Eternity Pillars of Eternity II Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Sensuki]

The sales will be fine due to the shinny gfx alone

 

[Fry]

They're going to take a sales hit from (1) angry grogs and (2) those who bought PoE based on hype and had no idea what kind of game they were getting themselves into. Neither will be back for the sequel, but the second group far outweighs the first.

There might be a huge third group consisting of people who were curious about the first game, didn't buy it, but want to try Deadfire. I kinda doubt it.

 

[Sizzle]

The Codex is the only place I've ever seen that actively dislikes PoE. The general consensus is that it's a good game that's faithful to its Infinity Engine roots.

This, of course, isn't completely accurate, but most people really can't tell the difference - and it's those people who are the majority of buyers.

So, yes, the game will probably sell about as well as PoE1 did.

 

[Bonerbill]

The Codex is the only place I've ever seen that actively dislikes PoE. The general consensus is that it's a good game that's faithful to its Infinity Engine roots.

PoE is well liked, but there are other communities that have people who don't like the game. I've seen a lot of people on r/tyranny and r/games who hate the game. And I know there are some people on neogaf 2.0 who like the game, but prefer Dragonfall and Divinity.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

From what I have seen, people on the normie forums who don't like it, in most cases had no idea what they were buying, made a hype purchase, and found isometric RtwP gameplay incomprehensible.

 

[imweasel]

I've seen that argument too. It isn't surprising because (vanilla) PoE has pretty bad RTwP combat compared to the Infinity Engine games.

 

[Sensuki]

Out of my RL friends that purchased the game, one finished it and the other two gave up in Chapter 2. The guy who finished it has a track record of actually finishing games. He tried to play The White March, but he didn't want to use the character he ended the game with to play it so he started a new character. He didn't really enjoy his replay and quit in Chapter 1 before he could get to TMW content and replayed BG2 Enhanced Edition instead.

The guy who finished it will probably buy #2, one of the guys who didn't finish it (or play it again) would buy #2 if some of his friends bought it so he didn't feel left out and the other guy wouldn't buy #2 unless it was bargain bin price and he was bored and wanted something new to play. The first two guys are the type with 300+ Steam games and have played maybe 1/4 of them, if that. They all like the Baldur's Gates, Fallout 3 and Skyrim but none of them have been able to get into The Witcher series or Fallout New Vegas. They all played The Witcher 1 and gave up in the first chapter and I think they all played F:NV but didn't get very far either.

None of them liked the hwpra dwrp, and all thought the story and combat were a bit bland and were varying degrees of lukewarm about the game.

 

[Urthor]

Nobody actually knows how this game will sell because the track record of all the other Kickstarter games since 2015 has been so eh, but on the flipside Pillars was probably the most loved Kickstarter game of all and the release date isn't shit.


It'll be super interesting to see the day 1 that's for sure, idk what Steamspy had for PoE's day 1

 

[Elex]

The Codex is the only place I've ever seen that actively dislikes PoE. The general consensus is that it's a good game that's faithful to its Infinity Engine roots.

PoE is well liked, but there are other communities that have people who don't like the game. I've seen a lot of people on r/tyranny and r/games who hate the game. And I know there are some people on neogaf 2.0 who like the game, but prefer Dragonfall and Divinity.

the inevitable divinityos2 vs poe2

divinityos2 will win in the mass market appeal.

 

[Sizzle]

PoE is well liked, but there are other communities that have people who don't like the game. I've seen a lot of people on r/tyranny and r/games who hate the game. And I know there are some people on neogaf 2.0 who like the game, but prefer Dragonfall and Divinity.

Don't visit those myself, but sure, I'm not surprised that there are others who also dislike it. But like I said, I'm talking about most online communities, and those are mostly populated by players who don't have as much experience - or put enough thought into careful analysis - to really tell the difference.

For example, when Tyranny first came out, comments where people were praising its combat as a logical evolution of PoE's, because: "Yay, cooldowns!", were plentiful.

Nobody actually knows how this game will sell because the track record of all the other Kickstarter games since 2015 has been so eh, but on the flipside Pillars was probably the most loved Kickstarter game of all and the release date isn't shit.

Pretty sure Divinity: Original Sin is a more universally loved Kickstarted project than PoE.

 

[Urthor]

I always forget that was a Kickstarter game, yes obviously Divinity and probably a few other non RPGs as well

 

[CptMace]

Stuff like twitch coverage is becoming more and more relevant these days. DOS2 had a sound strategy in that regard : getting enough/big streamers to play the game gives it very good visibility on twitch, thanks to how games are listed by number of viewers, and how the same games are always on top (dota likes, cs, multiplayer shooters...). New games pop to the eye immediatly for those who check the list now and then. And that's how I perceived it back then for dos2, the game held for several days among the top games on twitch.
They although set up a stream to promote GM mode with Matt Mercer as the host.
For games lke POE, it boils down to deciding if it's worth the attempt. The trick is, people haven't realised yet, it's always worth the attempt. Even for games who don't seem that appealing on stream like dos2. I suspect that companies, in a close future, will take twitch more seriously than youtube because of how effective and relatively cheap it proves, as a medium of advertisement.

