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

[Flou]

You have a point, but on the other hand when the cv consists of only terrible fan-fiction or dating sim work (this new writer) and/or you say in interviews that your aim with Tyranny is to "reach the great reactivity of The Wolf Among Us" and your favourite game and inspiration is fucking Fallout 3 (Starks) things are not exactly promising.

Also, Ziets' first work with Obsidian was Mask of the Betrayer, which is to this day their game with the best writing, Avellone's first game was Torment, Gonzalez's first Obsidian title was New Vegas, and even if we look at Sawyer (although he's not a writer) his first game was Icewind Dale, which is not a masterpiece but a good game at least. You could already see some talent in their first works (well, more than "some talent" for Ziets and MCA especially), none of them started with writing Kills-in-Shadows and then went on to write the likes of Dak'kon, Morte, Kaelyn the Dove, Ravel, Kreia, Myrkul, Okku, etc.

Ziets first game at Obsidian was Neverwinter Nights 2, not Mask of the Betrayer.
Avellone worked on multiple games at Interplay before Torment. Fallout 2 and Descent to Undermountain to name a few.
John Gonzales was hired as a Lead Writer. Kirsch, Starks or their latest addition... nope. They've started as junior writers or writers, not as lead writers. He had one game under his belt as a story director and thus had actual experience for that position.

You need to look at the games these people worked on as well and what amount of creative freedom those said games give them. With Mask of the Betrayer it is obvious the writers were allowed to write amazing and way different than your normal fantasy crpg companions due to the setting alone, yet hardly anyone praises the companions in NWN2. I can't even remember a single one in that game.
Same goes for Torment, freedom to go crazy and to explore outside your normal fantasy companions.
Even a great writer can't do miracles if the setting and Project Director are there to trip them at every point which is why I want to see how they fare under different project director and on a different setting. I'm not saying Tyranny's writing was all bad, there were definately some quality writing there as well and I didn't find the writing all that bad to begin with. Then again I haven't played the game with all of the companions..

Demand for quality writers has also gone up since the early 2010's and Obsidian isn't in a position where they can just point at a project of theirs and get a great lead writer with the IP alone. Who wouldn't want to work on a Fallout game after Fallout 3 was a massive hit?

 

[Sentinel]

So, to recap:

Avellone's games before Torment: Fallout 2, a game that despite the epic meme references everywhere, still had quality writing every at street you crossed
Ziets: first game was shit, but as soon as he was granted freedom comes up with MotB, one of the best written cRPGs in the block
Kirsh/Starks: are granted freedom, Tyranny is a hot piece of dung shit.

 

[Infinitron]

I think this new chick looks p. horrible, but if you want to be fair with that comparison, you should look at the games' lead/main writers, which Kirsch and Starks were not on Tyranny (Matt MacLean was).

tl;dr Nothing to be done about it, time well tell.

 

[Sentinel]

To be honest I don't even know who Kirsch wrote. I know Megan wrote Kills-In-Shadow, which was embarrassing, and Matt MacLean wrote Eb (and I think Barik the guy who shits himself all the time). Both of those were terrible. Kills-In-Shadow was complete cringe from start to end, Eb just vomited her whole political manifesto first time I met her. The only companion from that game I liked was Sirin, which was written by who is apparently Tim Cain's husband. Didn't even know he wrote stuff. I really liked her, they should give him more space on the writing staff.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Lantry wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but I kinda liked him too.

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem with Obsidian atm is that they hire the same kinds of people to write, so they are in an echo chamber. They may have the superficial diversities of race, gender, sexual orientation and what-have-you, but they don't have the diversity that really matters - the intellectual kind. When everyone "believes" capitalism is evil (blithely ignoring the fact that Obsidian's current state is only possible due to capitalism), patriarchy is real, left-wing is best wing etc. etc., they don't challenge each other to be better artists. They all have the same artistic principles and write from the same artistic perspective. They also write as a team, I doubt the "Lead Writer" does much leading beyond surface glances, so there is no focus. Tyranny is a perfect example, instead of exploring the nature of "evil", the psychology of sadism and suffering or the perspective of "evil", they wrote about the things they "think" are "evil", but such things are immaterial when they don't have enough life experience, or technical ability as writers, to do them justice.

Most of them lack the good ol' imagination as well. That is easily explained by their lack of diverse "inspirations", when asked what their "inspirations" were everyone said some pop culture thing. That makes them really short-sighted and even close-minded. What the company needs atm is a very educated, very intelligent and very well-read Lead Writer who can whip them into shape and impose his "vision" on the whole team, then edit everything everyone writes. The Lead Writer should be like a conductor, leading the main body as a unified whole, but he himself should know what he wants and has the ability to create a solid construct which stands up to scrutiny.

Some people might say "but Bloodlines' development was in very lax atmosphere, with no-one to impose his ideas", but that's not technically true. They had a conductor - the setting itself and White Wolf Publishing. They couldn't do whatever they want and that's why it's much better, I also wouldn't say their technical ability on a micro level was that good, the setting is what pushed it over the edge to become good.

