Sonntam
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Posts posted by Sonntam
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The game was built for a party of six characters. When playing such a huge group, there is a lot of variety possible. When you narrow it down to one character, obviously your choice of spells, animations and equipment gets narrowed down a lot.
Only good point to be made about this subject right here. It still amazes me that anyone would want to play with less than a full party. It is like going to build a house and when you get there and open your tool box you throw out everything except the hammer. Sure you might be able to get it done but it would have been a lot easier and more effective if you just used all your tools.
There you have at least one reason - soloing is a challenge.
Yeah, but complaing about it being a challenge (or maybe not fun) is not really reasonable.
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For me companion and player voice sets seem a lot more childish comparing to those in bg2 and iwd2. They sounded a lot more serious, it's like BG2 voice sets were lord of the rings quality, and PoE voice sets are Disney quality ;d
I think it differs from companion to companion. Hiro and Kana Rua both have rather wacky over the top voices. Eder and Pallegina are more restrained and in my opinion much cooler. Aloth is somewhere between the two groups and I like his voice too.
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One thing I've learned since the inception of this game over the past two years that I didn't consider initially but I will for my own projects going forward. If I make a game that lasts many dozens of hours and I'm going to be killing hundreds or thousands of thing's, I'm going to create a lot more fighting animations and stances. I kind of get the impression even though you get a few new skills, the monk's going to have the same 2-3 or so attacks the whole friggen game, and that is not fun at all to me. I love these kinds of games, but I think maybe they should have stuck with 4 man group and added more variety because I also wanted to solo as a monk, but I'm actually feeling like I might have to play with some other folks just to get some variety in the combat.
The game was built for a party of six characters. When playing such a huge group, there is a lot of variety possible. When you narrow it down to one character, obviously your choice of spells, animations and equipment gets narrowed down a lot.
It's like playing a game and then deciding to use none of the spells, except Fireball. Sure, it may get you through and it may be fun to roleplay, but combat will get awfully repetitive and difficult. The game was not built around a single spell, it was built around using many tools.
Same with Pillars of Eternity.
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Do I understand this correctly? Discs with actual game will be sent AFTER release? It's not like I'm gonna get game on release date or around that time? O_o Is it too late to switch from physical to full on digital versions? I live in russia and I assume Obsidian is going to use usual russian mail which is... like... additional months of delivery time. Seriously, can I switch to only digital some sort of backing thingy and meh on all physicals goodies?
Also I'm very confused on what am I even getting... it's this one "Pledge $100 or more", but really confused - 2 digital games, 3 or 1... kinda stupid mode activated here...
You will get a digital key, don't worry. You can play on launch date, it's only that the physical copy will arrive with delay.
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It would be great if the game offered something that's just a little *more*. I don't mean that the level 12 cap is too low, not at all. What i would like to see however is something along the lines "if you squeeze out everything from the game, all the side quests, all bestiary entries, etc. you can reach that one level higher"
I do think that level 12 can only be reached if you do all the side quests. Otherwise you would finish the game being like level 10.
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If the game gets delayed by another couple weeks, then it will fall again in GTA V release window.
The game should have come out a month earlier from now or two months later from March. Pushing the game a couple weeks later wouldn't help.
At this point the release date is set in stone, though. Nothing to be done now.
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Ciphers get special abilities, because they can interact with souls.
Priests get deity specific options in some quests.
What concerns other classes, I am not so sure.
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I only really care for achievements tied to doing difficult things such as "defeat X supertough optional boss" or "beat the game in Nightmare mode without lowering the difficulty at any point" etc. Exploration/completionist achievements aren't that bad either, but I wish they removed the "free" achievements you get just for playing the game. "Reach level 10", "Complete the 2nd Act" etc. It's like saying "hey, you're not doing anything spectacular, but here, you can feel good about it".
My opinion of course.
What do you have against feeling good about nothing?
I personally like those, if only for the puns in achievement names. Always nice to see what devs came up with this time.
