Sedrefilos

Or better make better production planning and have long AND reactive games.

Some games don't need to be that long. FPSs or 3rd person action games, for example. They don't need to be open world and have 300 side "quests" when all you got to do is the same thing over and over. RPGs (and strategies, I'd add) are a genre that has the potential to be long and not repetative - it has only to do with the designers' abilities and commitment.

There is no pressure to do so. Rpgs were always long and that's what's expected by them. To be long, to be an adventure. Some of the best rpgs in time were extremely long (Baldur's 2, Fallout 2, New Vegas etc). Rpgs are long games but noone want them to be "even longer"! They just don't want them to be short.

Nice to see what the lead writer had to say about the production. About the shorter games, I don't really get it. I don't have much time to play either but I don't want my games to be short! Short games are good if they are made to replay them many times, like platforms or roguelikes or whatever. Short rpgs? wtf? The time you have available to play the game has nothing to do with the game's length. You can play it with your own pace. There is "save game" option, no? It took me 3 weeks to finish Pillars. 3-5 weeks is what it takes me, usually, to finish an rpg. An I don't mind! I don't want them to be short because I have less time per day to play than I had as child. I wouldn't mind if I had even less time than now and took me 3 months to finish them! A 10-hour rpg is a short story not an adventure! *edit* And, no, I wouldn't spend 60$ for a 10-hour game even if it was really good! I value my few money too much to do so. Hope Eric isn't implying anything there

You either have only few critical items dropped by opponents and have a limited inventory or have every opponent drop trash and give players unlimited inventory. They went for the latter. If you try to mix both systems, you get Diablo's tedious "loot all junk - teleport to town - sell junk - teleport back - move two more meters - collect more trash - repeat" system

Here's one in greek http://www.ragequit.gr/reviews/item/pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-part-ii-review

Sometimes, some people stick too long (and too much) with a specific canon of, usually, their first fictional universe they fell in love, that they take it a universal fact (as if there can be such a thing in a fictional universe!!!) and start comparing everything else to that. I remember some 10 years ago when WoW was new, I was talking with some random guy in a net caffe about the game and he asked me what character I was playing (he was not playing the game at the moment, but he knew the Warcraft universe nontheless). I said "Troll". "Oh, you're playing with the bad guys, huh?" he said. I said to him that the Horde was not the bad guys and that there were no actual bad guys and good guys in the player factions. So he insisted that the Horde was the bad guys because there were orcs in there and orcs are a Tolkien creation and they are evil, therefore orcs (and the Horde) in WoW are the bad guys

I've been playing the T:ToN beta. Lack of interactivity is not one of its problems. There is a lot of text, but there's a crazy number of ways situations can be resolved. It's extremely non-linear and reactive. As to the "flashbacks" (they're called 'meres' by the way), they also work really well. By and large they're mini-stories which would've required a lot of resources to develop as full gameplay. As CYOA interludes they expand the depth and breadth of the game in ways that just couldn't have been done without, like, five or ten times the budget. They're well thought-out and overall well written, and they all reveal something significant about who or what you—or someone else—are. Planescape: Torment rewarded reading. T:ToN perhaps even more so. If you don't like to read, it most definitely isn't the game for you. However, it is not an interactive novel: the way the text is structured could not have been presented as a book, film, or any other medium. It is a game, right down to the parts where you read something, reflect on it, and choose what to do. In a way those parts are a throwback to the glory days of Infocom text adventures, although much easier. That's also why it is going to have a pretty selective appeal, and I'm sure a lot of players will simply give up on it, simply because interactive fiction is almost dead, and therefore unfamiliar and off-putting to them. Wall texts or not, I'm going to play Tides anyway; I just know from now I'll get tired of reading and maybe skip ahead - my loss, they're loss too - whatever. RPGs ARE the games for me, btw, no matter what (unless they are Fallout 4 - ok, I couldn't stand it more than a few hours!) especially those old-schooly ones. It's just that I prefere things presented to me via gameplay rather than unending reading when it comes to games. Mostly because reading in front of a screen tires me a lot. Now, blockbuster fps's, those are definately NOT for me

If you liked the classes and mechanics of Baldurs' more than Pillars'... well there's not much I can say As for Tides, I've watched some beta playthroughs and the game seems quite interesting; ALTHOUGH... graphics-wise I expected it to be better but this is a minor complaint. What bothered me more was that a very large part of the game is like a digital book. I mean come on! I don't have problem reading lots of lines of interactive dialogues but reading pages over pages over pages of descriptions is tiresome! If I want to read a book, I'll take a book, lay on the couch or bed and read it wile relaxing not sitting on a chair in front of a screen! Those flashbacks of your past life? Wouldn't they be better presented through gameplay rather than walls of text? Youldn't it be more interesting and immersive? And gamey? I relly don't get it...

