Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Captain Shrek]

You'd have to ask Tim for his specific influences, but personally I think unit responsiveness is very important (and often lacking in RPGs), positioning is important, and the ability to combine units in different arrangements for different challenges is important. We want people to feel like they have a lot of tactical options for approaching a challenge. A challenge that requires one specific build to overcome isn't really tactical gameplay; it's more of a combat puzzle. I think that's less satisfying in a party-based game where you control the composition and build of your group.

 

[maverick]

We look at Icewind Dale levels for a lot of our inspiration. They were beautiful settings full of atmosphere, interesting architecture, and a ton of cool, hand-painted details. Also the relatively subdued color palettes of that art falls in line with what we want to explore, similar in saturation what you might see in the art of the Hudson River School. We also look at Icewind Dale portraits because the brushwork of all of the artists tended to have an enjoyable mix of loose and tight strokes.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.cybergamer.com.au/articl...w-with-Josh-Sawyer-of-Obsidian-Entertainment/

New interview, with some more info.

Hey, that's a very interview.

 

[evdk]

One wanted feature I've seen mentioned on the forums is a Warcraft 3 style mini map.

Who the fuck are those people?

 

[Grunker]

Mini-maps suck, and there's a few other derps by the interviewer besides that but overall some of the questions are very fucking interesting and Josh gives some interesting answers as well.

 

[Diablo169]

One of the better interviews i've read so far, still some random RTS crap in there but not bad.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

the arcanum ogre island quest was complete bullshit. you potentionally are friends with the richest and most influential person in the world, can talk to the silver lady or the seer in tarant, or are yourself a supermage that is able to wipe out all living things on the planet, but finding a bunch of gnomes is impossible? yeah sorry, jasede, but that is bullshit.

 

[evdk]

the arcanum ogre island quest was complete bullshit. you potentionally are friends with the richest and most influential person in the world, can talk to the silver lady or the seer in tarant, or are yourself a supermage that is able to wipe out all living things on the planet, but finding a bunch of gnomes is impossible? yeah sorry, jasede, but that is bullshit.

The Silver Lady is a stoned hippie, Bates is in deep with the gnomes and the supermage thing is bit overstated (a lot).

 

[Roguey]

Some people believe a diabolus ex machina makes for good writing but these people are wrong.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

overstated? one ending is exactly that. oh sure, khergan helped a bit, but since you kick his ass after all is said and done, well...

The Silver Lady is a stoned hippie

yeah, she talks all fucked up 'n shit lololo...

elipsis!

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The idea behind the quest is good (something terrible happened, and you cannot do anything to "fix" it or punish the responsible, which is what you've been trained Pavlovian style to expect: hero finds out about problem - > hero fixes problem - > player feels good), but the execution was lackluster (you could do something, but you won't, because the plot says so). Given the general mood of the quest, some feel this unfinished state sort of contributes to it - no, you don't get the satisfaction of a real answer, go home. Others feel it makes the plotholes more evident, which spoils the entire thing.

 

[evdk]

yeah, she talks all fucked up 'n shit lololo...

elipsis!

Point is nobody in Tarant would really give a damn what some crazy elf witch says. Especially while being unable to communicate in a easily understandable manner.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

wait, what does public relations have to do with anything? my idea was that you ask her for the identity of the nonpeople involved, skullfuck them and then summon their spirits and doomm them to eternal suffering.

well, i guess alternatively you can go all sherlock holmes on their ass and find other evidence for the crime, or others, since i doubt the halfogre rape dungeon is the only thing they are guilty of.

 

[agentorange]

I like the idea of the unresolvable investigation. There was a similar one in KotOR 2, with the jazz alien who is trying to trace a signal on Nar Shadaa. He ends up dead no matter what and the quest just ends. They added a kind of resolution to it though with the Restoration Mod.

 

[Gurkog]

T

http://www.cybergamer.com.au/articl...w-with-Josh-Sawyer-of-Obsidian-Entertainment/

New interview, with some more info.

Thanks for that article! He addressed one of the problems I have with a lot of current fantasy books/movies/games:

One of the first things mentioned about Project Eternity was the concept of Souls being important and a source of power, that you were interested what world building ideas are generated from that design mechanic.
Where did the inspiration behind this concept come from ? I've heard many people mention NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer, although I personally thought of Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader.

It actually came out of some thoughts I had about the physical and metaphysical underpinnings of our own world. When worldbuilding, I think a lot of designers want to explain everything up front. There's obvious value in defining how the world works because it helps everyone wrap their heads around what the setting is about. Over the years, I've felt that breaking down the supernatural into easy-to-comprehend chunks drains the magic from it.

Compare this to our own observation and understanding of the physical world. Public reaction to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle was very telling. Despite the scientific community's general requests to stop calling it the "God particle", the public and media couldn't help themselves. A discovery that potentially explains, if not the "why", at least the "how" of existence is appealing.

Project Eternity's world has a similar level of flawed understanding. They can perceive souls, they can detect and record some data about them, they can verify their findings to a certain extent, but they still don't really "get" how it all works. Arguably of greater importance, they don't understand why souls work (and don't work) the way that they do. Individuals also don't agree on the role the gods play in the cycle. Last week, our art director, Rob Nesler, came in and asked me, "Are the gods actually gods or just beings of immense power?" While there aren't many people in the world of Project Eternity who deny the existence of gods, that question is one that people in the setting have debated for millennia.