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That's more money I'm talking about. Only it'll come by more sales due to lower (reasonable) prices, not by high initial prices. If you find it ok to buy a crowdfunded game at the same price as publisher-involved, please do. But I believe my arguements are reasonable and even if I might buy some games because I have the money at the time and want to play it, or back it because I want to play it when it comes out (at least I'll get the reasonable price there) it doesen't mean I find it ok and won't encourage others to do so. And of course I won't jump to defend the companies doing it as if It is my job.
There is always a big question what a profit maximizing price is. With Obsidian being in gaming industry for so long, one would however expect them to know how to set prices. Considering that competitors in the genre set precisely the same prices, I would be surprised if Obsidian somehow shot themselves in the foot by following this example.
However if they mess up, then one can expect that the next game will cost less. Nothing else can really change the price at this point. We are rather close to release, after all.
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I tried Original Sin a while ago but it didn't grab me. The two-PCs seemed wonky and I couldn't get over the cartoony graphics.
The two PCs are there to facilitate co-op play. It is a little wonky if you are just gonna play solo, which probably most people do. I would urge you to give it another chance. I thought it was a fantastic game. Love the combat.
Well the combat can only hold a game for so long until it becomes tiresome. The roleplay aspect of the game is almost non-existent. Sure, you get few branching dialog trees, but the dialog itself is so mundane and unimaginative that after 5 or so hours I just started reading in between words to get the general sense of conversation and just opt to start combat asap. The main story is bland and side content is as generic as it can get. Companions have few dialog lines, but they are so one-dimensional it is hard to take them serious, since after first conversation you can pretty much guess what they are going to talk about. The co-op aspect of the game is where it shines tho. I played it with a friend and we had tons of fun goofing around since the game engine itself is very solid and allows for great variety in overcoming obstacles. However playing the game alone was not fun at all, at least for me.
Only reason why I bought D:OS was to have some multiplayer game to play with my sister. It's really fun in coop. I am normally more interested in story, but it being so unimaginative, I enjoyed combat more. Especially playing together with a friend combat is rather fun. It's great to have someone laugh at you because you messed up your spell badly or maybe have someone else see how you eliminated a whole group of enemies through a cool combo.
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I am working for-profit, I just don't overprofit. More money comes by more people buying my clothes, not by me overpricing them.
btw, since you want to know, I live in Greece, a country suffering by a huge financial crisis since 2011. Everything is difficult at the time. Thankfully I didn't have to fire anyone; I just didn't hire more staff when others went on retirement (the company is 34 years old - belonging to my mother and uncle before me and my brother). I'm left with four emploees now and I mostly work with externals.
Do you think Obsidian will make a nice vacation at the beach with the money they make? Or maybe buy a couple Ferrari?
Obsidian's goal is becoming a self-sustaining business and not run for Kickstarter/publisher anytime they start a new project. There is nothing unreasonable about that. You don't have to hope the bank will give you a credit, the bank won't pass by your work place and demand you make the T-Shirts all in red, you won't have delivery times set out by the bank. That is what one does when one works with publishers, though.
When it comes to Kickstarter, there is always the question how much money you will get. If you don't get same success of 3 millions dollars, have fun. Who are you going to fire? Because you likely will have to downscale heavily.
More money means more security. It means the business can flourish, no matter what crisis comes and how much external funding fluctuates.
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The topic is not about price of the game.
And it really doesn't take a hardcore Obsidian fan to disagree that a game should be sold for 1 Euro.
topic might not be about pricing, but the current discussion in it is.
There are plenty of games that sell in this price range. however i didn't saw anyone to argue PoE should cost 1 Euro.
It was on 4th page, so you probably did not read the thread it very carefully.
The point that was made was that Pillars of Eternity should not cost a lot, since the costs were covered by Kickstarter and thus making profit is a bonus and not a necessity. (Which is by the way the same logic I encountered in Steam threads where price of the game was excessively argued about.)
