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

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, that's why I said it depends if you count mods or not. Vanilla BG is easier than PotD. The only punishingly hard fight for me in PoTD up until now was the Gleaming Society, maybe it's due to my party composition. I haven't fought Concelhaut yet.

 

[Parabalus]

Did anyone try to do something with PoE's AI? Shame the game isn't mod friendly.

 

[AwesomeButton]

“We have a pop-up window that shows things like the population, a breakdown of the different races in the city, who rules the city, and what their major trade exports are,” Sawyer explains. “It helps flesh out your sense of the city, but also its place in the world.”



Cant i buy some newspapers for that, like i could in Arcanum, and see what the various races are up to and see prices of sugar too. And for critical information like population count i should be able to go to some Great Library or Archives... Tarrant had a Hall of Records. Isnt that better than a "pop-up window"? Fuck, even Dragon Age Codex Entries were better.

I totally agree, and this made an impression on me too. After PoE, where we obviously had design notes simply copy-pasted into the game, now we see the same thing being done here, this time without the excuses in the lines of "we were in a hurry, Kickstarter, technology, etc." After I saw Josh say in an interview they just made up the godlike in order to have "something like the Tanar'ri", now this. Fuck man you should never talk about your lore like that. I don't know why almost no one respects their own worldbuilding any more. Apparently they expect it will be other aspects of their game that will make people interested in it, but even then, why denigrate your own work?

And yes, the newspapers in arcanum were genious, like mostly everything in that game. At the same time cheap production-wise, fitting the setting, providing reactivity, and completely optional. Arcanum 2 Jazz Era KS when!?

 

[Sizzle]

After I saw Josh say in an interview they just made up the godlike in order to have "something like the Tanar'ri", now this. Fuck man you should never talk about your lore like that. I don't know why almost no one respects their own worldbuilding any more. Apparently they expect it will be other aspects of their game that will make people interested in it, but even then, why denigrate your own work?

Genasi, not Tanar'ri :D

Yeah, PoE's lore is a strange combination of trying to walk two different roads at once - being as deliberately unoriginal in some aspects (Godlike, Xaurip, Fampyrs, Vithrack, etc.), all the while attempting to create something original as well (the souls concept, the local history, customs, etc.), in a mish-mash that doesn't quite gel all that well in the end.

The dangers of playing it safe and wanting to have it both ways.

And yes, the newspapers in arcanum were genious, like mostly everything in that game. At the same time cheap production-wise, fitting the setting, providing reactivity, and completely optional. Arcanum 2 Jazz Era KS when!?

And the news reports in VTMB. Shame that more games (and developers) don't use this technique.

 

[FreeKaner]

I don't think you need to be "original" at every concept, plain old undead should be plain old undead. They integrated the concept of undead to their souls concept rather seemlessly, with degenerating stages from fampyr to gul to skeleton.

 

[Sizzle]

Sure, that part is fine. Where it falls apart (and starts being hilarious), is that they felt that wasn't enough, so they had to call a vampire a fampyr.

For other creatures that they made new versions of (Kobold - Xaurip), that makes sense. For famyrs and guls, it's just trying too hard :D

I mean, this is something a child would do - change one letter and claim it's a totally different thing, because, you know, even though it's basically the same, it's named differently :D

 

[Lacrymas]

Fuck man you should never talk about your lore like that. I don't know why almost no one respects their own worldbuilding any more. Apparently they expect it will be other aspects of their game that will make people interested in it, but even then, why denigrate your own work?

That's because they treat world-building as something separate and self-contained that they assume is interesting on its own. Which can't be further from the truth.

even though it's basically the same, it's named differently :D

A rose by any other name and all that, but in a bad way.

 

[Prime Junta]

I thought the way they fit the undead into their soul metaphysics was pretty good actually.

The main thing that annoys me about Pillars lore is those fucking Engwithans, they're everywhere, and with their soul-tech they're bound to eclipse any other ancient culture you might come across (the folks who built Neketaka for example).

