Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers, part III

[morhilane]

 

Eh, I'm not convinced. People will buy it if it has little to nothing to do with the first game's story. And why not? The first game's story is pretty complete.

 

Exactly. They made first Pillars without having in mind it'll ahve a sequel. And, tbh, Deadfire might be a continuation of the main character but not of the first game's story. It has nothing to do with Thaos and the LEaden Key or anything. It's about Eothas coming back and you chasing after him.

 

 

Thaos might be gone, but a recent stream tells me we aren't done with The Queen That Was nor her followers.

 

As for Eothas, I suspect the current plot hook we know might be slighty misleading going by Josh recent quote to tease Critical Role.

"You do not need to follow me, for their sake or your own. Something beautiful is coming, something that will save us all."   - Eothas

 

Edited April 14, 2018 by morhilane

[injurai]

 

I think the most important thing when developing sequels is to maintain character continuity, and stay consistent with the established canon.

 

Otherwise games can be a single story arc in a series of relatively independent stories.

What’s wrong with single story arcs? As long as they are in the same system/game world they could easily be completely fulfilling.

 

 

You'll find I argued they are fine as long as certain efforts are made, just as you've done.

[CottonWolf]

On accessability to new players, don't forget that Deadfire's bringing in Tyranny's tag system, so people'll be able to mouse over the names of in world things they don't have the context for and get it explained. And really, beyond the names of factions, Pillars' story isn't too complicated. Just make it clear that the gods are super AIs and you can speak a forgotten language in the introduction, and everything else could probably be picked up through context.

[The Sharmat]

No one says this about anything but videogames. If someone chose to read Lord of the Rings starting with the Two Towers, you'd think they were crazy. It's only video games that are expected to have either little to no continuity or tons of recap. I don't know how this happened but it's universal to the medium and will prevent meaningful continuations from ever occurring.

 

That assumption is untrue. Going back to early 80s (I’m old...) some video game trilogies required completion of game 1 in order to continue in game 2. Other trilogies did not. It all depends on the developer.

Interesting. I've never played any game that old. I wish they hadn't stopped doing that.

[Wormerine]

 

No one says this about anything but videogames. If someone chose to read Lord of the Rings starting with the Two Towers, you'd think they were crazy. It's only video games that are expected to have either little to no continuity or tons of recap. I don't know how this happened but it's universal to the medium and will prevent meaningful continuations from ever occurring.

That assumption is untrue. Going back to early 80s (I’m old...) some video game trilogies required completion of game 1 in order to continue in game 2. Other trilogies did not. It all depends on the developer.

First of all Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy: it consists of 8 parts, which were distributed via 3 books. None of those are sequels, as none of them are stand alone books. A better comparison would be an episodic TellTale release. PoE1 is a stand-alone game with a complete story arc. Deadfire hopefully will be the same. While they share protagonist, they don’t share the same story arc. Even if there will be a bigger storyline it’s clear that devs think one game at the time.

 

Making each game stand on its own is a better business model. Games age quickly and if you tell someone they need to play couple games before they try the new release they are unlikely to dive in. Release multiple standalone connected instalments and they might go back though. You expand your audience instead of shrinking it as time goes by.

 

I don’t know 80s game, but I certainly feel that in 90s sequels were aimed more at people who played 1st nstalments rather than trying to gain new crowds - stories would jump right into the action, characters weren’t reintroduced, games lacked tutorials assuming you know what to do, difficulty would be steep as devs assumed you are familiar with basics.

Edited April 14, 2018 by Wormerine

[Sedrefilos]

 

I don’t know 80s game, but I certainly feel that in 90s sequels were aimed more at people who played 1st nstalments rather than trying to gain new crowds - stories would jump right into the action, characters weren’t reintroduced, games lacked tutorials assuming you know what to do, difficulty would be steep as devs assumed you are familiar with basics.

 

 

Or, at least, they assumed you read the manuals

[Katarack21]

 

Eh, I'm not convinced. People will buy it if it has little to nothing to do with the first game's story. And why not? The first game's story is pretty complete.

 

Exactly. They made first Pillars without having in mind it'll ahve a sequel. And, tbh, Deadfire might be a continuation of the main character but not of the first game's story. It has nothing to do with Thaos and the LEaden Key or anything. It's about Eothas coming back and you chasing after him.

 

Exactly. Each story is connected to the same set of underlying thematic ideas and narrative keys--the Saint's War, the nature of the Gods, the Engwithans, etc.--but is a complete and separate story in it's own right.