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I think Obsidian fanboys forget in their defending of Obsidian right to price the game what they want the right of customers to have their opinion on the price.
I doubt that anything fanboys will say in defense of the price will change the opinio of the customers.
The topic is not about price of the game.
And it really doesn't take a hardcore Obsidian fan to disagree that a game should be sold for 1 Euro.
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Okay, let's refresh what opportunity costs are. When you are working for 5 dollars an hour, you have opportunity costs, because if you put those work hours into something else, you could make perhaps 15 dollars an hour. If Obsidian makes Pillars of Eternity, it means they also have to compare how much money they would make if they worked on a different (perhaps more lucrative) project.
Those opportunity costs are very important for businesses. If you ignore them, you make "invisible" profit losses. You say that Obsidian would still "win" even if they make no profit at all or very little profit. You really underestimate how much it matters for people losing out on other money incomes (like selling themselves to EA). Or maybe by making new games for publishers (who could give more money that Kickstarter ever could).
Equally, lower price does not equal profit maximization. You don't make a lower price because "oh well, I can afford it". You set a lower price if you think this will sell you far more copies than you would sell otherwise (and thus make more profit).
For now people are willing to pay a higher price. In half a year the game will be more accessible and cost less through sales.
And... "honesty"? Really? Obsidian has extended development of the game, because they considered it not to be good enough yet. They have explicitly told us, that they just keep working till money runs out and now it has run out or will shortly. This is honest. But trying to push for lower prices, because you don't think their product is worth the money is insulting and dishonest, if you ask me.
Well, they sold their product for 26 euros to me (when I backed it), I don't see why they should sell it 42 to other people.
I really feel like I'm going through Economy Basics 101 here...
There is this thing called risk aversion. Kickstarter is inherrently risky. There are quite a few projects that were never delivered at all, others have been very shoddy. A consumer now knows that Pillars of Eternity exists, if the product is not delivered they will get their money back. Kickstarter backers could back hundreds of euros and in the end be left with nothing. There would be no legal action taken against the company.
Also when people are asked "do you want 10 euros now or 100 euros in 50 years" many will prefer the ten euros now. Who knows what will be in ten years! Maybe you will be dead, maybe you will lose your job, maybe you won't have a PC or won't be even interested in a game. This has to be discounted as well.
That is why on Kickstarter one could get a game for half the price we have now.
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Again, noone said anything about non-profit. I'm talking about overpricing the game. They dropped 0 money in it, they sell it at the same price a company sells their game while pouring tens of millions in it. Sorry, but to me this is unethical.
This warms my blood-red Communist heart: Marx's theory of value is alive and well.
Regrettably full Communism has not been achieved yet, though, and while I admire your revolutionary fervor, it is unreasonable to expect that a capitalist corporation functioning in a market economy knowingly price their goods in a way that does not bring back maximum profits. That's a fast track to bankruptcy.
Even if Obsidian sold one copy for 1$ it'll be maximum profit for them, since the game costs 0$ to them.
I understand that a video game is a luxury - it's not a necessity for living - but a price is something that has to do with the cost of production. And this goes to all products. If a thing is expensive to produce, it'll be expensive to buy. If a thing costs nothing to produce... well at least you'd expect it to be cheaper than other stuff with higher production cost. Again. I'm talking about someone that puts their money in a product and has to first cover the expenses, then make a profit so to continue.
I make clothes for living. I don't put the same price to each t-shirt. I value the production cost of each single t-shirt, then I put a percentage on top - that's the profit I try to make. This is how things work in capitalism, if you want to be honest. You can be greedy of course and put the same max price to every product you make no matter what the cost of production is for you.
In our case, we have a game that cost 0$ for Obsidian to make it (money from their pocket I mean), yet they sell it the same price like a product that costed a company 10 million (of their own money) to make... ok some might not care, but I do - so it might be a deal breaker for me.
