Why the hype?

[CaptainMace]

Well banters actually trigger, from what I've noticed, only in cities, maybe only in big cities. I remember that during my exploration of the Bay, anytime I'd exit a building or transition through the districts, a banter would proc. There seem to be a lot of 'em by the way.

 

So yeah, it's normal you haven't witnessed any yet, I understand your worries now.

[Jimmious]

Well banters actually trigger, from what I've noticed, only in cities, maybe only in big cities. I remember that during my exploration of the Bay, anytime I'd exit a building or transition through the districts, a banter would proc. There seem to be a lot of 'em by the way.

 

So yeah, it's normal you haven't witnessed any yet, I understand your worries now.

This makes Jimmious happy

Btw I already feel a connection with the companions in PoE, I do want to see what's up with each one of them. It will only get better then! yeah!!

[TheUsernamelessOne]

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

[Archaven]

Sorry TLDR. There's no hype but the game is awesome especially the combat.

[CaptainMace]

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

 

You do realise the game sold itself, and still does, as a game combining "exploration of BG, combat of IWD and narration of PST" right ? I'm not saying it succeeds in all of that, but that'd be foolish to consider illegitimate the comparision with all IE games.

Edited April 1, 2015 by CaptainMace

[Leferd]

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

Because the closest comparison is Baldur's Gate and not Icewind Dale.

[Althernai]

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

Because it's not actually all that similar to IWD. Also, IWD was probably the least well known and the least acclaimed of the IE games so it's not a very good reference point.

[Benny Mendt]

But for the life of me I can`t understand the hype over the game which seems almost hysterical to me. After having finished the game 

I stopped reading here.

[TheUsernamelessOne]

 

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

 

You do realise the game sold itself, and still does, as a game combining "exploration of BG, combat of IWD and narration of PST" right ? I'm not saying it succeeds in all of that, but that'd be foolish to consider illegitimate the comparision with all IE games.

 

 

Who's interested in what they said it would be? It is what it is. It has plenty of similarities to Baldur's Gate, just like Icewind Dale did. But it's still closer to Icewind Dale.

 

Besides, if they said it would be just a spiritual successor to Icewind Dale, they wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as much funding. Back in the day, Icewind Dale made the mistake of being a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl trying to compete with Diablo. You can guess how well that turned out for them, seeing as Black Isle went bankrupt while Blizzard makes embarrassing amounts of money today.

 

The only people who played Icewind Dale were freaks like me, and I don't think even Icewind Dale fans were clamoring for a spiritual successor to basically what amounted to a D&D campaign run by a sadistic madman with nearly nonexistent roleplaying.

[sim-h]

 

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

Because it's not actually all that similar to IWD. Also, IWD was probably the least well known and the least acclaimed of the IE games so it's not a very good reference point.

 

 

I loved BG and BG2 but barely got started with IWD because you didn't start at level one, you 'rolled' mulitple characters up front and it was more combat-centric. I've still not played more than an hour of it - the box is on my shelf next to BG/BG2.

[blansten]

I am really enjoying PoE and do not feel disappointed. Not a perfect game by any means but Certainly as good as BG2 and far better than BG1 for me.

[Varana]

PoE doesn't quite reach the level of BG2, in my opinion. But that's nothing to worry about.

BTW, BG2 didn't have many free areas to explore. Every map was tied to a story much more than quite a few PoE nature maps like Black Meadows, Magran's Fork and the like. There you have BG1-like maps that pretty much only exist for you to uncover that black fog of non-exploredness, clean them out and later on have some place to put minor side quests in.

PoE doesn't have them as much as BG1 (which is a good thing), but a bit more than BG2 - which was exactly what they said during development.

 

Regarding companions, I don't think it's necessarily the writing. BG1 companions had very little dialogue at all. And after PS:T, BG2, and DA:Origins, I don't think that you can ever go back to BG1 companion dialogue and call that satisfactory for an IE-style game.

