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

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Compared to such shining beacons of literary munificence as, to pick an example at random, the Codex GOTY 2017?

The Codex's true GotY 2017 benefited from having its writing carefully polished over the course of two decades.

 

[Prime Junta]

I wish more games had as little writing as IWD. In these days of bloated writing complaining that a game has just enough seems completely masochist

I gave you an agree because of the sentiment, but I mildly disagree about the degree. IWD was too little, even if a major course correction in that direction from "more words than the Bible" would be welcome.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Someone tells me PoE's writing is actually "average", and I am less surprised if they can't appreciate IWD's writing.

IWD's writing really didn't do anything for me. I don't even remember much of the story. Good fights, but not much recollection what they were all about.

I have even less recollection of what IWD2 was all about. Some invasion of demonic lesbians or something...?

...

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I wish more games had as little writing as IWD. In these days of bloated writing complaining that a game has just enough seems completely masochist

Man cannot live on dungeon crawlers alone.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I wish more games had as little writing as IWD. In these days of bloated writing complaining that a game has just enough seems completely masochist

Kyl Von Kull , in my opinion the whole trick to IWD's overall style is its minimalism, and not just in the writing.

Whenever IWD refrains from telling you how some barkeep eyeballs you while pretending to be cleaning a tankard, is an opportunity for you, the RPG player, to picture this, make it up in your mind, and in general to roleplay. Extrapolate form that, and you will see my point. And this is done intentionally, it's not lack of creativity or time, or "not trying". This is Chris Avellone. When he decides it's justified, he will write a novella in a sword's description, and when he decides, he will go minimalistic.

Prime Junta , the writing is not the story, as you surely know. The same story can be deemed cliche if the writing is uninspiring, and "a classic" if it's The Hobbit (a pretty cliche story). Please don't bite into my example like a Staffordshire terrirer and go into analysing the social and cultural context of The Hobbit, I'm just using it for an illustration.

 

[Prime Junta]

The IWDs were made on a shoestring budget, extremely tight schedule, and in the case of IWD1, virtually no project direction.

I.e. I'm very much afraid it is lack of time and resources -- at best, an intentional choice forced by the lack of time and resources.

(Which isn't to say that lack of time and resources is always a bad thing. Look at what happened to Star Wars when George Lucas got all the time and resources he could wish for.)

 

[Grunker]

The IWDs were made on a shoestring budget, extremely tight schedule, and in the case of IWD1, virtually no project direction.

I.e. I'm very much afraid it is lack of time and resources -- at best, an intentional choice forced by the lack of time and resources.

(Which isn't to say that lack of time and resources is always a bad thing. Look at what happened to Star Wars when George Lucas got all the time and resources he could wish for.)

But that's exactly the point. I completely disagree with AwesomeButton that this is just Avellone being awesome: when given the chance, the guy is verbose no matter whether the situation calls for it. The restrictions forced the development team to make the words count. The final product works.

 

[Grunker]

I wish more games had as little writing as IWD. In these days of bloated writing complaining that a game has just enough seems completely masochist

Man cannot live on dungeon crawlers alone.

Thus it is fortunate that he does not have to. That fact does not lessen IWD's quality.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Prime Junta
Some misguided people (with sinister cocksucking agenda) may disagree with me about the horrible mess P:E combat and systems have been in general.

Are you honestly saying that the literary diahhrea of historical lore dumps from every tom dick and harry in P:E didnt make you want to puke?

And an important fact is the writing/story of P:E didn't affect you much gameplay wise/mechanically.

The nuplanetouched with their weird heads are supposed to be rare and stuff right? well almost no one in P:E gives a fuck.

The watcher goes insane? lol wut, never felt like it.

Instead why not listen to a dry history lecture monologue from generic peasant #45678.

Increased word count must mean it is a good storyfag game 111!!!111

If devs cannot into writing (and most can't); I would prfer little to no writing rather than a bazillion words of substance-less filler nonsense.

 

[Jarpie]

Prime Junta
Some misguided people (with sinister cocksucking agenda) may disagree with me about the horrible mess P:E combat and systems have been in general.

Are you honestly saying that the literary diahhrea of historical lore dumps from every tom dick and harry in P:E didnt make you want to puke?

And an important fact is the writing/story of P:E didn't affect you much gameplay wise/mechanically.

The nuplanetouched with their weird heads are supposed to be rare and stuff right? well almost no one in P:E gives a fuck.

The watcher goes insane? lol wut, never felt like it.

Instead why not listen to a dry history lecture monologue from generic peasant #45678.

If devs cannot into writing (and most can't); I would prfer little to no writing (good example

And written by these Tom, Dick and Harry:

 

[AwesomeButton]

I.e. I'm very much afraid it is lack of time and resources -- at best, an intentional choice forced by the lack of time and resources.

I don't think so. Go to the MCA Appreciation thread and search it for "Icewind". You will find a story about how a project manager came to Avellone one evening (in IWD's development) and warned him to to work himself too hard, because he had been consistently working after hours writing stuff. So no, he was by no means constrained. On the contrary, they had to remind him to rest.

 

[Prime Junta]

The final product works.

No question about it.

