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PoE LORE

polo

Magister
Joined
Jul 8, 2014
Messages
1,737
So far, i have found most of the text in the game pretty vanal shit and boring, i couldn't care less about "hollowborn" and shit, i do kind of enjoy reading about animancers and their situation in this world, but most of the lore i couldn't care less.
So, i have a question for you. Which parts of the lore in the game did you find most entertaining, or at least enough to keep you going?

I mean... i dunno, ie when i reached Rodric i didn't give a fuck about him, his reasons or anything, i was just like "fuck it, just die and give me your sweet loot"... And most of the game has been something like that also. The skaen cult was kind of interesting, kind of.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
I found most of it pretty interesting to be honest. Especially the gods and the hollowborn crisis. The Grieving Mother's story and how it relates to the hollowborn is pretty great I think, it's just a shame that she comes across more as goth teen when you speak with her. I can't stand her manner of speaking. The Saints War was a cool backdrop and it was nice to hear about it from Durance and Edér.

I guess the only thing that I found to be pretty meh, when it should've been a big focus of the game, are the factions in Defiance Bay. Dunryd Row (this one was especially disappointing considering that it's a pretty awesome idea), The Dozens and House Doemenel should've all been way more interesting than they ended up being.
 

bataille

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2017
Messages
1,073
It was pretty breathtaking observing the exercise in futility that is grieving mother. It's like a bloated, bulging leviathan ready to burst. I wondered if it was some torturous in-joke until the finale. The punchline it its sheer existence, I guess.

And everything surrounding durance was somewhat alright for a video game.
 

ga♥

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 3, 2017
Messages
7,595
The only barely enjoiyable part is the Skaen cult (as you are already aware, but then it's also filled with boring trash fights ... lot of them, with also the same kind of enemies...). Rest is so boring, I already forgot most of it (exept the boredom sensation).
Voice acting is also horrible.
Music isn't very good.

There's nothing to keep going.
uninstall.exe is the way.
 
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Kev Inkline

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
5,074
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The physical manual at least (I guess pdf as well) had background info of the deities, which was kind of interesting and gave depth to the game itself. The real problem, in my opinion, is the lack of reactivity in the game: No matter how deeply thought the background material is, it feels boring if it doesn't react to your background at all. For example, I had a Vailian character and the folks at the embassy keep on feeding me really basic information about the republic, as if I had heard about it for the first time.
 

bminorkey

Guest
I think the stuff about Archmages was pretty good. I wanted to find more about the Archmages not featured in the game but there seems to be nothing
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Same situation as IWD2 for me, there was the prospect o some interesting stuff an some pretty good ideas, but they weren't explored or had fuck all to do wi protagonist, I needed something to glue me to world, story, an details, I found sod all. As i've said afore I think if i woulda been far more interesting to play as Durance, or somebody like him that stood at centre o themes being explored an conflict. The gods business really struck me as an amateur bloody mistake, introducing a world by changing it irrevocably, should have been an exploration first an foremost, both of the protagonist an wider world.
 

Hyperion

Arcane
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,120
Same situation as IWD2 for me, there was the prospect o some interesting stuff an some pretty good ideas, but they weren't explored or had fuck all to do wi protagonist, I needed something to glue me to world, story, an details, I found sod all. As i've said afore I think if i woulda been far more interesting to play as Durance, or somebody like him that stood at centre o themes being explored an conflict. The gods business really struck me as an amateur bloody mistake, introducing a world by changing it irrevocably, should have been an exploration first an foremost, both of the protagonist an wider world.

I think a lot of that can be placed on the antagonist. Thaos was interesting in that he's lived countless lives by jumping his soul from body to body, has led this cult for centuries and kept them pretty much unnoticed by any and all do-gooders, and was well on his way to insidiously destroy an entire nation by cutting off their reproductive capabilities entirely. And he even convinced most of them that it was the result of the only 'God' who actually gave a shit about the people who worshipped him being nuked into another dimension.

Unfortunately due to the nature of his dastardly deeds, it wouldn't really matter if you clean his clock 10 minutes from now, or 10 years from now. There was nothing linking the protagonist to the disaster at hand outside of a bad case of the taco shits, and a thunderstorm. Having the soul of one of Thaos' sons was a good personal link to him, but not enough to really set the wheels in motion for a fitting climax.
 

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,138
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I found most of it pretty interesting to be honest. Especially the gods and the hollowborn crisis. The Grieving Mother's story and how it relates to the hollowborn is pretty great I think, it's just a shame that she comes across more as goth teen when you speak with her. I can't stand her manner of speaking. The Saints War was a cool backdrop and it was nice to hear about it from Durance and Edér.

I guess the only thing that I found to be pretty meh, when it should've been a big focus of the game, are the factions in Defiance Bay. Dunryd Row (this one was especially disappointing considering that it's a pretty awesome idea), The Dozens and House Doemenel should've all been way more interesting than they ended up being.

Fully agree. The hollowborn crisis initially made a pretty big impression on me. It's a shame it eventually fades into the background and nobody really cares about it anymore.
Saint's War was cool, as well as all the lore about the gods.

Factions were a HUGE dissapointment indeed.

I think the stuff about Archmages was pretty good. I wanted to find more about the Archmages not featured in the game but there seems to be nothing

Yeah, that too. Archmages were pretty awesome. Well except for current Llengrath's incarnation being a wuss and hiding behind 2 dragons. Concelhaut put up way more of a fight.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,176
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
9
I found most of it pretty interesting to be honest. Especially the gods and the hollowborn crisis. The Grieving Mother's story and how it relates to the hollowborn is pretty great I think, it's just a shame that she comes across more as goth teen when you speak with her. I can't stand her manner of speaking. The Saints War was a cool backdrop and it was nice to hear about it from Durance and Edér.

