Arsene Lupin

I assume so. Like I said, 170 hours over 2 years, it's possible I messed up or made a mistake somewhere. But when I finished the game, I'd resolved every quest in the journal and exhausted all the dialog options with all the companions, so I assume so. Probably has something to do with keeping the same save since release. A number of things bugged for me that, presumably, shouldn't have--like the stronghold quests, which I never actually got. I'm looking forward to starting a new game just for those, as what I've seen posted online looks really interesting (like, the little short stories--I *love* that).

See, if there's not a "Hide hide helmet/hat option" option, my immersion will be broken by the idea that my characters can wear head protection but somehow render it invisible. Although... "Armor Concealment" would be a pretty boss spell. Highwayman is all "Oh, I better go swing my sword at THIS stupid, unarmored guy, heh! *swing-CLANNNGGGG!*... WHAT the?!!!" It's less important for something like Pillars, but in a game like Divinity Original Sin 1 or 2, where you can zoom in closer on the characters, it's really annoying to pick out some awesome hair or facial details in character creation, and then spend the entire game covering everything up with a helmet. And sometimes the helmets just look derpy as hell, like the "horned" helmet sprite in Baldur's Gate 2 that was sized too big relative to the character sprites. That kind of thing ensured Misnc *always* looked like a doofus. And then there are games like Dragon Age or Neverwinter Nights that have "cinematic" cameras that zoom in really close... where it's super derpy to see character talking normally with tin cans over their heads. It's basically saying, "if you don't want your character to look stupid, you have to sacrifice armor/skills/bonuses." And I think asking players to choose between aesthetics and mechanics is a very bad thing. And I think more developers are recognizing this. For all its flaws, Diablo 3 is really good about let players modify the appearance of armors, and Xenoblade Chronicles X (such a fantastic game, omg) lets players equip two sets of armor at once--one for armor, and another on top for visuals. So if you like how low-spec armor looks, you can keep its appearance while using higher-spec armor. TL;DR these kinds of aesthetic options should ALWAYS be there. Just like fully fleshed out option menus with audio sliders, scalable text size/UI elements, and resolution options. Anyway, on-topic, come on. It's gotta be Frog Helms. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3566/3679099738_85981e811c.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--CFowk4yO--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18penzxtjn5wmjpg.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/03/14/26A6B8B600000578-0-image-m-3_1426366792273.jpg https://www.chaostrophic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/10-frog-mouth-helmet.jpg First and only choice.

BG1 characters barely had any content at all. I'm pretty sure Josh said they would be equivalent to Mazzy or Minsc. Both characters had content, but it wouldn't that substantial. Even the PoE companions didn't have much to them beyond a single, very simple quest and a small number of dialog options. TBH, I'm expecting a lot more depth to Deadfire's companions. If they end up being just as shallow as PoE's, with the sidekicks being little more than BG1-style mostly-nothing characters, I'm gonna be disappointed.

Hopefully the invisible style. It baffles me that any RPG releases without a "hide helmet/hat" option. Don't make the same mistake you made with PoE1, Obsidian!

Yeah... a CRPG is broadly defined as a top-down party-based roleplaying game. So, after Shadows of Amn, these are really the only big games to look at: Icewind Dale II Neverwinter Nights Neverwinter Nights 2 Shadowrun Returns Dragon Age Origins Wasteland 2 Pillars of Eternity Blackguards Blackguards 2 Divinity Original Sin Divinity Original Sin 2 And I'm sure I'm forgetting somehing. ...And of those games, none of them really tried to be bigger or better than Shadows of Amn, save for DOS2. I mean, yeah, maybe Deadfire will, too, but when asked during the campaign, Obsidian said that the scope of Deadfire would be smaller than SoA, and that it simply wasn't feasible to develop RPGs on that scale today. Couple that with the fact that DOS2 was developed with a much larger budget than Obsidian has for Deadfire, it's unfair to expect them to be equally ambitious. I've no doubt that Deadfire will be an excellent game, and it will likely eclipse PoE1--and possibly Shadows of Amn itself, or more likely come near to it--but that's it. And I think that's plenty. It's a turn-based tactical RPG with an enormous focus on player freedom, both mechanically and within the narrative (IE quests have multiple solutions). It has the most ambitious narrative of any RPG ever made, with a half dozen different companions (any one of which can be the player character) with tons of unique dialog from virtually every NPC in the game based on the player-characters tags (4 or 5 you get from the start, others you earn depending on your actions). Not to mention a very complex and challenging combat system with a lot of room for experimentation and build diversity. It is *nothing* like Diablo, so I very much doubt you played any of DOS1. Perhaps you're thinking of Divine Divinity?

