Why the hype?

[Leferd]

Pillars of Eternity is objectively better than Baldur's Gate.

[GreyFox]

Na it's not better than the BG games but it's really only a few terrible design decisions that are stopping it from being a 10...most of it is combat related...if the combat was any where near the rest of the game it could have been an all timer...but the combat is ****.

 

(cuz in the future some annoying things won't be there, such as the stupid backer NPC names and memorials)

Edited April 1, 2015 by GreyFox

[sim-h]

Pillars of Eternity is objectively better than Baldur's Gate.

 

In many respects, but certainly not all. It still needs a bit of work to become overall 'better', but I think it will end up there, with tweaks, patches and more content.

[takamorisan]

http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/factsopinions/

[Tigranes]

 

 

 

 

The two biggest things I miss are the memorable lines from BG1 characters (are there *any* in PoE?) 

 

 

Depends on how you define "memorable". Pillars characters talk like real-ish people, generally. BG1 characters talked like badly/over-the-top roleplayed characters from a particularly cheesy D&D game (good god the awful "I like/loathe character X!" stuff, it's cringeworthy). But because BG1 was a lot sillier, there was all the "Go for the eyes, Boo!" and so on.

 

 

It's true. They are different. But you won't remember any PoE character lines in 15 years, I'll tell you that much.

 

I do also appreciate the more 'realistic' nature of the PoE style. However when a game gives you lines you remember...well, for the rest of your life, you can't deny it's got a certain appeal.

 

My favourite is Montaron - "What part of 'I'm a loner' do ye NOT UNDERSTAND!!"

But I recently took on Shar-teel in BG1 for the first time EVER (hundreds of hours played). I think I'm in love. Now that's replayability!

 

 

There are some excellent, Torment-y lines in POE. E.g. ask Eder why he still believes in a dead god. 

[k1rage]

I think the hype comes from the Kick Starter origins

 

People felt invested in the game years before it was released, also it reminds people of Baulders Gate and other IE games which kind gets the nostalgia juices flowing combine these factors with the fact that the game is pretty solid (so far, im not that far into it but i feel comfortable say the game will be at worst "pretty solid") and people will get pretty pumped about a game

[GreyFox]

I'd like to see more companions as well...I agree that there aren't enough and no PS:T has nothing to do with it as I felt the same way back then too.

 

I hope with more budget they can do at least 1 companion per class...but around 12 total would be pretty sick.

[Horrorscope]

Why the hype? Because it has been forever since an IE game to be released. It is definately close enough to fall right in line.

 

Look at it like this, we have to start somewhere, they have to release, they have to stay in business. This is yet another investment towards more of this, even better.

 

Shadowrun would be a good example to look at. Returns comes out, good, but could be noticeably better. They make the Dragofall add-on, much better and continued support of it with Director Cut. Very good. Now they have Hong Kong. You'd expect Dragonfall and more, right?

 

So it is a solid start, nothing to be surprised that people are excited for the return with hopes this is just a re-start,

[demeisen]

Otherwise it is 50-60 seconds of loading time for just a 5-10 seconds "Resting" loading screen. This can easily be fixed though.

 

Holy smokes!  I believe you but..... on my 6 year old computer (Core7 920 2.6 GHz), from a hard disk (not an SSD), my area loading times are usually around 3 seconds.

 

That's on Ubuntu Linux 14.10, 8 GB RAM, with the GOG version of PoE.

 

I wonder if everybody having really slow load times is running off Steam maybe?  Or could be a Windows thing too, Windows is rubbish at disk IO compared to Linux from what I've seen in other games.

[Althernai]

1: Lack of replayability. There are not enough companions for replays to have much to offer. Yes I know you can make your own party members. But I never liked to do that in the IE games. I prefer the immersion of recruiting NPCs and having party members with some sense of personality. And eight is just one playthrough and change as far as I can tell. The eight there are are good. That isn`t the problem. But the way I play these games I will never play a monk, rogue or barbarian at all because there aren`t any.

Secondly it`s not open enough compared to Baldur`s Gate. Apart from Defiance Bay there`s only really ever one place you can go at any time, unless you want to be instantly killed of course. By contrast Baldur`s Gate had like 20 areas to choose between at any time and you could deliberately spend ages doing something completely irrelevant to the main quest. And you just can not in PoE.

