The writing in this game is average

[Radisshu]

Why are you pretending the whole surviving a Biowac, having dreams about the dwarf woman and the whole crazy watcher part never existed? Short term memory amnesia?

Spoiler

Because the whole Biowac was you being on the wrong place and time what deflates the whole thing as a powerful hook to grab your attention on the story and push you foward. If you were one of the chumps that would become ash and was there forced, that would be another thing. People later are just slightly amused by you saying you surviving a Biawac, it looks like you survived a highly dangerous magical incident and you were lucky but that was it. You having dreams with the dwarven women and talking with her spirit is something hardly out of ordinary on a high magical setting and she saying to you that you are a Watcher would be something interesting if she didn't say right afterward that was rare but sort of normal and dismissed any worry you had.

play the game, there's past life shit that ties the protagonists soul with the antagonist's oops spoiler 4l3rt

 

[Radisshu]

I agree that cultures and races and classes should be addressed way more in the game. There's even a whole thread about this in this forum. Hopefully, either Obsi or mods will fix it.

yeah especially reaction to the godlikes. i'm walking around looking like something out of berserk or silent hill and everybody's just like "'sup?"

 

[RK47]

 

[Beowulf]

People are giving a hard time to Eric and the writing team but that isn't entirely fair. They had some nice ideas, the little I played, the dwarven lady on the tree and the bell tolls as a sign for Roderic's child for example were very interesting. What? Pregnant women and people having problems to have children on RPGs? What? I didn't know women could get pregnant on RPGs. Man, some lord going insane because all his children are born defective and hanging people thinking it will solve the curse? That is WAYYYYYYYYY much more interesting than "OMG, I'm a SUPER cool, misunderstood emo mage that want to be a god because some bitch bitchslapped me." in BG 2.

Since you drag BG 2 for comparison - you could have your own child in that game, how's that for an rpg (granted, it was in the ending credits, but still)? I liked that scene you mention, arriving at Gilded Vale, it could have gone the wrong way and be laughable cliche about crazy, opressive lord of the land; but they managed to make it working.
Also, this whole Lord of the Barren Land quest line has some nice reactivity in the world - people have additional lines of dialogue when you help make a change on the throne, even those public heralds (Criers?) in Defiance Bay mention that fact. Quality of writing aside, that is a nice detail and got me more interested in how I handle quests.

Also - not being able to have children is a good workaround for the Skyrim-esque problem of killing children.

Spoiler

 

[Commissar Draco]

This thread reminded me of how good race reactions in Arcanum were. Maybe it's just nostalgia goggles but I remember people giving me tons of shit for playing a half-ogre or half-orc or basically anything, depending on the person you talked to. What a great game.

There were a few butthurt reactions to you being of Ayerddir, Ayadir, Eyerdir or from whatever PoE's Kwanistan is called.

From Ukwanda aka Aedyr Empire the Dyrwood is idealized version of KWA with colonists and natives joining hands and singing kumbayah; it was double Hilarius when you realize that it was colonists not the crown who fought for preservation of slavery and right to kill injun savages and take their land. Instead we got history straight from the fracking Mel Gibson Patriot Movie. But no reaction for char race cause in Sawyer head race is obviously some irrelevant and outdated social construct... Still game is very fun when you had very low expectations as it does captures the spirit of BG classics.

 

[dragonul09]

Since you drag BG 2 for comparison - you could have your own child in that game, how's that for an rpg (granted, it was in the ending credits, but still)? I liked that scene you mention, arriving at Gilded Vale, it could have gone the wrong way and be laughable cliche about crazy, opressive lord of the land; but they managed to make it working.
Also, this whole Lord of the Barren Land quest line has some nice reactivity in the world - people have additional lines of dialogue when you help make a change on the throne, even those public heralds (Criers?) in Defiance Bay mention that fact. Quality of writing aside, that is a nice detail and got me more interested in how I handle quests.

And that's the only quest that has barely any reactivity toward your choices ,and even this is one is barren when it comes to details (Like you said ,if you change the ruler(kill Roderic) ,the tree gets picked up clean and the peasants are happier ,ladi fucking da.That's not nice reactivity ,that's just fluffy stuff that has no real repercussion, like getting a quest after finishing it or someone mentioning in a quest that would deviate from it's roots)This is nice reactivity ,no bullshit stuff like that,so please stop lowering your standards guys and see it for what it is,a mediocre game.