I do think, however, that there's a lot of nostalgia involved. BG1's influence, esp. on people who write on PoE boards, probably can't be overstated, and many have played it multiple times. We do remember (most of) its companions (Eldoth, anyone?), but not for their stellar writing, but because they've been in a game that we've been playing to death for almost two decades.

 

Edit: IWD - no. Both IWDs were good games - but mostly for atmosphere and tactical combat, which were great. But to be anything like IWD, PoE has way too much dialogue and description, way too much focus on story and world-building, and much too memorable companions.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Varana

[sim-h]

PoE doesn't quite reach the level of BG2, in my opinion. But that's nothing to worry about.

BTW, BG2 didn't have many free areas to explore. Every map was tied to a story much more than quite a few PoE nature maps like Black Meadows, Magran's Fork and the like. There you have BG1-like maps that pretty much only exist for you to uncover that black fog of non-exploredness, clean them out and later on have some place to put minor side quests in.

PoE doesn't have them as much as BG1 (which is a good thing), but a bit more than BG2 - which was exactly what they said during development.

 

Regarding companions, I don't think it's necessarily the writing. BG1 companions had very little dialogue at all. And after PS:T, BG2, and DA:Origins, I don't think that you can ever go back to BG1 companion dialogue and call that satisfactory for an IE-style game.

I do think, however, that there's a lot of nostalgia involved. BG1's influence, esp. on people who write on PoE boards, probably can't be overstated, and many have played it multiple times. We do remember (most of) its companions (Eldoth, anyone?), but not for their stellar writing, but because they've been in a game that we've been playing to death for almost two decades.

 

Black Meadow and Magran's Fork feel smaller than the BG1 maps - but they are GREAT still. I agree BG2 was lacking in that department too, but so huge you soon were glad of that!

 

As I noted earlier it's not the writing that's slightly lacking. In my opinion it's the voice acting doesn't add much to the writing or bring it to life particularly well. No problem with it - it's fine, just not awesome.

 

[edit] I accept it's probably just nostalgia. Probably.

Edited April 1, 2015 by sim-h

[TheUsernamelessOne]

 

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

Because the closest comparison is Baldur's Gate and not Icewind Dale.

 

 

 

 

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

Because it's not actually all that similar to IWD. Also, IWD was probably the least well known and the least acclaimed of the IE games so it's not a very good reference point.

 

 

And how exactly is it dissimilar from Icewind Dale?

 

Yes, there are optional companions, as in Baldur's Gate. You can also make your own, like in Icewind Dale.

 

Baldur's Gate was less obsessed with game balance, for better or worse. Generally you'd steamroll over most encounters, maybe be stymied by certain monsters until you figured out some cheap way to take them out, and the boss fights tended to be pretty hard. In Icewind Dale, most encounters felt harsh. Even at higher levels you couldn't just sleepwalk through routine fights.

 

Pillars definitely takes the Icewind Dale approach to dungeon design; they're teeming with dozens of enemies, and there's almost no monsters in the game that your party can just swat aside with auto-attack.

 

I personally think it's a very good example of old school vs. new school thinking of encounter design. In Baldur's Gate, you felt powerful rampaging through a bunch of weak enemies and then things would slow down when you ran into a boss or miniboss (which was usually something suitably epic, like a powerful wizard or a dragon) and then you had to play tactically. In Icewind Dale every encounter is potentially deadly; often even standard enemies have better stats than your party, have some dirty trick at their disposal, or just come in vast numbers. Often the boss fights, to the extent that there are any, aren't actually that much more difficult than the encounters leading up to them.

 

One thing Pillars does that none of its predecessors did is give you potential outs to skip lots of encounters, or even whole dungeons, if you have the right skills or whatever.

[Bhazor]

I think perceptions are seriously tinted by nostalgia when it comes to the party members in BG 1 & 2. For the most part they barely spoke. It certainly was nowhere near as dialog dense as Planescape or even Dragon Age.

