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Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers

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Boeroer

Boeroer

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Sure, it's cool to make it into the game in one way or another. But the gold plated NPCs were all over the place and the stories they had felt totally decoupled from the rest of the game. The stories there didn't offer lore nor any info about the game, the main quest line or anything. And you couldn't do anything with the info you got. If they had any dialogue...

 

There's one npc called "the Vulture" with a very gruesome story. I would have liked to speak to him or just knock him right down to the floor after reading his soul - but this would just lead to the whole tavern aggroing me - unsatisfying. Once I understood that they are contributions of backers you could understand why they have no connection to the rest of the game, but it also completely removed any motivation to read their textual contributions. Because... way too many and too much text. As I said: not bad writing per se - it just felt out of place. That's not the fault of the backers.

 

On the other hand I really liked the backers' items. No spellbinding rogue is complete without Taluntain's Staff. :) Some of the nicest items come from backers.

 

Obsidian had not much experience with including backer recognition into a game. The tombstones (oh my) and golden plated NPCs were not my favorite at all, but the items and the Wailing Banshee for example were very nice. I also like backer portraits and such. That stuff blends in.

 

Or think about how ol' Gromnir made it into BG2. Very well done integration.

 

I know that the Black Isle Bastards will make a much better impression than "random" NPCs that are just standing at some spot for no obvious reason (some with very weird stories). They'll have a story that's embedded into the rest of the game, they'll have dialogue and thus a connection to the game. And this time OBS had much more freedom when it comes to "fleshing out" the BiBs. I think they will be great. Even the in-game recognition is done in a way that it doesn't break immersion (the ledger that lists the BiB's victims and loot).

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IndiraLightfoot

IndiraLightfoot

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Posted (edited)

I know that the Black Isle Bastards will make a much better impression than "random" NPCs that are just standing at some spot for no obvious reason (some with very weird stories). They'll have a story that's embedded into the rest of the game, they'll have dialogue and thus a connection to the game. And this time OBS had much more freedom when it comes to "fleshing out" the BiBs. I think they will be great. Even the in-game recognition is done in a way that it doesn't break immersion (the ledger that lists the BiB's victims and loot).

^This! I'm really looking forward to those cranky bastards and learning about their fates.

Edited by IndiraLightfoot
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*** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***

 

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Blades of Vanatar

Blades of Vanatar

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Is it just me or are you guys looking forward to meeting the ‘know it all mayor’ of a town named Gromnir who no matter what argument you state he has answer for it.....

 

Meant purely as a compliment btw.....

 

.... and of course they end every answer with’Great Fun!’

Edited by Blades of Vanatar

No matter which fork in the road you take I am certain adventure awaits.

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anameforobsidian

anameforobsidian

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In good CRPGs with plenty of companions, it usually works like this for me:

-The first playthrough is the atmospheric, magical one. I try to make a decent main character, but I take along companions, and try to see if I like them or not.

-The second is either another story-playthrough, but with new companions and a few of my favourites, or a first attempt at a power-gaming party (if I can roll all characters myself)

-The third or the fourth run may be for some crazy shenaningans, a solo run, for instance, or a lop-sided party with nothing but my favourite builds

-Heh, but if I'm crazy about a CRPG, like NWN2, which I have played through, MotB included, over 20 times, I end up doing absurd things. I have actually done an entire playthrough of NWN2 OC+MotB with a weird van Helsing crossbow-wielding arcane archer/ranger/wizard/rogue build, which was somewhat gimped, but it looked like classic van Helsing and was quite a challenge.

 

Mine was a bear mage in NWN2.  It was a horrifically gimped build, but it was also a bear that could cast fireballs.  Pillars captured a lot of that craziness, but not all.

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Doppelschwert

Doppelschwert

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In good CRPGs with plenty of companions, it usually works like this for me:

-The first playthrough is the atmospheric, magical one. I try to make a decent main character, but I take along companions, and try to see if I like them or not.

-The second is either another story-playthrough, but with new companions and a few of my favourites, or a first attempt at a power-gaming party (if I can roll all characters myself)

-The third or the fourth run may be for some crazy shenaningans, a solo run, for instance, or a lop-sided party with nothing but my favourite builds

-Heh, but if I'm crazy about a CRPG, like NWN2, which I have played through, MotB included, over 20 times, I end up doing absurd things. I have actually done an entire playthrough of NWN2 OC+MotB with a weird van Helsing crossbow-wielding arcane archer/ranger/wizard/rogue build, which was somewhat gimped, but it looked like classic van Helsing and was quite a challenge.

 

Mine was a bear mage in NWN2.  It was a horrifically gimped build, but it was also a bear that could cast fireballs.  Pillars captured a lot of that craziness, but not all.

