Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[HeatEXTEND]

Agreed, couldn't have been more bland if they tried.

It was meant as a spiritual successor to a game based in the Forgotten Realms.

In other words, it was meant as a derivative of a derivative setting. Don't act so surprised it is generic.

This rates somewhere at the same level of stupidity as "I hate RTwP combat" in criticisms of PoE. Sure, you might think the setting is a bit generic and loathe the RTwP combat, but then you might also have missed the point of the game. And you might not be the target audience, who funded this on Kickstarter to imitate the BG and IWD series. And above all, you should have fucking expected to see these elements in this game, talking any further about it is just retarded and contains zero constructive criticism or interesting information.

a bit

uh huh

And yes, I agree I'm no longer part of Obsidians target audience. Also, for the record, fuck PoE.

 

[Sentinel]

"It's okay to be shit if it's based on shit"
lol

 

[Lacrymas]

"It's okay to be shit if it's based on shit"
lol

This is basically all the defenders of PoE's setting have been basing their argument on lololol.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

I liked Eora. It felt "grounded high fantasy"-sh to me. In comparison to something like DA, its setting is much more fleshed out. Pantheon is legitimately cool.
Usually high fantasy is not my cup of tea (Faerun, for example, felt completely bland in NWN2 and in a couple of DnD campaigns my friends were running), and I can't say I fell in love with Eora as well, but it managed to keep me interested in it.
And did I say that the pantheon is cool? It's cool, yes.

 

[Excidium II]

Renaissance aesthetics + D&D stereotypes with OC donut steel + modern pc sensibilities =

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think the only real hoax is that you can be a spiritual successor to the IE games just because you have an isometric, party-based rtwp game.

 

[Sentinel]

I liked Eora. It felt "grounded high fantasy"-sh to me. In comparison to something like DA, its setting is much more fleshed out. Pantheon is legitimately cool.
Usually high fantasy is not my cup of tea (Faerun, for example, felt completely bland in NWN2 and in a couple of DnD campaigns my friends were running), and I can't say I fell in love with Eora as well, but it managed to keep me interested in it.
And did I say that the pantheon is cool? It's cool, yes.

I really don't see where Eora can be classified as high-fantasy. It's as much high fantasy as DAO is.

 

[Excidium II]

I liked Eora. It felt "grounded high fantasy"-sh to me. In comparison to something like DA, its setting is much more fleshed out. Pantheon is legitimately cool.
Usually high fantasy is not my cup of tea (Faerun, for example, felt completely bland in NWN2 and in a couple of DnD campaigns my friends were running), and I can't say I fell in love with Eora as well, but it managed to keep me interested in it.
And did I say that the pantheon is cool? It's cool, yes.

I really don't see where Eora can be classified as high-fantasy. It's as much high fantasy as DAO is.

ppl use low fantasy and high fantasy as synonymous with low magic and high magic.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The first pass screenie looks very BGish. I guess the 5M stretch goal is out of reach, but let's hope at least sea monsters get in.

Hunt sea monsters, go fishing! In a facebook-esque fishing game with energy that replenishes every 24 hours.

 

[Lacrymas]

Hunt sea monsters, go fishing! In a facebook-esque fishing game with energy that replenishes every 24 hours.

Where have they said it's a 24 hour energy replenishment?

 

[adddeed]

I think the only real hoax is that you can be a spiritual successor to the IE games just because you have an isometric, party-based rtwp game.

Ugh no, the game is practically identical to BG/IWD in terms of feel/aesthetics/presentation/gameplay. They copied not only the isometric party based aspect, but lots of other things.

 

[Rostere]

a bit

uh huh

And yes, I agree I'm no longer part of Obsidians target audience. Also, for the record, fuck PoE.

"It's okay to be shit if it's based on shit"
lol

Like, do you also walk in to a heavy metal music store, buy an Iron Maiden LP, only to angrily return it because you "hate electric guitar"? And then write a review on metal-archives.com about how you hate electric guitars?

There are lots of inclined people who listen to music without any electric guitars. But only dumb cunts would buy a heavy metal album expecting anything else.

You are on a forum dedicated to RPGs. People have discussed PoE 2 for over 250 pages and PoE for god knows how long before you pop in to autistically inform us that the setting is, in fact, generic. Well, thank you Captain Obvious. You could have just watched the PoE Kickstarter trailer to realize that.

Yes. It is a BG/IWD spiritual sequel. It's a sequel to one of the most well-known fantasy settings in the world, which before it set the expectations for what was "generic" was one of the most generic to begin with. You might as well go complain that you think CS:GO should have been a turn-based game, or that vanilla ice cream tastes too much vanilla.

 

[Lacrymas]

"I like settings being shit because FR is shit, I demand more shit!"