 

The writing in PoE in general is very high quality. But it lacks the core of the games where Avellone was lord and master. In Planescape and Kotor 2 every conversation or side quest or plotline was thematically linked to the central themes of the story. Planescape revolved around identity and belonging. Kotor 2 revolved around the political and ethical considerations of military interventionism and that Jedi's are actually just a bunch of bickering jerks. In contrast PoE has central concepts but then it gets side tracked with long meandering quests that don't link to any of it and kind of just do their own thing. Y'know, like Baldur's Gate 2.

[crabe]

 

And how exactly is it dissimilar from Icewind Dale?

 

 

 

 

IWD was a boring super linear succession of maps/dungeon, Poe and BG, not

[grumbold99]

 

PoE doesn't quite reach the level of BG2, in my opinion. But that's nothing to worry about.

BTW, BG2 didn't have many free areas to explore. Every map was tied to a story much more than quite a few PoE nature maps like Black Meadows, Magran's Fork and the like. There you have BG1-like maps that pretty much only exist for you to uncover that black fog of non-exploredness, clean them out and later on have some place to put minor side quests in.

PoE doesn't have them as much as BG1 (which is a good thing), but a bit more than BG2 - which was exactly what they said during development.

 

Regarding companions, I don't think it's necessarily the writing. BG1 companions had very little dialogue at all. And after PS:T, BG2, and DA:Origins, I don't think that you can ever go back to BG1 companion dialogue and call that satisfactory for an IE-style game.

I do think, however, that there's a lot of nostalgia involved. BG1's influence, esp. on people who write on PoE boards, probably can't be overstated, and many have played it multiple times. We do remember (most of) its companions (Eldoth, anyone?), but not for their stellar writing, but because they've been in a game that we've been playing to death for almost two decades.

 

Black Meadow and Magran's Fork feel smaller than the BG1 maps - but they are GREAT still. I agree BG2 was lacking in that department too, but so huge you soon were glad of that!

 

As I noted earlier it's not the writing that's slightly lacking. In my opinion it's the voice acting doesn't add much to the writing or bring it to life particularly well. No problem with it - it's fine, just not awesome.

 

[edit] I accept it's probably just nostalgia. Probably.

 

 

You should consider replaying. I've replayed most of the IE games in the recent past, thanks to dedicated people making them compatible for modern machines. PoE is not perfect but I think they've struck pretty much the right note. There was way too much random map exploration for no better reason than acquiring enough xp and loot in BG1 for many people. There's many hours of random exploration in PoE while giving you a decent reason to at least walk down the road through the middle of each one.

 

The characters are not as ample in quantity as BG2 but they're far more developed and layered than those in BG1. There's plenty of scripted interactions but they seem to kick in a lot more after you've done some in-game stuff on their side plots. I've really enjoyed Aloth and Kana questioning each other and already have plans ot ensure my next playthrough has a different mix to get more combinations to see what they say. I'm very relieved they don't 'bark' some rubbish when I click on them, that got very irritating in BG. I've spent more time playing one game of PoE than it would take me to do two playthroughs of BG1 + TotSC and there's still more to come.

 

Thematically I don't see this as anything like IWD, which was characterised by a very linear story progression and far greater combat focus. This has far more storyline, like the more celebrated IE games, and requires you to negotiate and make hard choices, not just kill one set of bad guys after another. The side quest content can be approached in whatever order you like. The sheer number of stat checks I cannot pass on this playthrough has me excited to play alternative characters to discover the options I haven't been able to explore on this run. There are also plenty of encounters you can pass relying only on your encounter powers if you have a solidly built team. In IWD your casters were practically unloading in every battle (with the tedious need to prebuff in many cases) and having to rest afterwards. 

