A bit more humor and silliness

[Lord_Mord]

 

Yeah no.  If there was ever an over rated video game writer it is him.  I am not saying he is a hack, he is even one of the principle writers on what I feel was the best written Obsidian game ever... Alpha Protocol.  That said, you don't "need" him to have a good game.  He also handled the situation from Eternity 1 very poorly and made many public statements that were not super professional. 

 

In the end, the team does deserve the trust of it's fans, with or without him.

 

That's exactly what I said. He is overrated. It's unfair that you picked this particular sentence, as I made myself very clear.

 

What I wanted to say is just that Durance and Grieving Mother were great characters. They completed the others. I think this added an important component to the whole game and gave me more access to the story. Especially Durance and his talk about the war gave me the feeling that this war thing was more than just blabber. Him being that ****ed up **** was an important counterpart to all those nice guys. It helped develop an interesting tension.

 

The team has my trust regarding things like artwork, creation of culture and history for the game world or game mechanics (Im totally on the vancian magic side, but if they say they want to go in a different direction thats sad for me, but OK, they know what they are doing). But storywise and regarding characters I dont really trust them. I dont know, which parts of the story and setting (Godhammer Bomb, The Twelve, Ashfall) came from Avalone and which parts didn't. I liked this stuff and I have the strong feeling that they are going to erase everything from the game that I liked. At least their statements so far point into that direction.

 

 

Grieving mother and Durance were just too disconnected from the real world

 

Grieving Mother ... maybe. Depends on how you can connect with this kind of thing. For me she also felt a little bit disconnected. But I'm totally shure, the problem was me, not the character. I still like her. Durance: Never. If you say that, you didn't get the character. He was integral on understanding the saints war, that means understanding the current state of the world. Durance represents an important part of the current world. You know, like with every war. Not everyone wants to talk about it the way Durance does and of course noone likes persons like Durance that talk about it. But it is there, even if people want to ignore it. Eder represents the part of the war generation that tries to look into the future, even if the past still is part of his life. Durance reprsents the past, he cant just move on. He was too involved.

 

 

And as this is a thread about humor: I liked Durance's humor. How come that if Hiravias makes dirty jokes, everyone consideres it funny. If Durance wants to find a home for his other stuff that is suddenly not so OK. Also how the other characters reacted to Durance was very funny. If you have no Durance, you can't make jokes about Durance.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Lord_Mord

[Lorfean]

And as this is a thread about humor: I liked Durance's humor. How come that if Hiravias makes dirty jokes, everyone consideres it funny. If Durance wants to find a home for his other stuff that is suddenly not so OK. Also how the other characters reacted to Durance was very funny. If you have no Durance, you can't make jokes about Durance.

 

I can imagine some players finding Durance unsettling, or being uncomfortable with him. Hiravias is a more straightforward "rude in a funny way" kind of character.

[FlintlockJazz]

I was under the impression that not everyone liked Hiravias, that he was a marmite character in that you either loved his jokes or you despised his very being.  That's the impression I always got anyway.  And going by the votes on the Obsidian website for your favourite Pillars character GM and Durance coming second and third, while Aloth is lagging far behind though I suspect that may be because those who liked Aloth tended to also like Eder and since he's coming first he's probably taking all the Aloth votes (perhaps we need an AV poll type?).

[Lord_Mord]

 

I was under the impression that not everyone liked Hiravias, that he was a marmite character in that you either loved his jokes or you despised his very being.  That's the impression I always got anyway.  And going by the votes on the Obsidian website for your favourite Pillars character GM and Durance coming second and third, while Aloth is lagging far behind though I suspect that may be because those who liked Aloth tended to also like Eder and since he's coming first he's probably taking all the Aloth votes (perhaps we need an AV poll type?).

 

I didn't knew any of this. What I read in the forum made me think otherwise. Also I got the impression that the opinion on the companions changed over time. I remember when Pillars was brand new I read totally different statements about many things.

 

Interesting, THX.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

 

I was under the impression that not everyone liked Hiravias, that he was a marmite character in that you either loved his jokes or you despised his very being.  That's the impression I always got anyway.  And going by the votes on the Obsidian website for your favourite Pillars character GM and Durance coming second and third, while Aloth is lagging far behind though I suspect that may be because those who liked Aloth tended to also like Eder and since he's coming first he's probably taking all the Aloth votes (perhaps we need an AV poll type?).

