Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

[Sentinel]

Yeah if he liked TTON okay and he liked Tyranny a lot, he’s going to like Deadfire, especially once it’s finished. Probably even in its current unfinished state. It must be amusing to watch this cycle over and over again.

Reading criticisms has informed me about which NPCs to completely avoid, namely Xoti, Serafen, and Tekehu. Maia's a maybe.

I don't doubt the gameplay will be fun since that seems to be the consensus despite also being coupled with an acknowledgement that it's much easier than PoE.

Don't avoid Serafen.

 

[2house2fly]

Serafen is fairly cool to have around, even though I can't take the idea of a romance with such a hideous little rat man seriously

 

[J_C]

Christ man, you're complaining that a physically impossible thing happened in a fantasy setting? Fucking hell here's a Baldur's Gate plot hole for you: you can't be a child of the god of murder because gods don't exist

One thing about atheists I'll never understand is why they never seem to understand how retarded their thinking is. By believing in atheism and saying stupid shit like you just did, claiming gods don't exist, you are claiming you have some sort of universal knowledge where you know for certain gods don't exist, which is as retarded as believing that any of religions we have here on Earth are 100% correct.

I have no proof that god doesn't exist, but neither you have any proof that it does exist. So we both are retarded it seems.

 

[Abu Antar]

It's already a star deal over at Fanatical. Damn.
https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire?aff_track=CJ

 

[Immortal]

There is a 50% chance PoE 3 either won't happen or won't be in this style naow.

I'm looking forward to Pillars of Eternity 3 being the Fallout 3 of the series. See that adra pillar? You can climb it.

What makes you think it would be better for us? It hasn't with the developers who've left so far. John Gonzalez is currently working on console exclusives, Travis Stout is semi-retired at Ubisoft, George Ziets is stuck at inXile, Avellone still hasn't done any noteworthy work since 2011, etc.

It's an outcome that does damage to people who deserve it, losing out on future Obsidian-developed RPGs is an acceptable loss. The Obsidian I liked is gone anyway.

What was the last game Obsidian produced that you liked?

 

[Roguey]

What was the last game Obsidian produced that you liked?

Tyranny.

 

[Trashos]

Wow, that's ancient history.

 

[Roguey]

Wow, that's ancient history.

Pillars of Eternity/Tyranny/Deadfire are Obsidian in a period of transition into something I will no longer like as more and more of their old writers leave, only to be replaced with people who are nothing like them. Deadfire has Sawyer and contracted Fenstermaker/Evans, but that's not much.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

 

[Immortal]

What was the last game Obsidian produced that you liked?

Tyranny.

 

[Lhynn]

Look at the Codex, where people just. can't. stop. talking. about Pillars of Eternity long after they've grown bored of other games (including Divinity). That's why I said that if anybody had a shot at pulling it off besides Larian, it was Obsidian. Alas, they didn't.

People keep talking about pillars of eternity because its that flawed. You could write a book with the misteps and stupid logic behind every choice the developers made.

 

[Neanderthal]

Whats a Neanderthol?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I agree with you mate,most devs of rpgs and even table top games had some knowledge about world history. Mainly the European one,from ancient Greece to the colonial era. Many game were affected by it,D&D is a mix of ancient myths and legends with more medieval setting, warhammer is set in the dark ages with fantasy races that represent actual nations. While modern writers and devs think that game of thrones is some kind of literal masterpiece and the greatest books of all times,while their greatest works are fanficks about getting boned by a bull......on tumblr. The future looks grim indeed.

But if most cRPG writers are so dumb and shallow, what does this say about us? cRPG developers have always build worlds, characters and quests, but suddenly we have cRPG writer as a profession, walls of text, lore dumps, etc., and players debating the merits and flaws of this “writing”. This is a pretentious misconception of the genre. cRPG writing encompasses not only dialogue, story and characters, but quest design, world building, itemization, etc. In other words, cRPG writing is not something that is done separately from the cRPG stuff. But it is precisely because cRPG writing shouldn’t be evaluated separately that it should not be evaluated by the same standards we use to judge literature. Developers have to make a lot of concessions due to the conventions and limitations of the genre, from getting inside people’s houses uninvited to deliver this package quests.

TL;DR cRPG writer shouldn’t be a profession, cRPG writing is not restricted to what cRPG writers do, and players are just as pedantic as cRPG writers when they evaluate the merits and flaws of their work separetly from the cRPG stuff.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

^
^^
^^^

That’s why they’re called narrative designers. Deadfire has generally pretty good quest design, a well put together setting aside from the metaphysical stuff, and even the people who really dislike it agree that the itemization is top-notch. It’s also pretty light on lore dumps and the actual walls of text are rare. The writers of Deadfire are doing most of what you point out here. It’s on the traditional writing end of things that they sometimes fall flat.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

That’s why they’re called narrative designers.

