WorstUsernameEver

Why do people keep acting like there's a *problem* in the story? Mizhena literally mentions being trans once, and understandably the dialogue doesn't delve into the details of her anatomy. The internet is full of people writing fanfiction about whether she needs the girdle of masculinity/femininity or not, but that's... really not a subject worth delving into? Regardless of the setting's established solutions and different attitudes towards gender roles, you'd still have people assigned one gender at birth that would end up identifying as another, which is the category that Mizhena fits.

And of course, I only noticed I typed "worth" instead of "worthwhile" four days later.

Honestly, I'd be more interested in a PoE PnP RPG for the stuff that isn't really simulated/possible in the game, not to have the same combat in tabletop. I'd be perfectly open to something simpler/different that captures the lore and the general spirit for a combat system. Also, note that the question pertained prototyping the systems on paper, not whether the property will get a PnP adaptation in the future and that Sawyer made no comments about an eventual adaptation (in fact, I'm pretty sure Obsidian's CEO hinted at something in the works some time ago, around the same time he talked about the card game.. though only one of those two panned out for now.)

Don't see much of a point in posting sly, vague tweets, to be honest. It's just fuel for more trolling and flames.

Just to correct KDubya on a minor item, there's at least one place in the expansion when examining a magnifying glass icon gives you additional info to advance a quest. It's not necessary to finish it, though, as far as I know.

As long as the game isn't dull as dishwater like The Age of Decadence was, I'd say that's a worth trade-off.

You can jump directly into the expansion, just like you could with Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal.

I've enjoyed what I've played of it so far. Have to say, though, and I know it won't be popular considering all the IE evangelists on these boards, that I find myself constantly missing some of the changes to the UI and mechanics made by Pillars of Eternity.

Go back to Stalwart and walk around the Western gate. That should trigger a new scene that will start that quest.

That's the same presentation that included a line that went something like "Ideological purity doesn't necessarily make players happy." In other words, for the entire presentation Sawyer advocated the need to compromise between the players' desires and preferences and the designers' ideas. And if you aren't convinced enough, here's what Josh actually SAID at the presentation, as reported by fellow game designer Soren Johnson, who attended the presentation and livetweeted the salient points: "If it were up to me, we wouldn't even have classes, but we were making Pillars for our audience."

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36021079&postcount=202 They've been talking about that pitch ever since Dungeon Siege III was announced. I don't think anyone was ever able to confirm it was Stormlands, though.

There were people at GDC who heard the talk, including press. You don't think "Pillars of Eternity director doesn't want to do a sequel" would have made the rounds, if he actually said something like that? Come on.

It's not much, but I'll note that JES has taken to using locations from the project he's working on as his own personal location on Twitter, and it currently lists "Revua, Sailing SxSE", Revua being one of the Vailian Republics and a location that couldn't be visited in the base game and its expansions. Now, is it safe to assume that it means he's working on a Pillars of Eternity sequel that possibly uses one of the Vailian Republics as a starting point? Not at all, it's a flimsy link at best. But Obsidian's CEO has been pretty insistent about the fact that they want to continue developing the IP and stopped just short of confirming they want to make a sequel in the press release for The White March Part II's release: While I doubt Obsidian will turn into a Pillars of Eternity-themed factory, starting work on a sequel now (which would be, at the very least, expected to release in 2+ years) just makes sense*. * assuming Obsidian has a solid plan for how to fund this game, anyway, but I can imagine crowdfunding would be a safe bet