 

I didn't knew any of this. What I read in the forum made me think otherwise. Also I got the impression that the opinion on the companions changed over time. I remember when Pillars was brand new I read totally different statements about many things.

 

Interesting, THX.

 

As you said, opinions may have changed over time, and what I wrote was just my impression too, so I wouldn't take it as gospel.    Different forums probably have different opinions on the characters too, so its probably really hard to get a consensus, wouldn't be surprised if there was a forum where Durance was considered the sexiest character alive. 

 

If you're interested, the poll I mentioned is here: http://www.obsidian.net/component/poll/30-poe-favorite-companion you can also find it on the main page.  Interestingly enough I notice that it started on the 24th April 2015 and the last vote was today, so its been on the main page for a very long time...

[Slapstick87]

I definitively prefer a dark setting and tone, with sparse but well place humor, rather than having a dark setting too saturated with comic relief to be able experience an immersive and feelings-tugging dark-ish story. Showing people trying to cope with a hard and strenuous life, war and death, through a bit of humor is a much better experience to me than having overt comedy shoehorned into the game (Like a talking comedy relief weapon). The tone of PoE is a major part of why i like the game so much.

 

Durance is my favorite character. I dislike the *person* - but as a character he's great and I really enjoy the writing. Eder, Sagani, Aloth, Palegina are all great. Grieving Mother I dislike through-and-through. Hiravias is a bit too obvious to me. As if they're trying too hard. I really hope they continue the current style of seriousness with occasional quips, and don't go all D:OS on it.

 

I don't mind leaving "dead baby world", as long as I don't end up in "fantasy theme park world"

[Messier-31]

Josh wrote Ribsmasher. I suppose the concept was kinda funny.

 

 

Unsure if hilarious, or not  

[Varana]

As always, things aren't necessarily black and white.

 

Do I think Durance is a great character? Of course he is.

Is his story essential to the game or its world? Sure.

Did I like him? Hell no.

And, very importantly:

Was his story presented in a way conducive to the game?

And that's where I think he falls flat. He was artificially drawn out exposition. In the case of the GM, there was at least a hint of progress or the illusion of a closer bond. For Durance, he essentially decided at some point "okay, you clicked five questions for today, come back tomorrow, because reasons."

OTOH, comments like the staff thing were the ones I actually liked more. Or hacking kneecaps off of children, or whatever he proposed. It showed his personality, instead of using him as Godhammerpedia with UI issues.

 

If judging by Durance and GM, Avellone's characters are way more at home in a weird fantasy setting (Torment-like). PoE's dead baby world wasn't that weird, it was more, hmm, depressed horror. They didn't really fit in with it, as well.

[Regggler]

 

Josh wrote Ribsmasher. I suppose the concept was kinda funny.

 

Unsure if hilarious, or not

 

 

Meh, when in doubt, go for easily amused. Life's more fun that way.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am all for more humour in things - appropriate humour, of course. Babylon 5 (which is my gold standard for writing) could be frag-damn side splitting at times and PS:T had a few gems here and there.

 

Used right, humour can be an excellent tool for sharpening the contrast between the tonal highs and lows.

 

 

 

Durance (since we seem to be discussing him and GM) I didn't particulalry like as a character. I took him through the game a bit on sufferance, because I wanted a cleric - BUT, to be fair, the pay-off at the end of his arc felt like I got a reward for my efforts. GM was interesting, but (aside from repeating my "bwahahahahaha, two ciphers!!" lulz) I probably wouldn't have her as a companion on a second playthrough. She was interesting, but I did feel her lack of interaction with the other characters wasn't helpful (aside from the comment once from Eder about asking that random old lady in the street for help at one point, whih was mildly amusing). I might as well have just had a hired cipher 90% of the time. Kana (who she replaced) was a ore fun character (but one I found less mechanically satisfying.)

Edited March 1, 2017 by Aotrs Commander

[oddrheia]

Hmmm... I do think a lot of the "clever" dialogue in PoE1 wasn't particularly witty. Makes it hard to play a cheeky character. I hope they'll work on that.

 

If I chose a bone to pick with PoE's humor it would be that. I started my first character with intent of playing a cheeky scoundrel type, but trying to be 'clever' made her sound like a douche instead. Though, I guess it is more of a bone to pick with that disposition's dialogue, since the companions were more than capable of nuanced humor, unlike the pc.

