Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,124
Did it occur to anyone that Aeldys supports freeing slaves only on this particular island to fuck with Furrante?

:hmmm:
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
By what I am reading here, apparently the status quo in the region is pro-slavery. On these grounds, maybe it makes sense that the pirates are against slavery. It could be their way of appealing to and attracting people by offering an idealistic alternative.
This would have been fine actually, if it was more of a recruiting strategy - after all, they can also ally with the lower castes in Neketaka. But instead of being presented as a pragmatic/naturally occurring thing it's presented as a weird 'muh freedum' ideal.
That's weird. That someone would appeal to people's sense of idealism and present themselves as heroic in order to achieve a pragmatic and for themselves. Can't imagine that happening in the real world.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
That's very interesting, and maybe ties in with the anti-status quo narrative. The article is not very well written though ("one historian notes" etc, WHICH historian?), and I 'd have to double check in order to take it seriously. Pirates were still gangs, and that's not how murderous thugs operate usually.

"Murderous gangs of thugs" was at least partially slander and propaganda. Most countries hated pirates and would trump up their viciousness to allay any thoughts of compassion in punishment.

Hollywood has mostly gone with the murderous thug route or the heroic rogue route, but they've never depicted the democratic pirates. I don't know why, not exciting enough? This may be a case where "reality is unrealistic" i.e. The Tiffany Problem.

Most people just don't picture pirate ships having order, rules, discipline, and an egalitarian code. There's plenty of debate how much they were actually applied, but pirate codes were a real thing and they were generally democratic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_code

Captain Bartholomew Roberts's articles (aka Black Bart)
I. Every man has a vote in affairs of moment; has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, at any time seized, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity (not an uncommon thing among them) makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.

II. Every man to be called fairly in turn, by list, on board of prizes because, (over and above their proper share) they were on these occasions allowed a shift of clothes: but if they defrauded the company to the value of a dollar in plate, jewels, or money, marooning was their punishment. If the robbery was only betwixt one another, they contented themselves with slitting the ears and nose of him that was guilty, and set him on shore, not in an uninhabited place, but somewhere, where he was sure to encounter hardships.

III. No person to game at cards or dice for money.

IV. The lights and candles to be put out at eight o'clock at night: if any of the crew, after that hour still remained inclined for drinking, they were to do it on the open deck.

V. To keep their piece, pistols, and cutlass clean and fit for service.

VI. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man were to be found seducing any of the latter sex, and carried her to sea, disguised, he was to suffer death; (so that when any fell into their hands, as it chanced in the Onslow, they put a sentinel immediately over her to prevent ill consequences from so dangerous an instrument of division and quarrel; but then here lies the roguery; they contend who shall be sentinel, which happens generally to one of the greatest bullies, who, to secure the lady's virtue, will let none lie with her but himself.)

VII. To desert the ship or their quarters in battle, was punished with death or marooning.

VIII. No striking one another on board, but every man's quarrels to be ended on shore, at sword and pistol. (The quarter-master of the ship, when the parties will not come to any reconciliation, accompanies them on shore with what assistance he thinks proper, and turns the disputant back to back, at so many paces distance; at the word of command, they turn and fire immediately (or else the piece is knocked out of their hands). If both miss, they come to their cutlasses, and then he is declared the victor who draws the first blood.)

IX. No man to talk of breaking up their way of living, till each had shared one thousand pounds. If in order to this, any man should lose a limb, or become a cripple in their service, he was to have eight hundred dollars, out of the public stock, and for lesser hurts, proportionately.

X. The Captain and Quartermaster to receive two shares of a prize: the master, boatswain, and gunner, one share and a half, and other officers one and quarter.

XI. The musicians to have rest on the Sabbath Day, but the other six days and nights, none without special favour.



Look at that; no gambling, pension for service, no fighting onboad, captain only gets an extra share, no rape. Doesn't sound much like the "band of thugs and murders" image at all.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,710
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
By what I am reading here, apparently the status quo in the region is pro-slavery. On these grounds, maybe it makes sense that the pirates are against slavery. It could be their way of appealing to and attracting people by offering an idealistic alternative.
This would have been fine actually, if it was more of a recruiting strategy - after all, they can also ally with the lower castes in Neketaka. But instead of being presented as a pragmatic/naturally occurring thing it's presented as a weird 'muh freedum' ideal.
That's weird. That someone would appeal to people's sense of idealism and present themselves as heroic in order to achieve a pragmatic and for themselves. Can't imagine that happening in the real world.
There is obviously a difference between appealing to Roparu and slaves, and how you present yourself to an aristocrat like the Watcher. And there's a further difference between that and how how it's presented to the player. In this case it was just hamfisted 'everyone can do what they want' rebellious teenager ideology portrayed at all levels.
 

