Quillon

He retweeted this vid: Think about what the people who watched this video alone will think about Obsidian... probably what MCA wants them to think. Should Obs respond to him in some way?

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/796047431360081920

Is this sarcasm or surprise? Surprise. Turn-based is the opposite of exciting gameplay, for me. My brothers from other mothers! Turn-based is immersion breaking slow-death gaming that so many indie crpgs use these days, guess its easier to make/balance etc.

Where did they do that? Not that I don't believe you but I'd like to enjoy the source : p

Well, this survey so far really obsesses about "isometric", guess that's Obsidian's feature. Tho I'd like Obs to consider 3D-Top Down for party based RPGs; wouldn't really alienate newer gen of players while keeping most old skooooolers. Aaand it went on to Pathfinder. I don't know enough and have nothing against the license but enough high fantasy ffs. You already have Pillars and Tyranny.

Based on the interviews I'd say Feargus is just trying to be too nice to get to make games like NV and AP again while still staying independent. Apart from Armored Warfare, Obsidian is doing similar games as InExile but you can't see Feargus shunning publishers like Bryan does. As I still like Obs for what it stands for, I find MCA's Obs-related comments irritating since he left the company. f.i. He is criticizing Vegas choice as a Fallout game setting in this interview; wasn't he one of the founders back then? Didn't he have any credit to speak out? Didn't he have a say? And why didn't he back then? and now he's criticizing it... He's also contradicting himself; in one of his interviews he said he likes clear hierarchy and he clearly doesn't like when the the guy who's calling the shots, shots him down for whatever. Why didn't he have such a big role in a game since Planescape? I'm guessing he never asked for it, if he did, a guy in his position in the company with his rep would have got it... then he criticizes decision makers, makes those decisions contributing factors of his departure. Again I might be wrong and Obs could be the bad guy in this, this is just what I think based on my observations. And Obsidian is not a new company I'm sure they had many chances to get bought out.

Also after watching day9's and Obs' own stream; the conquest feature in character creation could be used instead of a possible save import from PoE to PoE2. They said it was Josh's idea anyway.

Nope. Hope they'll make it for PoE 2 or Tyranny before that.

If there is gonna be a player base again, it should play a much bigger role in main plot this time. Most quest givers should come to us rather than we go there and find that quest at its location. Meetings should take place in it, a round table could be useful : P Also certain events, like feasting for important NPCs, balls etc. More useful prison system and NWN2 like managing patrols, surrounding lands etc. And ofc defending it in more climactic way. Minimal generic NPCs; shopkeepers should be someones with problems that we can solve somehow etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc If the game won't include caed nua, our base should be in the next big city, a fortified manor maybe that we inherited somehow... HQ of the Order of the Watchers, now in ruins : P Also DAO like customizable AI system, pretty please. Tie all generic dialogue questions to a disposition, that way our character shouldn't ask the same questions to the exact same letter all game long. Next rpg challenge for you.

And in the end he was... literally: : P

Companions; less in number but more in depth; who are more connected to main plot and interjecting frequently. No need to make a shallow-er companion for every second developer who's in Pillars team.

It's not. It's not developed with state of the art techniques : P Microsoft guys told Obs dudes, that the game(cancelled Tyranny) had to feel like Xbox first party; compared to this differentiating what's an AAA game and what's not shouldn't be difficult. You'll know it when you see it. And what Blodhemn said. So an isometric game can never be a AAA game? Maybe they were considered AAA 15 years ago but now we may never know; I don't think we'll ever see an isometric/not wholly 3D rpg with highest production values and heavy marketing with at least 5x the budget Pillars had and even then it would still be a niche game... which maybe why we may never see it/they are not making it. ed-ps: 3D games with top down cams were and can easily be AAA nowadays and in the foreseeable future, I'm talking about isometric games as in locked isometric cam with 2D backgrounds.

It's not. It's not developed with state of the art techniques : P Microsoft guys told Obs dudes, that the game(cancelled Tyranny) had to feel like Xbox first party; compared to this differentiating what's an AAA game and what's not shouldn't be difficult. You'll know it when you see it. And what Blodhemn said.

And when I heard "Historical RPG" I thought about Kingdom Come Deliverance. Now I see he really meant medieval fantasy BUT set in the real world. Yeah that's the fresh idea we need. Meh.

I like the part about more reactive/interjecting companions, PoE suffered from this.