Because magic applied to headgear interferes with the brain cells of the wearer with an approximately 78% chance of causing permenent brain damage, thus reducing the character's intellect and resolve by 26 to 89 (yes, you read well - 89!) points. Therefore, enchanted headgear is banned Eorawide.

I believe Pillars 2 will be the "enhanced" edition we're looking for.

Since you know they are backer npc, it should easy to ignore. When I 1st played the game I had no idea wtf was going on. I thought it had meaning for the game to reach their souls, that they were some important npcs or an important event was happening. After I learned what was their purpose I just ignored them and very soon I forgot that they even exist. They were just commoners of the land. Seriously, it's no big deal. Knowing beforehand who they are is even less a big deal.

Shorter than infinity, though they feel like an eternity

Anyway, "exotic" is a stupid word for 2016. Maybe "bizzare" or "unsual" is what we are looking for here, but this will have to align with the lore. It should be some kind of unique item or common items used in a remote place by few people. Having in mind that Sawyer said that they'd like to do something more "strange yet familiar, as Amn was to Sword Coast", I think we'll see those bizzare items anyway Still I want a foustanella and fez for my main

Let's have muscle cuirass! It'll be fun I always thought they were funny looking!

It's more historical, geographical or completely unordinary or fictional origins. Scepters, falchions, scimitars, katanas, chakrams, mauls, talons, scythes, kukri ... Unordinary for whom? All those weapons you mentioned were normal common weapons. Except the scythe maybe. That u ed to be mostly a harvest tool

What is an "exotic equipment" anyway? I'd personally like to see the sequel take place in Ixamitl Plains with its Balkan style design and my main character wearing foustanella and fez cloth armor :D

None of the above. I want more roleplay. More stats, skills, class, background, culture messing with dialogues, scripted interactions, npcs, choices.

The problem with the game, I believe, is that they had those general ideas but, at the beginning, they didn't know were to start and how to approach them from start to finish. That's why parts of the game that we know developed last (like the introduction and Readric's Hold) are more interesting and complex that earlier stuff. At that point they knew exactly were they were heading but it was too late to redesign the rest from the beggining. Also, I don't believe the game is that big. It is big, it is as big as a good rpg should be, but not bigger.

I don't believe breaking balance on purpose is a good thing. Crazy equipment are good to be in if there is some very tough way to get them, but think about that: If you find the *best* item in the game at some point, why change to something else? I prefer items to be of equal power per "item level" so that I have a tough choice to make of what to keep and what to drop. And to be honest, I don't think broken items make a great rpg. Great story, characetrs, setting and, most importantly, great roleplay and interaction make a great rpg. Items are there just for the fun part I don't have any memories of items from the old games, only of characters and story. Maybe a couple of items like Lilacor and the 3-headed flail from BG2 On the choice part, I think he is mostly right. I found MrBtongue from this particular video and watched all the rest. He's quite good and I mostly agree with him.

Prime, I think we're driving this thread off-topic

Yeah. Strategies, on the other hand, I can replay forever. I launch a new Civ V campaign every about 2-3 months. Even if I play the same way, the randomness of the game makes me adapt differently in each game. So life long replay value for me

Haha. It just when an rpg is well made, I usually do the action I would myself do. So even if I try to play as someone else, I just can't! Can't play the super evil character for instance. If it's not well made I don't replay it because it just isn't fun to That's the thing. Even if rpgs are my best video game genre, I only play them once! Strange huh?

I know there is; what I'm saying is one playthrough is no more than 70-80 hours on normal and it gives you a full experience. I personally don't replay rpgs because I tend to make the same choices. If it was a randomly generated dungeon crawler I'd probably spend more time in it experimenting with party compositions (now that's a nice mode it could have! ). But that's just me.

No need to spend 1000 hours to enjoy the game. I spent about 70-80 in three weeks and was enough for me. I'll probably spent some more after 2nd expansion part is out and that'll be it. In one playthrough you get the most of the experience you can get from it. You'd probably done all fights, met all companions and resolved all of their quests in one way or another, cleared all dungeons, finished most side quests and finished the main story with the way you chose. Well, after all these I don't feel the urge to re-play the game another 100 times. And, if others did, you shouldn't care anyway.