 

Hopefully a somewhat less grim setting will lend itself to the pc's dialogue too!

[molotov.]

 

 

Yeah no.  If there was ever an over rated video game writer it is him.  I am not saying he is a hack, he is even one of the principle writers on what I feel was the best written Obsidian game ever... Alpha Protocol.  That said, you don't "need" him to have a good game.  He also handled the situation from Eternity 1 very poorly and made many public statements that were not super professional. 

 

In the end, the team does deserve the trust of it's fans, with or without him.

 

That's exactly what I said. He is overrated. It's unfair that you picked this particular sentence, as I made myself very clear.

 

What I wanted to say is just that Durance and Grieving Mother were great characters. They completed the others. I think this added an important component to the whole game and gave me more access to the story. Especially Durance and his talk about the war gave me the feeling that this war thing was more than just blabber. Him being that ****ed up **** was an important counterpart to all those nice guys. It helped develop an interesting tension.

 

The team has my trust regarding things like artwork, creation of culture and history for the game world or game mechanics (Im totally on the vancian magic side, but if they say they want to go in a different direction thats sad for me, but OK, they know what they are doing). But storywise and regarding characters I dont really trust them. I dont know, which parts of the story and setting (Godhammer Bomb, The Twelve, Ashfall) came from Avalone and which parts didn't. I liked this stuff and I have the strong feeling that they are going to erase everything from the game that I liked. At least their statements so far point into that direction.

 

 

Grieving mother and Durance were just too disconnected from the real world

 

Grieving Mother ... maybe. Depends on how you can connect with this kind of thing. For me she also felt a little bit disconnected. But I'm totally shure, the problem was me, not the character. I still like her. Durance: Never. If you say that, you didn't get the character. He was integral on understanding the saints war, that means understanding the current state of the world. Durance represents an important part of the current world. You know, like with every war. Not everyone wants to talk about it the way Durance does and of course noone likes persons like Durance that talk about it. But it is there, even if people want to ignore it. Eder represents the part of the war generation that tries to look into the future, even if the past still is part of his life. Durance reprsents the past, he cant just move on. He was too involved.

 

 

And as this is a thread about humor: I liked Durance's humor. How come that if Hiravias makes dirty jokes, everyone consideres it funny. If Durance wants to find a home for his other stuff that is suddenly not so OK. Also how the other characters reacted to Durance was very funny. If you have no Durance, you can't make jokes about Durance.

 

The complete quote was "Grieving mother and Durance were just too disconnected from the real world to be likeable... but I do understand why people liked them." They being disconnected from the real world don't mean that I didn't liked their story, I really liked both of their stories, what I meant is that It was impossible for me to like their personalities, I couldn't connect with them, GM had no personality whatsoever and Durance was too preoccupied with his quest to show some of his personality.

[Karkarov]

For those curious Avellone only wrote Durance and Grieving Mother, he was not involved in any other writing for Eternity 1.  So he had nothing to do with the main plot, or any major story beats. 

While Durance was a "good character" he also had nothing to do with the main plot of the game, his reasons for traveling with you are iffy at the absolute best, and when you think about it logically there is no valid reason you would want to bring him along beyond "he is a priest".  The most memorable, and best moments with him, are when other party members are mocking him.  That says a lot.

Grieving Mother is even worse, she is practically a non character.  She never shows much of any personality, she has no opinion about anything other than Waidwen's Legacy, and there is absolutely no reason at all she should travel with you or you should bring her along.  Her motivation is practically non existent, and her character development even on the best path ends with her only kinda sorta having a personality.  She was a major let down, on all levels.

I can't help but think that these two characters who have the least interest in your quest, who have the least reasons for being there, and are the most disconnected from the main plot are that way for a reason.  They were written by the same person.  So no, I don't mind that Avellone isn't back for round 2.

[molotov.]

For those curious Avellone only wrote Durance and Grieving Mother, he was not involved in any other writing for Eternity 1.  So he had nothing to do with the main plot, or any major story beats. 

 

While Durance was a "good character" he also had nothing to do with the main plot of the game, his reasons for traveling with you are iffy at the absolute best, and when you think about it logically there is no valid reason you would want to bring him along beyond "he is a priest".  The most memorable, and best moments with him, are when other party members are mocking him.  That says a lot.