[The Sharmat]

I don’t know 80s game, but I certainly feel that in 90s sequels were aimed more at people who played 1st nstalments rather than trying to gain new crowds - stories would jump right into the action, characters weren’t reintroduced, games lacked tutorials assuming you know what to do, difficulty would be steep as devs assumed you are familiar with basics.

 

A better time.

 

Incidentally I hate the way this forum handles replies now and I give up wrangling with nested quotes.

[Blades of Vanatar]

 

 

I think the most important thing when developing sequels is to maintain character continuity, and stay consistent with the established canon.

 

Otherwise games can be a single story arc in a series of relatively independent stories.

What’s wrong with single story arcs? As long as they are in the same system/game world they could easily be completely fulfilling.

You'll find I argued they are fine as long as certain efforts are made, just as you've done.

Completely misread it. My bad.

[Blades of Vanatar]

 

I don’t know 80s game, but I certainly feel that in 90s sequels were aimed more at people who played 1st nstalments rather than trying to gain new crowds - stories would jump right into the action, characters weren’t reintroduced, games lacked tutorials assuming you know what to do, difficulty would be steep as devs assumed you are familiar with basics.

 

Or, at least, they assumed you read the manuals

Back in the 90s it was safe for them to assume so as there were far less games and far less players, let alone no easily accessed info from the net. The net was blowing up back then, but still in its infancy. So players only had their manuals to rely on. I love manuals and hate today’s model of download the game and print your own manual or read the pdf file. (I’ll probably never shed my old school ways.

[The Sharmat]

I miss those big fat 100 page manuals with tons of useless fluff information.

[Madscientist]

My 2 cents about this:

I do not care if the second game is a direct successor of the first or not because there are good ( and also bad ) examples for both types.

I will tell some good ones.

 

Yesterday I have finished Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2. Its the second part of the cold steel arc and you would not understand much of the story if you did not play part 1 because part 1 presents you all characters and starts the story and part 2 starts exactly where part 1 ends. Both games ( and also all Trails in the Sky games ) are great, but you have to play them in the right order to understand anything.

 

The Final Fantasy series are now 15 games ( actually even more ) and most of these games have nothing to do with each other, only the combat system and some other things evolved over time.

 

So there is no problem with boht concepts. Lets look at western games:

I have played BG2 before BG1 and I had no problem with it. The game starts whith you being kidnapped by the bad guy, you escape and go after him. Its nice to know what happened in BG1 but it was not neccessary to play BG1 before BG2 to know whats going on.

Same goes for PoE2. A giant statue becomes alive, crushes you and your home and you go after it. Thats enough reason for a story of its own. The story of PoE1 is not neccessary to understand it. Players need only to know 2 concepts to understand the world: What is the cycle of souls and what is a watcher. That knowledge should be enough to understand and enjoy PoE2 because it is in another part of the world, you face a new problem and the old problem was solved at the end of PoE1.

[VincentNZ]

 

 

No one says this about anything but videogames. If someone chose to read Lord of the Rings starting with the Two Towers, you'd think they were crazy. It's only video games that are expected to have either little to no continuity or tons of recap. I don't know how this happened but it's universal to the medium and will prevent meaningful continuations from ever occurring.

That assumption is untrue. Going back to early 80s (I’m old...) some video game trilogies required completion of game 1 in order to continue in game 2. Other trilogies did not. It all depends on the developer.

First of all Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy: it consists of 8 parts, which were distributed via 3 books. None of those are sequels, as none of them are stand alone books. A better comparison would be an episodic TellTale release. PoE1 is a stand-alone game with a complete story arc. Deadfire hopefully will be the same. While they share protagonist, they don’t share the same story arc. Even if there will be a bigger storyline it’s clear that devs think one game at the time.

 

Making each game stand on its own is a better business model. Games age quickly and if you tell someone they need to play couple games before they try the new release they are unlikely to dive in. Release multiple standalone connected instalments and they might go back though. You expand your audience instead of shrinking it as time goes by.

 

I don’t know 80s game, but I certainly feel that in 90s sequels were aimed more at people who played 1st nstalments rather than trying to gain new crowds - stories would jump right into the action, characters weren’t reintroduced, games lacked tutorials assuming you know what to do, difficulty would be steep as devs assumed you are familiar with basics.