From where at, though, it'd work just about as well if they cut out what writing there is. Those intros didn't do anything for me, "here's a tree, somebody's attacking it, now go do what the druid guy says" would have worked just as well.

Consider the NPCs. Are there any in IWD that you find at all memorable? 'Cuz I don't. Most of them are paper-thin stereotypes. I had a tremendous time romping through all those dungeons but I honestly didn't give a shit about what happens to any of those villages whose names I don't even remember, and I'll have to search my memory hard to even remember any of the NPCs, let alone what they were all about.

Conversely, I do remember a fair few NPCs in P1, not counting the party members which obviously wasn't a thing in IWD. Raedric, Trygil the Tanner, Mestre Verzano, and Icantha to name a few off the top of my head.

So yeah, a very small amount of inoffensive writing is certainly preferable to a large amount of bad writing, but as far as I'm concerned that's about the measure of it when it comes to IWD. And while Pillars 1 writing was mediocre overall, it had some high points, some memorable moments, and some relatable characters; all of this IMO raises it above the IE series (again, excluding PS:T which is in a class of its own).

Chaotic_Heretic From where I'm at, that stuff is par for course in game writing, sadly. You get the same lore dumps, inconsistencies, and other such in your DA:I's, ME's, and what have yous. Not having them is a lot rarer.

 

[AwesomeButton]

But that's exactly the point. I completely disagree with AwesomeButton that this is just Avellone being awesome: when given the chance, the guy is verbose no matter whether the situation calls for it. The restrictions forced the development team to make the words count. The final product works.

You could be right, but I don't consider myself that much of an expert on Avellone's MO and psychology to judge :D And I doubt we could trust his judgement much even if we asked him directly.

 

[Grunker]

From where at, though, it'd work just about as well if they cut out what writing there is

This is just blatantly false and what follows is just about as reductionist as something can get.

 

[Prime Junta]

This is just blatantly false and what follows is just about as reductionist as something can get.

No, it's not. It's an attempt at describing my experience of IWD's writing: namely, I didn't hate it, I didn't like it, I barely even remember it, and I would have enjoyed the game just as much had they excised all the prose from it altogether.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The restrictions forced the development team to make the words count.

We could argue that making the words count is a more time-consuming process than actually writing, so this "constrained time made them write less" theory isn't all that solid.

Prime Junta , of course you will have a more clear memory of the characters in a game you played more recently.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Prime Junta
Comparing P:E to DA:I and ME:A???
How shameless can you get?

Next you will be comparing P:E combat to DA:I to justify why P:E combat is enjoyable.

Grunker has been grunking on and on about why iwd writing is superior to p:e. Quantity

Remember if all writing is shit; less shit is more tolerable than more shit.

No one saying BG or IWD is stellar literary masterpeices or anything. But the writing was serviceable and there wasn't too much of it.

P:E fails massively precisely because it has much more writing and of a lot lower quality than BG/IWD.

And to make matters worse P:E fails to deliver any single aspect which is memorable in a good way.

Most of the game/systems in P:E is like its writing; full of too much irrelevant stuff quantity wise yet really not much stands out quality wise or is memorable.

 

[Darth Roxor]

i dream of a rpg that finally does away with the cancer that is "side quests" as we know them now

actually no i don't have to dream

that rpg is called Betrayal at Krondor

 

[Prime Junta]

Comparing P:E to DA:I and ME:A???
How shameless can you get?

Which games would you pick that better represent the average modern RPG?

Next you will be comparing P:E combat to DA:I to justify why P:E combat is enjoyable.

At least it doesn't have level-scaled throwaway loot. :cough: DOS2 :cough:

 

[Prime Junta]

Prime Junta , of course you will have a more clear memory of the characters in a game you played more recently.

I've last played IWD and P1 in roughly the same timeframe. Last time I played Pillars was maybe a year ago, last time I played IWD, maybe a year and a half.

I first played IWD about six months before P1 came out; I had neglected it because I thought I wasn't that into dungeon crawls (IWD change my mind about that).

I've also completed both games a few times. In terms of hours I've probably played a bit more P1 than IWD, but the difference isn't drastic. Thing is, I really like IWD!

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Romance in BG2 is very well written. Yeah and most people on the codex do agree that PoE is pretty mediocre game. I honestly don't care if there is a romance shit in a game as long as there is a female companion that i can see my protagonist ending up with. Even in Icewind dale i could see my asshole ending up with my battle priest.

Ah, yes, Aerie getting preggo is indeed world-class literature right there. Can't wait to fill up Pallegina with my superior fair-skinned seed.

 

[Prime Junta]

Can't wait to fill up Pallegina with my superior fair-skinned seed.

Sorry to disappoint, she sterile

 

[Grunker]

too much information deep lore

 

[Lacrymas]

Even better, I can fill her up whenever I get a chance! I guess someone else is on the list for getting knocked up. Hell, every woman should just get in line, we'll improvise from there.

 

[Prime Junta]

Even better, I can fill her up whenever I get a chance! I guess someone else is on the list for getting knocked up. Hell, every woman should just get in line, we'll improvise from there.

Only romance they've explicitly mentioned is the squid guy.