 

Grieving Mother is even worse, she is practically a non character.  She never shows much of any personality, she has no opinion about anything other than Waidwen's Legacy, and there is absolutely no reason at all she should travel with you or you should bring her along.  Her motivation is practically non existent, and her character development even on the best path ends with her only kinda sorta having a personality.  She was a major let down, on all levels.

 

I can't help but think that these two characters who have the least interest in your quest, who have the least reasons for being there, and are the most disconnected from the main plot are that way for a reason.  They were written by the same person.  So no, I don't mind that Avellone isn't back for round 2.

Fatality.

[Lord_Mord]

 

real world

 

Oh you meant real world like real world. I can hardly remember how life is in the real world.

[eselle28]

I'm split on Durance and Grieving Mother. I thought Durance was very connected to the world around him and gave some good insights into how this society got into its current mess. I hated him at first sight, but I also thought it made sense to take him along as he and Eder were the only people I encountered who were familiar with the region. Durance was unlikable but Eder seemed less worldly, so it made sense to take both of them. (As for motivation to travel with me, only Aloth had compelling ones to both join my party and stay with it to the end of the game. Most of the other characters just wanted to trade my assistance for their assistance, and were nice enough to stick around once their quests were done, so I don't judge Durance's motivations too much.) And he did inject some humor into the game, even if it was humor that made me cringe at the same time I laughed.

 

Grieving Mother didn't work at all for me, though. She's a fascinating concept on paper and is a character I've never seen in a game before. She also has extremely limited interests, seemed pretty distant from much of what I was doing, and often felt like a puzzle to solve rather than a companion who I could imagine having some sort of reciprocal relationship with. I also think she suffered from a lack of party banter. I can appreciate the concept, but it practice, it resulted in my party feeling like it was a five-person one rather than a six-person one with an odd, mystical presence. If there were a few more times companions noticed and then forgot about her, she might have worked better, or perhaps the concept would have worked better for me if the other companions were chattier and I didn't have time to actively miss her banter.

[darqleo]

 

"Two of the characters that many loved (durance and grieving mother) were for me far too long winded and distant. I had them at my party for mechanical reasons but I hated them to death." I couldn't agree more...

 

Not sure where you get the idea that Durance and Grieving Mother are well loved... I agree with your statements though.

 

 

There was a "favorite companion" poll on Obsidian's front page (or maybe in the forum itself) many moons ago, IIRC #1 was Eder with Durance/Grieving Mother filling out the 2 and 3 positions followed by everyone else.

Edited March 1, 2017 by darqleo

[Karkarov]

There was a "favorite companion" poll on Obsidian's front page (or maybe in the forum itself) many moons ago, IIRC #1 was Eder with Durance/Grieving Mother filling out the 2 and 3 positions followed by everyone else.

That is true.  But that poll sucked, as I said in that thread, because it only let you pick your favorite.  You could not rank them.  If you could rank them, I am willing to bet Durance and GM would be significantly lower on the poll.  They are characters you either like or hate, but the people who don't like them can't be reflected in a poll where you can only vote for your favorite.

 

Meanwhile Eder was also #1 by a mile, it wasn't even close.

[demeisen]

I thought Durance was well done.

​

​He was not likable, but not all characters need to be.

 

He made the game more interesting that it'd have been without him along.

​

​I didn't like him.  I liked not liking him.

​

​

[Lord_Mord]

While Durance was a "good character" he also had nothing to do with the main plot of the game, his reasons for traveling with you are iffy at the absolute best, and when you think about it logically there is no valid reason you would want to bring him along beyond "he is a priest".

 

As even my own motivation to follow the main plot is pretty unclear to me, I see no problem here. I have no interest in curing my watcher abilities, as I find them interesting and I don't think some guys in robes standing around a stone is a good reason to assume some "sinister plot".

 

Maybe Durance and Grieving Mothers reason ist just that they are interested in the watcher? In GMs case the fact that someonw can actually see her should be enough. And after all the whole reason for everyone in this game to follow you is just "because you're a watcher".

[Lord_Mord]

 

If you could rank them, I am willing to bet Durance and GM would be significantly lower on the poll.

 

Maybe, but the point was to vote for your favourite character.

[Leferd]

Really though, Durance is that crazy, smelly vagrant hobo you may feel sorry for and buy a meal -- only to have him then loudly question your and everyone else's commitment to God and make things really uncomfortable before someone has to call the cops. He's THAT guy.

[takamorisan]

No thanks, don't want a meme game.