Preview Pillars of Eternity played by Josh Sawyer, live on Twitch!

[Infinitron]

Tags: J.E. Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Paradox Interactive; Pillars of Eternity

Yesterday's Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter update announced that there would be a livestreaming of the game on Paradox's Twitch channel this evening. Well, it's live now, and it turns out that the game is being played, for the first time, by Josh Sawyer himself. Watch as the master of balance takes on his own creation!

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He's showing off areas we've never seen before, but I assume efforts will be taken to minimize spoilers.

UPDATE: And it's over. The stream was about an hour and ten minutes long, and visited the upper levels of the Endless Paths of Od Nua megadungeon as well as a few districts of the city of Defiance Bay. What did you think of it, Codex?

 

[Ninjerk]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/sawyer-stream-thread-spoilers.96520/

Reported for brofist harvesting

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/sawyer-stream-thread-spoilers.96520/

Reported for brofist harvesting

This is the NEWS, I'm allowed to.

Stream is over, updated OP.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I liked the look of combat, surprisingly enough, and I look forward to exploring the rest of the Endless Paths of Nua.

I didn't like the city much - it felt a bit too sterile and sort of "just there" for you to traverse to get from one location to the next - but the indoor locations themselves looked good.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah, the cities were very sterile. The indoors were nice.

I'll definitely need to get that Crickets DLC when it comes out too...

 

[Azeot]

Didn't watch past the few 20 mins, I don't want to spoil anything. But I liked pretty much everything except some animations.

After various burns and kicks in the balls in the past I don't usually get hyped over a game, but i really, really want this one. Depending on how drunk I get after the exams period, I might even pre-order...
Please be gut.

 

[Zed]

I didn't like the city much - it felt a bit too sterile and sort of "just there" for you to traverse to get from one location to the next - but the indoor locations themselves looked good.

Yeah. They said something about memory issues with having too many NPCs.
Unity.......

Also there weren't any city background sounds which added to the emptiness.

 

[Infinitron]

Oblivion Imperial City, isometric edition

It shouldn't be hard to plop down a bunch of BG1-style commoners around the place. Perhaps they could give them more static graphics - make them not full-blown NPCs like the party, but sorta part of the background. Actually, that's basically what BG1 commoners were.

 

[Zed]

Oblivion Imperial City, isometric edition

It shouldn't be hard to plomp down a bunch of BG1-style commoners around the place. Perhaps they could give them more static graphics - make them not full-blown NPCs like the party, but sorta part of the background. Actually, that's basically what BG1 commoners were.

yeah. they shouldn't even have to be selectable, just part of the scenery as you suggest. memory issue is probably only if they are actual actors with scripts attached or whatever. I know games have done this but I can't think of one from the top of my head.

 

[Infinitron]

yeah. they shouldn't even have to be selectable, just part of the scenery as you suggest. I know games have done this but I can't think of one from the top of my head.

Well, the BG1 commoners were selectable but graphically much simpler than "adventurer" NPCs. There were some who sat down who couldn't even move. But it was still fun to click on them - "Wife's been getting prickly on me arse!"

The contrast between them and important NPCs with the adventurer model was often weird, though.

But yeah, Anthony Davis, you should suggest this

 

[Kem0sabe]

Even adding little bitts of dialogue atmospheric sound to the city and interiors would go a long way, like commoners cogosiping on current events or stall sellers announcing goods or cries with city decrees, etc.

The brain does the rest of the work making you feel more immersed even if there aren't any crowds around

 

[Zed]

"Wife's been getting prickly on me arse!"

PoE is cool american tho, doesn't have that olden tymes english.

edit: man when that NPC dropped that f-bomb.
didn't even fit in a game like bloodlines.
do they think they're HBO?

 

[Jaesun]

Still "cool american" is far better than the incredibly fucking old/boring/used too fucking often "olde english".

 

[Infinitron]

Just call it Eld Aedyran.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Vilanous characters should sound proper British tho, like the jag commercial

 

[agris]

I just watched all but the last ~5 min of the stream. Takeaway:

• the horrendous scene-transition icons only appear on mouse-over now
• VO is OK, still sounds more dry and less stage-actor than the BG series
• I hope those area-of-effect lines for cone / whatever spells are temp
• Stealth needs to be a per-character affair. Maybe it could be used that way and he chose not to
• The world map's text "click and drag to move.." needs to be moved from the center to another location, or given a checkbox that says "never show again".

 

[Abu Antar]

I just watched all but the last ~5 min of the stream. Takeaway:

• the horrendous scene-transition icons only appear on mouse-over now
• VO is OK, still sounds more dry and less stage-actor than the BG series
• I hope those area-of-effect lines for cone / whatever spells are temp
• Stealth needs to be a per-character affair. Maybe it could be used that way and he chose not to
• The world map's text "click and drag to move.." needs to be moved from the center to another location, or given a checkbox that says "never show again".

It's a Josh Sawyer game. The same could be said about Fallout: New Vegas. I don't mind it.

I heard the word fuck but not cunt, I am disappointed.

 

[agris]

It's a Josh Sawyer game. The same could be said about Fallout: New Vegas. I don't mind it.

I heard the word fuck but not cunt, I am disappointed.

Yea, I'm more of a radio-style actor fan for VO. Does that mean you agree with the rest?

 

[Abu Antar]

Yea, I'm more of a radio-style actor fan for VO. Does that mean you agree with the rest?

I agree with all of your bullet points. I wanted per-character stealth all along because that's how I play the IE games. Send in my Thief to scout and deactivate traps (Yoshimo is my special bro, other thiefs are also bros but not as much as him.). Are of effect spells, I am used to now, but they don't look too hot.

 

[Maculo]

One thing that I noticed was that the portrait of the female paladin godlike changed. I thought she was supposed to be avian/bird-like.

Probably unrelated, but this makes me more curious what MCA characters they had to tone down.

 

[Athelas]

One thing that I noticed was that the portrait of the female paladin godlike changed. I thought she was supposed to be avian/bird-like.

That isn't a companion, it's the player character.

inb4 all black people look alike

I agree with all of your bullet points. I wanted per-character stealth all along because that's how I play the IE games. Send in my Thief to scout and deactivate traps (Yoshimo is my special bro, other thiefs are also bros but not as much as him.).

You don't have to move the other characters, you can let them stand where they are while scouting ahead with a single character.

 

[Maculo]

I was under the impression that the female paladin companion was a godlike. I really screwed that up.

 

[Athelas]

I was under the impression that the female paladin companion was a godlike. I really screwed that up.

She is: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Pallegina

 

[throwaway]

A few random notes:

• Combat looks easier to read than I remember it from the 1st gameplay videos. Engagement also seems easy to identify and didn't seem like a huge deal on Hard.
• What's up with the 3xHaste speed the party is sometimes running at?
• The dungeon romp in the beginning reminded me of IWD, and not in a good way. Still at least the tedium of inventory management seems gone. There's no words for how much of an improvement PoE is on the IE games in that respect.
• Also that dungeon level, albeit not fully explored was in some sense a reality check. During the kickstarter I was hoping for something of the quality and depth of the levels of Durlag's tower. Obviously having 15 such levels was unrealistic but still..
• A surprising amount of dialogue was voiced. Either Josh went for those or they upped the ration significantly over the IEs.

Yeah. They said something about memory issues with having too many NPCs.
Unity.......

Also there weren't any city background sounds which added to the emptiness.

jfc.. This is 2015 and a fucking isometric PC exclusive game runs out of memory?! It's fucking indefensible.

 

[Jaesun]

Perhaps Feargus wants this game to run on consoles?