Jeff Vogel vs Pillars of Eternity

[Grampy_Bone]

Or piracy.

When did Oblivion even go on Steam? I don't think the platform took off for a while.

 

[ore clover]

The real test of how good a game it is, is not how it sells, but how much its sequel sells.

If nothing else, I agree with this statement 100% and it needs to be stated more often.

I understand the sentiment, but people could draw the wrong conclusions. For example:

"Have you seen Skyrim's sales figures? Yup, proof that Oblivion's a masterpiece."

Well... Oblivion's popularity was probably due heavily to Morrowind's success.

Also Xbox/ps3 ports for a new and unexploited (well, exploited in different ways) markets maybe?
Vgchartz seem whacky for Oblivion though. Xbox sales at 4.40m and PS3 at 3.10m. Pc only 0.26m how does that even work?

Edit: It'd be great if that was true, though. Would mean that Pc players realized it was shit and mostly didn't buy it.
One can hope.

That's almost more terrifying. The majority of Bethesda's audience played Oblivion unmodded?

 

[almondblight]

I felt like there were multiple issues with PoE's writing. To name some of the big major ones for me:

1. Excessive lore wank. In good SciFi/Fantasy, they often bring up lore in passing to give you the sense that this is a huge world with a rich history. In bad SciFi/Fantasy, you get writers dumping pages of their worldbuilding notes on you. "He fought with my father in the clone wars" is an interesting statement. "He fought with my father in the clone wars. The clone wars were a series of wars fought between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems between the years 22 BBY and 19 BBY. They started when blah blah blah..." is not.

2. Weak quality. I found that I enjoyed reading PoE wiki entries on the lore more than I enjoyed a lot of the in game entries. Dry is better than failed attempts to be fancy - the latter leads to things like the history books you find that are written like a 5th grader's report. The writers not understanding their own limits was a re-occuring problem - I started to go nuts the 10th time I read about how Durance gripped his staff or the chimes falling from Grieving Mother's sleave.

3. Unnatural conversations. Everyone in the game is trying to give you a history lecture, a geography lesson, and a tour guide. There's a part of the game where you enter Defiance Bay and a guy in the street is giving a speech to a huge crowd and inciting it to violence. You interrupt him in the middle of the speech, and he starts playing tour guide, telling you about the best places to eat in the different parts of town while his angry mob patiently sit around and twiddle their fingers.

Of course that's the problem with the way things are written. There are also numerous points that could be made about the plot (like the points people have already brought up about a weak motivation for the main character and the week connections to the companions).

 

[Sizzle]

There's a part of the game where you enter Defiance Bay and a guy in the street is giving a speech to a huge crowd and inciting it to violence. You interrupt him in the middle of the speech, and he starts playing tour guide, telling you about the best places to eat in the different parts of town while his angry mob patiently sit around and twiddle their fingers.

Yeah, that part - major whiplash :D

A racist xenophobe who's trying to incite a riot, you greet him and he goes:

- "Why, hello there, traveler. Boy howdy, lemme tell you about our fair city. :long-winded history/geography lesson ensues: Take care now, hope you have a great time here! Hyup, awfully nice folks."

- Someone from the crowd: "But that was an Orlan you were just talking with, we hate those!"

- "Yes, but not when they're the PC. Wouldn't want the players to feel punished with missing content for choosing the wrong race, now would we?"

 

[Jazz_]

Vogel is right, PoE's writing felt like reading the verbal diarrhea of a bunch of amateur interns who thought that being overly descriptive and overusing adverbs constitutes good prose.

 

[Flou]

Who the fuck is Jeff Vogel?

 

[gaussgunner]

Who the fuck is Jeff Vogel?

You don't know? Only the biggest shitposter in the entire rpg subculture.

He's also a part-time developer too.

 

[Sigourn]

I just finished reading through Vogel's article.

