kanisatha

For me what matters is if the game will have an option to turn on that removes the "extermination" X from 4X. I love playing Civ as a civ builder only, without the going to war with each other part. And even when this is not inherently built into the game, someone always creates a mod for it, as is the case with Civ 5 which is what I currently play.

Oh I see. Yeah I did read that part but I (also) interpreted it as not really a return of "kingdom management" but rather that some sort of management element would be included, like you say perhaps "managing" your crusade.

Huh? Confused. There's no kingdom management style anything in the new game. What am I missing?

And Beregost in BG1.

Yes I think something like this could've mitigated a lot of player angst. But at the same time, I have gone to some of the PoE wikis out there where the combat mechanics are explained in numerical detail, and have to say some of how those numbers work just makes you want to throw up your hands in frustrated resignation.

I only presented D:OS as a possible comparison because it sold well. But any comparison with a relatively similar game that sold well would be ok. I just feel that a big problem the PoE games had was that their combat mechanics were not intuitively understandable or relatable to a lot of people (and this beyond just that they were not well explained within the game). Even such basic elements as attack and damage and armor were not simple and straightforward and easily understood as to how they worked. By contrast, in D:OS, you didn't even need to have them explained to you to be able to (easily) understand how these mechanics worked.

I am really loving this discussion about the comparative pros and cons of combat mechanics and gameplay between PoE1 and 2. The depth of some of the analyses presented here is truly incredible for someone like me who loves to play games with complex mechanics but without myself getting too caught up in the details. But to the point of the thread, would it not make more sense that instead of comparing PoE1 to PoE2 we should be comparing the PoE games (either one or both of them) to, say, the D:OS games? Very much unlike the PoE games, the D:OS games had (for me) very simplistic, superficial and easy to figure out combat mechanics: no classes; every character has the same set of abilities; all abilities have cooldowns; a standard resource pool for using abilities where that pool is regenerated not just every encounter but every round within an encounter. Seems to me, very sadly on a personal level, those who like and want complex and sophisticated mechanics are a very small group that is concentrated here in this forum, whereas most gamers - and even classic RPG gamers - very strongly prefer simple and easily understood mechanics such as those used in the D:OS games. So, if they want to sell well, is this what all future cRPGs should aspire to wrt combat mechanics? Please share your thoughts as I am truly curious about this question.

I actually see overlap between what @Wormerine and @Boeroer are saying. I agree that it is very nice to have a nice bustling hub with shops and taverns and temples and smiths, and yes also some place - not necessarily a stronghold, just a hole in the wall place will do - to dump your stuff and know it'll all be safe. But I agree I don't like for so many of the quests to begin and end in that one place. It's always nice to have a range of different places to visit, and to have meaningful reasons to visit those places.

I too am in the camp of PoE mechanics being way better than D&D, and agree on not wanting to return to D&D, especially because to me D&D 5e is a dumbing-down and oversimplification of the D&D mechanics to broaden D&D's appeal. But with respect to settings, the Forgotten Realms will always be the fantasy game setting I love the most. As such, I would be quite happy to see a NwN3 from Obsidian, which I think would be far better received than IwD3.

Which may be the long-rumored AAA open world RPG project, which some have associated with Parker but maybe not so. Hmmm. Very interesting. Grounded being "Maine" threw me off as well, though yes I also think it's likely this game came together as a real project very suddenly at the last minute. And as a side-note, thanks a lot for sharing this kind of information because I for one love playing around with these puzzles in my head.

Aww man! Too bad. But it's to be expected some of these projects will not work out. And I suspect that at least one and maybe more of "Mississippi", "Illinois", and "Alabama" are indeed canceled projects because projects like Parker's, for example, seem to have been launched much more recently and as such may have a codename that comes after "Missouri".

So while we are in speculation mode about current projects underway at Obsidian, what do you all think of the prospect that one of those very-early exploratory projects could be NwN3? I mean, even though apparently Obsidian also sought it, the BG license eventually went to Larian. So why not the NwN license possibly going to Obsidian?

Thanks! And we know from that same Eurogamer(?) story that Parker's project is currently active.

This I absolutely grant you, which is also why I was among those who were not fazed by the Microsoft acquisition. I am excited by the prospects of the very talented devs Obsidian has (including of course Sawyer, who I was afraid was going to be leaving Obsidian) now being able to make the games they have long wanted to make.

Thanks! I love keeping track of this kind of info. So then perhaps MS, IL, and AL are (not in order) the projects of Adler, Perez, and Parker?

