Anthony Davis
Blizzard Entertainment
So as most of you know, I'm not on the PoE project, but I have a vested interest in it as a gamer, a backer, and an Obsidian employee.
Starting over the break, I sunk as much time in as I could - which is hard considering the nature of the holidays and that I have a family.
Let's go over some background and *MY* expectations.
My Background:
I've played all of the IE games. I'm a fan of the IE games because of what they were in that time period, not because they were DnD. In other words, they were quality RPGs breaking new ground. I have good memories of playing these games, but I also recognize that they also had some flaws.
When I play DnD, I do not get consumed by the rules and mechanics, I do not purposefully seek out ways to 'game' the system or to min max my characters. I actually prefer flawed characters. On a related note, this is one of the biggest challenges with a CRPG versus a PnP RPG - the lack of a Human Gamemaster who can tune games. For example, my campaign I was running recently was centered around a party of con-artists who masqueraded as circus performers - so they weren't walking around with heavy platemail and two handed swords. Most of them work leather breastplates or chain shirts - or no armor. Try doing that in a CRPG and see how far you get. Anyway...
My Expectations:
I was not an Obsidian employee when I backed the game, but I love Obsidian and I like to be honest. So to be honest, I probably would have backed anything Obsidian put up on the kickstarter. A RTwP game would not be my first choice if I was calling the shots - I prefer TB, but I backed it anyway because again, I love Obsidian.
I almost hesitate to talk about my experience with the game, because even in the time period between that build and the current build I just got yesterday, SOOOO much has changed and been fixed.
But I promised, so here I go - there will be unmarked spoilers below.
The Story and the World: to me, it seemed new with some familiar hints of fantasy. I understand that some of you might read more fantasy than I do, but this was mostly new to me. This is my understanding of the world, so I might actually have some details wrong.
This is a a world where reincarnation is fact, but people are blissfully unaware of their previous lives - unless they are a Watcher. Watchers are people who can see their previous lives and experiences. I got kind of a PS:T Nameless One vibe from some of the experiences. There are charlatans who pretend to be Watchters, fleecing people, so Watchers can have a bad reputation - but it can be overcome.
There are also people who are "Awakened". Typically this happens when someone is exposed to a serious magic event and they survive.
The player's character in PoE is both a Watcher and he/she has been Awakened. Most people that this happens to tend to go insane over time. It remains to be seen how the player will deal with it.
I liked the differences in these playable races, or Kith, as the civilized races are referred to. I like that there is a variant of dwarves who aren't Scottish gold diggers - but rather semi-barbarian-ish natives. I like the Orlans, and I especially thought it was clever on the differences between "Hearth" Orlans and the Wild Orlans. It was neat.
The Companions: I only found Edar the fighter, Aloth the wizard, Kana the chanter, Durance the skeevy healer, and Sigani the ranger. I liked them all, even though Durance is skeevy and creepy. I thought the voice acting was good to great, and the stories, what I found, were pretty interesting.
Character Creation: I liked the details and all the various things I could select for my character and how they affected their stats and starting equipment. This has already been improved since my first run through. I wish there were more and varied backgrounds, but the backgrounds do come up at minor conversation points. I also wish there were more portraits. One, Obsidian is working on getting more portraits, and 2, we support custom portraits. So while I wish there were more, it is a fixable problem.
Graphics: The game looks good to me. It's like a mash up of IE and ToEE. I like the capes, I like that there are several variant looks for the same armors - if you can find them. I loved that I could give my ranger a sweet shirt, a dueling cap, and an arquebus and he looked like a musketeer. The spell effects were nice.
Combat: This is a sticky point for some of the more vocal friends/haters/trolls/fanboys/etc. of the game. To me, and I understand this is my opinion, it felt like IE - which is not the same thing as saying it felt like DnD.
I set my controls up so that WASD moved the camera, and Tab highlighted stuff. I set my pause options up so that the game paused when and enemy appeared and some other settings I don't remember specifically.
When I found an enemy (or enemies) the game would pause, I would issue combat and move orders. I would then unpause and let things commence. I would pause and adjust the orders as the situation required. The engagement system seems to work, unless it's a surprise, or I make a mistake, and I can mostly keep my squishies protected. Ranged enemies seem to target my squishies about as much or more than they target melee, which can be a trick - but it's not too bad.
