LordCrash

IMHO, Bioware is already making major improvements with romance in DA:I Obviously, you never "romanced" Cassandra. It's hard to imagine a more heavy-handed, overly cheesy and laughable, unbelievable "video-gamey" romance...

I think it's Cadegund. I found out by watching the KS again. :D.. one thing i notice Tim Cain wasn't feature in the figstarter campaign video though. Damn, you're right, of course it's Cadegund. My bad.

The guy next to Aloth was transformed into Eder and the women in platemail into Pallegina. The girl on the far right was transformed into Sagani.So nobody was cut from the group here, they were just reworked. You know, this was a very early concept art that was made before the actual characters were written in great detail.

https://www.fig.co/about

And you used color for your suggestion so it looks very bright.

Well, let's wait and see. It's not some backer-created content but something coming from within Obsidian, from the actual artists working on the game. If anybody, they can guarantee a visually consistent experience. But yeah, I agree with you that if they find our further along the development process that the watercolor stuff won't work out the way they envisioned it they should cut it again. I'm not that fond of making it a stretch goal. It should rather have been something they test internally, iterative properly and decide upon closer to release. Anyway, in a much more general perspective, I'd personally like the PoE series to become a BIT less serious and grim cold and more personal and down-to-earth. Maybe these portraits could push the franchise just a little bit in this direction without breaking any consistency. I don't expect or want something like Original Sin (to make that clear) but that doesn't mean that everything in PoE needs to be that heavy-handed and overly dramatic.

It's not EA making these things, it's Bioware. And they're pretty proud about it.

+1 I like it.

If anything, PoE needs to get even more serious. The normal standards for seriousness are not serious enough for a seriously serious game like PoE... Oh, and of course serious serious means nothing else than pure and always dominating grim cold and grim dark. Avoid any bright colors, making the whole game in black and white or, making a small concession here, sepia would actually be truly serious so rather go for that. Also avoid the depiction of happy or - God beware - even funny characters at all costs. Everything that looks even slightly cartoonish or fun is for small kids alone, serious adults don't have fun, they only ponder on abstract philosophical questions and they enjoy being depressed all the time. /irony off

It's for a unique badge in addition to the Fig badge. And hopefully, this unique badge here will be pirate themed. Concerning the last remark, I think the forum badges should not be aligned in one column, should they? It should be two columns I'd propose. There would even be space for 3 columns in one row. Space, yes. The question is whether the board software offers this feature.

In dialogue screens all portraits will be watercolor. Every companion will get a watercolor version of their normal portrait as well if I understood the concept properly. Edit: Ninja'd by somebody with real insight.

This mockup looks already pretty good, I like it. This could really enhance the dialogues in PoE2, by all means visually.

You really think they'd hire extra people for writing and designing two quests?

@Fluffle There were already some good suggestions imo. Why not gathering them and making a new thread with a poll for the name? Or you just decide which one to take.

Ok, got it. In this case, please continue. I will wait and see what happens. And when I like what I see I might join in.

2D artists make portraits, designers, writers and 3D artists make quests. Deciding against the portraits won't magically create time for the designers, writers and 3D artists to make more quests. Apples and oranges, mate. Personally, I really love the idea of the watercolor portraits and I also like the ones presented in the update. They neither look unprofessional nor inconsistent to me, quite the opposite.