 

It is always a matter of how it has been done, I never played the first BG until 2014 or so, because BG2 told everything really well alongside, so that I could even relate to deaths of characters of the first game, like Khalid and Dynaheir. But you are right, older sequels tend to throw you right in there, and tell the story alongside.

 

And of course there are different kinds of sequels. While Oblivion is a sequel to Morrowind, it is more a successor mechanic wise than story.

[morhilane]

And of course there are different kinds of sequels. While Oblivion is a sequel to Morrowind, it is more a successor mechanic wise than story.

They aren't just successors in term of mechanics/concepts, unlike the FF games, the Elder Scrolls games share the same world and follow each other chronologically. Arena to Oblivion is just 44 years apart. Skyrim is 201 years after Oblivion.

 

They also have an overarching story, at least they did when Kirkbride was still involved but Skyrim is still following his plan despite him not working on it so it seems to still be "on". There is also a Mehrunes Dagon/Uriel Septim VII story arc with Arena, Daggerfall, Battlespire and Oblivion.

 

 

*The Final Fantasy games are all set in different universe and only share concepts, games in the same universe have double numbering, like FF XII-2.

[The Sharmat]

 

And of course there are different kinds of sequels. While Oblivion is a sequel to Morrowind, it is more a successor mechanic wise than story.

They aren't just successors in term of mechanics/concepts, unlike the FF games, the Elder Scrolls games share the same world and follow each other chronologically. Arena to Oblivion is just 44 years apart. Skyrim is 201 years after Oblivion.

Only in the absolute loosest sense. For all it has to do with Morrowind Oblivion might as well be a Final Fantasy game, cracks about St. Jiub in one line of dialogue aside.

[Karkarov]

No one says this about anything but videogames. If someone chose to read Lord of the Rings starting with the Two Towers, you'd think they were crazy. It's only video games that are expected to have either little to no continuity or tons of recap. I don't know how this happened but it's universal to the medium and will prevent meaningful continuations from ever occurring.

 

That assumption is untrue. Going back to early 80s (I’m old...) some video game trilogies required completion of game 1 in order to continue in game 2. Other trilogies did not. It all depends on the developer.

I would love to hear some examples of what these games that required you to beat game 1 to play game 2 were?  I have also been playing video games since the early 80's and can't think of a single one.  I can think of loads that let you import your game, and loads that made no sense if you didn't play the earlier games, but not even 1 that REQUIRED you to play the early games.

[morhilane]

 

 

And of course there are different kinds of sequels. While Oblivion is a sequel to Morrowind, it is more a successor mechanic wise than story.

They aren't just successors in term of mechanics/concepts, unlike the FF games, the Elder Scrolls games share the same world and follow each other chronologically. Arena to Oblivion is just 44 years apart. Skyrim is 201 years after Oblivion.

 

Only in the absolute loosest sense. For all it has to do with Morrowind Oblivion might as well be a Final Fantasy game, cracks about St. Jiub in one line of dialogue aside.

 

Loosest sense? There is a few recurring NPCs across game (Uriel Septim, Hesleth, etc). You visit dungeons/areas in Skyrim, Morrowind and Oblivion that you could visit in Arena. You start Oblivion in the same prison/dungeon you started in Arena, goblins included. The games refer to the events of the previous games and some hint to future games too. The lore stays the same across all the games as well and each new game is just further on the same timeline.

 

 

Final Fantasy games have no link between each others outside names of spells, creatures and some terms coming back but not for the same thing (example: Esper).

[MortyTheGobbo]

I started playing Baldur's Gate from the second game, because that's the one I happened to run into. I didn't really have any trouble. The NPCs that actually stick around explain who they are and those that don't... well, they're not super relevant. Starting a game series in the middle happens quite often.

[Blades of Vanatar]

I would love to hear some examples of what these games that required you to beat game 1 to play game 2 were? I have also been playing video games since the early 80's and can't think of a single one. I can think of loads that let you import your game, and loads that made no sense if you didn't play the earlier games, but not even 1 that REQUIRED you to play the early games.

Example - Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds required imported characters from game 1. Later versions changed the requirement when the game changed to Wizardry II: Knight of Diamonds. I believe the part 3 required the same from part 2.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Blades of Vanatar

[HooAmEye]

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/?ref_url=https://s9e.github.io/iframe/tumblr.min.html

 

New update on how they plan on approaching VO. The part about it being an owner's decision is somewhat worrying

[Juodas Varnas]

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/?ref_url=https://s9e.github.io/iframe/tumblr.min.html

 

New update on how they plan on approaching VO. The part about it being an owner's decision is somewhat worrying

Mhmm... sounds like corporate meddling to me.