While learning the system on my first playthrough, there was quite a bit of quickloading or forced loading. For example, when you finish the starter dungeon, you are alone as you make for the Gilded Vale. If you think that your solo character can take on a giant brown bear, or 3 bandits, or three wovles with knockdown abilites, all by yourself you will be reloading - unless you play on the easiest setting - and even then... maybe you are going to die.
So what I am saying is that you can wander into areas and fights that you most likely will not win. Fleeing mechanics are difficult and in some cases, impossible, so a reload will be required. In one sense this is good and realistic, in another sense - RPGs, with few exceptions, have taught me that while party members are great, my lone hero can face roll level scaling armies. It was kind of refreshing. It is not as unforgiving as AoD, which is another RPG where your hero is not Superman, but it is similar and makes the attempt.
To wrap up combat, I would have preferred TB, but I didn't have any qualms. Combat also got a LOT more fun for me once I started to get better equipment and I gave my ranger an arquebus. Sure it takes 7 seconds to fire, and it's inaccurate, but I like the alpha damage and it looks cool.
The Stronghold: I'll be honest, the Stronghold didn't really do it for me. Yeah, the buildings get better and repaired which is nice. Followers walk around, which is neat. I never got an invasion, which was a bummer. On the plus side, it didn't feel like I was being forced to do anything and it didn't bother me. It does look nice and I think for people who like Strongholds more or dig into it deeper, it might be better.
Od Nua, the dungeon underneath it was pretty damn awesome (what I saw of it).
I don't want to sound like I'm being harsh on the Stronghold. It's entirely possible that I just didn't dig deep enough - but there is a LOT to do in this game already.
Bugs: Yeap, there were quite a few. To be fair, I encountered ZERO story breaking critical path bugs. I did encounter quite a few UI bugs, most of which have already been fixed. Actually, the review build I got yesterday already had fixed almost every issue I had reported over the Christmas break - and there are still months left to fix issues.
So still a lot of work to be done, but the team is busting their asses - I mean it.
So there are some broad strokes. I can try to answer questions, time and NDA permitting. I don't really want to turn this into a combat focused thread - I get it, there are a lot of passionate people out there who think they know the best combat system - and maybe they're right - I just don't care to get into it. Still, I will answer questions about combat and whatever else.
Starting over the break, I sunk as much time in as I could - which is hard considering the nature of the holidays and that I have a family.
Let's go over some background and *MY* expectations.
My Background:
I've played all of the IE games. I'm a fan of the IE games because of what they were in that time period, not because they were DnD. In other words, they were quality RPGs breaking new ground. I have good memories of playing these games, but I also recognize that they also had some flaws.
When I play DnD, I do not get consumed by the rules and mechanics, I do not purposefully seek out ways to 'game' the system or to min max my characters. I actually prefer flawed characters. On a related note, this is one of the biggest challenges with a CRPG versus a PnP RPG - the lack of a Human Gamemaster who can tune games. For example, my campaign I was running recently was centered around a party of con-artists who masqueraded as circus performers - so they weren't walking around with heavy platemail and two handed swords. Most of them work leather breastplates or chain shirts - or no armor. Try doing that in a CRPG and see how far you get. Anyway...
My Expectations:
I was not an Obsidian employee when I backed the game, but I love Obsidian and I like to be honest. So to be honest, I probably would have backed anything Obsidian put up on the kickstarter. A RTwP game would not be my first choice if I was calling the shots - I prefer TB, but I backed it anyway because again, I love Obsidian.
I almost hesitate to talk about my experience with the game, because even in the time period between that build and the current build I just got yesterday, SOOOO much has changed and been fixed.
But I promised, so here I go - there will be unmarked spoilers below.
The Story and the World: to me, it seemed new with some familiar hints of fantasy. I understand that some of you might read more fantasy than I do, but this was mostly new to me. This is my understanding of the world, so I might actually have some details wrong.
This is a a world where reincarnation is fact, but people are blissfully unaware of their previous lives - unless they are a Watcher. Watchers are people who can see their previous lives and experiences. I got kind of a PS:T Nameless One vibe from some of the experiences. There are charlatans who pretend to be Watchters, fleecing people, so Watchers can have a bad reputation - but it can be overcome.
There are also people who are "Awakened". Typically this happens when someone is exposed to a serious magic event and they survive.