I just want to address this real fast. I think your concerns are considerably similar to many of ours. I have no intention of seriously suggesting a pirate ship of union workers with tommy guns, and I am not interested in putting Kaptain Karkarov in game. While I will be happy to support a more tongue in cheek encounter, I have no interest in supporting something that is not fun and memorable for the normal player, without also being lore friendly and consistent with Eora. I want it to have a positive impact on the game, an encounter that players enjoy, and I want it to be seemless. I don't people to play it and say "Oh this is that "backer" pirate ship" then snicker. I want to fit so well they don't even realize it was backer content. The problem is our ability to accomplish that relies heavily on Obsidian's restrictions, not on our creativity. I don't doubt that you guys can be creative and I don't doubt that you can come up with good ideas. It's just my personal experience with backer-related content that makes me a bit wary about that stuff in genereal. And I want to point out some stuff that might be of some importance here, based on my personal experience on the subject. To get started, ask yourself some questions. 1) What's the actual goal of this fundraiser or what's the biggest goal for it? 2) Who will actually organize the fundraising effort and how? 3) Is this fundraiser aimed at getting in as many people as possible or whom should be attracted to join the ranks? 4) How should people get attracted to join? Who's doing the marketing and where? 5) What's likely the best argument to attrackt people to spend a small/big amount of money for the fundraiser? 6) Is it feasible to guarantee high quality and consistency of backer-created content if you have 50, 100, 500 people who contributed to the fundraiser? IMO it's much more important to have solid answers to all these questions before you even start thinking about how you will create stuff in detail - if you still want to do that at all. I can only share my experiences with the OOoE with you. The order has now more than 700 members, all of them spending at least 8 bucks on top of their actual tier. That's at least 5600 bucks in total that went into the development of PoE. That doesn't sound like much money but it's a pretty great achievement that we gathered so many fans who get nothing of substance in return. I personally think that was maybe even its biggest selling point. We (the people who founded the order and were most active to market it) concentrated on keeping the whole thing as simple and as low-key as possible, guaranteeing that both everybody gets the concept quickly and we had a short and on-point message to market. We posted the same, simple message a few times a day in the kickstarter comments and made a thread in the forum here and that was pretty much it. The biggest fun with the order was that people were primarily enthusiastic about creating a community of hardcore fans and of finding ways to dedicate themselves to the project while getting nothing in return apart from a game that might come out a little bit better. That's what I'd love to see for PoE2 as well and that was imo the original idea when Fluffy came up with the 8 bucks (which was directly copied from the order who invented the 8 bucks as both a reference to the symbol for Eternity and and as a small enough amount to be attractive to as many people as possible). But I get the idea that you'd rather want to go for a fundraiser approach like the Codex and the Watch did back in the day, with only a very limited amount of people involved, pledging a much higher amount of money individually and getting "real" rewards in return. That's not my preferred way of doing it but ok, why not. I'd like to point out though that the fundraising efforts in both Codex and Watch were initiated and organized by the "top management" of the communities and long-standing members who knew each other pretty well and who also had the technical expertise and the respective backend to come up with a technical solution for the fundraisers. You hardly pay a 100 bucks or more without trusting the person or organization receiving it. That's a bit different to this approach here with individual people from the "basis" talking about a fundraiser without having any technical means (at least none I've seen so far) to get it really started and running and without having any clear strategy some people are really dedicated to. So my advice is: Find some simple rules and get the thing started. Everything else can be discussed once the time has come. Anyway, if you get this fundraiser running in any way you see fit, please do it. The more money Obsidian gets, the better, no matter the method. And maybe, I'd be part of it again, but it's not really important. And even more important, don't let me spoil the fun for you, I'm just one grumpy dude.

