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Ydwin to return in the expansion?


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Well, never had any feeling about all that anime Ydwin stuff,  if they "de-anime'd" her on purpose because of a few, very insistent, detractors, i don't approve that action itself, but the portrait it's cool.

 

It was all wip, that was never a final rendition. It also wasn't in the style of portraits.

 

 

As far as I am aware this is the only portrait we have ever gotten of her. The things that made everybody insane was some kind of concept sketch.

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Well, never had any feeling about all that anime Ydwin stuff,  if they "de-anime'd" her on purpose because of a few, very insistent, detractors, i don't approve that action itself, but the portrait it's cool.

 

It was all wip, that was never a final rendition. It also wasn't in the style of portraits.

 

 

As far as I am aware this is the only portrait we have ever gotten of her. The things that made everybody insane was some kind of concept sketch.

 

 

That's what I mean by wip, work in progress. By it not being the portrait, it's style didn't really what the team would imagine her to be like.

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Well, never had any feeling about all that anime Ydwin stuff,  if they "de-anime'd" her on purpose because of a few, very insistent, detractors, i don't approve that action itself, but the portrait it's cool.

 

It was all wip, that was never a final rendition. It also wasn't in the style of portraits.

 

 

As far as I am aware this is the only portrait we have ever gotten of her. The things that made everybody insane was some kind of concept sketch.

 

 

That's what I mean by wip, work in progress. By it not being the portrait, it's style didn't really what the team would imagine her to be like.

 

 

Funny enough, there isn't that much difference between her portrait and the concept art released. Similar haircut, similar face shape, glasses in both and the part of her top we can see is the same color (black). Going by the neck scarf/tie they don't seems to have changed her clothing either. It's all Victorian era clothing style (half-body cape, neck scarf/tie, suit-like styled clothing).

 

The only difference is her face expression, where she looks more serious in the portrait than the concept art.

 

Oh and she has red eye which shouldn't be a surprised, Pale Elf are considered to be borderline albinos.

Azarhal, Chanter and Keeper of Truth of the Obsidian Order of Eternity.


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I think a face says a lot about a character though. Especially when realized with detail. Evidence is that this portrait was wildly different than many were expecting after seeing the rather simple clean face in the concept work.

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Holy bajeebus. 28 pages?! This is like 24-hour news coverage... Haha. Or 24-hour sports coverage.

 

"That's right, Phil. In the past few years, we've seen a lot of starters with concept art in the 70-points-per-game range, but Ydwin's definitely looking like a play-maker here today. I think she's going to go out there and really be explosive."

 

"I dunno, Steve. We've also got folks like Aloth out there, who consistently leads the pack in both the passing game AND destructiveness. He's an elf as well. I'm just not sure Ydwin's gonna be able to carve out a slice of his kingdom out there on the court."

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Should we not start with some Ipelagos, or at least some Greater Ipelagos, before tackling a named Arch Ipelago? 6_u

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I have no idea what you people mean when you say "anime." It's a noun, not a verb.

 

Anyway, I really like the idea of Ydwin becoming a companion in an expansion. Or, rather, I like the idea of *all* of the sidekicks becoming companions in the expansion, rather than getting *new* companions. Especially if the additional banter/dialogs can be side-loaded into the game.

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I have no idea what you people mean when you say "anime." It's a noun, not a verb.

 

Anyway, I really like the idea of Ydwin becoming a companion in an expansion. Or, rather, I like the idea of *all* of the sidekicks becoming companions in the expansion, rather than getting *new* companions. Especially if the additional banter/dialogs can be side-loaded into the game.

While I would like to see new people who would tag along with expansions I am slowly getting around creating existing sidekicks into full fleshed companions, assuming of course, the expansions will work in similar fashion to White March and not be standalone. The problem with making full companions with expansion is that they need to retroactively fit with the whole game. It is not impossible but it is tricky to do if expansion takes place later in the game. So what I would like to see is one of the sidekicks becoming full companions AND one new sidekick being added with expansion.