Yeah, that was kind of weird. I just finished the game, myself (only took me 170 hours spread out over 2 years) and, personally, I really enjoyed the last act. If I was disappointed by anything, it was Act II. There just didn't seem to be enough quests in the capital, and the NPC density was pretty lacking (especially considering that most of those with dialog were rubbish backer NPCs). The end-game, however, I enjoyed because there were a lot of quests with lots of dialog options w/ skill checks, lots of those little illustrated CYOA segments, and the dialog tended to be pretty interesting. The very, very end did feel somewhat rushed, though, yeah. No Twin Elms slides was weird, and it was also weird that the Watcher himself didn't warrant anything in the way of a slide. There's only that hint of a "long journey," but no indication of what or why that's supposed to be. It would have been nice to have some slides of the Watcher settling in to ruling over his or her little fief, using the dominant character traits (IE rational, stoic, diplomatic, etc.) to describe how he or she ruled, and maybe have some mention of the Watcher remembering his or her past (IE the player character's origin) while settling into their new life. Also, is Zahua supposed to not have any slides? That was odd. Not as odd as no Twin Elms slides, but I imagine that if I'd kept Zahua in my party more, that absence would have been just as keenly felt.

I'm hoping the relationship system is deep enough to do different things with different party members. Because if I have to choose between romancing Pallegina and bein' best bros w/ Eder, that's gonna be a hard choice to make.

Culture matters more than race, and it's nice to see this reflected in Eora, considering most fantasy settings tend to view culture and race as the same thing, which is *deeply* problematic. (That's code for "super racist", btw). As a CRPG, though, the racial diversity serves an important purpose here--it allows for greater freedom for role-playing, and also allows the developers to create more visual distinct characters--which is kind of necessary for a top-down party-based game. If everyone were human, it'd be much harder to differentiate Sagani from Eder, for example.

Pillars of Eternity has more trash items than any other game that doesn't think "loot" is a selling point. Every time I meet a vendor, I end up selling a ton of generic weapons, armors, and items for around 20k. Anyway, back on topic.... DOS2 sets a high bar. It is, arguably, the first game to really raise the bar for CRPGs since Shadows of Amn. And like Shadows of Amn, I don't think it's likely that many (if any) other games will even *attempt* to reach the same level, let alone achieve or surpass it. And, really that's the real comparison here: Larian is trying to create a *new* standard for CRPG excellence, whereas Obsidian is aiming for the *old* standard. And I think the market (and community, at least outside of the more toxic locales) is sufficiently diverse and broad-minded for both.

In the course of my playthrough, I've sent maybe 3 or 4 NPCs to the dungeons of Caed Nua. And each time after I do so, I return to the stronghold and visit the dungeons only to find them empty. Is this a bug? My save is pretty old, so is it possible that it's something that was fixed in a patch, but that wouldn't apply to older saves?

Yeah, I definitely want to see the Vaillian Republics. And having the stronghold be a ship that sails are the republics and archipelago? So cool. And that setting could have some nice interaction with the Old Eora powers. Of course, I also think Tyranny will take place in Eora as that makes a great deal of sense from development *and* business perspectives, and if that's the case we may find ourselves in Old Eora sooner, rather than later.

When has anyone said anything about PoE2 one way or another? Anyway, I used to think the music was "bad" for the game for the same reasons mentioned here. It simply does not match the swashbuckling, exiting and adventurous themes of the old IE games. But then I played the game. Pillars of Eternity is a much more sombre game... it's not really about adventure and excitement like Baldur's Gate. And the music fits the tone of the game perfectly. So my only consideration for a sequel is that I hope it's music fits the world and story as well as PoE's.