And about video games and market prices being standard as some people say, I guess they believe companies that sell their games for 10$ (because it took them few to produce) are the biggest idiots in the world since they could sell them for 50$ because, hey, this is the video game market so no blame on them...
Oh, and just because I find this game overpriced, I didn't say there are not other overpriced products in the market. We're only talking about PoE here.
People already mentioned opportunity costs, did they not? Or does one need to explain again what opportunity costs are?
Obsidian said explicitly that they don't only want to succeed in making one game, ideally they want to break free the need for additional funding through Kickstarter or publisher. If Obsidian had enough profit from sales to make PoE 2 all by themselves without Kickstarter, that would be perfect for them.
Being self-sustaining is very important in business. If you make a company that needs heavy investment every three years, but barely covers the initial costs, you may as well close it down. Same for Obsidian. If they just barely scrap by, but make no profit, what is the point of this company anyway? That is not secure work place, that is not lucrative and it would be very, very short-sighted to settle for that kind of business model.
Where am I saying anything about not making profit? I only said that he game is overpriced. I don't expect them not to make profit, but here they don't have to cover expenses for production that costs money from their pockets. Each single copy sold is pure profit for Obsidian. And that's ok. I just believe, since the game costs ZERO bucks to them, they could use this for selling it at a lower price (say 20$). They're not losing, they're still profiting. It'll only be more accessible to more people and more honest by them.
Okay, let's refresh what opportunity costs are. When you are working for 5 dollars an hour, you have opportunity costs, because if you put those work hours into something else, you could make perhaps 15 dollars an hour. If Obsidian makes Pillars of Eternity, it means they also have to compare how much money they would make if they worked on a different (perhaps more lucrative) project.
Those opportunity costs are very important for businesses. If you ignore them, you make "invisible" profit losses. You say that Obsidian would still "win" even if they make no profit at all or very little profit. You really underestimate how much it matters for people losing out on other money incomes (like selling themselves to EA). Or maybe by making new games for publishers (who could give more money that Kickstarter ever could).
Equally, lower price does not equal profit maximization. You don't make a lower price because "oh well, I can afford it". You set a lower price if you think this will sell you far more copies than you would sell otherwise (and thus make more profit).
For now people are willing to pay a higher price. In half a year the game will be more accessible and cost less through sales.
And... "honesty"? Really? Obsidian has extended development of the game, because they considered it not to be good enough yet. They have explicitly told us, that they just keep working till money runs out and now it has run out or will shortly. This is honest. But trying to push for lower prices, because you don't think their product is worth the money is insulting and dishonest, if you ask me.
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Are games downloaded and maintained via steam actually moddable? Is there some kind of hashing to prevent modifying the game base? That imho would make the decision for me; I want a game that allows me to mod it.
You can mod Steam games as much as you want, don't worry about that.
Eh.. while arguably true, let's not pretend there hasn't been huge issues with modding Steam games, with few exceptions (Skyrim, etc). Steam Workshop basically exists to circumvent those issues. Especially modding games that aren't specifically intended to be modded can be a bitch.
Modding is pretty much always a pain in the ass. I have not had any specific Steam related problems, though.
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Again, noone said anything about non-profit. I'm talking about overpricing the game. They dropped 0 money in it, they sell it at the same price a company sells their game while pouring tens of millions in it. Sorry, but to me this is unethical.
This warms my blood-red Communist heart: Marx's theory of value is alive and well.
Regrettably full Communism has not been achieved yet, though, and while I admire your revolutionary fervor, it is unreasonable to expect that a capitalist corporation functioning in a market economy knowingly price their goods in a way that does not bring back maximum profits. That's a fast track to bankruptcy.
Even if Obsidian sold one copy for 1$ it'll be maximum profit for them, since the game costs 0$ to them.
I understand that a video game is a luxury - it's not a necessity for living - but a price is something that has to do with the cost of production. And this goes to all products. If a thing is expensive to produce, it'll be expensive to buy. If a thing costs nothing to produce... well at least you'd expect it to be cheaper than other stuff with higher production cost. Again. I'm talking about someone that puts their money in a product and has to first cover the expenses, then make a profit so to continue.