Eight is enough for at least two playthroughs given that you can only have 5 in your party at a time. As to exploration, you are simply wrong: there are quite a few places you can go, both in the wilderness and in dungeons, that have nothing to do with the main plot. Unless you've been playing the game day and night, I don't see how you could have completed all of it. My guess is that you've skipped a great deal of the content.

2: Obscene loading times. There are just too many loading screens and they last for ages. At least 25 seconds is my experience and it just makes exploration a pain in the butt when it should be the best part of the game.

I think this is a bug. I have an SSD so it's not too bad, but yes, the loading times are longer than I expected them to be.

3: It is not better than Baldur`s Gate. And it should be considering that Baldur`s Gate is 17 years old.

It is better than the original Baldur's Gate. As many people have mentioned, the companion interaction in the original BG was very limited, the combat was low-level AD&D with all of the attendant problems and more generally the techniques that would make the IE games great were not quite refined. Is PoE better than BG2 and PS:T? I'm not done playing yet so I can't tell you that, but so far, it's certainly of the same order -- and that's saying a lot since those games benefit from the fact that most of us were much younger when we played them. I suspect that it won't have as much content, but even so it's a great start.

But it still has to be criticized fairly a and not be fawned over like some rediscovery of a species believed to be exitinct. "Look everyone it`s a dodo! Don`t raise your voices or say anything disparaging or it might die off again!"

Your criticism is not very fair though: you skipped or ignored most of the optional content and now you're complaining that there wasn't any. Also, it kind if is the rediscovery of a species believed to be extinct: there have not been any games like this for over a decade. We had variations on the theme (e.g. Dragon Age), but there just aren't any IE-like games anymore. The game is certainly not perfect, but I'm willing to cut it a lot of slack given that it is the first of its kind in so long.

[DocDoomII]

Honestly 8 NPCs feel quite adequate.

Baldur's Gate 1 had a ton of them. Some accessible only much later in the game. And I ended up never using them because by the time I had developed a certain amount of fondness for the ones I already had.

 

My roster varied based on my main character, but usually I always ended up with a mix of:

Imoen

Jaheira (glitch kicking Khalid most of the times)

Branwen

Viconia

Xan

Minsc (glitch kicking Dynaheir most of the times)

Ajantis

Kivan

 

But there were 25 possible companions in total.

[Ted Striker]

Stopped reading when he started complaining because the game isn't modeled specifically for him and his play style. Lame post.

[kat7ra]

Honestly 8 NPCs feel quite adequate.

Baldur's Gate 1 had a ton of them. Some accessible only much later in the game. And I ended up never using them because by the time I had developed a certain amount of fondness for the ones I already had.

 

My roster varied based on my main character, but usually I always ended up with a mix of:

Imoen

Jaheira (glitch kicking Khalid most of the times)

Branwen

Viconia

Xan

Minsc (glitch kicking Dynaheir most of the times)

Ajantis

Kivan

 

But there were 25 possible companions in total.

Which allowed for a VERY varied party, depending on the player, and that is a good thing.

25 is a lot, but 8 seems to be a tad bit little. and so far I can't say I've met anyone that I can consider as good as Edwin, Imoen, Viconia, Sarevok, Jaheira and Khalid or Minsc yet. And those characters managed to seem stronger and deeper even with their extremely limited dialog.

[Emerwyn]

Opinions, opinions. Mine is that PoE is a jewel that I can't stop playing, 92/100 (bugs keep it from being higher). Apparently my thoughts are in the same line with the vast majority, but if they weren't it wouldn't matter to me. It's me who has to decide if a game is fun for me, not anyone else.

 

Luckily, the game is not only being fun, it's also being incredibly addictive.

 

Then again, just my opinion, which is as unimportant as let's say... yours.

[CaptainMace]

and so far I can't say I've met anyone that I can consider as good as Edwin, Imoen, Viconia, Sarevok, Jaheira and Khalid or Minsc yet

 

Yeah I remember how deep and interesting was Khalid stuttering... More seriously I see what you mean. Yet it's obvious that companions in PoE are closer to the design idea of PST than BG... that's why I don't get the grief about it, it's just not the same companion design logic at all. Yet the IWD self-made-team-of-aces is although possible in POE, so imo, it's actually way better than BG in terms of replayability in regards of team composition.