I'm a bit bummed that Pillars of Eternity 2 isn't the next game, but the excitement that the next game is another IE-style title AND is coming out this year rectifies that. I just wish Obsidian would clarify explicitly whether or not they have plans to continue Pillars as a franchise. They put so much work into the lore and setting that it'd be a shame never to see it again.

Uh... Tides of Numenera is absolutely it's own game. With its own setting, characters, themes, and gameplay systems. Given how horrendously flawed PST was, I'd say it stands a damned good chance of surpassing it. And Larian never "bragged" about anything, least of all being a "Diablo killer." The biggest problem Larian has had as a studio (outside of being completely ****ed over at every turn by publishers) was getting apathetic western media outlets to realize that their games weren't diablo clones just because they shared the isometric perspective As for them bragging about being Baldur's Gate II... I mean, hell... does it even matter what I say here, if you're only going to read ever tenth word?

After digging into the expansion, I can say that The White March handles area density and diversity MUCH better than vanilla PoE. The wilderness areas have more secrets and more encounters and more more sidequests/tasks, and the town has more NPCs and quests and little events. I can only hope that bodes well for the sequel. (Although, admittedly, that description does NOT apply to the Cragholdt area).

DOS2 has the potential to be one of the greatest CRPGs of all time. I am -incredibly- excited. We really are smack dab in the middle of a new CRPG golden era. Honestly, I never thought I'd live to see the day. 2015 has been just... completely ridiculous. First and most obviously we've had Pillars of Eternity and its expansion, but also Hong Kong, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Sword Coast Legends, and so on. It's incredible. I've been following Larian Studios since I first saw their "Diablo clone" Divine Divinity mentioned in a brief preview in PC gamer, years and years ago. Each new game impresses more and more. With the foundation of the Divinity Engine already built, and the additional Kickstarter funding, it looks like Swen Vincke may finally be ready to build that first, "RPG to rule them all" that he's been dreaming about. The only thing that really concerns me is how the multiplayer will work--specifically the companions. I don't like parties without personality, and I don't like starting a game with a full party at my disposal. Oh well. If anyone can handle that kind of balancing act, it's Larian.

Obsidian just Tweeted that TWM2 will be the last bit of content for Pillars of Eterntiy--next comes the sequel. Which, I believe, is the first confirmation that there will, in fact, be a Pillars of Eternity 2. Which, presumably, at least one or two folks over at Obsidian are already working on. Which seems as grand a reason as any to bump this old thing.

I thought the long-loading times were fixed in a patch a while back? When I first loaded up an old save, after installing TWM, it took a (long) while, but after that everything has been as fast as ever. IE anywhere from 4 to 6 seconds. And that's with an 80-hour saved game in Twin Elms. That's just bizzare. With something as popular (ubiquitous, even) as Unity, especially something that's gone through as many iterations as Unity... that's inexcusable.

It is not like they released a new game, however. It's just modernizing it a bit, the amount of work is incomparable to creating a game like BG2 from a scratch. I'm sure both BG2EE and IWDEE were profitable compared to the amount of work they needed. Considering that they had to rewrite the engine from scratch (and a good chunk of the original code (like the Icewind Dale Expansion scripting) was lost and had to be redone), there's probably a lot more work put into it than you might think. Not as much as PoE or the other games on this list, but still. I did heard that Beamdog considered them a success (especially taking the mobile sales into account). It's not so much that BG2EE and IWDEE didn't sell well, but that they sold so badly compared to BGEE. I can only assume a lot of people were permanently turned off Beamdog's games after BGEE launched as a buggy mess, and never bothered to give the others a try.