Also having an actually-existing pantheon of gods that's global in scope but pretty small in number puts a major crimp on exploring other cultures. There's no chance of coming across something like, say, Aztecs offering still-beating hearts of captured enemies to Mictlantecuchtli because we already know there isn't a Mictlantecuchtli in the pantheon. There's also no room for beings of stature between gods and mortals -- demons and angels as it were. Best you can do is archmages or the likes of Thaos, which is pretty small.

I'm kinda sorta almost hoping they'll retcon some shit to make room for this kind of thing. Can't see any elegant way of doing it at this point though, they should've worked that into the P1 background story.

 

[FreeKaner]

I mean, this is something a child would do - change one letter and claim it's a totally different thing, because, you know, even though it's basically the same, it's named differently :D

I think that wasn't the aim considering "gul" would be closer to Arabic spelling "ghoul", which it originates from, "fampyr" I think similar to cyrillic spelling. Both "vampyre" and "ghoul" are Frenchified versions which then got into English.

So I don't see a reason to adhere to a strict "canon" of spelling when there is none, especially in loanwords which change spelling quite often. It's a really unnecessary and useless endeavor to say the "correct" spelling is one and any deviation is simply unorginal in fantasy concepts. Why mage and not magus/magi for example? Because linguistic deviation happens in any type of fictional work.

Hell, linguistic deviation happens in languages in general, that's why in English it's castle and in French it's château, both having roots in same Latin word.

 

[Sizzle]

Vampir is a Serbian word, it's spelled exactly like that (only in Cyrillic).

The issue isn't about phonology and spelling here, but about trying to spell it in a different way, just so they could pretend it's something different, something cooler.

If it's a vampire, call it a vampire. They already have ogres and trolls, elves and dwarves.

Fampyr does absolutely nothing for the game, except making it sound pretentious.

 

[FreeKaner]

The issue isn't about phonology and spelling here, but about trying to spell it in a different way, just so they could pretend it's something different, something cooler.

I think you came to that conclusion yourself about trying to make it sound cool, because you accept a particular spelling only. The creatures are already different anyhow, they are not really vampires from count dracula, the aristocratic blood-suckers, they are p. much first stage of undead, closer to ghouls than anything else.

If it's a vampire, call it a vampire. They already have ogres and trolls, elves and dwarves.

Exactly, they already have ogres and trolls, elves and dwarves. If their aim was trying hard to be original, don't you think they would name those differently as well? It's a bit different because the concept is a bit different, with them being stages of undead rather than seperate undead. I mean at that point we can go and say if it's undead call it undead, why use ghoul, what does ghoul have a place in an European-inspired fantasy world? It's Arabic name for Arabic folklore after all.

I have problems with naming conventions in general in newer fantasy games for example, trying to name things as universal or profound when they are individual objects, or things being purpose-named all the time. Which makes the word feel synthetic and lacking in character. Yet being upset or finding it pretentious that god forbid a fantasy game makes up names or derives names seems a bit silly if not counter-intuitive. Especially when Tolkien himself as father of western fantasy derived a lot of stuff he wrote. It's an odd kind of conformism to police naming conventions like this and want to stick to "what's accepted".

 

[Prime Junta]

Fampyr does absolutely nothing for the game, except making it sound pretentious.

Wel-l-l...

Thing is, there are significant differences there too. Vampires are --
- blood-drinkers
- immortal, can only be killed in specific ways (stake through the heart, decapitation with garlic in the mouth etc)
- born of an ancient curse
- can transmit that curse to others, creating new vampires
- can't tolerate sunlight
- often ascribed powers like being able to transform into animal or insubstantial form
- often ascribed weaknesses like garlic, running water, certain plants, and sanctified objects

Fampyrs are --
- eaters of human flesh
- mortal, eventually degenerating into darghuls, then guls, then revenants, then skeletons, then dust
- created through animancy
- cannot transmit their condition to others
- have few traditionally vampiric powers (charm/dominate is the only one we know of)
- have no traditionally vampiric weaknesses (that we know of)

Both are --
- undead
- self-aware

I.e. IMO the differences are big enough that it would've been wrong to call them vampires. OTOH they occupy the same position in the "undead hierarchy" -- not quite as powerful as "liches" like the archmagi, but definitely higher than darghuls or the rest. So a name that suggests "vampire" also makes sense.