On the whole thread up till now I agree with RoM on most things, share his concerns etc but I'm not sure Obs is in an irreversable state. We'll just have to wait and see. On the "playing it safe" argument. I don't think they are necessarily playing it safe with writing but its obvious they are playing it safe by making the same type of game technically(small budget, 2D/PoE style). If they are working on PoE 2 also atm(I don't think they are unlike some) they are playing it even safer. It can be good for Obs but its not good for me, a customer. I used to think they played it safe with the writing of PoE and stated it somewhere here also but I realized they had to follow the pattern, fulfill on those promises of kickstarter which shaped the game effectively, if they were loose on the promises, get creative maybe we'd have classless system etc which would maybe made the game better but at the same time made most backers unhappy. Latest example of how the vision of the game set in stone by nostalgia: JES' GDC presentation. Also what's so special about Pathfinder? I have zero clue about it and the name screams "generic fantasy". Before PoE I was neutral about "PoE style" but now I decided I don't like it. I replay RPGs many times and my latest sessions with PoE the 2D style and how unimmersive it is(to me) made me wanna not continue. I'm sure I'll enjoy my first maybe second playthrough of Tyranny but no more. And I want games like New Vegas, AP, WTMB which I can and did play more than 5 times each which the type of games it seems Obs won't be making in the near future. Currently only thing keeping my interest in this company is what they are doing with unreal engine, if they are still doing something with it. I hope it is their dire-action : p

He said it was a "ways off". Then we learned about Tyranny, so it makes sense that they'd wait a while before revealing it so as not to hog the spotlight. There's no reason not to start on the sequel right away - Larian went right onto a sequel after finishing up Divinity: Original Sin. It will be quite some time until it's actually released. Well actually in that interview with MMORPG he specifically said it was time for him to move on to something different, but then added a sequel to PoE would happen at some point but that was a way off. That's the complete context of his answer to that question. Also keep in mind that it's not just PoE that's come to an end but also AW and the Pathfinder card game. They are large enough of a studio that they can and need to have multiple projects going on at the same time. So it makes sense that they could have three projects ongoing at the same time - Vermont/Tyranny, Louisiana, and Indiana - with the chronologically last one of them, Indiana, being PoE2. So I stand by my projection that we will see another RPG of some sort between Tyranny and PoE2. *shrug* There is no Project Indiana that I've ever heard of. There is a Josh Sawyer with "Revua" on his Twitter profile and an Orlan on his Instagram. And he said "we'd like to move on to a new project". That project is Tyranny. He said this: Josh: Pillars of Eternity is all wrapped up. It's been a great experience, but we'd like to move on to a new project. We'd love to make a sequel and have a ton of ideas for ways we can improve on Pillars, but that's a way off. in mmorpg's interview, then he confirmed he's not involved with tyranny on twitter so "PoE 2's in development" seems to me just wishful thinking for those who wants the sequel right away while the evidence clearly suggests a new project which is not PoE2 nor Tyranny. I personally don't want PoE 2 right away since next game, Tyranny is very similar type of game, something different; 3D for starters... would be better : d Don't think I can handle 3 games in 2D style in a row. Tho it could just be another new IP in PoE style, like Tyranny sdfgh

Just watched this Honestly it looks better than Pillars to me; dat atmosphere and pannable cam <3 : p and probably the game has 1/5 of Pillars budget at most(first expeditions game's budget was 80 thousand dollars if I'm not wrong). Maybe making 2D backgrounds is not that cheap after all. Only thing I'd change about it would be turning combat into RTwP but I can try to enjoy/endure turn based combat just as I gave the same chance to 2D style of PoE.

With the current AI system in PoE yeah I agree but with a system like in DaO you are basically planning the possible situations and watching how well you planned is fun(for me), tho dao's vanilla system was not bad, with a mod on nexus it became a lot better. Everyone has their preferences, nothing would have been different for you if a customizable AI system were in the game(f.i. Story time mod hasn't changed anything for me, hopefully helped many). Obs decided not to do it, maybe they think its not an important enough feature, saved resources, missed out on some people who only play with good AI systems and maybe missed out on being praised for its AI system.

Looks like GDC embargo has been lifted. Read some articles: - Already "powerful" character. - Choices during character creation changes the state of the gameworld; locations, which factions controlling them, quests etc. - Bronze to iron age equivalent era. - Classless system, skills are improved via actually using them. - Abilities acquired through quests/choices/reputation(maybe only some of them?). - Companion combos via relationship with them/bad relations also rewards combos. - Around 20 hours long. - Alpha Protocol level of reactivity. - Party size is 4...maybe. Player and 3 companions mentioned. Well I'm not too excited about the game since it's "another fantasy rpg" but I'm also intrigued by the replayablity value of the game and the fact that we're the bad guy.