But doesn't this apply to any backer related content in the game? Let's say someone would buy the pirate group + ship alone. In what way would that not be "a threat for the consistency and quality of the game"? It is Obsidian's job to take care that that doesn't happen. And that applies to all backer related content, does it not? And Obsidian already says "some restrictions apply" on the tier rewards. So of course they are aware of this. Yes, you're right. After having played many crowdfunded games the backer-created content was almost always among the worst elements of the respective game, either because it was just annoying, or because it meant a ton of extra work for the devs without any benefit for the game or because it was just inconsistent with the rest of the game, merely gaving reference to people or stories nobody knows or nobody should know in the context of the game. PoE certainly isn't without guilt here because the backer tombs (just to name a simple example) sadly covered all three points mentioned. That might be an unpopular opinion but I think that the game should be made 100% by Obsidian, only covering the original vision. All that backer-created or related content is just fan-service, but in a bad form, because it only caters to specific persons rather than to everybody playing the game. I know why developers open these tiers but that doesn't mean that I have to like them from a design perspective. Larian included the weresheeps in DOS as well but they gadly never asked the fans to decide in which way. So Larian came up with something that fit into the overall style and structure of the game that made it a nice experience for every gamer, not just the weresheep funders. Imo that's the only way something like that should and could be implemented if the quality of the game is your top priority. And I don't want to create drama, I just state my humble opinion. If you guys are fine with creating your own stuff, go for it, Obsidian seems to be fine with that anyway. Just don't expect me to support this cause or to take part in the effort, that's all. Edit: But just for you to remember: I was one of the "founding fathers" of both the OOoE for PoE and the Weresheeps of Original Sin for Larian's DOS and in both cases the effort was primarily about collecting more money. In the case of the OOoE we started an additional fundraiser with the mere promise of an individual forum name (and a badge I created and individually customized back then for a ton of people). It wasn't about rewards, especially not when we started it (you should actually know that, you were there as well) and we didn't talk in lengths about what to do if we ever reach the goal before we even started the whole thing. It's kind of funny to watch this thread in which people discuss what they would do while nobody seems willing to actually start the whole damn thing and nobody is really willing to just collect more money for "the cause". I'd still say: get your priorities straight and just do it...

I you guys really want to create the ship and stuff yourself in a group effort or whatever, I'm out. That's just too much hassle for me and even more important, t's a threat for the consistency and quality of the game IMO. In Gromnir's words: Have fun.

Absolutely, but wouldn't it be fun to create something for others to enjoy as well? One of the reasons I suggested "design groups" tackling different aspects was for a surprise factor as well. One group designs the Captain might not know much who the First Mate is, and vice versa. Another way is to have one "manager" and create surveys and just send it forward to Obsidian to decide what to do with the data. There is only one thing to say about that: A camel is a horse designed by a commitee. Or in other words: it's a sure as hell way into an inconsistent distaster nobody will like in the end. It's certainly not good for the overall game/experience. Uh no, absolutely not. I have no intention of backing for something this expensive, that may cost 100's of dollars per person, and then just saying "do what you want obsidian!" If no one backs a pirate crew don't kid yourself, Obsidian is not going to just say "oh well best go two crews light or no random pirates at all" they will just make it up themselves. You would literally be paying them 5k for the privilege of debating what to do with the physical goods/digital keys. Maybe you should check again what crowdfunding is all about. Hint: it's not about personal rewards. If you don't like to give Obsidian something extra without getting anything for yourself in return just don't contribute.

My input: First, everybody involved in the fundraiser (pledging at least 8 bucks) gets a forum badge, no matter how much money we raise. Second, if we manage to raise 3000k Obsidian will make a pirate ship dedicated to us crazy bunch pirates and buccaneers - as they see fit. That would cut the difficult decision making process on our side, it would guarantee the consistency of the ingame elements (because Obsidian themselves create it) and it would give us a little surprise in the game. Isn't it a huge part of the "magic" of RPGs that we don't know everything beforehand?

I'm for a possible love triangle - with both your best friend and your love interest involved. And you can't have it all, so either you'll lose your love or you'll lose your best friend or maybe even both because the whole situation isn't that easily solvable. It's probably one of the hardest choices any "normal" guy/gal could be pressed to make in life (not every hard choice is a question of life and death). That's a choice situation I'd really want to see in an RPG...

It wasn't my intention to insult you in any way but to stay fair and honest, I wasn't so happy about the tone and intention of your post either. Anyway, I apologize. Yeah, ok, no problem, but I wrote a lot more than just the initial passage and I thought it was pretty clear that this topic is more about the question what an interesting companion should be like (it's also pretty well indicated in the headline). My personal wish for more companions only got me into this topic, it's not the core of it. You see, that's a good post contributing to the topic imo. So it's seems you're kind of interested in the topic after all, even though you think that there isn't much to discuss. (one mistake though: I got riled up by Gromnir's first post, you reference his second post.)

