On the road to... Pillars of Eternity 3

[Sven_]

51 minutes ago, darkling.lithely said:

Same.

Back then I was this close on my Commodore 64 of picking up one of the Gold Box games in a shop -- but then I went with Hudson Hawk (the game) instead -- free Baseball cap inside. Eventually, it was this one (Amiga 500): 

 

[xzar_monty]

Wow. That's one I cannot remember at all. Looks like something in the Bard's Tale / Phantasie mold, i.e. good and all but not particularly original or groundbreaking.

[Sven_]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Wow. That's one I cannot remember at all. Looks like something in the Bard's Tale / Phantasie mold, i.e. good and all but not particularly original or groundbreaking.

Funny that you mentioned those, because you could actually import characters from both of those games. It is pretty much a German clone of those, but a bretty atmospheric one on A500's with 1megs RAM due to the environmental audio (wind, thunder, owls at night,...).  

[xzar_monty]

Wow! Quite a coincidence. I know something about games of this genre, but I'm certainly not a true expert, so trust me, that was just luck. But thanks for the info!

[injurai]

I saw this thread and got excited there was a new development...

Prior to selling Obsidian to Microsoft. Feargus mentioned they wanted to make PoE3. Interest was also expressed of using the IP for other sorts of games, I think the obvious and mentioned extension is an Elder Scrolls competitor.

I say something akin the the following it in every thread speculating on the IPs future. They should make a proper PoE3 before going beyond. It will help tie off the established arc, and allow them to segue the world towards the future of the series. These games are cheaper than a AAA title, it will take a lot of work catching up with The Elder Scrolls and in the mean time they shouldn't let the IP fallow. Doing PoE3 would be good practice to handing the series over to a director other than Josh, who seems to want to work on Pillars as more of a creative designer than a director going forward. It will keep the creative pipe-line of Obsidian busy as the engine people of Microsoft help prepare for a fully 3D title. Lastly it will allow the series to grow in expose prior to delving into more expensive and riskier ventures by growing the exposure. Imagine a PoE3 with a proper Microsoft ad campaign. Deadfire had almost no exposure.

Never mind the shear amount of good will for taking their time to turn the Pillars ship before squeezing Obsidian into alignment with the Microsoft Studios machine. A AAA Pillars could perfectly straddle the line between old and new Obsidian fans, but they need to play their cards right.

[darkling.lithely]

On 4/29/2020 at 2:23 PM, injurai said:

Never mind the shear amount of good will for taking their time to turn the Pillars ship before squeezing Obsidian into alignment with the Microsoft Studios machine. A AAA Pillars could perfectly straddle the line between old and new Obsidian fans, but they need to play their cards right.

I increasingly wonder if they can play their cards right. The comments from people who praise this games seem to be of a different caliber than those from the unimpressed. Anyone not seeing how brilliant this game is probably will not take the time with a third installment to do so either. I imagine that it is difficult for a lot of people to appreciate that the narrative that drives the game-play in Deadfire is not a straight forward kill the big bad. The philosophical and religious musings, I bet, get clicked through without much thought, leaving little story to guide random tasks. Still, I really hope that Microsoft gives its blessing, particularly to Josh, and let Obsidian make the last installment.

Edited May 13, 2020 by darkling.lithely

[AeonsLegend]

7 hours ago, darkling.lithely said:

I increasingly wonder if they can play their cards right. The comments from people who praise this games seem to be of a different caliber than those from the unimpressed. Anyone not seeing how brilliant this game is probably will not take the time with a third installment to do so either. I imagine that it is difficult for a lot of people to appreciate that the narrative that drives the game-play in Deadfire is not a straight forward kill the big bad. The philosophical and religious musings, I bet, get clicked through without much thought, leaving little story to guide random tasks. Still, I really hope that Microsoft gives its blessing, particularly to Josh, and let Obsidian make the last installment.

I put almost 700 hours into Deadfire. I wouldn't call it brilliant. I play the game solely for theorycrafting builds and to try them out. Most of the time I don't even complete the story with them. It's not a bad game and if POE3 comes around I might be interested in it. Although this game did leave a bad taste in my mouth regarding the series and I'm not too keen on a sequel. Especially if it's just going to be the same Watcher with the same party members. And especially if it's going to be open world again. That last bit took away so much enjoyment and immersion for me.