I guess the only thing that I found to be pretty meh, when it should've been a big focus of the game, are the factions in Defiance Bay. Dunryd Row (this one was especially disappointing considering that it's a pretty awesome idea), The Dozens and House Doemenel should've all been way more interesting than they ended up being.
agree on pretty much everything. I guess it is more a budget issue, but from presentation to interaction with them are underwhelming shit.

The gods stuff are interesting in the big picture though.
 

Aqualung

Dead duck
Patron
Joined
Jul 6, 2017
Messages
834
Location
a park bench
Insert Title Here
I had high expectations for PoE after reading all the dithyrambic (and maybe paid?) reviews. But imagine my shock when I found:

-Plot lines concieved by some kind of 15th level mage in a secluded basement.
-Pointless, uninteresting and badly written walls of text.
-Overwhelming lack of original ideas/concepts. Everything is very anglo and faux welsh...
- ...

But the icing on the cake was the goofy names. You cannot expect me to be inmerse by a world with the likes of "Woedica", "Templus", "Calisca" or "Xaurip"...

No matter what PoE aficionados state: I just can't see any "good idea" in the whole thing.
I uninstall the shit after waste time of my life for a couple of hours. Never again.
 

Bonerbill

Augur
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
302
Location
North Carolina
I found most of it pretty interesting to be honest. Especially the gods and the hollowborn crisis. The Grieving Mother's story and how it relates to the hollowborn is pretty great I think, it's just a shame that she comes across more as goth teen when you speak with her. I can't stand her manner of speaking.

It was pretty breathtaking observing the exercise in futility that is grieving mother. It's like a bloated, bulging leviathan ready to burst. I wondered if it was some torturous in-joke until the finale. The punchline it its sheer existence, I guess.

And everything surrounding durance was somewhat alright for a video game.

What is up with the retards on this forum.
 

fobia

Guest
I mean... i dunno, ie when i reached Rodric i didn't give a fuck about him, his reasons or anything, i was just like "fuck it, just die and give me your sweet loot"... And most of the game has been something like that also. The skaen cult was kind of interesting, kind of.

Oh yeah? So the 17 and a half people* hanging from the tree in the village, the despair because of the hollowborn crisis and Raedric's settler policy, the ani-/necromancer in his cellars that takes advantage of his desperation and the blood soaked bed where his wife died giving birth to his hollowborn child, which he killed there and then did nothing for you? :D

I completely agree that the OC lacks a lot regarding storytelling and writing in general. But the tension built up in Gilded Vale up until you (can) confront Raedric was pretty cool imho.
It weaves together a lot of new stuff you are involved, like animancy, the hollowborn crisis/waidwen's legacy, the whole watcher shenanigans, and the problems that come with that shit. Way better than later in the game, and way better than a lot of RPGs introduce you into their lore.



* It depends on how you count.
 
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Nerevar

N'wah
Patron
Repressed Homosexual
Joined
Jul 10, 2017
Messages
1,128
Location
Balmora
Make the Codex Great Again! Pathfinder: Wrath
What did I like about PoE... The weapons that level up with you were cool the artefact weapons that was neat. As for the game itself and the "party members" you are given. Not so great.

They needed to fire "Carrie Patel" and remove that creatures "contribution" to the game it wrote the worst party members that'd give nu-bioware a run for their money.
 

Sherry

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Messages
404
Location
Shrine of Compassion
Hi.

I really liked the Hollowborn because it had a tie-in to a Wicht creature we encountered in the game and we learn while adventuring they are those children who at the age of maturity turned into the animal spirits they were given so it was each time you encountered them a mother and father had lost their son or daughter and now you were encountering them as the savages they become. This also helped fuel Animancy and what they did or thought they did to make things right. Then there is the story about that village which just tossed a new born baby into the water and they would float very similar to Witches and that was pretty haunting to read. Toss your baby into the water. If it floats it is Hollowborn if not it sinks and you just murdered your baby.

The lore of the White March and Durgan's Battery is well above the story arc of Pillars. There is a lot of great books and history that is told which truly made it feel like an addition when you read about places you had been exploring already in Pillars. It is a chilling reminder that not every place in the world suffered from the Hollowborn crisis and that other races had their own problems that caused their demise. That made the world feel even bigger and more alive. The Hollowborn crisis was a blink in one region's history.

Deadfire will continue this epic story.

Thanks,
Sherry
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
12,877
Location
Eastern block
Writing is worse than a Ryan Reynolds movie.

Purple prose without any sense of measure.

Lore walls shoved down your throat as early as character creation. Historical events, locations, treaties with overly complex names no one wants to care about.

Absolutely no reaction whatsoever to my Death Godlike. In a wretched land where soulless babies are born and my kind killed at birth everyone was treating me with a generic "How may I be of assistance Sir?" as some kind of nobility.

Nearly every culture ripped from an European counterpart. Especially naming conventions.

Vampires are called "Fampyrs". Xaurips are copy-pasted Kobolds. Vithracks are quite shamelessly ripped off Illithid. Godlikes are Planetouched. Very low-effort worldbuilding.

You'd be hard pushed to find anything authentic or original in this franchise. It is clearly a work of talentless Californian hipsters.

Utterly forgettable banal shite.
 

Jenkem

その目、だれの目?
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Nov 30, 2016
Messages
8,850
Location
An oasis of love and friendship.
Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
I actually really enjoyed the lore about the various gods and how they tied in with a lot of the quests, particularly Durance's companion quest..

The hollowborn bit and the way souls work, was decent but mostly just banal exposition, and could have been handled better.

outside of those though nothing is really memorable.. except the lore that appears in The White March as pertaining to that questline is much much better than what is in vanilla.
 

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