I make clothes for living. I don't put the same price to each t-shirt. I value the production cost of each single t-shirt, then I put a percentage on top - that's the profit I try to make. This is how things work in capitalism, if you want to be honest. You can be greedy of course and put the same max price to every product you make no matter what the cost of production is for you.
In our case, we have a game that cost 0$ for Obsidian to make it (money from their pocket I mean), yet they sell it the same price like a product that costed a company 10 million (of their own money) to make... ok some might not care, but I do - so it might be a deal breaker for me.
And about video games and market prices being standard as some people say, I guess they believe companies that sell their games for 10$ (because it took them few to produce) are the biggest idiots in the world since they could sell them for 50$ because, hey, this is the video game market so no blame on them...
Oh, and just because I find this game overpriced, I didn't say there are not other overpriced products in the market. We're only talking about PoE here.
People already mentioned opportunity costs, did they not? Or does one need to explain again what opportunity costs are?
Obsidian said explicitly that they don't only want to succeed in making one game, ideally they want to break free the need for additional funding through Kickstarter or publisher. If Obsidian had enough profit from sales to make PoE 2 all by themselves without Kickstarter, that would be perfect for them.
Being self-sustaining is very important in business. If you make a company that needs heavy investment every three years, but barely covers the initial costs, you may as well close it down. Same for Obsidian. If they just barely scrap by, but make no profit, what is the point of this company anyway? That is not secure work place, that is not lucrative and it would be very, very short-sighted to settle for that kind of business model.
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Are games downloaded and maintained via steam actually moddable? Is there some kind of hashing to prevent modifying the game base? That imho would make the decision for me; I want a game that allows me to mod it.
You can mod Steam games as much as you want, don't worry about that.
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@Valmy
Do you have some ethics fetish? There is nothing about ethics in this conversation.
I don't think I need to explain to anyone else that the price of a product is directly tied to the development cost. So I will not bother to inform one ignorant.
Your case of developer pricing the game whatever they feel like is really paper thin. We all know how the games pricing looks like and indie Kickstarter games do not cost more than AAA titles. Obsidian overpriced PoE and that's a fact.
In a market, you price how much you think will net you the biggest profit. If lowering price lowers the profit, then you are underpricing yourself. If setting a higher price makes you lose profit, then you are overpricing.
The actual cost of making the game is relevant in profit calculation, but it is far from the most important thing when deciding on the price. Especially if similar games (Wasteland 2, Divinity: Original Sin) set a high price, undercutting would be very, very unwise.
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If they want to do this then I think they should do this now before release of PoE. Otherwise I doubt they will get so many backers. You know fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...
That makes no sense at all. Why Kickstart a successor to a game that is not even out yet?
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No, crowdfunding leads to developers making games based on the preferences of a niche fan group, if the developer wants to make such a game. The AAA publishers demand appealing to the lowest common denominator in an attempt to broaden their appeal as much as possible to maximize profits. If they go to a publisher for PoE2 there is nothing to stop that publisher from demanding as many sacrifices to the original ideals as they believe that they can get away with without alienating the core fanbase immediately in order to maximize profits; then with the next game even more sacrifices are made and so on.
I was just saying that the limits of "this is what we like, this is what we don't like" leads to similar lack of freedom as "this is what they like, this is what they don't like". Games are more than the sum of their parts, and when the niche fan group starts making demands of developers the same old ideas keep coming back without much consideration as to whether or not they benefit the game.
A classic example, for me, is the character appearance customisation of D:OS and PoE. The overwhelming noise from the community was that such customisation is something we love and that this is something that had to be present. So now we can choose between around seven different eye types for our character despite the fact that we're only going to see the top of their heads in-game.
As I say, I like crowdfunding for the way it can place a spotlight on the financial clout of niche fan groups, but I think that backers are just as demanding and, in their numbers, just as shortsighted as big publishing houses.
