Preview Pillars of Eternity Livestream with Josh Sawyer and Jesse Cox

[Infinitron]

Tags: Josh Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Paradox Interactive; Pillars of Eternity

As promised in the recent press release, Paradox and Obsidian arranged for a livestreaming of Pillars of Eternity today, hosted by Josh Sawyer and played by YouTube Let's Play personality Jesse Cox. The gameplay demonstrated in the stream is not from the currently available beta - it starts right from the beginning of the game, which we haven't seen since back in July. Jesse is rather annoying and not a very good player, but the upside of that is that he takes a much longer time to fumble through the beginning content, so we get to see a lot more of it.

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The stream is about two hours long, and at around one hour through it reaches all new areas and content that we didn't get to see back in July. That includes joining up with one of the game's permanent companions, the wizard Aloth, and a visit to an inn with the rather apropos name of "The Black Hound". And in case you're worried about spoilers, well, they turn off the streaming of the game during the most important story sequences, so it's not too bad.

 

[felipepepe]

Oh God, Sawyer & Jesse is like the weirdest duo you could put together...

 

[Kem0sabe]

The guy playing is making me dislike the game more than i would otherwise, even Sawyer sounds annoyed.

 

[Roguey]

Not gonna watch and still think it's mind boggling to release a video so soon. I suppose they think it'll increase pre-order sales, so they can release it as late as possible, but it could very well end up having the opposite effect. Especially since it's apparently being played by someone who is bad at it.

 

[Infinitron]

Not gonna watch and still think it's mind boggling to release a video so soon. I suppose they think it'll increase pre-order sales, so they can release it as late as possible, but it could very well end up having the opposite effect. Especially since it's apparently being played by someone who is bad at it.

Other than one amusing bug, it's not particularly awful or unpolished looking.

 

[Roguey]

Other than one amusing bug, it's not particularly awful or unpolished looking.

I'm under the impression we're still in the "clunky and not-fun" phase of beta-testing.

 

[Infinitron]

Other than one amusing bug, it's not particularly awful or unpolished looking.

I'm under the impression we're still in the "clunky and not-fun" phase of beta-testing.

Yeah, well, as I've said repeatedly, the "clunkiness" tends to hit hard when you're forced to play with a unfamiliar mid-level party with no knowledge of the game. This is the beginning of the game. Straightforward combat with few abilities to click and only one or two characters in the party. Seems to play pretty indistinguishably from the IE games at that level.

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, well, as I've said repeatedly, the clunkiness tends to hit hard when you're forced to play with a unfamiliar mid-level party with no knowledge of the game. This is the beginning of the game. Straightforward combat with few abilities to click and only one or two characters in the party. Seems to play pretty indistinguishably from the IE games at that level.

Oh well that's good to hear. Not sure if I want to watch a person playing badly for an hour though (not even going to bother watching the beginning again).

 

[himmy]

I thought maybe I can stomach it, but I stopped listening when he used the words "future posterity". Somehow, it's even worse if he said it as a joke.

 

[Fry]

So, this is one of the "Youtube Personalities", right?

 

[Ignatius Reilly]

The guy seemed to come at it from the angle of a salesman than someone who actually wants to play the game. Which yeah, this is basically what this was, an advertisement, but I'd rather we not be so blunt about it. After ten minutes I realized I was going to learn nothing new, and that this was aimed at people who have no idea about the game, therefore overly excited gamer-man.

I'd rather have had Josh just play the game and narrate in his not nearly as grating and rather soothing voice.

 

[Black]

Wow, bravo for inviting Jesse Cocks. It's like they don't want people to watch it.
Pewdiepie for Obsidian's next game?

 

[tuluse]

I don't know what Jessie Cox added to the stream. Much more fun to watch Brennecke die.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I don't know what Jessie Cox added to the stream.

Half a million idiots.

 

[Duraframe300]

Wow, bravo for inviting Jesse Cocks. It's like they don't want people to watch it.
Pewdiepie for Obsidian's next game?

Already happened.