Sherry

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Messages
404
Location
Shrine of Compassion
Hi.

gosh I just wanted to take the time to apologize that okay it is busy with the family and all goings on with graduation and university visits because my olderst is omg it is so hard to think of being off to residence and just I know we all do it right? But omg. So because of that and everything I have been ubale to contiue my let's play for everyone and still in Periki's Overlook because that is how it is lately just hbeing a busy bee and taking care of things so there has been little time to continue playing Orange so sorry for anyone following the let's play adventure but t hank-you for keeping this thread going strong with discussions and insight. :hug:

Really loking to getting back on the shoip and sailing and exploring the city but rl has I know. Everyone it happens to all of us, so all th 4ebst and see all you captains and sailors soon! :salute:

Thanks,
Sherry
 

Rivmusique

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
3,489
Location
Kangarooland
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I've been staying away to avoid spoilers and will probably continue to do so until all DLCs are released and I've done a few playthroughs with different factions. I haven't read the thread so forgive me if this has been asked and answered: Was there a in game Codex reward for the fundraiser in Deadfire? The only thing that stood out for me as possibly a Codex thing was the pet "Grog", was that for/from the Codex?
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
I've been staying away to avoid spoilers and will probably continue to do so until all DLCs are released and I've done a few playthroughs with different factions. I haven't read the thread so forgive me if this has been asked and answered: Was there a in game Codex reward for the fundraiser in Deadfire? The only thing that stood out for me as possibly a Codex thing was the pet "Grog", was that for/from the Codex?
Yes. Apparently there's also an item that references Cleve/Grimoire, but nobody has found it/made the connection yet.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
Some brave codexer needs to write up a mock piece about how PoE objectifies women by giving the player bonuses for sex, and how the game uses brothels and prostitutes as degenerate shorthand in lieu of creativity, taking power and agency away from the real victimization that happens to sex workers.

I guarantee you that if we can get some "journalist" to tweet something to this effect it'll be made into a clickbait article. Could possibly even help sales.
 

Dwarvophile

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 1, 2015
Messages
1,431
Having fun imagining Remaro as a personification of Avellone's departure from Obsidian :

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Remaro

That's very interesting, and maybe ties in with the anti-status quo narrative. The article is not very well written though ("one historian notes" etc, WHICH historian?), and I 'd have to double check in order to take it seriously. Pirates were still gangs, and that's not how murderous thugs operate usually.

Most people just don't picture pirate ships having order, rules, discipline, and an egalitarian code. There's plenty of debate how much they were actually applied, but pirate codes were a real thing and they were generally democratic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_code

Yes, there are also interesting studies on egalitarian pirate communities, like in Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey) works :

https://hermetic.com/bey/taz3#labelPirateUtopias
 
Last edited:

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Article based on last month's Twitch interview: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...without_losing_that_Infinity_Engine_charm.php

Building Pillars of Eternity IIwithout losing that Infinity Engine charm

There’s always a fine line to walk when you’re working to remake or expand upon a classic game or series.

You want to pay homage to the original and not veer off too much in another direction, but because of advancements in technology and how we play video games, sometimes it’s not possible to replicate a classic completely.

Josh Sawyer, the game director at Obsidian Entertainment, knows this conflict too well. He’s been working on some of the most traditional roleplaying games of the past decade: Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, and Alpha Protocol, just to name a few. The studio has become known for its dedication to classic RPGs, specifically games made on the Infinity Engine such as Baldur’s Gate, while also updating them just enough that they can exist in the modern age.

Its latest release, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, continues the trend, creating another RPG that fans of classic titles can sink their teeth into while also ensuring they’re getting something new. Deadfire probably strays the farthest from Infinity Engine out of all the games Sawyer has worked on, but he says it’s still in the same tradition. Otherwise, its audience wouldn’t bother playing it.

Infinity Engine games are specifically appealing for a number of reasons, but according to Sawyer, one big draw of Deadfire's design has to do with its openness.

“I think that the feeling of exploration is really huge,” Sawyer said during a recent Gamasutra Twitch stream. “The party-based exploration adventure style is really appealing because you have this mob of colorful characters going around this big world with you and this freedom to take who you want, leave people if you don’t like them, explore things at your own pace, it's just a very unique feeling.”

How do you update tradition?
Infinity Engine games are specific. They’re RPGs where players build small but mighty parties to combat enemies, traverse a fantastical world, and improve their skills, but there’s something distinct about them.

There’s the aforementioned sense of exploration. Obsidian designed Deadfire to be an open-world exploration game from the beginning and it shows, specifically in one of its major new features: the inclusion of ships. It’s meant to be a replacement for the stronghold system, where players can spend in-game currency to upgrade and add features to their boats. Obsidian did this so that players couldn’t just ignore a whole system. Ships are essential to how you move around the game.