 

[Mazisky]

Poe 2 will have strong media coverage and plenty of 9+ reviews, just like the first one, this will improve sales a lot.

Also, many of those who bought and didn't like Poe1 will buy and play Poe2 secretly and keep shitting on the game in forums claiming they didn't buy it.

I bet big sales for this game

 

[Efe]

stop self inserting all the time.
most people have integrity and dont buy shit they dont like

 

[Mazisky]

Btw, 1 million copies in one year would be very profitable for them, also i think it's doable.


for comparison, 1 Million copies is :

-A failure for Triple A common games (Cod, Asssassin creed, Gta, etc.)

-A decent result for smaller scale Triple A (Xcom 2, Civ, Total War)

-A huge success for indies.

Pillars 2 is in between the last 2.

 

[imweasel]

Also, many of those who bought and didn't like Poe1 will buy and play Poe2 secretly and keep shitting on the game in forums claiming they didn't buy it.

GoG has made it incredibly easy for people to play but not pay for games... so I seriously doubt that anybody would actually buy the sequel when all they want to do is just to shit all over the game.

 

[TT1]

Actually, I think the huge sucess of DOS2 will help PoE2 sales. There is a lot of new crpg players.

 

[Grotesque]

could we have pentagrams in the game like in the picture?
please someone ask him, it is very important.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'd rather ask can we get back to the IE games' 4 piece pie for highlighted characters? Their new creation looks rather dingy.

 

[2house2fly]

We'll see if it won't happen like Numanuma, the only interested people being the ones who backed it. I doubt it, though, since Numanuma was just shit in general and I doubt Obs are that incompetent or that the game is so niche in the first place.

The fact that it's a sequel with save import will potentially work against it. Sure you can make a dragon age tapestry-style simulated save, but people will intuitively not want to just skip part one of a series. Plus, while normies like pirate stuff, I can see the tribal and tropical environments failing to catch people's interest. It looks better than the first game, but that only matters to people who are judging it in relation to the first game. The classic RPG renaissance is long over and games like Tyranny and Torment sold pretty dismally even by the lowered sales standards of a 2D RPG- and judging by steam achievements so did the White March. I'm interested to see how POE2 sells but I'm predicting it'll tread water

 

[Infinitron]

We'll see if it won't happen like Numanuma, the only interested people being the ones who backed it. I doubt it, though, since Numanuma was just shit in general and I doubt Obs are that incompetent or that the game is so niche in the first place.

The fact that it's a sequel with save import will potentially work against it. Sure you can make a dragon age tapestry-style simulated save, but people will intuitively not want to just skip part one of a series. Plus, while normies like pirate stuff, I can see the tribal and tropical environments failing to catch people's interest. It looks better than the first game, but that only matters to people who are judging it in relation to the first game. The classic RPG renaissance is long over and games like Tyranny and Torment sold pretty dismally even by the lowered sales standards of a 2D RPG- and judging by steam achievements so did the White March. I'm interested to see how POE2 sells but I'm predicting it'll tread water

My take on this right now is something like this.

To make a successful sequel, one that matches or even outsells its predecessor, the predecessor needs to have reached a certain critical mass of true "organic" popularity. Not every seemingly successful game will yield a successful sequel. The sequel to a gimmicky indie with 500,000 owners won't necessarily sell well. The sequel to a big budget AAA that sold 3 million copies due to marketing won't either.

Divinity: Original Sin achieved this critical mass of "True Popularity". Did Pillars of Eternity? All I can say is that I think it's the most likely other RPG of its kind to have done so.

 

[Sizzle]

Baldur's Gate 2 also had an import character feature and it sold much better than BG1.

If PoE2 flops, it won't be because of this.

 

[Lacrymas]

Who knows what normies will think about importing characters. Who knows what they think in general regarding games, especially these kinds of games. The mainstream is a fickle beast and catering to them as an AA dev is not a certain thing. D:OS2's mainstream popularity came entirely out of the left field for me and I still don't know why it got so popular.

 

[Sizzle]

D:OS2's mainstream popularity came entirely out of the left field for me and I still don't know why it got so popular.

If I had to guess - the first one got good reviews and word-of-mouth, coupled with solid marketing, graphics, and - this I think is the most important bit - it's a game that's very fun to watch over Twitch. It features cool combat, where you can combine elements, morph, etc.

Lots of people who play it just care about the combat, and most don't seem to mind the armor system, HP bloat, and awful items.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

e. The classic RPG renaissance is long over and games like Tyranny and Torment sold pretty dismally even by the lowered sales standards of a 2D RPG- and judging by steam achievements so did the White March.

I wouldn’t call tyranny’s sales dismal. Tyranny sold roughly 250,000 copies relatively close to full price with not much marketing. It turned a profit. Paradox described it as a minor disappointment. My guess is that’s the baseline for any Obsidian made IE knockoff and Deadfire will easily do much better.

Who knows what normies will think about importing characters. Who knows what they think in general regarding games, especially these kinds of games. The mainstream is a fickle beast and catering to them as an AA dev is not a certain thing. D:OS2's mainstream popularity came entirely out of the left field for me and I still don't know why it got so popular.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of casuals? The shadow knows: multiplayer.