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Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Lol. Torrent and skim through the monster compendium (since you totally know exactly what DnD is) to get a feel of the old editions' monsters and tell me how original they are.

My argument is, to spell it out for you, that you should put things into context before making assertions, in this case about PoE's originality when it comes to monsters..
 

Chris Avelltwo

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When MCA answers any questions adressed on twitter to both him and Sawyer, he studiously removes '@jesawer' from all his answers. And even when questions directly involve Josh, Chris carefully avoids any mentions of him both in the interviews and in the social networks. It is not the same with Carrie, Anthony and others.

I do not think that MCA really left Obsidian because of Sawyer. But it is kinda obvious that MCA does not want to have anything to do with Josh.

Maybe he resents the fact Feargus appointed Sawyer to be project director on Eternity, and a lot of the things he wanted to do with Durance and so on got overruled? That's what I'm inclined to think. There's a lot of private details none of us know, and none of them seem to want to talk about either. I thought it was kinda telling that when Feargus formally announced Avellone's departure he just gave a generic "we wish him well in his future endeavours" sort of thing that feels cold and impersonal.

I don't know what sort of concessions Obsidian would have to make to convince Avellone to return, but whatever those concessions are, they should definitely consider doing that, because Avellone is a talented writer who is beloved by many, and even if Feargus doesn't like him personally for whatever reason, it is good business sense to have him on board, because that is what the fans want, and the fans are the customers.

Obsidian is in a lot better financial shape than they were when Avellone left, so now they might have the means where he could be the project director of his own game, and do things precisely his own way, and not have to worry about anything getting shot down or altered by someone else, because he would be in control. That's how it was when he made Planescape: Torment. Why couldn't that success be repeated? Let Avellone come up with an idea, and then pitch it to fans on Fig, and let's see what comes of it. As long as it is crowdfunded, Obsidian wouldn't have much to lose by letting him pursue his dream; no matter how crazy it might seem.
 

Lacrymas

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AwesomeButton, what you are saying doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter that DnD's monsters are ripped off, they obviously are, that doesn't mean PoE isn't a rip off of DnD. lololol. Even if what you are saying somehow made sense, does the situation get better? Is PoE somehow more original if it didn't rip off of DnD, but ripped off of something else? And again, it was their explicit intention to be like Baldur's Gate, so DnD is the most obvious source. That is the only evidence we have, if you can somehow prove to me that they've ripped off of something else, then go ahead. Not that it makes it better.
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Yeah whatever you say. BTW, I'm playing Brettonia in TW:Warhammer right now. What a ripoff of medieval France and the legend of King Arthur. These people have no shame.
 

Sentinel

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When MCA answers any questions adressed on twitter to both him and Sawyer, he studiously removes '@jesawer' from all his answers. And even when questions directly involve Josh, Chris carefully avoids any mentions of him both in the interviews and in the social networks. It is not the same with Carrie, Anthony and others.

I do not think that MCA really left Obsidian because of Sawyer. But it is kinda obvious that MCA does not want to have anything to do with Josh.
I don't know what sort of concessions Obsidian would have to make to convince Avellone to return, but whatever those concessions are, they should definitely consider doing that, because Avellone is a talented writer who is beloved by many, and even if Feargus doesn't like him personally for whatever reason, it is good business sense to have him on board, because that is what the fans want, and the fans are the customers.
Feargus would have to buy Chris Parker's share of the company and kick him out. Only then would Avellone consider returning.
 

2house2fly

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Maybe it's because since his departure from Obsidian MCA hasn't mentioned Josh's name even once?:M
He never really mentioned him before, either.