Whether "fampyr" is a good choice or not is, of course, debatable. I think they did better with "spirits" like Cean Gŵla -- for me at least that suggests Bean Sidhe (Banshee) without being too close. Nosferat?

 

[FreeKaner]

I think undead are weak to fire. That's traditional.

 

[Infinitron]

Also having an actually-existing pantheon of gods that's global in scope but pretty small in number puts a major crimp on exploring other cultures. There's no chance of coming across something like, say, Aztecs offering still-beating hearts of captured enemies to Mictlantecuchtli because we already know there isn't a Mictlantecuchtli in the pantheon. There's also no room for beings of stature between gods and mortals -- demons and angels as it were. Best you can do is archmages or the likes of Thaos, which is pretty small.

Perhaps this is why they made a point of introducing the concept of different aspects of the same god (Gaun and Eothas). You call him Mictlantafdajfdaj, we call him Berath.

(I like how Josh foreshadowed this subject matter 14 years earlier in the Heart of Winter expansion for Icewind Dale: https://youtu.be/8-KFH_jimQw?t=382)

 

[Prime Junta]

Perhaps this is why they made a point of introducing the concept of different aspects of the same god (Gaun and Eothas). You call him Mictlantafdajfdaj, we call him Berath.

True, that could help a little if they used it creatively.

 

[FreeKaner]

Perhaps this is why they made a point of introducing the concept of different aspects of the same god (Gaun and Eothas). You call him Mictlantafdajfdaj, we call him Berath.

(I like how Josh foreshadowed this subject matter 14 years earlier in the Heart of Winter expansion for Icewind Dale: https://youtu.be/8-KFH_jimQw?t=382)

I mean I guess they could do versions of same God á la Abrahamic religions. All three allegedly believe in same God yet are wildly different in practice. Something like Greek-Roman pantheons could work too, again Roman ones are based on Greek ones except they are slightly different. They could also add local "Gods" to whole hierarchy of things.

 

[Lacrymas]

There's also the question of how remote savages would've heard of this pantheon, unless they reveal themselves to everyone. Even then they are under no obligation to use their "real" names with everyone or disclose their full domains. Imagine a tribe dedicated to the worship of Skaen, but without the stereotypical cultish sacrifices and blood pools because he simply didn't tell them about that. It would be too banal to have a backwater people be religious fanatics who turn their village into a freak show. Unless you are involved in this turning into a freak show for some ulterior motive. Like a priest of Skaen gaining favor and blessings from him, wink, wink. Mmmm, delicious. Make it happen, Obsidian.

About Engwithans - they are kind of like the ancient alliance between elves and dwarves which name escapes me atm from D&D. They had their portals, a lot of strong magic etc. The problem is that Engwithans are indeed everywhere and it becomes samey, if you've seen one of their ruins you've seen them all. Also, their strength in soul manipulation is a problem because current civilization is trying to play catch up with them, it's not about inventing or discovering new things, it's about trying to do what the Engwithans did. It also reinforces this very tired trope in fantasy where the older civilizations are always literally more advanced, more knowledgeable, more worthy of reverence than the current one. If that is the case, why is the game set up in this boring-ass, less interesting and flourishing time? That's PoE in a nutshell, though, why didn't we start from the beginning of the Saint's War and see it till the end? See, that's a problem with world-building in general, if the history you've come up with is so interesting, important and captivating, why is the game not set then? I can't imagine anyone from Obsidian going "Yeap! Thaos and co. are way more interesting than the religious war 15 years ago!"

The timeline would've been way better had it been like this - PoE1 deals with the Saint's War in its entirety or at least the culmination and Eothas as Avatar, the ending slides mention the first Hollowborn child being born; PoE2 deals exclusively with the Hollowborn, eschewing Thaos' involvement in this, except in the capacity of stopping it, the ending slides mention Eothas bursting from Caed Nua because of the stopped Hollowborn; PoE3 deals with Eothas as God/Divine Construct. I wouldn't write Eothas returning at all, I'd go God of War style of massive catastrophes, like the Hollowborn, happening with his death, but I'm using Absurdian's template.