Well, yes, I guess every game wins the "Is my storytelling concept less obtuse than the one in Torment:ToN?" challenge. That's hardly something to go by. But you're right, redemption can be a good concept. But it depends how it is integrated into the storytelling and whether it stays in its high spheres or whether it really comes down to peoeple's issues and their relationships. That's the core question, whether they tackle the concept only or mostly in a more philosophical and obtuse way or whether they break it down to the lowest corners of human emotions and behaviour. And then again I'm still no friend of shoving this concept into everything and everybody. It's not necessary that every companion needs a different aspect of redemption (or faith, in PoE) to talk about. As you probably remember not every major character in LOTR was connected with the "small people can reach big things" message, only some were, those for which this message among others was central to their journey and character development and - even more important - for which this message felt natural and organic.

That's not the only message of LOTR imo. It's maybe the less people and relationship focused message of LOTR, that might be true. Other messages are all connected with the relationship between characters like for example that you're only strong when you are united, that trusting your friends is a virtue as is personal sacrifice, that racial differences aren't important, that love is bigger than everything that stands between (even eternity), that friendship is at the core of a successful journey and so on... So yes, of course every story has themes and concepts and rightfully so. But PoE has ONE concept - and a concept that couldn't be much more heavy handed and philosophical, way above every more down-to-earth approach that includes relationships between people. The point with PoE (compared with LOTR) is that every topic on a personal level seems way less important and fleshed out than this overall high and heavy handed concept of faith. And that has a certain effect as well. The theme in LOTR that even the smallest of creatures can have the potential for great change is important, true, but it's imo not the core theme that made so many people loving this story and there is a reason for that. This message is an educational one, a philosophical one but it bears little to no emotional meaning because it lacks every inter-personal dimension. It's a completely different story if you look at friendship in LOTR. There is the extremely important friendship between Sam and Frodo but also the freindship between Legolas and Gimli and Aragorn. Their mutual trust and the willingness to fight and sacrifice for each other is not only a central philosophical message but also an emotional one. It's one of these message that can make us emotionally attached to the characters and that's why most people remember the tale so well. It's by the way a psychological fact that people remember emotions much better than the actual stuff that happened. You might not even know exactly what happened in a situation long ago but if you know anything it's how you felt or how it made you feeling. That's the reason why some philosophical, high-placed concepts like faith shouldn't dominate a tale, especially not if it's not centered around the cast and its relationships. What PoE lacked at its very core was the focus on human behaviour and a proper way to turn its serious concepts into a tale that allowed the player to become easily bond to the cast and the journey. It's not enough to fight against something and for some high principle. That's too superficial. Real and deep motivation always stems from relationships (or, in some cases, often "evil" ones, the lack of them)... Which is not that surprising given the fact how poorly most video game narratives are created. If I make pizza and it doesn't taste so well I can always say: "Hey, it's at least the best pizza in town." That doesn't change the fact that the pizza doesn't taste that well. The point is that the game took itself too seriously although there were definitely elements that weren't (like you pointed out above). That's what I meant with "overly serious". And I honestly think that even a game like PoE with all its high concepts and seriousness needs elements that put it down to earth again and that includes a much bigger "human factor". Seriousness alone isn't the problem here, it's the lack of making it count. I ... Don't think much more than this needs to be said, really. Nope, not at all. It's actually a pretty pointless statement. Obsidian is a company with changing employees and writers. It's ridiculous to compare a game from about 15 or 10 years ago with a game today if most of the people working on these two games differ. Hell, there even worked some different people on PoE than now on PoE2. Apart from that this comparison only works if you assume that change or improvement is impossible which is also pretty baseless. And in the end, I would question the whole statement in general. Obsidian's PoE was in no way better received "by the fanbase" (whomever that is, but well, let's assume we know) than Black Isle's Baldur's Gate 2 although BG2 had twice the available companions. And I still try to understand how your opinion that the less companions the better is directly connected with this thread in which I asked the question whether more effort should put into lore and backstory exposition or in reactive behaviour. I don't see how you answered that in any meaningful way so yeah, I think there needs to be said more than this.