The problem with straying to far from Dungeons and Dragons.

[Elerond]

 

Metroid: Other M

Huh? That's a dumb name. Good thing no such game actually exists.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid:_Other_M

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Vs7Mlj8VY

Edited March 15, 2015 by Elerond

[Tamerlane]

Why did you quote me and make a blank post?

[Elerond]

Why did you quote me and make a blank post?

 

I put link to wikipedia article about game and video that didn't first work in it

[Tamerlane]

Still seeing nothing. Just a big blank post.

[anameforobsidian]

I don't really care for D&D lore, personally. I'm not really savvy on the "infinite lore" and this makes me rather apathetic. Traditional fantasy worlds are sort of stagnant hellholes because magic makes technology unnecessary, but that's another story.  Sort of. Traditional Fantasy, which includes D&D, is aping off of Tolkien who was aping off of Germanic folklore (probably some other folk-lore too.) I don't think it's fair to say they're taking D&D races unless the Drow and the Gythyanki start showing up.

 

At the end of the day, the lore doesn't matter. What matters is the story, which should be able to stand independently from the setting. Setting is just a context for the narrative and the themes explored. It's essentially a special effect.

 

A young George Lucas said it best:

"A special effects are just tools: a means of telling a story. People tend to confuse them with an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."

 

Jesus.  What happened to old George Lucas?

[IndiraLightfoot]

I adore D&D for many reasons - a love going decades back (mostly from table-top, though) - and still I see no problem diverting from it for a game like PoE. Many mechanics are pretty wonky for CRPGs, and which D&D version are we talking about?

[Kal Adan]

 

While Pillars of Eternity is a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate

 

Nope

 

I'll quote Chris Avellone (

):

Baldur's Gate was our target title for what we wanted Project Eternity to be. It felt like Baldur's Gate encapsulated all of the elements we were shooting for. We felt that a number of players out there missed that Baldur's Gate experience and would want to see it again. And when we launched our Kickstarter: Boy, were we right!

It's rather direct statement.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Kal Adan

[Rafkos]

Why even care about Forgotten Realms? They've created their own lore and I'm really excited about it, I know that most of you want to feel the nostalgia again but, let's be honest, you'll never play such a game as BG again, you'll play PoE with its own lore and story. I hope they create a rich, immersive world in which they could make expansions and sequels and I hope this game will be far more great than BG.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Rafkos

[Rhaeg]

Different people, different tastes, I guess. Or as in my case, different times, different tastes.

 

When I was still a kid I loved Forgotten Realms and read dozens and dozens of those FR novels. I thought Drizzt was the best thing to have ever been committed to a page and I could spend many hours reading "fake history" from those FR campaign boxes. I tried Tolkien but couldn't get past the first hundred pages of Lord of the Rings. Such old-fashioned crap!

 

When I was 18 years old I tried it again when I was bored on an afternoon and for some reason the story sucked me in further and further. I was completely hooked on this book now and finished it in record time. I guess I just was too young earlier and maybe my English wasn't good enough yet, I don't know. But apart from now being a huge Tolkien fan I also couldn't stand those FR novels anymore. Just like that. Nowadays I find the entire FR setting an utterly hollow, incoherent mess which had too many mediocre authors contributing to it by introducing yet another character with godlike powers: chosen of this god, special superduper descendant of that race, all of them starring in novels that lack something you could call a plot and are just pages and pages of people throwing fireballs or having sword fights. It shouldn't even be allowed to compare that to Tolkien's modern mythology of the Silmarillion.

 

Or at least that's what I think, now. As I'm sure there are many other people who do not think D&D is the best fantasy has to offer (and as stated by others here it most certainly wasn't the first from which all other fantasy originated, please!). So @OP: how could you ever call it a "pit fall" if someone wanted to create ""new IP which may or may not stay true to the feel of D&D"? If PoE's new setting is very different from existing D&D stuff, it means it could turn out to be better or worse than it and that is something that will differ from person to person. If it really were a pitfall to try something different in fantasy, it would mean every writer or game designer would have to stick with copy-pasting from Wizards of the Coast until the end of times. As if fantasy isn't cliché enough as it stands... *shudders*

Edited March 15, 2015 by Rhaeg

[teknoman2]

not using DnD is the best decision they made about this game

[BruceVC]

not using DnD is the best decision they made about this game

 

What !!! That's heresy...sacrilegious ...I'm surprised you don't get banned from the forums for such statements  

[Nonek]

I've never had much affinity for the Realms, or AD&D itself, and I was a big supporter of the movement that tried to broaden the scope of the game back in the nineties. Planescape, Athas, Ravenloft, Birthright, they were all trying to bring a fresh coat of paint to AD&D, because it really needed it. The Realms are overpowered, monty haul boredom personified, even Greyhawk looks far more interesting. My own home brewed system and settings were in the end far more imaginative and satisfying to play through, rather than another copy and paste god killing spree in Toril.

