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

[AW8]

I like the idea of sidekicks, don't like the idea of flagging them differently than NPCs with arcs. Kills mystery. Wondering if every joinable NPC is deeper than they seem would add to the game. Knowing right away "Oh this guy is special and this guy is basic" takes away from the game.

But how are you going to make this obvious? Help text that comes up the instant a party member joins, telling you whether this companion is fully developed or not? That would be terrible, but the other direction leads to confusion.

City official sends player to uncover corruption in a factory.
Multi-stage quest ensues.
Player meets factory guard Carl Lucas and takes his side against the corrupt co-owner.
There's a big fight and the co-owner is put away.
Player: "Glad to be of help. You handled yourself pretty good in the fight, want to hang with me and fight monsters?"
Carl Lucas: "Sure I'll go with you and fight monsters, my life is awesome now that you've removed the corruption"

Pallegina hangs in a bar and says to herself, "If only some murderhobo would drop by and help me travel from port to port in order to solve my personal quest"
Player walks up and says "I'll get you from port to port and solve your personal quest"

The new city map and encounters– This map shows the size of a truly impressive city without the need to model every home, alley and citizen. We’re creating interstitial content when traversing districts on the map. These take the form of special combat and narrative encounters, as well as randomized events. Meet a strange fortune teller that may reveal cryptic prophecies about your future. Cross paths with a drunken noble with a large coin purse lost in the dangerous back-alleys of Neketaka. These encounters take place in scripted interactions as well as on all-new, city street scenes. It is important to note that many of these encounters still include choice & consequence and none are of the “fight x generic enemies” variety.

Any idea what that is?

My guess is, think the random encounters in Denerim in Dragon Age: Origins.

 

[Rahdulan]

Consoles are a possibility...

I bet he wishes it was turn-based right now.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Consoles made Torment turn-based.

 

[Suicidal]

I'd love for PoE 2 to be released on consoles if it meant that the combat would be turn-based.

 

[Lacrymas]

Making PoE turn-based would probably require a complete overhaul of the combat system. Again. But even more dramatic this time. So, yeah, probably not going to happen soon. I'm imagining the people at Obsidian torturing themselves over not doing it turn-based so they can release it on consoles.

 

[Kem0sabe]

It's impossible to have the game playable on consoles with the current combat system.

On consoles you either have turn based or you have action, rtwp with engagement and tons of abilities/spells per character... With 5 person party is unmanageable.

 

[Infinitron]

Artisans district that Sawyer teased a while ago not part of Nekataka? Interesting.

They may have renamed it since then.

It's impossible to have the game playable on consoles with the current combat system.

On consoles you either have turn based or you have action, rtwp with engagement and tons of abilities/spells per character... With 5 person party is unmanageable.

Well, they are making it slower in this game.

 

[Sizzle]

I like the idea of sidekicks, don't like the idea of flagging them differently than NPCs with arcs. Kills mystery. Wondering if every joinable NPC is deeper than they seem would add to the game. Knowing right away "Oh this guy is special and this guy is basic" takes away from the game.

But how are you going to make this obvious? Help text that comes up the instant a party member joins, telling you whether this companion is fully developed or not? That would be terrible, but the other direction leads to confusion.

City official sends player to uncover corruption in a factory.
Multi-stage quest ensues.
Player meets factory guard Carl Lucas and takes his side against the corrupt co-owner.
There's a big fight and the co-owner is put away.
Player: "Glad to be of help. You handled yourself pretty good in the fight, want to hang with me and fight monsters?"
Carl Lucas: "Sure I'll go with you and fight monsters, my life is awesome now that you've removed the corruption"

Pallegina hangs in a bar and says to herself, "If only some murderhobo would drop by and help me travel from port to port in order to solve my personal quest"
Player walks up and says "I'll get you from port to port and solve your personal quest"

And the quest for getting Rekke ("An odd-looking man that the Principi rescued from a floating piece of flotsam on the eastern edge of the Deadfire Archipelago. He doesn't speak a word of any language that anyone can understand, but he's cheery and willing to lend a hand to any company he finds himself in. He's just happy to be alive (at least, that's what everyone assumes). Storm Folk fighter.") will go something like:

"I helped Rekke with some ship work, and now he's joined my party... or at least I think that's why he's still following me around. Having a fellow who doesn't speak a word of my langugage will surely be a great boon in combat, I can feel it!" :D

 

[Iznaliu]

Not really, they themselves came up with those ridiculous stretch goals and promises. "Fans" didn't force them to do anything. Obsidian said that they wanted to make a mix of BG, IWD and PS:T.

Imagine fans saying: "Obsidian had their chance to make an epic RPG, but lost it since they were too scared". These kinds of promises were needed to attract attention; and crowdfunding was pretty new so the feasibility of certain options was not known.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Iznaliu]

PoE 3: Now with 100 types of party member!

 

[Infinitron]

So, less than a week left until the end of the campaign and the Fig Funds are still far from their cap even though we know there's at least $2M in reservations. Are they going to lose out on all of that money because Fig doesn't work fast enough? Hard to believe. Maybe they'll speed up the pace for the final days.

 

[2house2fly]

How is the pace at which fig funds are allocated decided anyway? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the amount of backer money, because Wasteland 3 ended with much less backer money but much more fig funds. It doesn't seem to be that consistent since they just got something like $50k dumped in at once the other day which pushed them past a stretch goal just in time for an update. Is it possible for someone to want to invest in the game but not be able to because the fig funds weren't allocated to the project before the end of the campaign? Maybe the rest of the money will be dumped in at the end of the campaign during the last 24 hours' "final push"?