I played the game for 40-45h and ''Lord of the Barren Land'' is the only ''big quest'' that you could solve in multiple ways and having like 3 different outcomes that changes something ,besides a few lines from the peasants.The rest of the game is barren when it comes to reactivity ,even after the end of Act 2,everyone acts like the incident never happened,almost no one mentioned what happened to the duke or the other leaders.

Sad day for reactivity.

 

[Beowulf]

And that's the only quest that has barely any reactivity toward your choices ,and even this is one is barren when it comes to details (Like you said ,if you change the ruler(kill Roderic) ,the tree gets picked up clean and the peasants are happier ,ladi fucking da.That's not nice reactivity ,that's just fluffy stuff that has no real repercussion, like getting a quest after finishing it or someone mentioning in a quest that would deviate from it's roots)This is nice reactivity ,no bullshit stuff like that,so please stop lowering your standards guys and see it for what it is,a mediocre game.

Bah, I was merely giving an example of good stuff in this game; if you read through this thread you can see, that I, amongst many other players, are not shy from criticising aspects that we deem bad, writing included.
I personally would give this 7/10, it's not a great game (for me), but giving me a lot of fun when I play it. It has enough redeeming qualities (for me) to not call it mediocre.

Llike Commissar Draco put it:

Still game is very fun when you had very low expectations as it does captures the spirit of BG classics.

It is similar to BG (calling it a BG clone would be disservice), with all it highs and lows. Fun, perhaps sometimes too predictable if you know the tropes, high-fantasy adventure game. And I have not played that in a long while.

 

[Jools]

Meta-writing? Fourth-wall raping?

 

[Beowulf]

Spoiler

Meta-writing? Fourth-wall raping?

The thing is, voice actors are not always consistent with their line delivery descriptions from the texts.

- He said "first line", laughingly he added "second line, where you can't sometimes even hear amusement, or joy, not to mention laughter".

 

[Jools]

Spoiler

Meta-writing? Fourth-wall raping?

The thing is, voice actors are not always consistent with their line delivery descriptions from the texts.

- He said "first line", laughingly he added "second line, where you can't sometimes even hear amusement, or joy, not to mention laughter".

On this note, does anyone else find the voice acting fairly mediocre, in PoE? It really struck me while listening to GM...

 

[Ellef]

Voice acting is a mixed bag, but it generally serves its purpose. GM voice sounds like it was done on a cheap mic though, with some really harsh sibilance.

 

[Athelas]

I think they should've drastically cut the amount of voice-acted dialogue, which might have allowed them for more resources to hire quantitively better voice actors.

Also, they did the BG-style thing where any NPC will have a short voice-acted greeting when you talk to them, but I don't think it meshes well with the writing style they're going for.

 

[dragonul09]

I don't think those actors cost that much in the first place,everyone sounds very amateurish,like they got out from a theater play. I don't think they spent that much on them ,I know I wouldn't.

 

[Wizfall]

I like the writing.
If only the lore did not have all these compounds words all over the place (and too much strange lore names in the same paragraph) it would have been easier to "register" everything.
Also i think it's help a lot to disable any hints about dialogs in the option (i only able it at the start to "see" the system), not to be "hardcore" but it just improve a damn lot the general feeling and make the dialogs much more interesting/an involved experience (maybe because the attention is immediately attracted by the hints that you check before reading the lines and it spoils the enjoyment of actually reading the lines).

Other default with dialogs : whatever you choose (aggressive/cruel/benevolent/clever/...) your character's answers are lacking any kind of flavor (you will be a boring aggressive/cruel/benevolent/clever/... character).
But it's intended by Josh, it was the same with FNV, he doesn't want to impose any kind of personality in the PC.
I very much disagree on that, it make the dialogs "flat" IMO.

Despite these two points the writing is still good.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah writing is good.
But at the same time they targeted BG crowd so it's not like they wanted to do something weird.

 

[Duraframe300]

Since you drag BG 2 for comparison - you could have your own child in that game, how's that for an rpg (granted, it was in the ending credits, but still)? I liked that scene you mention, arriving at Gilded Vale, it could have gone the wrong way and be laughable cliche about crazy, opressive lord of the land; but they managed to make it working.
Also, this whole Lord of the Barren Land quest line has some nice reactivity in the world - people have additional lines of dialogue when you help make a change on the throne, even those public heralds (Criers?) in Defiance Bay mention that fact. Quality of writing aside, that is a nice detail and got me more interested in how I handle quests.