"it was a really really big challenge but the focus was to make the thing you're investing in and upgrading feel more central to the aspect of exploring the world. and then to try and tie in more quests and NPCs into that thing,” Sawyer explained.

The developers also ensured that players could do a lot of quests in a non-specific order. One of the hallmarks of quality open-world games is that freedom. A player runs into an obstacle preventing them from going where they want and the illusion is crushed.

“We try to do a lot of work to think about 'hey what if the player did these things out of order from these other things’ and we try to account for all of those in the conversations,” he continued. "Assume your players will do the worst, which is to say the best, which is what they want… I'd say resist the temptation to clamp down and say ‘no we're not gonna let the player go over there.’ Try to say yes.”

The appeal is also partially an aesthetic thing. Infinity Engine, and now some Obsidian, games have a distinct top-down, isometric, hand-painted feel that brings to mind Dungeons & Dragons manuals or fantasy book covers.

So when Obsidian creates those Infinity Engine-esque games, it tries to skew close to that style, with some subtle but important updates. Of course updates are necessary when the engine is different (Infinity vs. Unity 4 for the first Pillars of Eternity). For Deadfire, Sawyer says the team had to redo its entire art pipeline to update to Unity 5.

“We got a lot of flack on the first game for how static the environments looked. We also got a lot of flack for how the characters looked because their textures and resolution wasn't super great,” he explained. “We had high level goals to make dynamic lighting a really high priority.”

How to achieve that balance
Sawyer has been playing around with updating Baldur’s Gate since before Pillars, back when he was working on the first Icewind Dale in 2001 (he joked about how he began prototyping Pillars back then during the stream). He and his team try to consider two things when making a change to the formula: will it improve the game and what does the community want?

“In Deadfire, we changed a lot of mechanics based on feedback,” he explained. “The iteration process is mostly looking at the Infinity Engine games, trying to see if there were lessons that we could learn to improve on them, making some mistakes, trying to correct those mistakes and just iterating with the community."

Obsidian has already made some tweaks based on feedback. They made modding easier between the two Pillars, for example, and are also working on fixing the difficulty curve for players who want more of a challenge.

Sawyer knows well that a lot of his target audience, while wanting new experiences, will expect certain things out of Deadfire. The party will be of a certain size, for example, or there’ll be a large amount of dialogue and prose to flesh out the world. At a talk in Croatia, he got in a bit of trouble for insinuating that RPG fans could go to the extreme and become “unreasonable.”

“I understand that not all RPG fans are unreasonable... but especially with a game that is a throwback, it's supposed to appeal to more traditional tastes and styles,” he explained.

So how do you prevent yourself from going too far away from audience desires? Sawyer said you have to ask yourself a couple questions: what’s the point of the change and will it improve the experience?

“We don't try to change things just for the sake of changing things,” he said. “I try to think very carefully about what the advantages and disadvantages of staying the same way are versus changing it. Ultimately if I feel like the audience is going to have a more enjoyable game by making a change that's not like the original games, then I'm probably going to push to do that. That being said there's only so much you can change per game before it doesn't really start to feel like the things that inspired it.”

Deadfire changes quite a bit, even from its predecessor. There’s the aforementioned changes -- the ships, the updated graphics, the improved modding -- but there’s also small things that have a profound effect on old fans. The party size was reduced from six to five, which drew some ire from the community, but there’s an explanation.

“We did that because the number of characters in the combat, or rather the amount of stuff that each individual character can do actively in combat is much larger than it was in the Infinity Engine games. So there's a lot more advantage per character.”

Sawyer said that there’s still a bit of anger, even after he gave an explanation, but Obsidian’s mission has never been just about recreating the games of old. It’s been about paying tribute to them while also improving them based on newer technologies and for other audiences. If you want to go back to a six-player party, there are other games to choose from. Generally speaking though, even Deadfire still evokes those same feelings that Infinity Engine games once did.

“Even if we change individual mechanics here and there... we try to keep the overall feeling and atmosphere really true to the spirit of the original games,” he added. “Pillars 2 feels like a biggers step away from the Infinity Engine games than Pillars 1 did but I think that people seem to enjoy Deadfire more than Pillars 1.”
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I've been staying away to avoid spoilers and will probably continue to do so until all DLCs are released and I've done a few playthroughs with different factions. I haven't read the thread so forgive me if this has been asked and answered: Was there a in game Codex reward for the fundraiser in Deadfire? The only thing that stood out for me as possibly a Codex thing was the pet "Grog", was that for/from the Codex?
Yes. Apparently there's also an item that references Cleve/Grimoire, but nobody has found it/made the connection yet.

I wonder what item type it could be...
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
Joined
Nov 23, 2014
Messages
16,154
Location
At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Wow, I was not aware there are "advancements in how we play videogames".

I guess we live in the future now.