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Someone being "upgraded" to a companion from a sidekick. I really don't like that. It's cheap as hell. Even if they completely remake the character it's still not good. You play through the vanilla game, and pick up Ydwin. Play her dialog, banter, etc. Then you play the expansion and she totally changes mid/post game for no reason. Or you pick her up and she is just more fleshed out. 
I'd much rather have a new companion than a rework/expanded one. If they want to do stuff with Ydwin, they can wait until a potential third entry to the series. 

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You play through the vanilla game, and pick up Ydwin. Play her dialog, banter, etc. Then you play the expansion and she totally changes mid/post game for no reason.

 

They already did this with the Stronghold in PoE1. Changes from 3.0 did not work retroactively, so you had to start a new game to benefit from it.

It would be of small avail to talk of magic in the air...

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You play through the vanilla game, and pick up Ydwin. Play her dialog, banter, etc. Then you play the expansion and she totally changes mid/post game for no reason.

 

They already did this with the Stronghold in PoE1. Changes from 3.0 did not work retroactively, so you had to start a new game to benefit from it.

 

That's nothing alike. The stronghold was a game system that OE deemed lackluster after vanilla game feedback. Hence they expanded on it. Ydwin is a character, they will write within the restrictions of a sidekick. They already gave people a chance to make it a full companion. I don't care if it's Ydwin or any other popular sidekick. Making it a full companion in the expansion instead of introducing a new companion is lazy, cheap, and uninspired. 

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honestly, i don‘t see it as an issue if the difference between a sidekick and a companion is romance and personal quest(s) and if the expansion is planned to carry on the story after the end of the main game like say ToB. Think of the difference between Minsc and Jaheira, you take out the personal quests from Jaheira and her romance dialogue and she‘s a Minsc-type character. Also, there‘s quite some players who felt that the Jaheira romance started too early after her husband‘s death. So, it depends on Ydwin‘s story IMO.

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honestly, i don‘t see it as an issue if the difference between a sidekick and a companion is romance and personal quest(s) and if the expansion is planned to carry on the story after the end of the main game like say ToB.

That’s not really true. What we know about full companions is:

 

1) they will have their own story arch. Now this is a big deal and one of the reasons I have been against (I am sort of coming around but not fully yet) to idea of “upgrading” sidekicks. Creating companions you have to create for them a dilemma to solve and tie them to the main story in a way so they will be influenced by what is happening around them. Josh did call it as one of the challenges which makes it so time consuming for writers to write a full companion. Not only they have to create a fun character but they also need to think how will this character develop throughout the game and how your choices or conversations with them will influence them as characters. Sidekicks will be simply fun characters who will agree to join your quest. They might have their own opinions, and banter but they will not develop or change throughout the game. Companions quests do add to that but saying that companions = sidekick + a quest is not true if anything hinted by Obsidian is to be believed.

 

2) relationship system - this time around companions are supposed to track your behaviour/decisions with various preplanned reactions/story arch directions playing out depending on how much they approve/disapprove your actions. It was confirmed multiple times (ever recently by Josh) that companions will also interact with EACH OTHER positively or negatively. How much of a big deal will it be (just flavour text or possibility of harsher actions - characters trying to kill each other, refusing to be together in a party etc) remains to be seen.

 

Overall, with companions Obsidian advertied system similar to something have have attempted before (companions in KOTOR2 for example) though much more refined, flexible and detailed than ever before. How well it will work, and how complex it will really be in the final game is to be seen but so far it has been described as a rather big deal and one of the flagship features of Deadfire.

 

And important note: relationship system is not the same as romance option. It seems that with some companions, if your behaviour really suits them it will be possible that a romance will happen. But it will not happen with every companion. They are not aiming for a specific amount of romances and the whole thing was described as: “if it makes sense with the character and their story arch we might put it in”.

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Now this is a big deal and one of the reasons I have been against (I am sort of coming around but not fully yet) to idea of “upgrading” sidekicks. Creating companions you have to create for them a dilemma to solve and tie them to the main story in a way so they will be influenced by what is happening around them. Josh did call it as one of the challenges which makes it so time consuming for writers to write a full companion. Not only they have to create a fun character but they also need to think how will this character develop throughout the game and how your choices or conversations with them will influence them as characters. Sidekicks will be simply fun characters who will agree to join your quest. They might have their own opinions, and banter but they will not develop or change throughout the game.