Saw the success of Divinity OS2 and went 'we have to do this thing or we might not make enough money'

 

Have i mentioned that i'm not a big fan of fully voiced RPGs? I feel like they always lose something in exchange for it and doesn't really gain anything meaningful. (Probably my favorite RPGs of recent years, the Shadowrun ones are not voiced at all, as far as i remember).

[Wormerine]

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/?ref_url=https://s9e.github.io/iframe/tumblr.min.html

 

New update on how they plan on approaching VO. The part about it being an owner's decision is somewhat worrying

You mean that lines can get altered during recording? Nay, that's good, especially if they worked with actors to develop characters. Its normal in movies for actors to alter their lines and argue about what their character is saying/way it is saying, though what Josh mentiones is mostly differents between how lines look on paper and how they sound. It aint Shakespeare, and writers are right in front of you. If they won't like it, they will correct you. 

 

EDIT: I completely misunderstood the Question, the Josh's Answer and the posters comment. I am not sure if its exhaustion or beer. 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Wormerine

[injurai]

I think I'd like an option to toggle VO. Maybe VO is on by default at the start of a conversation, but then I can turn it off once I've gotten the first few lines. At some point I'd rather just read at my own pace, which I find far more engaging after I have a character's voice in my head.

 

I wonder where I should float this suggestion. I'd like to not have to completely disable it, but somehow dial it back.

[VincentNZ]

 

 

 

And of course there are different kinds of sequels. While Oblivion is a sequel to Morrowind, it is more a successor mechanic wise than story.

They aren't just successors in term of mechanics/concepts, unlike the FF games, the Elder Scrolls games share the same world and follow each other chronologically. Arena to Oblivion is just 44 years apart. Skyrim is 201 years after Oblivion.

 

Only in the absolute loosest sense. For all it has to do with Morrowind Oblivion might as well be a Final Fantasy game, cracks about St. Jiub in one line of dialogue aside.

 

Loosest sense? There is a few recurring NPCs across game (Uriel Septim, Hesleth, etc). You visit dungeons/areas in Skyrim, Morrowind and Oblivion that you could visit in Arena. You start Oblivion in the same prison/dungeon you started in Arena, goblins included. The games refer to the events of the previous games and some hint to future games too. The lore stays the same across all the games as well and each new game is just further on the same timeline.

 

 

Final Fantasy games have no link between each others outside names of spells, creatures and some terms coming back but not for the same thing (example: Esper).

 

Yeah, but it is only a shared world, which gives them a lot of freedom for each game. I mean in BG and PoE we play the same character as before, with a certain backstory. In TES we play a different character each time, often in a whole different part of the world and the games are only loosely connected via references. Oblivion could have played in another world entirely, it is the game mechanics and their freedom that draws most attraction.

 

Point is, in PoE we will likely see mroe than references to the first game. However I am pretty sure they will make it easy enough for newcomers so that they do not get overwhelmed and if it works like BG2 it is very welcome.

[Aerothorn]

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/?ref_url=https://s9e.github.io/iframe/tumblr.min.html

 

New update on how they plan on approaching VO. The part about it being an owner's decision is somewhat worrying

 

This is the first thing in the entire POE development that set off alarms for me. If you've played The Secret of Monkey Island HD, you know that voice-acting dialog written for text can kill otherwise good writing. Text has an...eveness of tone that allows you to have enormous range without telegraphing or playing it up. Voice tends to double down on the dominant emotion - sad-tinged stories become SAD, jokes become FUNNY, etc. Of course this can change with the talent involved, but the announced actors primarily work in anime and aren't renowned for naturalistic dialog, so if the issue exists at the script level it's going to come across in the voice acting.

 

 

 

I think I'd like an option to toggle VO. Maybe VO is on by default at the start of a conversation, but then I can turn it off once I've gotten the first few lines. At some point I'd rather just read at my own pace, which I find far more engaging after I have a character's voice in my head.

 

I wonder where I should float this suggestion. I'd like to not have to completely disable it, but somehow dial it back.

Most every game I played has a seperate audio slider for voice/music/effects, so I'd be surprised if they didn't do that here.

 

Edited April 16, 2018 by Aerothorn