 

[t]

Is Jesse some sort of RPG messiah? First Larian, now Obs... "Advertise like shameless whores" mutual sort of agreement?

 

[7/10]

I don't go out much and I still have no fucking idea who any of those "Youtube personalities" are.

 

[Kem0sabe]

A few things i felt were less than optimal at this point about the game:

1. The movement speed and animation, looks very slow and pondered, like if i was watching Dark Souls in isometric view, i much prefer how movement looks in the I.E games;
2. Inventory management seems clunky;
3. That UI, especially the spell and abilities selection.

 

[Bester]

I'm not in the loop on the whole internet "personalities" phenomena, so I'm honestly wondering, aren't there any popular streamers/reviewers without mental disabilities out there? I know at least one guy, the "cynical brit" guy. So even if he's the only one, why didn't they use him at least, or is he not popular enough or what is it? Why did they invite this guy, what's the rationale? I'm so seriously confused.

 

[Roguey]

1. The movement speed and animation, looks very slow and pondered, like if i was watching Dark Souls in isometric view, i much prefer how movement looks in the I.E games;

I know Sensuki in particular has been raging about how everything is too fast so this is pretty funny to me.

 

[Cosmo]

1. The movement speed and animation, looks very slow and pondered, like if i was watching Dark Souls in isometric view, i much prefer how movement looks in the I.E games;

I know Sensuki in particular has been raging about how everything is too fast so this is pretty funny to me.

IMO the speed of human character movement doesn't quite match the running animation (the former seeming too slow for the latter).
I'd say that's the problem, rather than the whole game's pace being too slow or too fast, even if the PC being the center of attention makes it look that way.

 

[MicoSelva]

I'm not in the loop on the whole internet "personalities" phenomena, so I'm honestly wondering, aren't there any popular streamers/reviewers without mental disabilities out there? I know at least one guy, the "cynical brit" guy. So even if he's the only one, why didn't they use him at least, or is he not popular enough or what is it?

Because they probably want him to make a 'WTF is' on release, to boost sales. He only does each game one time.

Larian asked him to cover Divinity: Original Sin during their Kickstarter campaign, so he never did a video at release. Arguably, it hurt their sales in the long run, but probably helped funding during the Kickstarter.

 

[Saber-Scorpion]

I'm not in the loop on the whole internet "personalities" phenomena, so I'm honestly wondering, aren't there any popular streamers/reviewers without mental disabilities out there?

No. I've only found one or two that don't make me want to slit my wrists after listening for five minutes.

One sure-fire way I've discovered to tell if a YooToob "personality" will be utterly intolerable is if they have a "cute" cartoon avatar of their fat neckbeard self plastered on the thumbnail of every video, as many of them do. This Jesse Cox guy's apparently looks like this:

Spoiler

So... yeah.

 

[Sensuki]

1. The movement speed and animation, looks very slow and pondered, like if i was watching Dark Souls in isometric view, i much prefer how movement looks in the I.E games;

I know Sensuki in particular has been raging about how everything is too fast so this is pretty funny to me.

It's not necessarily to do with speed though. It's a pacing issue. Movement speed of enemies is too fast - and that's being fixed in the upcoming builds. It's the fact that combat pretty much boils down to how good your opening is, and then it's over quickly - usually in 10-12 seconds in game time not including pauses, rarely more.

 

[Infinitron]

1. The movement speed and animation, looks very slow and pondered, like if i was watching Dark Souls in isometric view, i much prefer how movement looks in the I.E games;

I know Sensuki in particular has been raging about how everything is too fast so this is pretty funny to me.

It's not necessarily to do with speed though. It's a pacing issue. Movement speed of enemies is too fast - and that's being fixed in the upcoming builds. It's the fact that combat pretty much boils down to how good your opening is, and then it's over quickly - usually in 10-12 seconds in game time not including pauses, rarely more.

The first level gameplay shown in this stream is longer and more "HP spongey" than the IE games were, though. Shank and Carbos were one hit kills.

The first time we saw this section of the game I think there were even people on the Codex who complained about it. So which is it.