 

 

The last time I played through SoZ, I made it a point to make every character as ridiculous as possible. My main character was simply called 'the harvester':

A ranger/fighter with two-weapon fighting and monkey grip, swinging two two-handed scythes, one in each hand, while his dinosaur companion distracted his sorry prey.

The build was utter trash, summing up all those penalties to base attack, but there was something magnificient to a dude that wielded two scythes and turned into a whirlwind of scythe blades with 7 (?) attacks each round.

 

The only other character of that party that I remember was a bard/blackguard, which was mechanically gimped as well.

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Beyond The Sea

Beyond The Sea

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Well, there's not much new information to discuss it appears.

 

Among our companions, we have men who are attracted to men and women who are attracted to women.

Sawyer on Tumblr 3 weeks ago

 

Men and women would imply more than one each, for example one gay man and a bisexual one. It might have been just a turn of phrase so to speak.

 

Some companion relationships are romantic, but many are not.

Sawyer on Reddit 5 months ago

 

How much is many at 7 companions? I will interpret this as lower chance for a 1 homosexual, 1 bisexual, 1 heterosexual split.

 

As for the writers of companions.

 

Aloth: Carrie Patel

Edér: Eric Fenstermaker?

Maia Rua: ???

Pallegina: Josh Sawyer

Serafen: ???

Tekēhu: Paul Kirsch

Xoti: ???

 

Megan Starks was brought over from Tyranny alongside Paul Kirsch according to Carrie Patel in the February Q&A.

 

Does anyone know who wrote Serafen, Maia or Xoti?

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Madscientist

Madscientist

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Some comments to the things above:

 

- I agree that the implementation of backers ( golden NPC, gravestones) was terrible, because it was disconnected from the rest of the game.

TToN did it better. They had a gravestone for each backer, but  you never met them in the normal game. You had to go through this area an you can spend hours reading all those graves, but you never see the rooms with the graves if you follow only the story.

The best thing would be to use good ideas from backers in the game (like the BLB) and accept that most people will never know that those were made by backers. All others are just mentioned as a name in the credits. I have no idea which content of PoE, TToN or other games have been made by backers and thats good because it means that the content fits to the game.

PS: I created a character for the game Glitched. When the game is released and you find a mad scientist there he could be from me. But even the beta is so full of crazy ideas that you might miss some. I do not care, its enough when I know that I created something.

PPS: Where did Gromnir day he created a part of BG2? I could not find this.

 

- About the story of PoE.

Somebody compared it to MotB. Well, story wise I liked MotB more. There your soul eater thing was a game mechanic so you were always reminded that you have to find a cure. I did not like the mechanic as I had to be a good char who suppresses his hunger all the time because I play so slow that the hunger would kill me fast, but story wise it made lots of sense.

In PoE it is mentioned that you will become insane a few times, but nothing of this created any sense of urgency or even lots of desire to continue because of this. I know that I have all the time in the world and the bad guy will wait at me at the end of the dungeon forever. The worst thing were the expansions in this regard. By themselves the expansions were great, even better than the base game. But if you can go to a different area and spend lots of time there with things unrelated to the main story, the idea that you have to find Thaos in order not to become insane felt not that importent.

BG1 (and it looks like PoE2) make it better. You have a clear goal, but you are invited to explore a large world where you will find interesting things that may or may not be related to the main story.

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Boeroer

Boeroer

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He did not create a part of BG2, he was put in there by the developers.

 

we see the recent thread where folks is complaining about backer inscribed tombstones in poe being immersion breaking. brings back fond memories o' the meltdown numerous boardies had when they heard that Gromnir would be included in bg2... which were later changed to tob. Gromnir killed "immersion." HA! makes the tombstones seem tame by comparison.

From a thread of 2015...

Edited by Boeroer
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Mannock

Mannock

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He did not create a part of BG2, he was put in there by the developers.

 

we see the recent thread where folks is complaining about backer inscribed tombstones in poe being immersion breaking. brings back fond memories o' the meltdown numerous boardies had when they heard that Gromnir would be included in bg2... which were later changed to tob. Gromnir killed "immersion." HA! makes the tombstones seem tame by comparison.

From a thread of 2015...

 

 

I thought the inclusion of Gromnir in ToB was awesome. Very fitting.

 

A shame it had such a backlash. I remember Dave Gaider saying on the old BioWare forums (or if it was twitter, or both, I can't remember now) that it was such a negative feedback that he'd never go back that route again (if it were up to him).

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I'll do it, for a turnip.

