craftsmen not entertainers. that inclinations not only come home to roost, its grown fat and settled. well, kingmakers basically nwn3 if thats any consolation. but the stuff about the game that peeps are now complaining about - obliqueness of system, reliance on prior knowledge of spells, certain items and spells to get through encounters - were rampant in bg2. other aspects of bg2 that got modernised *ahem sidekicks ahem* were met with a ton of complaints. bg2s absence of anything remotely resembling balance wouldnt survive a modern light. the forgotten realms' gleeful kitchen sink approach - which imo was the cornerstone of bg2s appeal - would also get ripped to shreds by people who now want something a tad more mature and coherent. and the bg2 critical path would get shat on now. even back in the day i remember posts on forums. 'why should we rescue imoen, why should we rescue imoen' x 421204. also most people just pottered around cleaning up *every* sidequest before thinking maybe we should stop this irenicus fellow - yadda yadda sense of urgency. bg2 papered over the cracks in its system via rest spamming, and i dont think we like rest spamming anymore. - oh man lets spend six months in the underdark sleeping 15 hours before every encounter. none of that bothered *me* then, and it doesnt bother me now, but a modern implementation would spawn a 17 page thread on some forum about it before too long. the market for these kinds of rpgs is getting older. people who were teenagers when bg dropped are in their mid thirties now. bg's enthusiastic pulpiness just wont strike the same chords any more. like, i still appreciate and enjoy bg now, but for very different reasons. that games time has come and gone. its last big equivalent was probably DA:O. honestly, kingmakers prob as close as ull get to that sort of thing now and... ye, im enjoying it but it aint half getting some backlash from certain quarters. like it just occurs to me now that bg2 was bioware. like obsidian/black isles style has never been biowares - even when using the same engine. id only expect them to cleave so close to it. if u want updated bg2, i dont think obs are the people to do it. even poe1 didnt feel like bg, it felt more like black isles infinity engine games. deadfire feels more like fantasy new vegas than bg2, which is to be expected considering sawyer made the former and not the latter.

Ye, i didnt mean to sound dismissive of such things when i was writing earlier. i consume no end of shameless trash for emotional release. i totally get the need.

Also New Vegas, which had an underwhelming reception and is now serious contender for high point of FO franchise. its not an obs game, but i feel compelled to mention PST, which completely stiffed on arrival and is now part of the pantheon. i feel that if deadfire will be remembered - or even celebrated - it will be for its portrayal of colonial politics. i bet the games afterlife will rest on that. i think the games distinctly odd critical path may become a curiosity. feel theres at least one longform defence of it due in years to come.

Hello, very very very long time lurker first time poster etc. ye, i think is very worth noting kingmaker is a very straight drive marketing wise. it sells a v obvious fantasy. u fight to become the ruler of an archetypal fantasy kingdom. u have pretty love interests. the hardcore pathfinder fans are likely to buy it regardless of content because they want to support the ip's maiden step into crpg territory. also avellone was writing chunks of it, and regardless of what one thinks of avellone, dude aint bad at the writing thing. his name shifts units. like owlcat could have screwed many many things up, and theyd still sell yay amount of copies - which is apparently whats happened. with dos2, i suspect it was the gimmicky ad-friendly combat and multiplayer aspect that really pushed it over the edge. the game looks like a laugh, and it looks like it could be a laugh with ur friends while still providing a beefy single player rpg experience for those who primarily want such a thing. it gives lots of people reason to check it out. obsidian have historically been awkward devils. they listen to people, but pandering to anyones fantasy has never been that high on their list. original pillars caught flack for being austere. there were no romance options in first game at all. ur romantic options in second game - and companion relationships full stop - are mostly a far cry from the band of brothers campfire chat heartfeels that people want. everyone grates one way or another. xoti's nutty and needy, pally's got a massive chip on her shoulder, maia's cold-hearted, tekehus the kind of self-absorbed sad pretty boy that i guess most of the men-inclined are sick of dating. i dont list these as a criticism. peeps are like that irl. im lowkey a fan of this approach. but it aint what folk want in their escapism. main plot undermines ur character as well. u lose ur kingdom and end up on a cheap pirate ship. u cant fix the deadfire in any perfect way. eothas will ultimately do what he wants. all of the factions are understandable but all have at least one major drawback that makes u feel bad for helping them. no matter what u do, theres no feelgood way trough the game. it aint the first time sawyers traded in that sort of pessimism. like icewind dale 2 was just one long tragedy that was a fraction too unavoidable. i remember back in the day loads of peeps were fked off because they felt powerless in the face of it. they wanted options to change the fate of that campaign, but obv that werent the point of either the game, nor the story sawyer wanted to sell. part of the reason ive followed obs all this time is that they do fk with peoples expectations. they sabotage hopes and dreams. "u think ur character can solve everything? u think u can do anything to stop a 5,695,695ft god? nah fk you, lol" - ye other franchises traffic in that sort of negatvity, but at least in them u get to stare at pretty boy geralts ass while he swaggers about getting laid. i like all these curveballs that obs throw, and resistance to fanservice, but theyre definitely things that work against widespread appeal.