 

Indeed.

 

Let us imagine the amount of companion-worthy work:

 

1 companion = 1 set of interactions (1 with the player)

2 companions = 3 interactions (2 with the player, 1 between the companions)

3 companions = 6 interactions (3 with the player, 3 between the companions)

4 companions = 9 interactions (4 with the player, 5 between the companions)

5 companions = 15 interactions (5 with the player, 10 between the companions)

6 companions = 21 interactions (6 with the player, 15 between the companions)

7 companions = 28 interactions (7 with the player, 21 between the companions)

 

This is what we have now, 7 fully fledged companions! Now let's throw in sidekicks turned companions, shall we?

 

8 companions = 36 interactions (8 with the player, 28 between the companions)

9 companions = 45 interactions (9 with the player, 36 between the companions)

10 companions = 55 interactions (10 with the player, 45 between the companions)

11 companions = 66 interactions (11 with the player, 55 between the companions)

 

This gives us roughly:

  • 28% more work with 1 additional companion
  • 60% more work with 2 additional companions
  • 96% more work with 3 additional companions
  • 135% more work with 4 additional companions

 

It will either be quickly-badly written or someone will quit their job  :sweat:

Edited by Messier-31
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It would be of small avail to talk of magic in the air...

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@Wormerine

what you say makes sense. Under these circumstences, writing a sidekick into a companion doesn't make much sense, the gap between them is too big.

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Daily reminder that you are not obliged to get all the companions and sidekicks, your game won't fall apart if that option is available for you :^)

 

Yeah, but it would be nice to have at least one companion that  fits my taste. Like Durance for exmple. To be honest: All the others were just fillers to me.

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We're all doomed

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What if... the sidekicks were kind of "stickied" to certain areas? So, like, you go to one of the islands and you bump into Steve, the sidekick. He doesn't just go with you on your ship to wherever you need to go. He's got his own stuff going on, and it's not flexible enough to coincide with your agenda, except maybe in certain dungeons/areas. That way, they could have a much more focused story, for a reason. If you go into The Dungeon of Blah-Blah, they'll go with you. Otherwise, they're off doing their own thing while you go do your stuff, whenever it's not where they want to be at the time. But you keep bumping into them throughout the game, so they're a part of the "whole game."

 

Then, later, in an expansion, they actually become a full companion, and now you get to have them in your party permanently and be that much closer to their now-much-more-elaborate story, which was really this elaborate the whole time, you just didn't see this much of it in the main game.

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Should we not start with some Ipelagos, or at least some Greater Ipelagos, before tackling a named Arch Ipelago? 6_u

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What if... the sidekicks were kind of "stickied" to certain areas? So, like, you go to one of the islands and you bump into Steve, the sidekick. He doesn't just go with you on your ship to wherever you need to go. He's got his own stuff going on, and it's not flexible enough to coincide with your agenda, except maybe in certain dungeons/areas. That way, they could have a much more focused story, for a reason. If you go into The Dungeon of Blah-Blah, they'll go with you. Otherwise, they're off doing their own thing while you go do your stuff, whenever it's not where they want to be at the time. But you keep bumping into them throughout the game, so they're a part of the "whole game."

 

Then, later, in an expansion, they actually become a full companion, and now you get to have them in your party permanently and be that much closer to their now-much-more-elaborate story, which was really this elaborate the whole time, you just didn't see this much of it in the main game.

I always liked an idea of joinable companions, who wouldn't be your property and would have their own lives. However, that would go against the function Obsidian wants sidekicks to fulfill. They want you to have a variety of classes to choose from, and they wanted them to be interesting, interactable characters (I for one never used custom made adventurers.) However, they wanted to deepen companions as well, which made it problematic as it meant more work per companions. As they didn't want to leave people with only 7 people to choose from, they looked at how unevenly BG2 companions were designed and decided to both have cake and eat it. So you have 7 fully developed companions and 4 sidekicks for variety. 

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