And that's the only quest that has barely any reactivity toward your choices ,and even this is one is barren when it comes to details (Like you said ,if you change the ruler(kill Roderic) ,the tree gets picked up clean and the peasants are happier ,ladi fucking da.That's not nice reactivity ,that's just fluffy stuff that has no real repercussion, like getting a quest after finishing it or someone mentioning in a quest that would deviate from it's roots)This is nice reactivity ,no bullshit stuff like that,so please stop lowering your standards guys and see it for what it is,a mediocre game.

I played the game for 40-45h and ''Lord of the Barren Land'' is the only ''big quest'' that you could solve in multiple ways and having like 3 different outcomes that changes something ,besides a few lines from the peasants.The rest of the game is barren when it comes to reactivity ,even after the end of Act 2,everyone acts like the incident never happened,almost no one mentioned what happened to the duke or the other leaders.

Sad day for reactivity.

A questline alone is nice reacitvity for you?

Eh, no. Thats also far from the ideal. We need more of everything even outside of explicit quests.

 

[Daedalos]

I like the writing in dis game. It's gud.

Not top of the line fantasy writing, but what is ? It's fucking fantasy... come on.

It's definitely above average.

I found the texts to be long and meaningful, furfilling. Lots of background stuff on npcs, companions etc.

 

[Angthoron]

Also, this whole Lord of the Barren Land quest line has some nice reactivity in the world - people have additional lines of dialogue when you help make a change on the throne, even those public heralds (Criers?) in Defiance Bay mention that fact. Quality of writing aside, that is a nice detail and got me more interested in how I handle quests.

It was nice. Now wait til Act 3 for an amazing followup to this plot.

It's amazing and glorious I tell you, and further cements the world reactivity.

Also:

Taking this as my cue to be extra careful, enrichment sounds worrisome.

 

[made]

What's up with spelling words differently just for the sake of being different? I mean, "Fampyrs"? LOL.

[Stoic] Meh. Whatever.

 

[dragonul09]

A questline alone is nice reacitvity for you?

Eh, no. Thats also far from the ideal. We need more of everything even outside of explicit quests.

I wanted some reactivity ala Arcanum style where everyone will call you a ''retard'' for the way you dressed.In Arcanum if you were ugly people treated you like shit,if you were good looking you even got lower prices.If you were dumb ,people pointed that in the dialogue but if you were charismatic you could have some nice bonuses.

Arcanum was such a fucking good game dude,sadly the combat was horrible.

Poor Troika,you left this world way too soon.

 

[Duraframe300]

What's up with spelling words differently just for the sake of being different? I mean, "Fampyrs"? LOL.

[Stoic] Meh. Whatever.

Its a difference of replacing an *I* with an *Y*

Hardly a big offender or worth caring about.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Its a difference of replacing an *I* with an *Y*

Hardly a big offender or worth caring about.

The whole notion of this game having something explicitly called a 'vampire' is already shabby, but it would be ok if just that was present simply as the inclusion of a recognised concept, but having it even further "welshenised" like this is downright absurd. It's like a localised version of a borrowing of a borrowing from language archetypes that aren't even supposed to exist in this game. The same degree of stupidity can be found in Gul.

 

[made]

What's up with spelling words differently just for the sake of being different? I mean, "Fampyrs"? LOL.

[Stoic] Meh. Whatever.

Its a difference of replacing an *I* with an *Y*

Hardly a big offender or worth caring about.

No, it's a matter of inserting foreign spelling of select words (Welsh in this case) while using modern English everywhere else. Makes for a disjointed whole and screams "try hard" to me.

 

[dragonul09]

Its a difference of replacing an *I* with an *Y*

Hardly a big offender or worth caring about.

The whole notion of this game having something explicitly called a 'vampire' is already shabby, but it would be ok if just that was present simply as the inclusion of a recognised concept, but having it even further "welshenised" like this is downright absurd. It's like a localised version of a borrowing of a borrowing from language archetypes that aren't even supposed to exist in this game. The same degree of stupidity can be found in Gul.

The main problem is that they chosed to copy an already overused universe, making them look like cheap whores.Instead of going with an original world(new creatures,new interesting races) ,they went with the same shit that everbody has used since 1980.Instead of creating original concepts ,they went with the same crap that every game used in the past 20 years.

I mean look at this crap
Fampyrs
Guls
The blue orcs
Bettles
Trolls
Spiders

Come on fellas,i know you can do better than this...

 

[RK47]

Meta-writing? Fourth-wall raping?

No, it's a matter of inserting foreign spelling of select words (Welsh in this case) while using modern English everywhere else. Makes for a disjointed whole and screams "try hard" to me.