 

As for the CRPG's I did not particularly like BG1, I had played Ultima 7 just before and it was a clear degeneration, with no environmental interaction, no NPC routines, no open world untouched by loading screens, and far less detail, content and features. BG2 was far more satisfying, in part because of the richness of the locale in a well realised Amn, but was still limited by the Realms. ToB was one of the worst expansions i've ever played, boring, overpowered, and indicative of all the problems the Realms and high level AD&D share. IWD was good for narrative, setting, music and combat situations. Torment was a masterpiece of course that i've showered far too much praise upon.

 

All told I have no particular affinity for the IE games, I simply want another Obsidian game, and to see where they can go when unrestrained by publishers. I'm in fact a little disappointed that they chose a Realms like world, but when investigated the details of the setting are quite unique and the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

[BruceVC]

 My own home brewed system and settings were in the end far more imaginative and satisfying to play through,

 

A bit of subjective praise there wouldn't you say Nonek...I guess you were also the best DM you had ever seen 

[Nonek]

Yes it is subjective and that is the point, I found my system far more satisfying and frequently urge other GM's to do the same if they want a perfect individually tailored system. As for GM's, no a friend of mine whom now works in the pen and paper industry was always a better GM, especially his old Warhammer campaigns which I remember fondly.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Nonek

[Sedrefilos]

D&D is there for everyone to delve into. Let's do something new, shall we? (I mean let the devs do something new )

[deserk]

Speaking as a Realms fan, I find the world that Obsidian has created to be very fascinating.

Especially since it seems to be in a mix of a Medieval and Early Colonial Age period, which i haven't seen much of in fantasy before. And having played the beta test, I have to confess that I just love shooting people in the face with arquebuses, and the explosive, fiery sound of gunpowder!

At first, I was disappointed they wouldn't be going with RPG set in Faerun, since the guys at Obsidian seem to really love this setting and understand how to utilize it in an interesting and nuanced way. They know how to make good and rich Forgotten Realms games. But that they have ended up not making one, is not really their fault at all, That's WotC's fault for being so restrictive with their license and their poor choice in choosing to support a bland, trashy failure of an MMO like Neverwinter, instead of supporting the creation of true RPGs that hearken back to the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series. I'm very sure Obsidian would have liked to make an FR game, but ultimately WotC chose not to allow them to do so.

[gkathellar]

OP, it seems like you're assuming that no new ideas can be better than good old ideas, without giving their creators any opportunity to prove themselves. Sure, the larger sweep of Dungeons & Dragons has produced a lot of cool, weird, wonderful stuff (especially the less traditional settings, like Dark Sun, Birthright, Red Death, Eberron, and Ravenloft, and the supersettings of Planescape and Spelljammer). Part of why there's so much good material is the sheer quantity of it, an inevitable result of its long history and the many, many people who were involved in writing it.

 

But once, a long time ago, it wasn't any good, because it didn't exist. It didn't have a long history. It didn't have hundreds of imaginative people cranking out material and ideas for it. It was only after people gave D&D a chance to grow and develop that it produced one of the biggest, strangest, most wonderfully varied universes that has ever been imagined. And if you don't give the Obsidian people a chance to show you their own universe, how is it supposed to rival the one you already like?

 

Also, on another note, I think that when you say, "the IE games were good because they were set in the Forgotten Realms," you have it backwards. FR is a big dumb setting with a lot of big dumb things about it. The IE games took some of the better material, and made certain segments of the setting work - but it was the games that made FR look good, not the other way around.

 

(I do not like the Forgotten Realms.)

 

Dragon Age is a perfect example there, I have never hated a setting in a game quite as much as that, so generic, so bland, so.... Tolkien

 

Wait, Dragon Age's setting is about magical forest supermen and divinely sponsored monarchies fighting a proxy war against not!Lucifer on behalf of a council of archangels and Norse deities, where all the wizards are actually ancient spirits, religion never comes up because it's assumed that everyone is roughly Christian, and basically all of the conflict in the setting was caused by one lady's really nice hair?