 

(btw Durance and GM > any BG character)

Edited April 1, 2015 by CaptainMace

[SuperNose]

Yeah, that's pretty fast. I'm about 20 hours in and am just on my way to Defiance Bay (after just finally beating the Eosathasian temple quest in Gilded Vale, that hive of scum and villainy).

 

Off topic here...but HOW?! I just remade my character yesterday, and to be fair I'm playing on easy. But it took me 13 hours in my first play through to reach Defiance Bay, and this time 5 and a half(again, to be fair I skipped a lot of text this time as I already knew what it said and how I wanted to respond). I'm doing everything I can find(outside of doing Endless Paths). What all am I missing that's taking everyone SO much longer to do? I haven't run into any serious issues with Mobs either, except the Feral Druids in Stormwall Gorge.

[Jimmious]

Maybe what we're missing from BG I&II are the discussions between the companions. They forged their characters a bit better I think. 

[Leferd]

Maybe what we're missing from BG I&II are the discussions between the companions. They forged their characters a bit better I think.

What.

[CaptainMace]

There was no discussion between companions in BG1, unless you consider the random "i like you" "thanks" and "i don't like you" "well f**k you too" as conversations.
Internal fights were cool, but of course wouldn't work with only 8 companions, that's the only thing I'd miss... and yet I wouldn't care past the first playthrough since I wouldn't, obviously, build a team with non-compatible companions.

[Emerwyn]

I think people think too much of BG's characters because of the rosy retrospection they have on them. Like everyone in my generation thinks Sephirot was the greatest villain ever, and objectively thinking he's lame and cliche. It's just a matter of timing, growing with it leads you to think that nothing can equal it any more.

 

Anyway, I like Durance and Pallegina, but I could just as well play with a fully custom created party and enjoy the game the same.

 

I value PoE for being PoE, not for trying to be BG. If I want to play BG, guess what I'll do? That's right, I'd install BG.

[Jimmious]

There was no discussion between companions in BG1, unless you consider the random "i like you" "thanks" and "i don't like you" "well f**k you too" as conversations.

Internal fights were cool, but of course wouldn't work with only 8 companions, that's the only thing I'd miss... and yet I wouldn't care past the first playthrough since I wouldn't, obviously, build a team with non-compatible companions.

Yeah actually BG2. I mean the "party banter", eg from Edwin:

[DocDoomII]

 

Honestly 8 NPCs feel quite adequate.

Baldur's Gate 1 had a ton of them. Some accessible only much later in the game. And I ended up never using them because by the time I had developed a certain amount of fondness for the ones I already had.

 

My roster varied based on my main character, but usually I always ended up with a mix of:

Imoen

Jaheira (glitch kicking Khalid most of the times)

Branwen

Viconia

Xan

Minsc (glitch kicking Dynaheir most of the times)

Ajantis

Kivan

 

But there were 25 possible companions in total.

Which allowed for a VERY varied party, depending on the player, and that is a good thing.

25 is a lot, but 8 seems to be a tad bit little. and so far I can't say I've met anyone that I can consider as good as Edwin, Imoen, Viconia, Sarevok, Jaheira and Khalid or Minsc yet. And those characters managed to seem stronger and deeper even with their extremely limited dialog.

 

Hm, I'm not entirely sure.

In Baldur's Gate 1 they were seriously flat. The only good thing was that they had some quirk, or trait that made their personality likeable. And they all had their catchphrase:

Yes oh omnipresent authority figure?

We are all doomed!

Back kicking for goodness!

 

And so on.

 

In PoE I feel they are more like normal people with interesting pasts.

Just 2 conversations with Durance and I'm swept away with his backstory.

[CaptainMace]

There are banters in PoE, maybe you missed 'em.

[sim-h]

 

And those characters managed to seem stronger and deeper even with their extremely limited dialog.

 

I agree with this - but I cannot for the life of me define WHY, when the PoE scripts are more detailed and the characters should feel more fleshed out (and *are*, actually).

 

There are a number of threads out there on the interweb about how stellar the voice acting cast for BG were. Maybe they just had that extra something 'special'. And presumably expensive...

 

[edit] NO DISRESPECT TO THE PoE voice actors!! (runs away...)

Edited April 1, 2015 by sim-h

[Jimmious]

There are banters in PoE, maybe you missed 'em.

Quite possible, I am not soooo far anyway. Only just before D.B.

I've only had them talk to me after resting some times