Edited April 1, 2015 by grumbold99

[crabe]

I think perceptions are seriously tinted by nostalgia when it comes to the party members in BG 1 & 2. For the most part they barely spoke. It certainly was nowhere near as dialog dense as Planescape or even Dragon Age.

 

Right, but the few they have was just enough to give them strong personality and humor and a particular atmosphere to the game. Well done. I replayed BG1&2 EE past year and I had more fun than in 99, so I don't think it's nostalgia. (and BTW, I'm part of probably the very few preferring BG1...)

Edited April 1, 2015 by crabe

[TheUsernamelessOne]

 

 

And how exactly is it dissimilar from Icewind Dale?

 

 

 

 

IWD was a boring super linear succession of maps/dungeon, Poe and BG, not

 

 

Well, I'd disagree about Pillars of Eternity, actually. Whenever a dungeon crawl in Pillars extends beyond a couple of encounters it actually gets rather impressively tedious. As I said though, there's ways to skip a lot of the drudgery, something Icewind Dale did not offer.

 

Yes, I know that lots of people enjoy the combat, can't get enough of the combat, wish that you could get a copy of the game installed in your brain so you can fight the same generic wolves and oozes and spiders and zombies and ghosts and bandits and cultists you fight in every RPG ever made while you sleep because only doing it while you're awake can't satisfy you. I do not begrudge you this. All I'm saying is that I've been fighting wolves, oozes, spiders, ghosts, zombies, bandits, and cultists in real-time-pause-party-micromanagement-based RPGs for most of my life. I've done my time. I'm happy to just sneak around them, and I'm happy Pillars lets you do so in a lot of places.

[Stun]

What's with all the Icewind Dale hate? It had a better Story than BG1. The lore was more interesting. It lived and died on its combat and its dungeons, and it did both of them really really well.

 

Anyway, I'm not done with PoE yet. In fact I'm not even in act 3 yet. And I'm currently only on level 8 of the mega dungeon. So I'm not ready to rank it in light of the IE games. Not specifically at least. But I am comfortable in saying that if someone were to come on here and call it "IE game #6", I wouldn't correct them

Edited April 1, 2015 by Stun

[Flayedawg]

I don't hate the OP for his opinion. I don't share it, but I don't hate him for expressing it.

Like some other posters, however, I am a bit bewildered by some of the OP's opinions. For example, I'm looking forward to completing the game & then replaying it with a different main character & some different party members. Certainly I'm enjoying playing it as much as I ever did BG1, & almost as much as I ever did BG2. I sort of agree about the long load times, but it's not breakin' my game.

& that's my opinion.

[k1rage]

All this arguing about BG1/2 vs Icewind Dale vs pillars

 

When the fact of the matter is none can touch planescape torment lol

[CaptainMace]

 

 

Why does everyone compare Pillars of Eternity to Baldur's Gate when it's much more similar to Icewind Dale, the IE game that was made by the same crew as Pillars?

 

I've got my problems with Pillars but it shouldn't really be compared to Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or whatever. Compare it to its actual pedigree and it's a big step up in most regards.

 

You do realise the game sold itself, and still does, as a game combining "exploration of BG, combat of IWD and narration of PST" right ? I'm not saying it succeeds in all of that, but that'd be foolish to consider illegitimate the comparision with all IE games.

 

 

Who's interested in what they said it would be?

 

 

Pretty much all the (sane) backers.

[Stun]

All this arguing about BG1/2 vs Icewind Dale vs pillars

 

When the fact of the matter is none can touch planescape torment lol

PoE has better combat than PS:T. And better exploration. It's nicer looking. It has better Choice and Consequence. And it has a better Pen and Paper feel. Is it a better game? Again, not ready to say. Edited April 1, 2015 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

@Stun You know, for some reason it makes me very, very happy to hear you say stuff like that.

 

Also, I now dig what you said about BG2 and replayability. I didn't fall in love with it straight away like you did, but I'm loving the hell out of my umpteenth attempt. Thanks for pointing the way.