 

DnD item quality description mod (for PoE2) by peardox

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Boeroer

Boeroer

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Thing is: if you played the game and met Gromnir Il-Khan you would never suspect that. He's integrated into the game in a way that it fits seamlessly. And that's good. When I played ToB I didn't even have a stable internet connection and never visited a forum. So I had no idea that Gromnir in ToB was based on a forum persona.

 

So, not much to regret I would say. Only a few people in the forum knew about this and were pi**ed? First of all: why? And secondly: 95% of all players didn't care...?

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Mannock

Mannock

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Thing is: if you played the game and met Gromnir Il-Khan you would never suspect that. He's integrated into the game in a way that it fits seamlessly. And that's good. When I played ToB I didn't even have a stable internet connection and never visited a forum. So I had no idea that Gromnir in ToB was based on a forum persona.

 

So, not much to regret I would say. Only a few people in the forum knew about this and were pi**ed? First of all: why? And secondly: 95% of all players didn't care...?

 

I think there were more forum persona integrated into ToB than just Gromnir. One or more of these were annoyed that BioWare didn't ask regarding their inclusion into the game. That's where a lot of the flak came from.

 

But otherwise I agree with you, it was seamlessly integrated in a very good way.

I'll do it, for a turnip.

 

DnD item quality description mod (for PoE2) by peardox

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Wormerine

Wormerine

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Thing is: if you played the game and met Gromnir Il-Khan you would never suspect that. He's integrated into the game in a way that it fits seamlessly. And that's good. When I played ToB I didn't even have a stable internet connection and never visited a forum. So I had no idea that Gromnir in ToB was based on a forum persona.

 

So, not much to regret I would say. Only a few people in the forum knew about this and were pi**ed? First of all: why? And secondly: 95% of all players didn't care...?

Same here. I was wondering why Gromnir sounded familiar and not so long ago someone pointed out that he had a cameo in Throne of Bhaal. Me mind was blown.

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Madscientist

Madscientist

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OK, I remember Gromnir from ToB but until now I did not know he was based on a forum member ( or that internet forums existed at that time ;))

Many things in computer games are inspired by real world things. As long as the game is good  I do not care if the origin of a char is an ancient king or a forum member.

Yes, 95% of all players will never know and most of the remaining 5% likes it or does not care.

Its just that the few remaining people make lots of noise.

Well, you cannot please anyone :shrugz:

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Blades of Vanatar

Blades of Vanatar

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Immersion is awesome and makes for a great game, no doubt. But the addition of a minor thing added in game to represent a backer who put his/her/their time and money into the development of the game is a good thing. If someone has an issue with that they need to step back from their gaming system, take a deep breath, think about all of the important things in life and most importantly remember it’s just a video game.

Edited by Blades of Vanatar
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No matter which fork in the road you take I am certain adventure awaits.

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Beyond The Sea

Beyond The Sea

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Back from the Versus Evil partnership announcement forum FAQ from September. 

What is this partnership about?

 

This is similar to other publishing partnerships in the gaming industry: Versus Evil is taking the lead on marketing and distribution of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, while working very closely with Obsidian’s internal development, marketing, and PR teams. Versus Evil can devote its considerable resources to expanding the reach that Deadfire can attain, while Obsidian continues to focus on making the best possible game.

From the link in the tweet named above.

“When we first started working with Obsidian on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, we knew that we wanted to make sure that we created a great physical product that matched the quality of this RPG”, said Steve Escalante General Manager of Versus Evil. “In partnering with THQ Nordic, not only did we find a team that is passionate about the product, but has the distribution and reach we hope to achieve with a physical edition of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.”

Does it seem normal to seek a publisher for phyiscal destribution a few months before planned release? You think Versus Evil overestimated it's capabilities? I wonder what the owners think.

Edited by Beyond The Sea
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IndiraLightfoot

IndiraLightfoot

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It sure sounds perfectly reasonable. Versus Evil is a US-based publisher, and THQ Nordic is located in Vienna, Austria (a perfect central location in Europe, close to other major cities like Budapest, Munich, Milan, Prag, Zagreb, Warzaw, Belgrade, Bern, Berlin, Lyon - heck, even Bucharest, Sofia, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Copenhagen, and Kiev).

Edited by IndiraLightfoot

*** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***

 

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Beyond The Sea

Beyond The Sea

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What do mean geographically? I thought what they're saying is THQ is meant to take care of phsyical copies.

 

https://eternity.obsidian.net/news/obsidian-and-versus-evil-partnering-with-thq-nordic-for-physical-distribution-of-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire

THQ Nordic to globally distribute (excluding Korean version) the physical edition of the upcoming RPG in partnership with Versus Evil and Obsidian Entertainment

For all the openness in development, the business side of Obsidian is kept under lock and key as much as any other developer.

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