 

[Sentinel]

a bit

uh huh

And yes, I agree I'm no longer part of Obsidians target audience. Also, for the record, fuck PoE.

"It's okay to be shit if it's based on shit"
lol

Like, do you also walk in to a heavy metal music store, buy an Iron Maiden LP, only to angrily return it because you "hate electric guitar"? And then write a review on metal-archives.com about how you hate electric guitars?

There are lots of inclined people who listen to music without any electric guitars. But only dumb cunts would buy a heavy metal album expecting anything else.

You are on a forum dedicated to RPGs. People have discussed PoE 2 for over 250 pages and PoE for god knows how long before you pop in to autistically inform us that the setting is, in fact, generic. Well, thank you Captain Obvious. You could have just watched the PoE Kickstarter trailer to realize that.

Yes. It is a BG/IWD spiritual sequel. It's a sequel to one of the most well-known fantasy settings in the world, which before it set the expectations for what was "generic" was one of the most generic to begin with. You might as well go complain that you think CS:GO should have been a turn-based game, or that vanilla ice cream tastes too much vanilla.

1) your analogy doesn't work
2) as traditionally generic as Forgotten Realms was, I still prefer it over Eora any day of the week. It's generic in a nice way. PoE's setting is generic in a dull way. It does absolutely nothing with its changes. "Ogres aren't dumb cunts who just kill people" - oh cool, what do they do? - "they hide in caves and speak and shit". "Dwarves aren't strong aggressive macho men obsessed with their beards and drunk all the time" - oh, alright, what are they then? - "effeminate mongols who pick herbs". "Orcs aren't stupid animalistic beasts anymore!" - what are they then? - "they live by the sea and read poetry". Fuck off.
It's dull. It's gay. It's shit.

There's nothing wrong with traditional and generic races. Dwarves are always entertaining, there's a good amount of people who like traditional elves, and I've literally never seen anyone ask for intelligent ogres.

What does PoE offer in place of the good things it changes? Nothing, except for a superior pantheon. That's it. Everything else is inferior.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Hunt sea monsters, go fishing! In a facebook-esque fishing game with energy that replenishes every 24 hours.

Where have they said it's a 24 hour energy replenishment?

Jokes are never funny when you have to explain them.

 

[Infinitron]

TheSentinel currently on the hate side of his PoE love-hate mood cycle.

As for me, I don't think PoE's setting is based on shit, therefore it isn't shit.

 

[Fever]

I feel like a lot of people derive their knowledge of Renaissance from high school history or at best history 101 because they focus a lot on change of thought on how thinkers operated (usually what's focused on basic history) and not at all in actual zeitgeist amongst commoners, the shift in nobility's status (and real birth of aristocracy) and how politics became much more worldly. Renaissance in Europe wasn't just how philosophers thought knowledge should be approached or extent of it, or how sciences were acknowledged differently from just theological recognition (I.E, writing down what is rather than exploring what could be), it was also change of social structure, politics both domestic and foreign and how the increase in wealth and urbanisation lead to development of interstate relationships. More concerning a RPG with adventuring party, how mercenaries, companies and aristocrats operated instead. PoE does an okay job as far as many of these are concerned, some details are nice such as economics, trade and the arms race but a lot is missing which is to be expected as it's first game in an original setting. Also D&D is as original as PoE is when it comes to supernatural, in that it's mostly just recycled mythology and folk tales mostly deriving from Tolkien but at least PoE does it in a setting that's frankly more interesting, early modern period and not late medieval.

I'm not sure I agree with what you're saying here, I might have misunderstood. I am from Florence (Italy), the city where the Renaissance itself was born. And let me tell you, PoE sends out strong Renaissance vibes from the setting; I do believe that Sawyer and/or other developers at Obsidian must have taken history lessons way beyond 101.
First of all, what do you mean by "the real birth of aristocracy"? Renaissance at its peak in southern Europe was incarnated by a myriad of powerful city-states in a continuous alternance between monarchy and republic. In Florence alone - despite what the Medici tv series and Dan Brown say - there were decades of republic, and even a theocracy. I believe the real birth of aristocracy lies in feudalism, which is already waning during the early Renaissance, so I don't get what you're saying here.

Speaking about the game, Pillars does a great job at recreating that period. The fact that a god took human form is a fantastic reinassance concept in itself. If you think about the art history, up until Giotto (early 14th century) and Lippi-Botticelli-Leonardo-Michelangelo later on, the figures of Christ, the Virgin or the saints couldn't even be portrayed as human, because they were untouchable, distant icons.
It's only with the Renaissance that the men started to "humanize" their idea of God, and they actually dared to portray Christ as a suffering man on the cross instead of a spitual being winning over death (Christus patiens opposed to the medieval Christus triumphans), the saints as humans, and the Virgin as a mother, for the first time showing female attributes (Maestà Ognissanti).