Backers don't have any actual power over the developers, though. Publishers can put legal restrictions on the devs, create a release date that devs must comply with, demand changes in story or additions of multiplayer.
Backers may complain, but they are not capable of forcing developers to do a single thing. Üerhaps they will not fund another project by this developer again... but if the product is good, then it would not matter what the original backers wanted. New fans will fund new games and if the new backers start making unreasonable demands, the developers still would be able to ignore them altogether if they wanted.
Also, it's unreasonable to make games no one wants. If you are creative and a good developer, but can't find people who would be willing to back you, then why would one think that the game itself will sell better?
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First of all, it's my second post on this forum, so I wanted to say hello to everyone here
I've been following this forum for a long time, I'm also a big fan of all IE games.As you guys know, Obsidian announced that - along with expansions to PoE1 - they are going to work on PoE2.
http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/289534/Obsidian+has+started+thinking+about+%22Eternity+2%22/
I'm a bit sceptical about this, we haven't seen the final product yet, I hope it will be great ofc, but for me it's a bit too early to think about a sequel. But's it is not a main reason I'm writing this thread. The reason is what Feargus Urquhart said in one of his interviews:
Urquhart also said they'll likely go the Kickstarter route with this one as well, although it has yet to be decided.I think it's not going to do well for a reputation of Obsidian, crowdfounding is okay, but not after such a big success with PoE1. I am convinced that this title is going to be sold well and there's no need of funding it on Kickstarter again. They should work on PoE2 with money they've already earned and then think about a possibility to ask people for help after having done some main contents of the game, not start from scratch. It simply doesn't look well to ask people for money again and again... even if they sold only 100,000 copies of PoE after the release they'll have 4,9mln euros ~ $5,4mln from it, that's a lot. I may be wrong, I don't know much about running a game studio, and I'm not familiar with costs coming out of it. It's just my opinion. Are you guys going to support them again or say "hey, you have the money, it's not fair". Let me know what's your opinion.
Cheers
sorry if there's a similar thread somewhere but I haven't seen it.
A bit too early to talk about whether PoE is a success or not. We would have to see the launch sales first (and so would Obsidian).
Plus, I'm not so sure Obsidian will make 4 millions dollars in sales. And anything below that would mean that Pillars of Eternity 2 would get less funding than the first game. Thus: shorter game, less content, less polish.
I'm positive that fans would be more than happy to give Obsidian more money for the sequel. I mean, look at Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Harebrained Schemes had good sales from previous titles and used the money to fun a new game, but without additional funding some additional content would not be possible (revamped Matrix, better magic system, etc.). And the fans were glad to throw money at the Kickstarter, even though they knew the game would be made with or without the Kickstarter.
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I really hope that my Collector's Book will arrive before Pillars of Eternity is released. It would be awesome to spend the days before release savoring the lore of the world. Just the mere thought makes me giddy happy.
Yeah I wanted this to, but it does not look like it is the case. Or at least not for me since I ordered it off Amazon. It is not due to be delivered until April.
Ok, it seems I mistook Collector's Book with Guidebook (which I actually meant, since it has the lore I'm so interested in).
Amazon says the Guidebook will be released on 24th March. So, if I'm lucky it could arrive before the game itself.
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I really hope that my Collector's Book will arrive before Pillars of Eternity is released. It would be awesome to spend the days before release savoring the lore of the world. Just the mere thought makes me giddy happy.
I've been following this forum for a long time, I'm also a big fan of all IE games.
I'm not a good cRPG player, but I love Obsidian, and I grew up with Black Isle games. Will I be able to "finish" PoE's story?
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
1. Easy mode is rather easy. You still need to grasp the basics, put your tank up front and casters in the back, use abilities and focus on most dangerous mobs... but it's not rocket science.
2. If anything else fails, there are still cheat codes. If you notice you are stuck, you can go and try to use them.