I played The Witcher with OTS cam, just cos I could see further. And I never seen this many people in one place who can't handle camera in a 3D game with top down gameplay(Not speaking for this thread alone). And always the same reference; yeah we all had our share of bad experience with NWN2's cam(apparently OP handled it like a pro), but not all games' cams are/will certainly be like NWN2's or problematic in some way, except for having to use mouse/buttons to be controlled, - outrageous! On a serious note, I don't think Obs will go for 3D for a party based RPG in the near future. Pillars formula is risk free: 5M$ budget + established company name = easily 500K games sold = lots of profit. With Tyranny I assume budget would have increased, familiar engine now, maybe same RPG system, more VO, more marketing etc... 1M in sales would be the goal. Obs could have also decided to make Tyranny by themselves, either through crowdfunding or with PoE profits or both but I guess they went with the safe, usual route... but they are managing a studio with 200+ developers, they must have their valid reasons. My concern is, if we'll ever see Obs in the big leagues again; with games like AP & New Vegas to influence the industry with their RPG prowess(like CDPR doing atm)or will they continue playing "small" with RPGs and their big game will be the tank MMO.

They had to rewrite most of it tho. That said, I prefer 3D also, 2D just don't cut it for me, not being able to pan is takes away from my immersion with the game(also I don't find hand-drawn beautiful maps THAT important for an RPG), just like I prefer RTwP over TB, cos I don't find TB realistic and takes away from my immersion also. But I endure them both for other features of the games which are 2D or TB.

It's not due to the kickstarter stretch goals or the promises, but due to the way they designed their content in preproduction. T Elms was designed at the same time as Defiance Bay. As its twin, so to speak. Thus it feels the same way. The crit path was added later, with the content already preproduced and already in production probably. Without combining the two and getting player feedback, they didn't get the chance to iterate, based on the feedback. All the backer betas could test was dyrford. The crit path and the big cities, were not allowed to be BB tested. It was only internal testing. I liked Dyrford, it had a good sense to it and it attached itself to one of the primary plot arcs. In a sense, the preproduction for the world lore was already done. So it was easy for them to make a big city about Glanfathans. That's in the lore. But it was not necessarily something that made the crit path more emotionally deep or satisfying. There were creative ways around that, as I've described before. But those decisions have to at least be thought about and argued on during preproduction. Not having time to iterate is pretty tough. As you lack the time to improve upon the way the product is executed. Many tests in the BBs were to balance the combat system, so to speak. And that's why the combat system started out pretty good. Well, other than the fact that per gave deflection, the BBs didn't suggest that as the solution. The cut content for act 2's ending could have helped, if they didn't have to make 15 levels of CN maybe they wouldn't have had cut it. Tho I'm talking hypothetically; maybe without the promises/constraints game would have turned out worse since Obs is famous for doing sequels to someone elses' games, tho in this case they had to copy/change/revise someone else's world/systems. Maybe "copy" is a harsh word in this case but they had to make it as familiar as it can be.

I don't think the game's too long or its not too long for my taste, just that act2 to 3 transition felt strange... I don't know how to put it to words but when I arrived at twin elms it was like starting the game from scratch again, by that time I shoulda already been familiar with the world and stuff and anticipate/maybe predict the next narrative direction instead I got another portion of the famous lore dump, this times about glanfathans, tribes, their way of doing things etc etc... I had half a mind to rush through it since I was overlevelled at that point. Most everything people don't like are likely outcome of the promises to those same people. I watched too many/maybe all developer interviews/panels, read forum posts etc. and the thing that always comes up: "We have to make this game feel like those old games". This certainly constrained/shaped their vision and I think resulted in a bad way and 15 level giga-dungeon took too much of the resources which could have been put to better use like diverting the story after act 2(cut content). I said it before, looking back now, Bioware's way with DAO seems better at modernizing those games. If certain criticizers are right one can deduct; If you copy too closely, your supposed fun system that is - developed for games, not tabletops - suffers cos its not "making something from scratch", its more like retrofitting. Tho I don't/can't care enough about combat to complain since my feelings towards the game mostly focused on the underwhelming story/narrative experience than I'd expected from The Legendary Developers of Dragonglass. And now we have one of those old games but in better fidelity, better UI, maybe better gameplay systems since I can understand and play this unlike the oldies. I still like it but without said constraints I think it would have been much better. For companions I'd like to add: If there have be more companions than my party size then I'd rather choose while recruiting them. Like I get one of the two companions at the end of two branching paths(kotor 2) or result of a decision or recruting one can result another to leave my company(DAO) etc. Which would add to the replayablity value of the game and remove the immersion breaking spare companions at my camp/stronghold like spare pairs of boots. Or instead of abundance of companions give me non accompanying persistent NPCs with the same depth; give me a master of arms for Caed Nua who would train the garrison, a commander for my standing army, give me an advisor, builders, a prophesying old hag, shopkeepers, servants, cook, a blacksmith whose work I'd recognize with a look... I want to be lord of Winterfell. lol.

Yeah... but it doesn't seem like it.