 

[Infinitron]

How is the pace at which fig funds are allocated decided anyway? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the amount of backer money, because Wasteland 3 ended with much less backer money but much more fig funds. It doesn't seem to be that consistent since they just got something like $50k dumped in at once the other day which pushed them past a stretch goal just in time for an update. Is it possible for someone to want to invest in the game but not be able to because the fig funds weren't allocated to the project before the end of the campaign? Maybe the rest of the money will be dumped in at the end of the campaign during the last 24 hours' "final push"?

I don't know, but Feargus has said several times in the Fig comments that he has no involvement with it (and indeed, seems to be implying that it would be legally dubious for him to be involved with it)

 

[ushas]

My old friend! How are you? We met pages back, you being the Rat, me being the Mouse. A perfect match!

As you have warned me about association with Bubbles (not that I mind), it's only fair to return the favor - the point is that you strangely exhibit lack of self-preservation instincts:

Rat odor is stressful to mice and has an effect on their behavior and reproduction. In fact, rat odor is sometimes used as a predator odor to study anxiety and antipredator behavior in mice.

Specifically, domestic and wild-stock mice who are exposed to a conscious or anesthetized rat tend to flee, and if prevented from fleeing, they show defensive or attack behavior (Griebel et al. 1995, Blanchard et al. 1998).

which also means eating disorders, producing fewer litters in vicinity of rats, etc... All good for rat dominance.

Have you ever taken the time to read or play Sorcery! because that is exactly what this reminds me of, the city of Kharé, also known as the Cityport of Traps! How awesome is that right?! I gave it 5/5 on my friends GOTY poll. You?

I've played Steve Jackson's books some long time ago, not the video game adaptations yet. Good to hear you liked them. Last year I've finally started with digitized Lone Wolf series (Project AON) using Seventh Sense. It may not be the most pleasing graphical interface, but I've found myself lost in the adventure.

okay, Okay! OKAY! So the exciting part, right? It is random. Each player will experience different outcomes as they move from one city ward to the next, revealing certain aspects of the main plot arc as we move about! You and I will not experience the same outcome as we explore the city. How awesome is that right? She will read your /SOUL/ and you'll get insight to the choices you made in Pillarss. OMG! This interaction will change the outcome of your adventure. It's brilliant writing. Thank-you very much!

Well, I like it when it's used to enhance storytelling, for example incorporating more interactive scenes, some of which would be otherwise too expensive to do. If it helps with variety of random encounters, why not. Though, you are right it needs good writing and some meaning. It's also a kind of disturbing when game switches between different interface looks. But we haven't seen the main HUD and dialogue window yet.

I wonder how on boat encounters will look like. As Lone Wolf was already brought up, I remember the second book of Kai series, Fire on the Water, having some forky dramatic events on sea in the beginning and near the end. Like this one.

every character shown is an NPC ...
... interesting ... unless the very first party member is dun. Dun. DUN! Maneha! sssshhhHHH! You read it here first!

xoxo

Aha!... Dear player, after replaying PoE1 just for the sake of the best outcomes and spending half an hour in the character (re)creation, giant Eothas in the prologue video sucked that all out, left you at the brink of death, and you have found yourself sharing body with Maneha*. To save your soul's hard work, you must track down the wayward god. Now hurry up, or else Maneha will start randomly throwing things people gave you into the ocean, and she will romance Pallegina! (That's some personal motivation, I tell you )

*Also we have changed Maneha's portrait and skin tone.

 

[DosBuster]

Just had a random thought looking at the Embark icon on the city map: What if the stronghold this time around is the player's own ship? That'd be pretty cool.

 

[LizardWizard]

Sidekicks are fine, fucking storycucks.

 

[prodigydancer]

So, less than a week left until the end of the campaign and the Fig Funds are still far from their cap even though we know there's at least $2M in reservations. Are they going to lose out on all of that money because Fig doesn't work fast enough? Hard to believe. Maybe they'll speed up the pace for the final days.

Fig funds value has been kept at about 49% of total funds throughout the entire campaign so I think it's intentional. I don't know how exactly Fig works, but my best guess is that Obsidian doesn't want investments to eclipse pledges.

 

[Infinitron]

Sidekicks are fine, fucking storycucks.

One of the kinda fun thing about "sidekicks" is finding out the one place where they DO interact with the game. For example, having Shar Teel with you can get you of jail in the game's final chapter: http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Angelo_Dosan

 

[TT1]

Just click on the sound button at the end of the investment page and listen to the whole thing. WTF?

WHAT THE FUCK.

WHAT

THE

FUCK

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire/invest

 

[Infinitron]

Haha, wtf. An Easter Egg?

https://d3pylr1apgoxnh.cloudfront.net/assets/audio/take-23-disclaimer.mp3

 

[TT1]

Haha, wtf. An Easter Egg?

https://d3pylr1apgoxnh.cloudfront.net/assets/audio/take-23-disclaimer.mp3

0:50 - 0:55 - PRICELESS

 

[Ramnozack]

Not getting much more money and its getting close to the end, is it supposed to pick up in the last 3 days or something? Will be kinda sad if it only makes 3 mil

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Not getting much more money and its getting close to the end, is it supposed to pick up in the last 3 days or something? Will be kinda sad if it only makes 3 mil

If they get gaming media coverage (IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Polygon etc) in the last few days I would expect it to hit 3.5 million before it finishes.

 

[Alienman]

Haha, wtf. An Easter Egg?

https://d3pylr1apgoxnh.cloudfront.net/assets/audio/take-23-disclaimer.mp3

Will Wheaton...