I'd never really thought of PoE as selling poorly, either. Like I said, it topped the charts at GOG for a long-while. But one thing to keep in mind is that even though GOG is one of Steam's biggest competitors, I really doubt it moves the same volume of games. I dunno. Anyway, yeah, I've seen a few people comment on poor sales/underselling on various forums/comment threads, but never really thought anything of it. What spurred the creation of this thread was a comment to the same effect in the latest Extra Credits' "James' Recommends" video. BGEE was released via Beamdog's site/client ahead of other retailers, so many people bought BGEE directly from Beamdog's store instead of waiting for the GOG/Steam release... but that wasn't the case for any of the subsequent games. No matter how you look at it, the ownership stats for BG2EE and IWDEE are abysmally low. True, but that's not the case for many of the games. None of the Kickstarter CRPGs, for example, have ever been bundled with anything. (Though you do have to assume that every KS backer got a game for free, and subtract them from the ownership stats)

I'd always assumed that the first expansion would be concurrent with the main quest of PoE, and the second expansion would be subsequent.

I'm not very excited for the expansion at this point. Maybe I will be after Obsidian shares more information about it, but I worry it's not going to really do anything to shore up PoE's weaker aspects--specifically, the (severe) lack of sidequest content in the latter half of the game. Defiance Bay is sparse, but sufficient. Twin Elms? Absolutely desolate. I really hope the expansion (or a content patch) focuses some on improving existing areas of the game instead of focusing everything on the new region. I'm also disappointed we're getting one expansion split in two instead of two expansions. I mean, I won't mind as much if they confirm a Pillars of Eternity 2, but if this one game is all we're going to get, I'd rather see more than less. I'm also worried the new companions will only be around for the White March region, and either will not be able to go into the rest of the game, or will be able to go but simply won't interact at all with the vanilla companions.

I've seen Pillars of Eternity described as not selling well. Or its sales being... well below expectations. So, I'm curious: does Obsidian consider the game to be a success (sales as good or better than they expected), a failure (sales well below what they expected), or a flop (successful, but sales still below expectations). Of course, I realize the odds of Obsidian directly giving an (honest) answer are pretty low. So let's speculate! _ _ Naturally, sales information isn't exactly easy to come by. But we do have SteamSpy, and while it's not exactly exhaustive (as it ignores other storefronts, most notably GOG.com), it does paint an... interesting picture. For example, examining other CRPGs ownership statistics on SteamSpy indicates the following (please note the games below are listed in descending order): Divinity: Original Sin: 850,000 owners. (~80,000 Kickstarter backers). Shadowrun Returns: 830,000 owners. (~36,000 Kickstarter backers). Transistor: 670,000 owners. Fallout 2: 520,000 owners. Fallout: 500,000 owners. Wasteland 2: 450,000 owners. (~61,000 Kickstarter backers). Shadowrun Dragonfall: 440,000 owners Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition: 440,000 owners. The Banner Saga: 440,000 owners. (~20,000 Kickstarter backers). Pillars of Eternity: 415,000 owners. (~73,000 Kickstarter backers). Wasteland: 410,000 owners. Blackguards: 315,000 owners. Beyond Divinity: 310,000 owners. Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition: 270,000 owners. (This number is a huge WTF for me). Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition: 55,000 owners. (Note that I'm only comparing Western CRPGs as I believe they are the only titles really relevant here; included are relevant games from the top 300 most-owned RPGs in the "RPG" category on Steam). What's most notable (to me) is that Pillars of Eternity appears to have sold the LEAST out of all the other big Kickstarter CRPGs. Of course, one thing to consider (in addition to what has already been mentioned) is that PoE is also the NEWEST of these games, so it's very possible it will reach more comparable sales after a year or so.

Making a new thread for this because it's technically a separate problem than the other instance of Sagani randomly spoiling stuff. At Pearlwood Bluff, after speaking to the spirit, Sagani will AGAIN spoil the same damned thing. The specific dialog is: This is in the 1.04 build of the game. (You know, after applying the patch that was supposed to fix this). So, evidently, the various triggers for Sagani are either all kinds of ****ed up, or she's a precog.

At Pearlwood Bluff, after speaking to the spirit, Sagani will AGAIN spoil the same damned thing. The specific dialog is: This is in the 1.04 build of the game. (You know, after applying the patch that was supposed to fix this). So, evidently, the various triggers for Sagani are either all kinds of ****ed up, or she's a precog.