[xzar_monty]

We don't know why Deadfire bombed but I'm pretty sure we can say that we know there will definitely not be any POE3.

[SchroedsCat]

On 5/14/2020 at 10:16 AM, xzar_monty said:

We don't know why Deadfire bombed but I'm pretty sure we can say that we know there will definitely not be any POE3.

NOOOOOOOOO!

Ahem, anyway. Forums on Steam, Reddit and the likes around this game still seem to be pretty active and RPGs generally seem to have a long tail. I hope Deadfire was able to catch up a bit more by now. I mean come on, this kind of game is less expensive to produce than an AAA title. They could even reuse plenty of assets from Deadfire.

[xzar_monty]

As far as I know, there is no indication that Deadfire had a long tail or that it has been able to catch up at all. Note: I have no idea about the console sales. "Less expensive" does not mean "inexpensive", it just means less expensive. Eora is done and dusted, as far as cRPGs are concerned, I'm quite sure. And yes, I would love to be proven wrong.

[SchroedsCat]

Didn't Sawyer himself say something along the lines of "was okay in the end" at his post mortem speech? I'm not trying to devalue the work of the devs by saying "less expensive". It's just that they have a decent and pretty engine, they have the turn based option. That's some good groundwork for a new game. Hell, with Microsoft they might even have a decent add campaign this time around. I loved PoE but the existence of Deadfire went below my radar for an embarassingly long time.

[xzar_monty]

What Sawyer said at Deadfire's post-mortem was, in my view, an extremely clear indication that the PoE world is over. A company boss will not come out and bluntly state that we're not going to spend our resources doing this because everything went to hell the last time, he's going to put it in more pleasant terms, which I think is precisely what Sawyer did. So, when he says something like "The problem is that without really understanding the reason(s)[*], it’s hard to know how to move forward", or "I don’t have that confidence, which is one of several reasons why I am leery about trying to direct a sequel", it's pretty clear it's all over.

 

[*] That means reasons for Deadfire's lack of success.

[Boeroer]

He wasn't saying the PoE world is over. He only said that he wouldn't do a third part of PoE as long as he doesn't know what went wrong with part two.
But he also said a few days ago on stream (and several times before that) that nobody would do a third part if "nobody" wanted to play the second. Which is an exaggeration of course - but he still seems to be deeply disappointed. That also didn't indicate that the console sales did superwell.  On the other hand there are still a decent amount of players that play Deadfire although it's 2 years old. We even got a new Ultimate run a few days ago.

At the same time Feargus still wants to do a first-person RPG on Eora.  Josh himself said a week ago or so that
a) it's still what Feargus wants to do (and that he usually gets his way as I already said) and
b) that he personally would not like to do PoE3 but a Pillars Tactics game. 

So while we might not see a PoE3 anytime soon we might see some other Pillars/Eora/PoE-world game. 

PoE3 seems to be off the table for now though, I agree.

Maybe one can license the Pillars IP from Microsoft for a small CRPG.  

[kanisatha]

5 hours ago, SchroedsCat said:

NOOOOOOOOO!

Ahem, anyway. Forums on Steam, Reddit and the likes around this game still seem to be pretty active and RPGs generally seem to have a long tail. I hope Deadfire was able to catch up a bit more by now. I mean come on, this kind of game is less expensive to produce than an AAA title. They could even reuse plenty of assets from Deadfire.

It's one opinion. Doesn't make it definitive. I'm quite sure we will see more "PoE" games. It is likely they won't be in the same form as PoE 1&2 and maybe something more similar to DA:I or Skyrim.

[xzar_monty]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

b) that he personally would not like to do PoE3 but a Pillars Tactics game. 

Hmm. I wonder what that would entail. (I suppose the answer is, "Anything they want"). It's potentially an interesting concept, although I can't see it being rich in a narrative sense, which is always the aspect that fascinates me the most.

[darkling.lithely]

In a couple of decades, a few Obsidian expatiates will start a company to finally release PoE3 based on the secret, but shelved plans no one can bare to look at right now.

[ArnoldRimmer]

Just in time for my retirement... hope I can afford the computer needed then to play the spiritual success to pillars of eternity.

I'm hoping a games company will start a new kickstarter project creating  a baldurs gate style crpg, as someone who played the original BG games when they came out I shant be playing BG3 since I don't like TB, but may watch others who play it on YT.

Edited May 15, 2020 by ArnoldRimmer

[xzar_monty]

18 minutes ago, ArnoldRimmer said:

I'm hoping a games company will start a new kickstarter project creating  a baldurs gate style crpg, as someone who played the original BG games when they came out I shant be playing BG3 since I don't like TB, but may watch others who play it on YT.

Just to make sure: are you aware of Pathfinder: Kingmaker (already out) and its sequel that is coming out next year? It's not BG, and some of the writing is so incredibly cheesy that it almost feels like it must be a parody, but somehow I still found the game quite charming. Except for the last part where the encounters got just stupid.

I also will probably skip BG3. Neither TB nor the previous attempts of BG3's creator appeal to me.

[ArnoldRimmer]

Yeah, I tried it but it didn't really appeal to me, I think it was TB too though? I watched a few YT channels playing it and I didn't feel like it was my kid of game - also the brightly coloured outline around each character was distracting. Also there was an annoying bug (maybe Linux related) where each character I pressed was entered twice during character creation. So if I called my PC "Rimmer" his name would be "RRiimmeerr",  

I liked all the classes and options but I found the interface overwhelming. Also it didn't work well on my intel HD 520 integrated GPU... if I ever get a more powerfull laptop I shall try again.

Edited May 15, 2020 by ArnoldRimmer

[SchroedsCat]

7 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

it's pretty clear it's all over

That's not the impression I had from that talk. In any case, would be nice if someone from Obsidian came forward with a definitive will they/won't they instead of the marketing speak. So I can save my time and money for other games. 

[xzar_monty]

49 minutes ago, ArnoldRimmer said:

Yeah, I tried it but it didn't really appeal to me, I think it was TB too though?

Nope, RTwP.

[kanisatha]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

It's not BG, and some of the writing is so incredibly cheesy that it almost feels like it must be a parody, but somehow I still found the game quite charming.

I know it's off-topic, but do you suppose the "cheesiness" of some of the writing in P:Km is the result of everything having first been written in Russian and then being translated to English? In the most recent AMA for P:WotR, the devs mention how the English translations from Russian often don't come across the way the writers intended and that this is a continuing source of much frustration for the writers.

[ArnoldRimmer]

So Pathmaker didn't spark joy??? Cheese translations are not just the domain of games

[Sven_]

Pathfinder I'd recommend, though I 100% agree about the comment on the endgame encounters.
If they can improve on Wrath, that's gonna be a very very good game. I've seen (German) people arguing even its writing was better than in PoE, but I think to a big extent that may be because the same people thought PoE in tendency to have too much  prose // generally be too wordy. There's no denying that Pathfinder is simpler, more direct and also deals with more grounded matters [You be ruler soon my son, defend your kingdom and it shall flourish]. 

15 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

As far as I know, there is no indication that Deadfire had a long tail or that it has been able to catch up at all. 

 

Likely not more so than any other game, but Steamspy estimates (I know, I know) around the weeks/months after release had estimated 100-200k owners, whilst now it's in the 500k-1M range. Naturally, two years after release and after various sales/discounts. One of which is happening right now.

The estimates for Pathfinder are actually roughly in the same bracket, but that's one of the more unforunate things likely:  Developing these games, any game, is pretty expensive where Obsidian are located from the go. Also, generally budgeting. What's one project's succecss is perceived as another's failure.

Interestingly, I vaguely remember that when Obsidian had conducted a survey in early 2015, some of the questions centered around whether people would be interested into Pathfinder related games… it didn't sound like the research you'd do for something like Pathfinder Adventures, but a full-blown RPG.

Edited May 16, 2020 by Sven_

[ArnoldRimmer]

Most of dev costs seem to be reinventing the wheel... I'd be happy to get a new game using the current deadfire engine as is. Just new quests etc. Obviously that takes time too but if they didn't change the engine and combat system probably not as much.