Waidwen becoming the human, living incarnation of Eothas is a Renaissance concept in itself, as are the gods talking like humans and feeling human emotions. The whole world of Eora feels like a 15th-16th centuries Italy, not only in architectures, and it does a great job at that.
I could go on with many other small examples, but seriously, if some players don't see the difference between the concept of this setting and FR, they are the ones who should be taking history 101.

 

[Lacrymas]

Fever, while this is true I have a feeling it's not what they were going for. Gods having avatars is a concept in FR as well and Waidwen becoming such a thing isn't indicative of a Christ-like figure, let alone it being an idea of schismatic proportions like the Filioque. I'm also not very convinced about God-as-human being a Renaissance specific concept, since the Schism had exactly this as its initial impetus and this was in the 11th century. Gods behaving like humans is a Greek thing, not Renaissance specific as well. I'd say a Renaissance specific viewpoint concerning this is that humans are the grandest in God's Creation and that they are put on a pedestal, majestic and central. One of the reasons they revived and reinterpreted humanism from Protagoras. There are also no people that we've heard of that embody the ideal of the Renaissance man, a polymath who is versed in basically all known 'high disciplines'.

 

[santino27]

Is this new or just new to YouTube?



Edit: Old.

 

[Sentinel]

New to YouTube.

 

[santino27]

New to YouTube.

Oh well.

At least I can farm old tags, I guess.

 

[Infinitron]

Have a brofist, I always update my newsposts with these.

 

[Fever]

Lacrymas The difference between the Renaissance concept of the "humanized divinity" and the ancient greece' "anthropomorphic gods" lies in the fact that with the figure of Christ you have a God made human in flesh and blood, who died on the cross feeling pain in order to save the humanity. On the other hand, with the greek pantheon you have a completely distant, inaccessible world for humans: the Olympus, populated with those almost childish gods playing among themselves and/or with the fates of men. The sole idea of a mortal contemplating the epiphany of a god would often cause the death or the blindness of said mortal. The only divine being (a titan in this case) that would do something genuinely for the sake of the humans would be Prometheus, and we all know how it ended. Let's not even talk about the hybris concept. You see these are two totally different ways of "humanizing the divine".
I strongly believe that Waidwen/Eothas is inspired by the figure of Christ and that the Pillars' pantheon recalls more the Renaissance cults of the saints than anything else.

You are right when you talk about the filioque being one - I wouldn't say the first impetus tho - of the reasons why the great schism happened, centuries before the Renaissance. Still, it was only around 1400 that those ideas (till then only "theological disputes") became alive and widespread, and the people started to coinceive a new idea of religion, God and Christ, even expressing that in the figurative arts. I agree with you about the "humans being the grandest in God's Creation and that they are put on a pedestal". I'm not too sure about Protagoras and the clichéd "man-measure of all things", because the foundation of the Renaissance had much more to do with Plotinus (thanks to Marsilio Ficino) than with Plato and the likes.

Finally, speaking about Pillars, I think you are looking for a Leonardo da Vinci (who wasn't actually from Vinci) or a Pico della Mirandola in the game, but I believe that you should be looking for some early Renaissance figures instead. For example, there is a side quest about helping an eager student of animancy finding some forbidden theorems that strongly resonated with me and reminded me of the early scholars that researched and then translated the ancient greek texts, whose knowledge got lost over the centuries, effectively starting the Renaissance in literature.
The whole animancy theme reminded me of the early Renaissance debates, when the new (or rediscovered) essays and technologies were heavily discussed, and not always the best/newest won - think about the famous first competition of the Renaissance between the traditional Ghiberti and the innovative, revolutionary Brunelleschi, actually won by the former in 1401.
Well, I understand I might be reading too much into it anyway.

 

[Grotesque]

I liked Eora. It felt "grounded high fantasy"-sh to me. In comparison to something like DA, its setting is much more fleshed out. Pantheon is legitimately cool.
Usually high fantasy is not my cup of tea (Faerun, for example, felt completely bland in NWN2 and in a couple of DnD campaigns my friends were running), and I can't say I fell in love with Eora as well, but it managed to keep me interested in it.
And did I say that the pantheon is cool? It's cool, yes.

What s so cool about it?

 

[FreeKaner]

I'm not sure I agree with what you're saying here, I might have misunderstood.

I think you did, I was criticising people who were dismissing PoE's Renaissance vibes but only talking about how thought is approached and how philosophers changed. I don't disagree with anything you said in your post. What I meant by real birth of aristocracy was nobility becoming a class of people instead of steps on a hierarchy, exactly because of how power structure changed and they became weaker.