I think having less companions would be easier to justify if the game didn't have a six-character party and a large number of race and class combinations. Player-made adventurers help with alleviating these concerns to some degree, but I imagine a lot of players still like to play with only the story companions at their side (the achievement stats show that less than half of the playerbase ever made an adventurer.. that's a lot more than I expected to be honest, so perhaps I'm just talking out of my ass, but it still means that there's a significant chunk of players that play with only their own PC and the pre-made NPCs made by Obsidian). Now, I don't know if Eric Fenstermaker was talking about the number of companions PoE had at release or the total roster with The White March included, but I'm gonna assume he was specifically targeting the base game, otherwise his statement wouldn't make much sense. (Less companions than PoE + expansions but relatively similar to PoE at release? Why not just say "roughly as many companions as the base game"?) But, let's say hypothetically that there are only 6 or 7 companions available in a PoE2. That would mean that the majority of potential companions would have to be used to fill the party, in spite of the fact that the players might not like their personalities. It also limits the designers in terms of character-based reactivity, which is something we already saw in PoE. (e.g. if the only cleric leaves the players based on a choice made by the player at the end of a quest, the player will be deprived of a *very* significant tactical asset for the rest of the game.) Basically, most of the problems connected to the companion design present in the original game would be exacerbated. There would definitely be *some* gain in terms of writing polish and, I assume, reactivity and unique content, but on the flipside, I think the lack of agency on part of the characters would be even more obvious because of that additional writing focus. Honestly, I don't know if *all* those problems can be solved, assuming a similar amount of money is invested, but I don't think the "less is more" adage is necessarily as obvious a solution as it's presented in the interview. What I'm personally hoping for is for a similar number of companions to the base release of PoE (7 or but with stronger, more obvious ties to the central conflicts in the game, better structured dialogue trees (PoE's companions were all over the place in this respect), and a larger focus over a coherent character arc over a single personal quest.* * I think Edér and Durance were good in this respect, though the fact that Edér's quest concluded rather abruptly disappointed many players. In truth, Edér's development continues throughout the finale, but because the game gave no mechanical indication of that fact, plenty of players were well and truly pissed by that point. P.S. : I'm also not going into the whole "companions are completely optional and have to be written with that in mind" can of worms, because, while connected, it's not the subject we're talking about. Also, I personally don't think it impacted the companions in PoE *all that much*, all things considered.

I was hoping for something like that, but alas the use of lighting seems to have been mostly cosmetic in the final game. That said, I can understand why that particular kind of gameplay doesn't mesh super-well with the Infinity Engine template they adopted, and at least they paid lip service to it in the lead-up to the final area. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed and hoping they'll go for something like that in an optional dungeon in a sequel or spin-off.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but Paradox already confirmed on Facebook that it's not World of Darkness-related. Don't get your hopes up about a Vampire announcement any time soon, folks.

It's a very good location, but it relies a bit too much on the first-time surprise. That said, while I don't think it's the best RPG location ever or anything like that, I think I'd like to see another developer expand on the idea. Add a layer of nuance, pace the jump scares so that the core gameplay still shines between them, toy with the player's psychology some more.

The recording is available at this link

Your trolling lately has gotten sub-4chan as of late. I expect better of you.

I know that you were probably following the classic D&D table of contents, but to be honest I think it would have been better, at least for these early drafts, to put the action resolution mechanics on the forefront. Most of the stats/fluff seems to mirror what was already in the game anyway, but this is a tabletop RPG, not a videogame, and I want to know what kind of campaign it will handle and how it will handle them. That's all I can say for now because I've only skimmed through the documents, I will try to give some more detailed feedback soon.

I'm not seeing any change there?

If you talk to any of the monks outside of the abbey (this works both if you go to the right or if you go the central entrance), you can manage to convince them you're the Tidebringer*. Once you do that, you get full access to the Abbey. However, depending on your choices inside the abbey, you'll still have to fight at least some people, and you definitely will have some blood on your hands by the end of the questline. A 100% pacifist/no deaths path simply isn't available. * The option I used required Lore 6. There is also a Resolve option that I never tried.

Uh. I distinctly remembering the delemgan sisters mentioning the possibility of the gods not being real to my character near the start of the dialogue with them. I don't think I have a save from around that time, though.

Maybe it's something you get if you have aligned with her in Teir Evron?

One of the possible survival bonuses increases consumable duration. It's not automatic like it used to be, though.