I am tired of authors explaining away the magic!

 

[Jarpie]

Our new favourite novelist Merin about single-player RPGs:

Any bits of story that are implied, any character reactions or backstory or events not shown on the screen are all in your head. Your imagination is what makes games and stories work. As Scott McCloud would tell you, the gutter is the most important part of sequential storytelling.

And this is what makes cRPGs so compelling to those of us who DO role-play our characters and prefer LESS game reactivity to our characters. The more the game is coded to give reactions, the more limited your choices as a player are. But if you imagine what is happening in the gutters, then the story truly becomes yours.

The skilled story-teller (or cRPG designer) is the one who knows what is best left to the imagination and what is important to concretely show.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Our new favourite novelist Merin about single-player RPGs:

Any bits of story that are implied, any character reactions or backstory or events not shown on the screen are all in your head. Your imagination is what makes games and stories work. As Scott McCloud would tell you, the gutter is the most important part of sequential storytelling.

And this is what makes cRPGs so compelling to those of us who DO role-play our characters and prefer LESS game reactivity to our characters. The more the game is coded to give reactions, the more limited your choices as a player are. But if you imagine what is happening in the gutters, then the story truly becomes yours.

The skilled story-teller (or cRPG designer) is the one who knows what is best left to the imagination and what is important to concretely show.

I just played the best RPG ever. I closed my eyes and let my imagination take me away.

 

[CrustyBot]

Why does he complain about romances, then?

Surely, if he wants the most compelling and amazingly written romance, he'd just imagine it instead of expecting one in the game, which reduces his ability to roleplay.



On some level, I understand his point, but not only is he confusing reactivity as a mechanic and design goal with ambiguity as a storytelling device, he's just gone completely with it. Might need the full post and context, though I suspect I'll need the brain bleach if I search it out.

 

[~RAGING BONER~]

Arcanum has a great character creation and development system, an awesome world and decent lore...

everything else sucks though.

It's combat wishes it felt like Fallout, it's environments wished they looked as "snazzy" as the setting is described but it all feels dead and sterile.

I wish that one day someone out there remakes this game with a hell of a face lift because it's a diamond in the rough. It's the only one of the old iso games i just can't play again.

 

[Jarpie]

Snippet from his newest post:

Choice and consequence are nice, I like them, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be in a cRPG. But they aren't essential.

C&C not essential? HERETIC! BURN THE HERETIC!

 

[commie]

~RAGING BONER~

Yeah they should remake Arcanum using Gamebryo.

 

[Spectacle]

If you can get the point across in a few strokes there's no need to make many. The missing NPC and the journalist got the point across.

I can't believe you people sometimes. Arcanum is riddled with bugs and questionable design choices and flaws but this quest isn't of them; believe what you like.

Some people enjoy it when a game messes around with their expectations, others hate it when the rules inexplicably change in the middle of the game.
Once again the trifold model can explain much of the player reaction:

Dramatists enjoy the cool conspiracy story with the unexpected twist.
Gamists dislike that it's not even possible to try and win the quest, there's no actual gameplay present.
Simulationists dislike that the game won't recognize the many options a powerful and influential character would realistically have for getting to the bottom of the conspiracy.

 

[Jarpie]

I took the siamese-quest as basicly homage/pastiche or spoof to the X-Files so I don't get the hate toward the quest.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Ah, the infamous Arcanum gnome conspiracy quest. In which short demihumans with large noses and a love of wealth conspire to abduct human females to breed them with monsters in utterly horrifying experiments, all with the goal of providing themselves with large and loyal bodyguards against humans with prejudices against them. Real subtle, that quest.

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with making a quest unresolvable. What is wrong (as has been pointed out) is to make it unresolvable by not providing the options that a reasonable player would expect. The player can at this point be a friend of some of the most influential persons in Arcanum - why not ask them for help? Or why not just get the names of the gnomes on the Tarant industrial council, track them down and get the truth out of them? Why is the only option to give all the evidence to a single newspaper? Why is stupidity the only option?

The last time I played Arcanum I took the just god ending. I was disappointed to find that taking a god ending overrides all other ending slides - the god slide is the only one shown. But it does kind of make sense, as once you are a god you can shape Arcanum into whatever you want, and everything else becomes irrelevant. And that means that those bloody gnomes would find themselves on the personal shit list of a new God of Justice - a thought that pleases me greatly.



What was this thread about anyway? Oh right, Project Eternity.

 

[Jarpie]

Why does he complain about romances, then?

Surely, if he wants the most compelling and amazingly written romance, he'd just imagine it instead of expecting one in the game, which reduces his ability to roleplay.



On some level, I understand his point, but not only is he confusing reactivity as a mechanic and design goal with ambiguity as a storytelling device, he's just gone completely with it. Might need the full post and context, though I suspect I'll need the brain bleach if I search it out.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61...omance-thread-pt-3/page__st__100#entry1262135

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