I agree with everything. That includes the "streamlining" of removing sub-races. Why? Because it a sub-race only changes a couple of stats and nothing else, I'd just rather skip it altogether and let me add my own stat points as a "bonus". PoE has just too many words and the reason why the devs probably don't realize this is because they know what all these words mean. This is very much what happens when I play a game I know extensively: every time a name is brought up, be it an NPC, a town or a region, I know what everyone is saying and so I'm "in" the conversation. But if you aren't "in" the conversation, you may as well skip it altogether because the words mean nothing to you.

 

[Fry]

I just finished reading through Vogel's article.

I agree with some of what Vogel said and share his pessimism about PoE2 sales, but that blog post would have been a lot more relevant if it had been written a year ago. Obsidian has already said many times that the game was basically first draft material and they know if needed several editing passes.

 

[Sigourn]

I agree with some of what Vogel said and share his pessimism about PoE2 sales, but that blog post would have been a lot more relevant if it had been written a year ago. Obsidian has already said many times that the game was basically first draft material and they know if needed several editing passes.

That's good to know. The game was visually inspiring, but the character creation really demanded you to know things you have no way of knowing just yet. It's the only game I've ever played where I feel that, even if I am two hours into the game, I still haven't really "started" it until I know character creation like the back of my hand.

 

[Maxie]

PoE has just too many words and the reason why the devs probably don't realize this is because they know what all these words mean. This is very much what happens when I play a game I know extensively: every time a name is brought up, be it an NPC, a town or a region, I know what everyone is saying and so I'm "in" the conversation. But if you aren't "in" the conversation, you may as well skip it altogether because the words mean nothing to you.

The devs fail to acknowledge the fact that people barely ever bring up proper names in conversations and certainly do not discuss vague philosophical ideas while shopping for cabbage. Inhabitants of any given secondary world must first and foremost interact in a believable manner for the player's avatar to catch up with the local news.

If Kronakh the Ill-Mannered Rapist was seen on the Longdick* and is two days shy of entering the village, it's sure that the informed villagers will mention it in a conversation. Kronakh is also a techno-fetishist cabal mage druephiquer** and wields the mighty Gargamel, the Smurf Sword. Why should they disclose all that nonsense to the player's avatar? Why shouldn't the player overhear agitated people telling each other to hide their wives lest Kronakh comes*** as well as overhear ubiquitous rumours that he was seen on the Longdick?

This gives the player motivation to actually look for Kronakh on the Longdick and perhaps beat him up, soon learning about his druephiquer powers and the mighty Gargamel. Fuck, you could even loot Gargamel off Kronakh's corpse and wave it around the village, earning you certain fame and potential rewards for smiting the evildoer. You know, the RPG stuff - investigating rumours for loot and big-titted babes, instead of discussing late Kronakh's vices with peasants.

There is nothing wrong with CHARNAME being an ignorant stranger, but by no means should figuring out what does the secondary world work like be solved by bothering NPCs - it is my strong belief that NPCs tend to be ridiculously overwritten and you really don't need more story-important NPCs**** than you have player characters.


*Longdick is one of the chief roads between the royal Quq capital of Bedee-Essem and the village of Chutney, named "Longdick" because it resembles a long dick while inspected on a map
**magical homosexual
***double entendre, to come as in to arrive at some destination and to ejaculate
****by story-important I mean such NPCs which actually bother to get into lenghty***** conversations with you
*****by lenghty I mean conversations where the dialogue branches

 

[Lacrymas]

I find the lack of big-titted babes in recent RPGs disturbing.

 

[gaussgunner]

I find the lack of big-titted babes in recent RPGs disturbing.

When I get my lazy ass off the codex, I shall shamelessly pander to your diversity requirements.

 

[gaussgunner]

Kronakh is also a techno-fetishist cabal mage druephiquer**
**magical homosexual
Why shouldn't the player overhear agitated people telling each other to hide their wives
lest Kronakh comes***
***double entendre, to come as in to arrive at some destination and to ejaculate

Brilliant. In one half-wall of text you've perfectly captured PoE's name/jargon dropping, logical inconsistency, and condescending tone.

 

[J_C]

Especially things like what is a state half-way across the world that you learn about by just hovering.

That information is irrelevant to the game, reading it is a waste of the player's time, it shouldn't be there at all. (Vogel's games have this problem too, not as bad but still way too much bullshit text.)