[etagloc]

A pit fall that I hope Obsidian isn't making with POE, a supposed spiritual successor to BG, is creating a new IP which may or may not stay true to the feel of D&D. The problem with a new IP, is creating an "original" IP based off of D&D lore without using D&D lore and history... in itself isn't new or refreshing, rather its what EVERY Fantasy game that isn't a D&D game does. Lets take Dragon Age for example, DAO used its own IP, with elves and dwarves and magic, all with its own spin and ideas. Where did it go wrong? The amount of lore, races, history and over all plot potential, would fit in a chapter of a BG or NWN game. You have to save a continent from an army of undead blighted beings? That's almost like how I sealed away a Demon Prince, a being who could go toe to toe with gods, or the time I stopped the Drow from sacrificing a Silver Dragon egg to the lower planes in exchange for a demon army, or was sealed away in a multi dimensional mage chamber which later became my personal dimensional space ship. Many people liked DAO, but from a story and writing point of view, it fell laughably short to BG2.

POE is going off there own path, that's fine... as long as they keep D&D themes and lore and history alive in the background, without it, we're going to have a game as much of a spiritual successor to BG2 as World of Warcraft, or Everquest... games that go "We have elves and dwarves, just they are OUR elves and dwarves" no infinite lore from D&D books, no rich, already fleshed out cultures and races, and potential world threats... just another fantasy game.

I could not disagree more with this post. 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

On a purely lore basis, PoE will not compete with D&D immediately. The Forgotten Realms (chiefly), has had dedicated writers for decades. I'm betting the plot and intrigue within PoE will be its greatest success (IE: writing), so there are no concerns of the luke-warm, tired, "save Middle Earth Ferelden from the horde" trope. I've written it many times before, but I feel one of the most obvious problems with PoE will be that it tries to be "not D&D". This is viewable in everything from the classes, races, and spells. Orlans might be the exception. The problem is that it doesn't commit to be the "anti-D&D" that PS:T was. That game was a deliberate subversion of the entire franchise and genre. PoE to me feel more like someone trying to reinvent the wheel by making it elliptical instead of circular. It moves...but questionably. The IP is very new, and the mechanics will likely not survive past the expansion, so there is plenty of time. So long as PoE's story, characters, and immersion success, the brand will have time to find its way. Today's RPG audience cares far more for those than game play.

 

PS: I'm very happy they strayed from the middle ages and have flirted with a renaissance period. That's an excellent choice.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Mr. Magniloquent

[gkathellar]

 The problem is that it doesn't commit to be the "anti-D&D" that PS:T was. That game was a deliberate subversion of the entire franchise and genre.

 

Planescape was a D&D setting preceding PS:T by 5 years, so ... that claim is a little bit off.

 

PS: I'm very happy they strayed from the middle ages and have flirted with a renaissance period. That's an excellent choice.

 

It's not so much that they've strayed from the middle ages, since most fantasy settings are Medieval In Name Only. For example: early versions of plate armor first came into use in the 13th century, after all - while the earliest firearms may have existed as much as 600 years earlier. Going for the Renaissance angle is as much about technological realism as it is about doing something different.

[Ted Striker]

While it's safe to swim in the deep ocean that is D&D, this new lore from PoE can open up new avenues to build something just as deeply engaging and exciting. I'm more that willing to give it a chance, especially after watching all of the BB videos. It's looking pretty damn good to me, and I can't wait until next week to experience it. 

[Nonek]

I've got to say that one thing that interests me is the effect firearms will eventually have in Eora, namely the shedding of plate armour en masse, with the exception of a few heavily armoured holdouts such as cuirassiers. I would personally like to see this in a setting, with the sturdy buff coat or more exotic harness being favoured by sellswords and roisterers. Mechanically however I imagine that implementing this would be enormously complicated, without the clear progression of padded to plate as a familiar guidestone.

[Zobra]

I am really happy Obsidian is going there own route. One of my favorite settings for an RPG was Arcanum. I think the freedom they get with creating their own world brings out so much creativity, basing your world on other peoples creation 'hinders' the creativity and force you down paths that feels tame and makes it feel cliché.

[gkathellar]

I've got to say that one thing that interests me is the effect firearms will eventually have in Eora, namely the shedding of plate armour en masse, with the exception of a few heavily armoured holdouts such as cuirassiers. I would personally like to see this in a setting, with the sturdy buff coat or more exotic harness being favoured by sellswords and roisterers. Mechanically however I imagine that implementing this would be enormously complicated, without the clear progression of padded to plate as a familiar guidestone.

 

Plate actually held on for a fair while after firearms appeared, adding more curvature to its design to help repel bullets. If you consult training manuals, you'll find that heavy cavalry studied how to fight with and against guns. It's as firearms improve in accuracy and power that plate goes out of fashion, but the age of the arquebus is also the age of plate, pikes, longswords, rapiers, and bucklers.

[Nonek]

Yes, thus the use of eventually in my first sentence. Thank you however.