 

[Sizzle]

One thing I did like about the Engwithians was that they excelled only at animancy (and mathematics/astronomy, I think?). When you stumble upon some of their weapons and armor, you quickly learn they are of shoddy craftsmanship.

You don't see that much in RPGs. Usually, when there's an ancient civilization involved, they do everything better than modern-day cultures - magic, weapons, armor, architecture, the works.

But that's just another thing that's symptomatic about PoE's lore - a good, strong idea, that, unfortunately, got drowned out in a sea of irrelevant fluff.

And yes, I wholeheartedly agree that there should be different ancient cultures besides them. I hope the Huana precursor civilization in PoE2 will be interesting.

 

[AwesomeButton]

After I saw Josh say in an interview they just made up the godlike in order to have "something like the Tanar'ri", now this. Fuck man you should never talk about your lore like that. I don't know why almost no one respects their own worldbuilding any more. Apparently they expect it will be other aspects of their game that will make people interested in it, but even then, why denigrate your own work?

Genasi, not Tanar'ri :D

Busted

Yeah, PoE's lore is a strange combination of trying to walk two different roads at once - being as deliberately unoriginal in some aspects (Godlike, Xaurip, Fampyrs, Vithrack, etc.), all the while attempting to create something original as well (the souls concept, the local history, customs, etc.), in a mish-mash that doesn't quite gel all that well in the end.

The dangers of playing it safe and wanting to have it both ways.

Agreed.

 

[Colour Spray]

They've shown some signs of understanding the problems with the first game, at least. I thought it was encouraging that they talked about the bustle of the city in that Neketaka preview. One thing Baldurs Gate makes seem effortless is in creating a country-side region involved in its own problems so that with very little further exposition everything seems neatly connected in some way. Like, you have Amnish Soldiers hurriedly walking down the main highway in Nashkel. They don't even have to say anything and you immediately understand that given the iron crisis and the bandit problems they've got a lot of trouble on their hands. Even without that added context, seeing a bunch of soldiers and city-guards marching with purpose adds believe-ability to their presentation.

So, hopefully npc schedules and more realistic reactions helps in that regard. If they are taking ambiance more seriously this time, hearkening back to 'the bustle of the city' again, that can't be a bad thing either. Because all of those things which strongly draw you into the world without any added dialogue was a little sparse in the first game. I mean, you can misjudge it a little, like that racket that goes on in the prison district in Neverwinter Nights which is supposed to sound like the prisoners rioting, even when nobody seems to be nearby; but even then you eventually get used it, so it doesn't hurt to try.

If anything Pillars suffered from, it was a little too much head and not enough heart. It's hard to disagree with any one aspect of the lore, because it's all logically reasoned through. For instance, where Amber Scott takes the role of the wife to be implicitly demeaning, Obsidian acknowledges the role of family in a medieval society as an important one. It safe-guards against disease, strengthens social bonds and doesn't tax the community with unwanted mouths to feed. So it's cool that there are characters like Sagani or Edér that don't pretend their families are non-entities; of no importance at all to their own self-indentity.

... I'm still kinda annoyed by that comment she made about Jaheira and Khalid, because Jaheira always sounds so disappointed in Khalid for getting himself killed that I end up feeling guilty for not taking better care over him.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I thought the way they fit the undead into their soul metaphysics was pretty good actually.

The main thing that annoys me about Pillars lore is those fucking Engwithans, they're everywhere, and with their soul-tech they're bound to eclipse any other ancient culture you might come across (the folks who built Neketaka for example).

Also having an actually-existing pantheon of gods that's global in scope but pretty small in number puts a major crimp on exploring other cultures. There's no chance of coming across something like, say, Aztecs offering still-beating hearts of captured enemies to Mictlantecuchtli because we already know there isn't a Mictlantecuchtli in the pantheon. There's also no room for beings of stature between gods and mortals -- demons and angels as it were. Best you can do is archmages or the likes of Thaos, which is pretty small.

I'm kinda sorta almost hoping they'll retcon some shit to make room for this kind of thing. Can't see any elegant way of doing it at this point though, they should've worked that into the P1 background story.

Nothing prevents other civilizations from worshipping the same gods under different names. And the gods let them have different rituals for some reasons of their own.

Fampyr does absolutely nothing for the game, except making it sound pretentious.