Josh is probably no longer even surprised to hear he has been working on Baldur's Gate. :lol:
 

TT1

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 25, 2016
Messages
1,479
Location
Krakow
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Speaking about grimoires, in my next item mod I'll try to make a trinket (book) called Codex that can summon a troll.
 
Last edited:

Sensuki

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
9,799
Location
New North Korea
Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
So you take a niche use of a single item as a precedent that the system is good? Makes no sense. Though with WHs you might as well mention CF in the OH for stats or MH for golem slaying.

In the Dumpsterfire system you are even encouraged to switch to situational weapons because there are no penalties.

The AD&D penalties for non-proficiency are quite harsh. I *think* it's a -4 to attack or something on top of the fact that you lose your proficiency bonus to attack and damage, and your proficiency-based bonus attacks. To better accomodate RTwP gameplay in a computer RPG, what I would do to improve/change that is probably lessen the penalty, and make an adjustment to the speed rules. I think that would play better than a situational modal.

That way there'd be more reason to situationally use an item you are not proficient with.

The proficiency based 'choices' at level up are a long term strategical decision. Changing weapons is usually short-term strategical decision or a reactional tactical decision. I think AD&D tries to encourage the former but in the IE games specifically there's at least a few reasons to use a non-proficient weapon usually to deal with immunities of some sort. Pillars tries to encourage the latter, but I'm not sure that it's very successful at it. I have admittedly only played 1.x of the OG, and I recall maybe two instances where I swapped melee weapons on my PC and it was only because of damage type.

It means all that content was specially scripted. They were able to modify Caed Nua's systems for the ship in Deadfire.

One would have to ask the scripters of MotB per se but script code is valuable in and of itself. I reuse Powershell scripting code (particularly functions) *all* the time in my job - my most re-used functions are an excel document import function and a compare two multidimensional arrays function. Just because the content itself wasn't chosen to be re-used in MotB, doesn't mean that the code couldn't or wasn't reused.
 
Last edited:

Dwarvophile

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 1, 2015
Messages
1,431
Last edited:

Rinslin Merwind

Erudite
Joined
Nov 4, 2017
Messages
1,274
Location
Sea of Eventualities
Don't have any saves from first poe, so I used story constructor from menu. However, constructor lack of some choices, for example Maneha's "Help Maneha come to terms with her past" doesn't exist in constructor or decisions about Forge Knights project, or should Dozen's take Knights in regard or not. Anyone with save from previous game noticed influence such decisions in Deadfire?
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
One would have to ask the scripters of MotB per se but script code is valuable in and of itself. I reuse Powershell scripting code (particularly functions) *all* the time in my job - my most re-used functions are an excel document import function and a compare two multidimensional arrays function. Just because the content itself wasn't chosen to be re-used in MotB, doesn't mean that the code couldn't or wasn't reused.
Storm of Zehir would be the better example to use since a stronghold wouldn't make sense for MotB's story. Anyway, Josh's exact words http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...read-pre-expansion.98003/page-99#post-3833880

there are other advantages to actually having a dedicated data-driven UI for those upgrades, principally that you can access and check it from anywhere. from the player's perspective, that's not much, but a data-driven system also makes implementing and debugging the content for the stronghold much easier. crossroad keep was great, but also entirely scripted and incredibly fragile. if we wanted to make another crossroad keep within the context of the NWN2 engine, we would have had to script the whole thing again; there was little to no existing data structure there to take advantage of.

i think it's also important to say that if we hadn't implemented the systemic aspects, that would have saved programmer and UI artist time, but it wouldn't have saved very much area designer time. our area design resources were the least impacted by the stronghold mechanics implementation. we still would have had difficulty making a good content for the stronghold because all of the area designers had plenty of crit-path and side quests to develop.
 

TT1

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 25, 2016
Messages
1,479
Location
Krakow
Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Don't have any saves from first poe, so I used story constructor from menu. However, constructor lack of some choices, for example Maneha's "Help Maneha come to terms with her past" doesn't exist in constructor or decisions about Forge Knights project, or should Dozen's take Knights in regard or not. Anyone with save from previous game noticed influence such decisions in Deadfire?

Zero influence
 

Maculo

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
Messages
2,533
Strap Yourselves In Pathfinder: Wrath
Don't have any saves from first poe, so I used story constructor from menu. However, constructor lack of some choices, for example Maneha's "Help Maneha come to terms with her past" doesn't exist in constructor or decisions about Forge Knights project, or should Dozen's take Knights in regard or not. Anyone with save from previous game noticed influence such decisions in Deadfire?
-Ondra mentions whatever you did with Mahena.
-If you defied Wael in the scroll quest in PoE1, he will take a bunch of your shit as punishment for getting too uppity.
-I do not recall this perfectly, but I believe one of the Valian leaders will mention your work with the Knights.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom