I want to see Corpses hanging from trees

[wanderon]

 Quoth the Raven "Nevermore"   

[Starwars]

I'm sure there will be darker moments in the game (the Blood Ties quest is certainly pretty dark) but this isn't the Witcher. This is in fact much more of a high fantasy universe from the looks of it and that's fine. 

 

Personally, I love the Witcher's atmosphere (not a huge fan of the actual games but the atmosphere and settings are really well done) but I'm getting pretty tired of the whole "grimdark" thing. I hope PoE will land somewhere in the middle.

[Fiebras]

Theres a bunch of corpses ritually dismembered and arranged in front of a pool of blood containing the souls of every sacrifice that was made there.

Theres a cave with stacks and stacks of chewed human bones.

There are adventurer corpses everywhere.

 

And you want more?

Really now?

[StrangeCat]

Fiebras it's not about adding more gore to the game it's about story telling and bring up the dark underbelly of that story to create a better story.

A lot of story I know.

[Fiebras]

Having corpses everywhere certainly ruins and alters story, removes subtlety and does not in fact bring out the dark underbelly of the story".

Your opening post is asking about atmosphere, not story, even atmosphere helps story.

 

Look. You seem to want a "dark and gritty" roleplaying experience. I dont think PoE will give you "dark and gritty" the way you want it to. Im sure it will have dark themes and all that but I dont think it needs more corpses. You will be making plenty of those already.

 

This is gonna be a "directed at everyone" rant:

There are many other ways to have a dark atmosphere beyond painting the walls black, putting in dismemberment, disfigurement, violence, gore and murder. In fact thinking a game is more mature because it has those elements is nothing if not juvenile. There are ways to make a mature game without it having gore, rape, black drapes and blood over everything. It all ends up looking downright cartoonish at times (like say Dragon Age´s comical blood splatters every time you poked something) or is obviously there as a "shock factor" that just gets old and less effective the more you do it (Dead Space´s gore and jump scares for example). Im honestly quite bored of it.

Developers: Stop that ****. Give me a mature and serious game set in freaking Candy Land, how about that for novelty? Are you able to hold yourself from making people get their confeti entrails ripped out?

/rant

[StrangeCat]

Having corpses everywhere certainly ruins and alters story, removes subtlety and does not in fact bring out the dark underbelly of the story".

Your opening post is asking about atmosphere, not story, even atmosphere helps story.

 

Look. You seem to want a "dark and gritty" roleplaying experience. I dont think PoE will give you "dark and gritty" the way you want it to. Im sure it will have dark themes and all that but I dont think it needs more corpses. You will be making plenty of those already.

 

This is gonna be a "directed at everyone" rant:

There are many other ways to have a dark atmosphere beyond painting the walls black, putting in dismemberment, disfigurement, violence, gore and murder. In fact thinking a game is more mature because it has those elements is nothing if not juvenile. There are ways to make a mature game without it having gore, rape, black drapes and blood over everything. It all ends up looking downright cartoonish at times (like say Dragon Age´s comical blood splatters every time you poked something) or is obviously there as a "shock factor" that just gets old and less effective the more you do it (Dead Space´s gore and jump scares for example). Im honestly quite bored of it.

Developers: Stop that ****. Give me a mature and serious game set in freaking Candy Land, how about that for novelty? Are you able to hold yourself from making people get their confeti entrails ripped out?

/rant

man I don't even know what to say to you silly Rant ....have a good one.

[Cantousent]

I might not have paid enough attention, but I didn't take Cat's post as wanting every location to have corpses hanging from trees.  I can't remember who brought up DIablo, but I agree with him in that I don't want the game to be completely forlorn and set in permanent night time.  I sure as hell don't want a 'Twilightesque' game.  :Cant's shuddering icon:  I think some horror elements would work well.  I think the part with

the girl in the cultist dungeon

not only helps convey that idea, but also helps convey the innately horrific nature of soul magic in the first place.  The way souls work in PoE is in, of, and by itself potentially horrific.  The fact that so many children are stillborn because of lack of souls that the people have come to more or less accept it and live with it is something truly bizarre on one hand, but absolutely reasonable on the other.  Human *do* learn to live with horrifying realities in their lives.  :Cant's resisting making a political joke icon:

 

So, the game already has built in 'grittiness' in the first place.  I would argue less 'grit' and more 'horror,' personally.  Now, where I agree completely with my feline friend is in the Spider cave.  There are bones and whatnot everywhere, but I think there should be something more... atmospheric to the area.  That specific scene, and a few others, really will make an impression.  I do *not* want the game to be dark and brooding everywhere.  A few dark and brooding scenes, a few horrific scenes, and a few scenes centered on the criminal underbelly of the city will stand out.  If the whole game is built around such locales, then the real gems in the design won't stand out.  The backdrop of high fantasy lets people cleanse their palates between various tasting of horror, comedy, romance, etc. etc. etc.  I've always hated 'romance' in CRPGs, but I romantic elements aren't always bad.  ...Or, hey, forget romance.  From a sexy point of view, the most mature 'romance' in a video game was TNO and Annah of the Shadows.  The design team threw over kissy faced romance and depicted raw sexual heat, but it was subdued and it was brief.  ...And that makes sense in a setting where the PC is trying fighting for his life while trying to regain his memory.  He's not worried about settling down and having little TNO's and bat tailed brats running around the house.

 

At any rate, what I'm trying to say is... I can't really remember, but I trust Obsidz to have a delicate touch in these matters and that they'll get it right.  ...And get rid of lock picking XP!

[Elerond]

I don't think that atmosphere that op describes is what Obsidian intents for PoE and I don't think that it should be main atmospheric theme for PoE.

 

PoE is said to be homage for IE games that were very classic High Fantasy games if you don't count Planescape: Torment which atmosphere focused on strangeness and difference of Planescape universum than being dark and gritty. So to me high fantasy atmosphere with mature writing what backer beta promises is just what I thought that I will get when I backed PoE two years ago. 

[Azrael Ultima]

I want more atmosphere in your game, it seems so high fantasy is that what you intended?

 

Let's see Corpses hanging from trees before you enter a village(right away you know something is wrong)  Perhaps the village is hanging people because they think they have used there souls to cheat death, or perhaps there is something else wrong?  When you get to the village not everything is as it seems the people are not right.  That could have nothing do with the main quest you just stumbled on this village with a hint about people hanging people.  *The music should be dark low atmosphere over minor chords and augmented 9ths)

But the Theme still relates to your world and souls even though it's not a main quest of the game.

Not everything is as it seems? So they actually just hung those corpses on the trees as christmas decoration, not for whatever sinister purpose the player is imagining at that point?

 

I've nothing against some darker elements in the game, but please have them be mature, not some childish cultist idiots making Khornemas trees. Not that i necessarily have anything against that, as long as it isn't intended to be taken serious.

[Quantics]

@OP

 

You sir should watch yesterday's Twitch play through

 

here

[Leferd]

@OP

 

You sir should watch yesterday's Twitch play through

 

here

That's funny.

 

Adam Brennecke's tweet:

 

@adam_brennecke: I hope the backer that really wanted people hanging from trees in #PillarsOfEternity is completely satisfied with the trailer.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Leferd

[Quantics]

Mmh, maybe the OP is actually Adam Brennecke then 

Edited November 14, 2014 by Quantics

[nipsen]

 

What is Pillars of Eternity?  A dark gritty rpg or a high fantasy style rpg?  

 

I don't remember anything about Pillar of Eternity being a dark gritty rpg.

 

Or, that sinister cultists thrive in Dyrford, in the catacombs of the ancient city the settlement was built on top of. That is a ludicrous, paranoid idea.

[Gairnulf]

In light of the twitch stream this discussion looks so funny

[Cantousent]

lol  "You're really fixated on that corpse."  hehehe

 

EDIT:  In all seriousness, I only watched a few minutes of the video and I muted most of it until they got to the first corpses.  I don't know if there were more, but I did like the atmospherics.  Well done.  I don't know if the odd cat or two likes it, but I was pretty stoked.  That's especially true since I know some of the scenes are light and sunny.  I do hope that they have more levity in the game than I've seen so far, but I would rather be surprised than watch everything available.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Cantousent

[ctn2003]

You mean like trails of lurmaster ? the knight guy that hung himself on the tower. lol yea it ads a lot but so far i dont htink thel ad to mutch more to the background.

[Adam Brennecke]

I'm not sure if you've seen the trailer yet. Check this out at the 27s mark. http://youtu.be/hCiO4P4ZixY?t=27s

 

We delivered.

[Leferd]

I'm not sure if you've seen the trailer yet. Check this out at the 27s mark.

 

We delivered.

That you did.

[Cantousent]

Okay, to be technical, our cat friend wanted corpses hanging from *trees,* not a bunch of corpses hanging from one really *big* tree.  So, Obsidz will have to go back to the drawing board and split that tree into at least two and I would make it three or four to hedge my bets.  Also, speaking of hedges, I want to see a hedge wizard made out bushes too.

[Labadal]

Okay, to be technical, our cat friend wanted corpses hanging from *trees,* not a bunch of corpses hanging from one really *big* tree.  So, Obsidz will have to go back to the drawing board and split that tree into at least two and I would make it three or four to hedge my bets.  Also, speaking of hedges, I want to see a hedge wizard made out bushes too.

I have seen bodies hanging from more than one tree. There's a body hanging from one in the pre-order trailer. Say they got the "trees" part right.

[Cantousent]

Okay, you got me!  Hey, I was willing to accept the corpses stuck in the bushes that they find early in that one video. 

[Lephys]

I have seen bodies hanging from more than one tree. There's a body hanging from one in the pre-order trailer. Say they got the "trees" part right.

Curses! And here I was just about to lawyer it up and say that that "one" big tree was actually a collection of smaller trees that had merged in their growth at some point in the past, perhaps all while casually polishing my monocle in a condescending fashion. 6_u