I do not think that MCA really left Obsidian because of Sawyer. But it is kinda obvious that MCA does not want to have anything to do with Josh.
Then again he seemed interested in the Apocalypse Now kickstarter which Sawyer's name was on in some capacity

Obsidian is in a lot better financial shape than they were when Avellone left, so now they might have the means where he could be the project director of his own game, and do things precisely his own way, and not have to worry about anything getting shot down or altered by someone else, because he would be in control. That's how it was when he made Planescape: Torment. Why couldn't that success be repeated? Let Avellone come up with an idea, and then pitch it to fans on Fig, and let's see what comes of it. As long as it is crowdfunded, Obsidian wouldn't have much to lose by letting him pursue his dream; no matter how crazy it might seem.
Would Avellone even want to head up a game? He's been "contributing" writing to other projects for years now, yet surely with his reputation he's been offered a project lead position from someone
 

Quillon

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Then again he seemed interested in the Apocalypse Now kickstarter which Sawyer's name was on in some capacity

He was jerking around, to take the spotlight from PoE2 at the time. He tweeted saying Apocalypse Now is an Obsidian game again & again while not once mentioning PoE2 other than being one of the first to spread the polygon leak /then he pretended PoE2 didn't exist, he was asked about it in a twitch interview where he immediately started on about Apocalypse Now again lol.
 

Rostere

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 RPG Wokedex Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
He never really mentioned him before, either.

Damned lies: https://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-138-on-project-directors-and-lead-designers/

Lead Designers are selected for much the same reason - they're usually senior designers who've shown the same strengths in upholding the game vision, ability to motivate and lead a team, and can manage effectively. Like other lead roles, Lead Designers are not necessarily chosen for their design ability, and they may not be the best designer in their discipline, they simply need to understand the design pipelines, understand the toolset and its breakdowns, and how to manage a team - this is because leads spend more time managing the designers in their discipline than doing actual core design work. If they excel in design, as Josh does, then that's a bonus.

Then again he seemed interested in the Apocalypse Now kickstarter which Sawyer's name was on in some capacity

Would Avellone even want to head up a game? He's been "contributing" writing to other projects for years now, yet surely with his reputation he's been offered a project lead position from someone

Did you miss the memo? MCA has been helping Cleve with his issues.
 

Fry

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Golly, fellas... do you think Joshy and Chrissy braid each other's hair? Do they get ice cream together and have pillow fights??

:roll:
 

Chris Avelltwo

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Lacrymas

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Does it matter if he hates Josh? It's obvious that their work together is over and that's enough for me. Their personal relationship is their problem, it's only lame if that did affect their work together. I had a girlfriend once with whom we played music together in a duet and after we broken up she couldn't see past our personal relationship to continue our creative one. C'est la vie I guess, but it is lame and, more importantly, unproductive.
 

Crospy

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it's pretty disappointing how they continue to take races from other stuff (the Naga in this case) and apply it to their own game

Naga are from Indian folklore. If D&D gets to crib them, then why shouldn't Pillars? Tradfantasy is built on the bones of folklore; if you want to avoid reusing races/creatures/whatever from folklore or the fantasy canon you won't be doing tradfantasy anymore. I would like that if it's well thought-out (Malazan! Malazan!) but it would be a very different world from Eora.

(Of course that's ~ cultural appropriation ~ so if you want to be offended about something, I'd go with that. You could certainly kick up a Twitterstorm with it.)

The issue, as always, with this kind of thing, is not that you can't copy a few elements over. It's when your whole looks like the other guy's whole. Sure, Naga are present in many fantasy settings. Many fantasy settings also have things similar to Illithids. Some have kobolds etc.

The question is, how many have them all in a single setting while also bringing very few new elements of their own? PoE, so far, has done very little outside of aping D&D. It's not just a matter of cribbing from the same source material as D&D did, it's that all the elements they chose to pick to form their setting, their 'whole', comes closer and closer to D&D and shows little inspiration. When you look at PoE, you don't feel they picked mythological creatures and formed their own set by putting their own preferences and tastes. You feel they just went straight for being as D&D like as possible without copyright infringement. The spider twist on illithids is a perfect example of that. Did the game even truly need illithids? They were there because they were iconic D&D creature is all. They weren't present because they felt like they added something to PoE's setting.

