Also, congratulations on your the polemical quality of the argument: PoE doesn't have bad writing, because this other game has worse writing.
The question was about standards and how P1 compares to them. The general standard of writing in games, also RPGs, is pretty poor. There are some that rise above it -- The Witchers spring to mind -- but compared to the Mass Effects, Dragon Ages, Original Sins and what have you Pillars is middle-of-the-road.
(Or to pick another comparison -- P1's writing compares very favourably to BG1/2's or IWD's. Not close to PS:T's of course but then hardly anything is.)
I've said numerous times in this thread and possibly in others, that I don't expect great achievements from games' writing, for multiple reasons. But I can't call PoE's writing average even by the low bar of games in general, or RPGs in general. I recently made a related
thread. You can see how people rate PoE's writing there.
(Or to pick another comparison -- P1's writing compares very favourably to BG1/2's or IWD's.
This opinion doesn't seem to be shared by many people, I'm afraid.
Nostalgia goggles. I loved the infinity engine games, but aside from Torment the writing really was not the point, and it shows. Icewind Dale has very tight prose, but there is nowhere near enough of it. And quantity has a quality all its own. I know it was only supposed to be a throwaway dungeon crawler, but in my book you lose points for lack of ambition, even if you dramatically exceed the low expectations you set for yourself.
Here’s the thing: like TTON and Wasteland 2, the hate Pillars gets is totally out of proportion to its deficiencies. People were let down by these nostalgia fueled kickstarters because they wanted something that embodied all the best of the old infinity engine games and none of the worst. It gets graded on the toughest curve imaginable: we want a world with the scope of BG2, the combat of Icewind Dale, and the writing of Torment. No game is ever going to give you that. But for fuck’s sake, Pillars actually tried to go there (Tyranny had throwaway combat and better writing—not a coincidence). Of course they fell short. If you can judge it for what it is, though, and not for what you wish it would be, Pillars 3.0 is a solid RPG.
Sure, Pillars could’ve used a much tighter story, but, plot aside, the writing itself was pretty good. I’ll take a rough draft from Obsidian over a final draft from nearly anybody else in the business.
Of course, if you wanted more of a dungeon crawler a la Icewind Dale (or the Baldur’s Gate games if I’m being honest with myself), then I can understand being upset that it was too wordy. But if that’s really what you want, go play a blobber.
Maybe people would be happier if Obsidian had tried to mimic the teenage dungeon master tone of the Baldur’s Gate Series, but I’m glad they tried something different.