Is it wasting the player's time? Says who? There are players who want to read all that lore. The lore in character generation was just enough to get one's RPG juicies flowing. The game dialogues needed an edit art is spot on, but Jeff's article is terrible overall. He is complaining about all the bad things.

You have diarrhea. Some natives attack your caravan. Weird things happen. The two characters who you might have been forming some sort of bond through adversity with die accidentally/incidentally. Now you are left to wonder around in some generic fantasy world, reading a bunch of flavor text and trying to figure out what the plot is.

Nice, you just summed up everything wrong with the game in a few short sentences. You do not need an editor.

That was some shit, killing your first two companions, who actually had potential. No. You can't have them. You can only have Weak Elf, Native Midget Woman, her pet wolf, Token Negro, Grieving Mother, Nasty Druid Dude, and like 10 other totally forgettable companions who give you pointless sidequests and add basically nothing of interest to the story or gameplay.

I could make it better:

You have diarrhea. Some natives attack your caravan. You die. EDIT: In the rain.

LOL what? Your barely knew anything about your intro companions, you can't say that they had potential and were more interesting than the later companions.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

LOL what? Your barely knew anything about your intro companions, you can't say that they had potential and were more interesting than the later companions.

I think this is the point. Those characters were only involved in pressing matters.
That situation didn't rely on meaningless lore, it had actual drama and tension. At that point writiers didn't try to substitute story players experiences themselves with terribly written convoluted lore.
They only started having lore diarrhea after those 2 companions died (which corresponds with introducing player to the main plot line - those soul sucking machines). Rest of the companions were introduced after that moment.

 

[Sizzle]

Calisca - generic fantasy tough female fighter.

Heodan - a Khalid-like (insecure scaredy cat) character. He was interesting in the beginning - primarily because you usually don't see such characters in games like this - but I suspect his shtick would have gotten old fast were he a full-fledged companion.

I suspect the reason some folks prefer them to the real companions is that they're more like the starting BG series ones, which join you out of necessity and loyalty.

In contrast to: Aloth (afraid to be alone and without anyone to order him about in a foreign land), Eder (bored of waiting to get whacked for being a known Eothas worshiper).

 

[Fry]

It's ok. JV just wanted some attention from the master.

 

[felipepepe]

Oh, so people reply to Jeff Vogel's remake of Darth Roxor's article, but not to the original? I C....

 

[Infinitron]

It's ok. JV just wanted some attention from the master.

Another victory for late night Infinitron shitposting!

 

[Lacrymas]

They've already shot their lore load all over PoE1, so I expect some actual drama and plot in 2. Bogging the game down with even more useless bits of trivia would be exhausting and pointless - they've already created the world and told us waaaaay too much about it, I think it's time to make use of that. If only the initial premise of "Eothas returned" wasn't so stupid, but I digress.

 

[Sizzle]

I don't mind lore overkill, but put that shit where it belongs: in books, Tyranny-style tooltips, librarians in cities, shamans for villages. Make it optional.

Don't write every random peasant like they know the entire history of the region. This was especially jarring for PoE1, considering how big of a deal they made about there being no printing press in that world.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

They've already shot their lore load all over PoE1, so I expect some actual drama and plot in 2. Bogging the game down with even more useless bits of trivia would be exhausting and pointless - they've already created the world and told us waaaaay too much about it, I think it's time to make use of that.

You seem too optimistic to me.

With all of Josh's aspie sperging on balance and the incompetency of writing (and game-play for the most part) in P:E there is very little chance that P:E2 turns out an acceptable good for what it is.

 

[Roguey]

Avellone agrees with Vogel with regard to streamlining Pillars's character creation.




Where's your messiah etc

 

[PlanHex]

Pretty good read, as was the article he made about it before: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Jeff...eo_Game_Have_Too_Many_Words_Yeah_Probably.php

Also the Josh Sawyer response is interesting too: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/161883319926/destroy-that-douchebag-jeff-vogel-now

edit: Oh, there's already an entire thread about this that I didn't notice...