So this^. For all the hyperbole about D:OS2, let's not lose sight of the fact that while it sold way better than PoE2 that way better sales number was still ONLY in the 1.5-2 million range. So the much-ballyhooed D:OS2 was very much a niche game, and PoE2 was simply a niche within a niche game. And the only way studios like Obsidian (and yes even Larian) will keep making niche games that under the best of circumstances will still only post (relatively) tiny sales numbers is if they are making a boatload of money with their other non-niche games.

Depends on what one means by "developing." For me, if there's someone thinking about how to do a game and putting together ideas for the game, it's in development. It doesn't have to be that programming has begun. And Tim Cain in a recent interview said they were indeed doing this for a sequel game and essentially all but confirmed there will be a TOW2. Beginning this sort of early pre-planning for a sequel before the first game is released is actually quite common, and was the case for PoE2 as well.

Oh yes I forgot about Parker's project. Agree 100%! I would also suggest that the entire cRPG genre may go the way of the dinosaurs if we don't get more young gamers interested in and comfortable with playing RPGs. This new game seems a perfect way to introduce RPGs to young gamers, and I applaud Obsidian's brilliant long-term strategy here. Can't wait to see what Parker, Perez, Adler and Sawyer have in store for us.

Exactly what I've been saying. If I were a betting man I would bet they have at least three RPG projects currently in some stage of development: TOW2 from the Cain/Boyarsky team, a spinoff game using the Pillars franchise (but not PoE3) (maybe with Adler as lead?), and Sawyer's Project Missouri.

Yes It's not a game for me, but I don't get all the negativity. As with any business that wants to grow, Obs needs to expand its base both financially and creatively. And nothing here says this project is in lieu of some other project that got shelved to make room for this one. New Obsidian is being very aggressively ambitious, and I for one like that. From the bits and pieces of information from a variety of sources I have been able to put together Obsidian currently has five individuals holding the title of project/game director. And, following the state names system Obs has been using for their game projects it seems that there are five state-named projects currently underway. If so, then what's the big deal of one of those projects being this one? It still leaves at least 2-3 other projects currently being worked on that are likely to be true, classic RPGs in the tradition of Obsidian games.

Given that Obsidian has been operating with roughly three development teams recently based on various interviews, no surprise to me that one of those teams is working on a new IP. I said as much in a post a few months ago. The big question for me is what type of game is this going to be? Specifically, is it going to be an Xbox-only game or for PC as well?

This seems to be the general view of TB fans, that any party-based RPG must of course be TB. There's zero logic to it, but that's the line that gets pushed. The overwhelming majority of negative reviews on Steam for both the PoE games and P:K are some varient of: it's RTwP so it's a horrible game.

Don't we already have this very discussion going on in multiple other threads?

Oh come on. That was just figure-of-speech style exaggeration for effect. How would I, someone not associated with Larian, even be able to provide a true guarantee?

I think the core problem for the PoE games was that they were based on appealing to the nostalgia of people who had played the IE games 20 years ago. As such they were designed to appeal to that previous generation of gamers rather than the current generation of gamers. But even appealing to the nostalgia of the previous generation did not work because (a) nostalgia is likely to appeal only once and not a second time for a sequel, and (b) nostalgia is about remembering your experiences from a long time ago in a positively-biased way such that even when someone makes a new game using that same old formula you come away saying to yourself: "Well I don't like this, because this is NOT how I remember those old games." By contrast, Larian took a very different approach to their D:OS games. They made D:OS1 specifically to appeal to the current new generation of gamers, and then improved on that formula further in the sequel. So what appeals to the current generation? I would argue such things as availability on consoles, fancy 3D graphics, full VO, (combat) mechanics that are easy to figure out and intuitive to use, and systems that are not complex and without an excessive number of choices. But most importantly of all, being able to play in co-op/multiplayer mode. Many of these things are exactly what the grognards hate but for younger gamers they are a must, especially for those who are coming to these games with little or no prior experience with RPGs or complex D&D-like games. My expectation is that there will NOT be a PoE3. Instead, there will be a reboot of the Pillars franchise with a completely new game whose design will start with multiplayer and consoles. Then, it will have high-end 3D graphics, full VO, and likely be third-person perspective. Finally, the systems and mechanics from the PoE games will be significantly streamlined and simplified so that people who are not hardcore RPG gamers can still dive right into the game and easily figure out how everything works, what all the numbers mean, where you don't have an overwhelming number of options to consider and weigh against one another when deciding what you want to do in a particular combat situation, and so on.