The player's character in PoE is both a Watcher and he/she has been Awakened. Most people that this happens to tend to go insane over time. It remains to be seen how the player will deal with it.
I liked the differences in these playable races, or Kith, as the civilized races are referred to. I like that there is a variant of dwarves who aren't Scottish gold diggers - but rather semi-barbarian-ish natives. I like the Orlans, and I especially thought it was clever on the differences between "Hearth" Orlans and the Wild Orlans. It was neat.
The Companions: I only found Edar the fighter, Aloth the wizard, Kana the chanter, Durance the skeevy healer, and Sigani the ranger. I liked them all, even though Durance is skeevy and creepy. I thought the voice acting was good to great, and the stories, what I found, were pretty interesting.
Character Creation: I liked the details and all the various things I could select for my character and how they affected their stats and starting equipment. This has already been improved since my first run through. I wish there were more and varied backgrounds, but the backgrounds do come up at minor conversation points. I also wish there were more portraits. One, Obsidian is working on getting more portraits, and 2, we support custom portraits. So while I wish there were more, it is a fixable problem.
Graphics: The game looks good to me. It's like a mash up of IE and ToEE. I like the capes, I like that there are several variant looks for the same armors - if you can find them. I loved that I could give my ranger a sweet shirt, a dueling cap, and an arquebus and he looked like a musketeer. The spell effects were nice.
Combat: This is a sticky point for some of the more vocal friends/haters/trolls/fanboys/etc. of the game. To me, and I understand this is my opinion, it felt like IE - which is not the same thing as saying it felt like DnD.
I set my controls up so that WASD moved the camera, and Tab highlighted stuff. I set my pause options up so that the game paused when and enemy appeared and some other settings I don't remember specifically.
When I found an enemy (or enemies) the game would pause, I would issue combat and move orders. I would then unpause and let things commence. I would pause and adjust the orders as the situation required. The engagement system seems to work, unless it's a surprise, or I make a mistake, and I can mostly keep my squishies protected. Ranged enemies seem to target my squishies about as much or more than they target melee, which can be a trick - but it's not too bad.
While learning the system on my first playthrough, there was quite a bit of quickloading or forced loading. For example, when you finish the starter dungeon, you are alone as you make for the Gilded Vale. If you think that your solo character can take on a giant brown bear, or 3 bandits, or three wovles with knockdown abilites, all by yourself you will be reloading - unless you play on the easiest setting - and even then... maybe you are going to die.
So what I am saying is that you can wander into areas and fights that you most likely will not win. Fleeing mechanics are difficult and in some cases, impossible, so a reload will be required. In one sense this is good and realistic, in another sense - RPGs, with few exceptions, have taught me that while party members are great, my lone hero can face roll level scaling armies. It was kind of refreshing. It is not as unforgiving as AoD, which is another RPG where your hero is not Superman, but it is similar and makes the attempt.
To wrap up combat, I would have preferred TB, but I didn't have any qualms. Combat also got a LOT more fun for me once I started to get better equipment and I gave my ranger an arquebus. Sure it takes 7 seconds to fire, and it's inaccurate, but I like the alpha damage and it looks cool.
The Stronghold: I'll be honest, the Stronghold didn't really do it for me. Yeah, the buildings get better and repaired which is nice. Followers walk around, which is neat. I never got an invasion, which was a bummer. On the plus side, it didn't feel like I was being forced to do anything and it didn't bother me. It does look nice and I think for people who like Strongholds more or dig into it deeper, it might be better.
Od Nua, the dungeon underneath it was pretty damn awesome (what I saw of it).
I don't want to sound like I'm being harsh on the Stronghold. It's entirely possible that I just didn't dig deep enough - but there is a LOT to do in this game already.
Bugs: Yeap, there were quite a few. To be fair, I encountered ZERO story breaking critical path bugs. I did encounter quite a few UI bugs, most of which have already been fixed. Actually, the review build I got yesterday already had fixed almost every issue I had reported over the Christmas break - and there are still months left to fix issues.
So still a lot of work to be done, but the team is busting their asses - I mean it.
So there are some broad strokes. I can try to answer questions, time and NDA permitting. I don't really want to turn this into a combat focused thread - I get it, there are a lot of passionate people out there who think they know the best combat system - and maybe they're right - I just don't care to get into it. Still, I will answer questions about combat and whatever else.