Wel-l-l...

Thing is, there are significant differences there too. Vampires are --
- blood-drinkers
- immortal, can only be killed in specific ways (stake through the heart, decapitation with garlic in the mouth etc)
- born of an ancient curse
- can transmit that curse to others, creating new vampires
- can't tolerate sunlight
- often ascribed powers like being able to transform into animal or insubstantial form
- often ascribed weaknesses like garlic, running water, certain plants, and sanctified objects

Fampyrs are --
- eaters of human flesh
- mortal, eventually degenerating into darghuls, then guls, then revenants, then skeletons, then dust
- created through animancy
- cannot transmit their condition to others
- have few traditionally vampiric powers (charm/dominate is the only one we know of)
- have no traditionally vampiric weaknesses (that we know of)

Both are --
- undead
- self-aware

I.e. IMO the differences are big enough that it would've been wrong to call them vampires. OTOH they occupy the same position in the "undead hierarchy" -- not quite as powerful as "liches" like the archmagi, but definitely higher than darghuls or the rest. So a name that suggests "vampire" also makes sense.

Whether "fampyr" is a good choice or not is, of course, debatable. I think they did better with "spirits" like Cean Gŵla -- for me at least that suggests Bean Sidhe (Banshee) without being too close. Nosferat?

This discussion of undead in PoE reminds me of the very interesting Developer Diary/KS update they made on the subject of undead in Eora. It's a shame this lore wasn't used anywhere in the game - the only way to learn it is by reading the KS update, I think.

I mean, this is something a child would do - change one letter and claim it's a totally different thing, because, you know, even though it's basically the same, it's named differently :D

I think that wasn't the aim considering "gul" would be closer to Arabic spelling "ghoul", which it originates from, "fampyr" I think similar to cyrillic spelling. Both "vampyre" and "ghoul" are Frenchified versions which then got into English.

So I don't see a reason to adhere to a strict "canon" of spelling when there is none, especially in loanwords which change spelling quite often. It's a really unnecessary and useless endeavor to say the "correct" spelling is one and any deviation is simply unorginal in fantasy concepts. Why mage and not magus/magi for example? Because linguistic deviation happens in any type of fictional work.

Hell, linguistic deviation happens in languages in general, that's why in English it's castle and in French it's château, both having roots in same Latin word.

Regarding "fampyr", it's a bit silly, because while "Cean Gŵla" can have some pseudo-etymological explanation within the lore, "fampyr" has none, unless some Eoran civilisation has been in contact with people speaking old Bulgarian and have adopted the word? My bet is that "fampyr" may have been the result of Polina Hristova's input, I think she was a 2D artist for PoE.

Also, I've heard that lately in the US, esp. in "enlightened liberal" circles such as those in the game-making industry on the west coast, any Balkan culture element comes off as the most fashionable "niche" and "exotic" knowledge.

 

[Prime Junta]

This discussion of undead in PoE reminds me of the very interesting Developer Diary/KS update they made on the subject of undead in Eora. It's a shame this lore wasn't used anywhere in the game - the only way to learn it is by reading the KS update, I think.

It was used in the game, on several occasions, notably in the Heritage Hill series of events. Icantha and Aldhelm comment on it, and it's referenced in the Valtas manor events as well.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Ah yeah, in that recollection of events that the girl gave you when you freed her from the zombies. Ok then. Icantha was mostly a loredump though. It would have been cooler if this exposition was something the player gradually learned in the course of the game. Come to think of it - where in PoE do we have undead? Heritage Hill, part of Od Nua, where else?

 

[Lacrymas]

Come to think of it - where in PoE do we have undead? Heritage Hill, part of Od Nua, where else?

The whole road before Raedric's, there's even a graveyard in there you have to camp in to upgrade the Grey Sleeper, Raedric's basement. If spirits are counted as undead, which I don't think so, Eothas' temple, Abandoned Lighthouse, Durgan's Battery etc.

 

[Sizzle]

The Defiance Bay sewers, cemeteries, below Raedaric's Hold. They also pop up in TWM from time to time (like that Berath's Chosen Fampyr you meet in Russetwood).

Probably more, that's just off the top of my head.