For all the disgust I feel for Bioware, the comparison to their own homegrown fantasy setting is telling. Dragon Age certainly has sources of inspirations that are identical to D&D's. But it doesn't ape it. It doesn't try to feature all of the most iconic elements in the same place.
 
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Lacrymas

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Even brutally savage and rabid advocates and defenders of PoE, like TheSentinel, agree that PoE's setting is too derivative, being a copy of D&D but somehow worse in the process.
 

Ramnozack

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Meh, I dont give a shit if a setting is 'derivative'. Give me a good story with good combat and Im good, thats really all it comes down to in the end anyway, when determining whether a game is good or not.
 

Efe

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doesn't d&d have everything?
this feels like southpark's "simpsons already did it" episode.
 

Prime Junta

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Even brutally savage and rabid advocates and defenders of PoE, like TheSentinel, agree that PoE's setting is too derivative, being a copy of D&D but somehow worse in the process.

Ehh... well. Yeah it's derivative and the totally-not-mindflayers, totally-not-shambling-mounds, and totally-not-kobolds are kinda lulzy for being so transparent as copies. It's also thin on ancient history: apart from the Engwithans, there's... what exactly?

It does do some things originally though, and IMO these are improvements over Forgotten Realms. The setting has genuine politics and wars fought for relatable reasons, not just eternally static states which hate each other because Reasons. The period is pseudo-Renaissance rather than pseudo-Medieval, and that goes deeper than just having arquebuses: there is a sense of change and progress rather than the frozen-in-amber feel of FR, with only a glorious and mysterious past to look back to.

From where I'm at it's two steps forward, one step back. I do like where it ended up more than Forgotten Realms, and I appreciate the way they chose to innovate "under the hood" rather than on the surface. The pitch was 100% nostalgia after all; if they had gone with a genuinely original/offbeat setting, it would not have been the game they promised. There are D&D settings I like even more though.

(BTW I don't get the love for Thedas. Sure it's not a carbon copy of D&D but as settings go it's low-imagination and low-effort. They basically took Ivanhoe, added dragons, dwarves, and darkspawn, swapped a few names around, replaced Jews, Gypsies, and Moors with fantasy races, and called it a day.)
 

Crospy

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I mostly agree with those arguments you've put Junta, just with less enthusiasm over the idea that's is a power of two forward one back, and on the pitch. The pitch was indeed based on IE games nostalgia, but they strayed very far from said nostalgia where it mattered the most in my opinion, gameplay. PoE doesn't really play like an IE game except for being RTwP. As for the setting, I feel the pitch didn't really make anything clear and considering lines like these :

> Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment.

It isn't necessarily clear how much of the setting was to be vanilla D&D and how much alien influences could have been present (torment).

(BTW I don't get the love for Thedas. Sure it's not a carbon copy of D&D but as settings go it's low-imagination and low-effort. They basically took Ivanhoe, added dragons, dwarves, and darkspawn, swapped a few names around, replaced Jews, Gypsies, and Moors with fantasy races, and called it a day.)

I chose DA as an example not because it was especially great, but because even a studio like Bioware can at least show some slight modicum of effort in not being *that* bland. Comparing PoE to DA is setting a low bar of comparison on purpose. I understand the limits set by the kickstarter and wouldn't expect the game to go full on Planescape-style or something, but at least showing some more effort wouldn't really have cost them nostalgia-points.

I don't feel much love for Thedas, but I would be a lot more enthusiastic playing a game made by Obsidian in a setting at least comparable to it, with the added quality of Obsidian's writing and ability to deliver a stronger main storyline on average. (fighting a non-sentient raw force of evil entity as the end boss in DAO was not exactly appealing and neither were the numerous, repetitive encounters of dorkspawns)
The 'basics' like the idea of magic being under some form of organized control and feared by the common man were good, the game just lacked the depth to actually exploit what the setting laid out, which is something that is usually a strength of Obsidian too, I still look fondly to what they did in Mask of the Betrayer when they picked the less commonly talked elements of the FR like the wall of the faithless and turned against it.
 

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