This is just another word for writer. How many narrative designers you will find in Darkland? None. Why is that?

Deadfire has generally pretty good quest design, a well put together setting aside from the metaphysical stuff, and even the people who really dislike it agree that the itemization is top-notch. It’s also pretty light on lore dumps and the actual walls of text are rare. The writers of Deadfire are doing most of what you point out here. It’s on the traditional writing end of things that they sometimes fall flat.

Riiiiiight, nope.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Whats a Neanderthol?

Probably Clive on synthol.

 

[MajorMace]

Reading criticisms has informed me about which NPCs to completely avoid, namely Xoti, Serafen, and Tekehu. Maia's a maybe.

Don't pick Maia. Unless you want to hear the same cheesy joke ten times. And have the most out of place companion of the roster in your party (yeah, even more than Xoti).

 

[Nano]

Wow, that's ancient history.

Pillars of Eternity/Tyranny/Deadfire are Obsidian in a period of transition into something I will no longer like as more and more of their old writers leave, only to be replaced with people who are nothing like them. Deadfire has Sawyer and contracted Fenstermaker/Evans, but that's not much.

You don't like Chris L'Etoile's writing?

 

[Roguey]

You don't like Chris L'Etoile's writing?

Nothing good ever came out of Bioware.

 

[imweasel]

PoE2 is not what BG2 would look like with better graphics, it is what a person that doesn’t like what he is doing would reimagine so. You see, the irony is that types like David Gaider that are so mistreated here have a much deeper understanding of games than Josh Sawyer. [...] The same could be said about James Ohlen and Kevin Martens role in BG2. They were passionate D&D players doing their best.

Yep. Sawyer's lack of passion for the project and his disdain for IE fans ("They are grognards!") was a recipe for disaster straight from the beginning.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Nothing good ever came out of Bioware.

DA:O is better than PoE, DS3, Tyranny, WM, PoE, and South Park.

Pillars of Eternity/Tyranny/Deadfire are Obsidian in a period of transition into something I will no longer like as more and more of their old writers leave, only to be replaced with people who are nothing like them. Deadfire has Sawyer and contracted Fenstermaker/Evans, but that's not much.

The most talented at Obsidian were Avellone and Cain, and now they are Cain and Boyarsky. The difference is that now you know that Feargus is a loon and they hiring dangerhairs to become the poor-uglier cousin of Bioware.

 

[Roguey]

DA:O is better than PoE, DS3, Tyranny, WM, PoE, and South Park.

I don't agree with this, though it was certainly more demanding than South Park.

The most talented at Obsidian were Avellone and Cain, and now they are Cain and Boyarsky. The difference is that now you know that Feargus is a loon and they hiring dangerhairs to become the poor-uglier cousin of Bioware.

Peak Obsidian was Avellone, Ziets, Gonzalez, Stout, Fenstermaker, MacLean, Evans, and Sawyer.

 

[J_C]

You don't like Chris L'Etoile's writing?

Nothing good ever came out of Bioware.

If that's what you think, I don't know how can you be interested in anything Obsidian has done, because BG2, and even BG1 and Kotor is better than half of Obsidian's titles.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I don't agree with this, though it was certainly more demanding than South Park.

If you enjoyed Tyranny of nuObsidian you have no right criticize them now or talk in a condescending manner about Bioware. It's the same shit, well, only worse.

Peak Obsidian was Avellone, Ziets, Gonzalez, Stout, Fenstermaker, MacLean, Evans, and Sawyer.

You are aware that’s player’s imaginary bullshit, right? Let’s see. Three games: KOTOR2, F:NV and MOTB. Avellone’s main role was in KOTOR2, and a minor role in NV and MOTB (Gann has some cringe inducing dialogues). The main role of Gonzalez was in F:NV, but players here only remember Sawyer. He left to never come back. Ziets was great in MOTB, but afterwards? How about MacLean, Stout and Evans? Did Fenstermaker ever made something good besides that quest in NV? How about Tim Cain? Did he ever made anything good after Troika? Just because you decide to imagine a dream team in your head based on their best contributions in different games, doesn’t show that the studio used their talents like that. It is all made up. The team was always changing and trying to make different projects work.

 

[Infinitron]

Here's my take on the designers Roguey mentions as being "peak Obsidian", excluding Chris Avellone.

What they weren't: Nearly as good as Chris Avellone. There's this idea floating around that there was this golden age where Obsidian was brimming with Avellone-tier talents capable of pumping out MotB masterpiece after masterpiece. I think that's a myth.

What they were: Representatives of a generation that was closer to the RPG Codex's cultural and artistic sensibilities than Obsidian's current crop of writers.

As for Avellone himself, he's so suis generis that there's not a lot to meaningfully discuss.