 

[Infinitron]

"In short, they need to hire me." :D

 

[Merlkir]

They should really hire some Nazis, to be truly intellectually diverse. Or at least a few smart and responsible libertarians, now THAT would improve their games!

 

[Prime Junta]

An imam, a rabbi, and a priest walk into a game developer's office...

 

[Flou]

So, to recap:

Avellone's games before Torment: Fallout 2, a game that despite the epic meme references everywhere, still had quality writing every at street you crossed
Ziets: first game was shit, but as soon as he was granted freedom comes up with MotB, one of the best written cRPGs in the block
Kirsh/Starks: are granted freedom, Tyranny is a hot piece of dung shit.

I believe you forgot all the other games Chris worked on before Torment. Those didn't fare so well. New Reno was a mess though, quality writing and good quest design but it didn't really fit the setting.

With Ziets, yup pretty much. Then again they had a strong team for that game. I'm not sure if Ziets has been able to create anything as remarkable after that even though some of his writing for both Dungeon Siege 3 and Pillars 1 were exceptional.

Starks/Kirsh: Did they have all that much creative freedom though? Sure it's a new setting and in that sense they had freedom, but I believe it's easier to go wild in an established IP such as Forgotten Realms or Star Wars than creating something out of thin air, especially for new writers.
I need to play the game again with Kills-In-Shadow so I can comment on her/his writing. I thought Tyranny had some quality writing as well, it was just inconsistent. Tunon for example was very well written. Any idea who wrote Tunon?

 

[an Administrator]

but they don't have the diversity that really matters - the intellectual kind. When everyone "believes" capitalism is evil (blithely ignoring the fact that Obsidian's current state is only possible due to capitalism), patriarchy is real, left-wing is best wing etc
.

What will this so-called "intellectual diversity" possibly accomplish other than inserting even more pointless political debates into video games?

 

[Quillon]

Tunon for example was very well written. Any idea who wrote Tunon?

https://www.paul-kirsch.com/characters ...he wrote most of the important characters?

 

[Lacrymas]

What will this so-called "intellectual diversity" possibly accomplish other than inserting even more pointless political debates into video games?

You assume that intellectual diversity = political diversity, while I've never said such a thing and it's not true. It's also not about politics at all, it's about worldviews and ideas. Also, it's good if there is a debate in games, whether political or otherwise. We haven't seen such, all we've seen is left-wing apologists and ideas, taken as a status quo and as a baseline around which some people deviate from, if even that. Even Kyros espouses "equality" as a good thing, too bad it's kinda like the communist equality, equal in misery, but not so profound or interesting.

 

[sser]

I got your intellectual diversity right here,

grabs crotch


also dyes hair

 

[Iznaliu]

When everyone "believes" capitalism is evil (blithely ignoring the fact that Obsidian's current state is only possible due to capitalism), patriarchy is real, left-wing is best wing etc. etc., they don't challenge each other to be better artists

You're assuming that everyone on half the political spectrum is the same. There is a world of difference between a Clinton supporter and a Stalin supporter.

 

[Iznaliu]

Another random Sawyer Twitter post:

 

[CptMace]

Is Sawyer the cancer killing Obsidian?

An original and interesting question for sure.

 

[Prime Junta]

beey-am

 

[Infinitron]

 

[pomenitul]

How to save CRPGs, according to the Codex:

 

[Projas]

Forgot "no darkies".

 

[Lacrymas]

Maybe they should reevaluate their own language skills before deciding to judge anyone else. It's not about not hiring liberals, it's about not hiring the same kinds of people constantly. Which happen to be the same kind of obnoxious, uneducated liberals. The writing is atrocious in both Tranny and PoE, so it seems to me that the people they have on can't differentiate between good and bad writing. This speaks volumes. I can see why Avellone left, apart from any personal grudges he has.

 

[Sentinel]

Writing in PoE's main quest is pretty good, as well as the companions Eric wrote and Durance. But yeah everything else ranges from "whatever" to Tyranny-tier.

PS: I looked over at Kirsch's site, and he has no past work other than Pillars of Eternity. Another example of Obsidian's extremely high standards when hiring writers.

 

[Flou]

Writing in PoE's main quest is pretty good, as well as the companions Eric wrote and Durance. But yeah everything else ranges from "whatever" to Tyranny-tier.

PS: I looked over at Kirsch's site, and he has no past work other than Pillars of Eternity. Another example of Obsidian's extremely high standards when hiring writers.

You make it sound like they just hired first person who applied. Just because he doesn't have published works, doesn't mean they don't have him write them something to see how well he writes before actually hiring him.

Kirsch wrote the Almanac on Pillars, not sure if he was hired as junior writer for that role. I don't think he actually wrote any lines for the game itself. And if Kirsch wrote Tunon, the two Archons and Verse&Barik I would say he is a quality hire for Obsidian. Especially the conversations with Tunon were very well done.

 

[Sannom]

It's not directly related to the game, but Kirsch is also the best short story writer they got. His was the best of the PoE collection and the ones he wrote for Tyranny were also good.