Review RPG Codex Review: Darth Roxor on Disappointment, thy name is Pillars of Eternity

[Blaine]

The only area that put me off was copper lane, I dig the rennesaince style architecture but it is just too clean and strrile for a real city and a trade district at that.

Not to mention the merchants all standing around in a lifeless clump on a flat slab of marble which in no way gave the impression of a bustling marketplace.

 

[VioletShadow]

The only area that put me off was copper lane, I dig the rennesaince style architecture but it is just too clean and strrile for a real city and a trade district at that.

Not to mention the merchants all standing around in a lifeless clump on a flat slab of marble which in no way gave the impression of a bustling marketplace.

 

[Dreaad]

^ Yeah and it had all those NPC's walking around, apparently Unity can't even manage that without melting your CPU, let alone buffs before combat.

 

[zero29]

Should we blame obsidian?

Or blame saywerity?

Or should we blame the fans of DnD?

No, blame Unity!

Blame Unity!

btw there's a mod that enables buffs before combat...

 

[Copper]

Eh I like the wilderness areas just fine. Don't really know what more you could possibly expect, bombastic eye candy on every step?

The only area that put me off was copper lane, I dig the rennesaince style architecture but it is just too clean and strrile for a real city and a trade district at that. The rest of DB was very nicely done.

For me?

Intact frontier homesteads, fields, dams, etc would be number one. You should have seen the blighted fields around Gilded vale, the liberties beyond the walls/bridges of defiance bay, etc. Magran's Fork is a nice map, with the tower, house and the adra circle, all I'd add is a barren field from the house to the road, maybe with some graves freshly dug, or being undug by wolves. As it is, the Dyrwood veers into Mad Max territory as soon as you leave town, given the amount of dead bodies you find, and I at least found it a bit comical, especially with Fulvano and his unfortunate company.

Second would be more interesting geography range inside an area, say transitioning from rocky field with stunted trees to lusher forest and then a swampy flood plain - everything's super compressed anyway, so why not change things up more?

Third would be more environmental storytelling that didn't rely on dead bodies carrying letters - stuff like the killed deer the first two wolves are defending, etc. This is done to an okay level, but the bar can and should be raised for the sequel/expansion pack.

For Defiance Bay - I found even First Fires too clean, never mind Ondra's gift.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The drooling over graphics is hilarious. Nobody argues the game is ugly as far as I know, and nobody backed it for how beautiful it was going to look. I expect most people who backed it did so expecting good gameplay, and it's this that it didn't deliver.

Anyone who claims the game isn't pathetically easy on pretty much any difficulty setting/party composition unless you really try to make it hard for yourself is either a casual or is already so "challenged" that I don't need to challenge him to anything.

Not to mention the merchants all standing around in a lifeless clump on a flat slab of marble which in no way gave the impression of a bustling marketplace.

With all the game mechanics problems, criticism of the environments/lore/setting really comes as a luxury, but I've been putting it off for too long. This game contradicts its lore on regular basis. Just one example:

From the Guidebook:

This sprawling capital is the locus of trade, industry, and exploration for the entire country of Dyrwood. Nestled on the penin- sula between the Isce Úar River and the sea, Defiance Bay is perfectly positioned to receive raw materials from Loghome and export crafts around the world. While the city excels at producing ships, textiles, arms, and armor, its unique source of lucre is the trade of Glanfathan artifacts. Commerce of this sort is frowned upon and largely consigned to black-market dealings, but is also inextricable from the Dyrwoodan sense of ambition and entitlement.

Locus of trade, my ass! The docks area instead of giving the impression of bustling with trade as described in this paragraph was doubling as a "slums" district.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

I agree with this review but I still love the game, I think there is something wrong with me.

 

[Hatred]

I agree with this review but I still love the game, I think there is something wrong with me.

I disagree. Being able to like something despite its flaws isn't a bad thing. Being able to see the merit in a review which derides something you enjoy is a good thing too.

 

[SCO]

Torment schedules aren't impressive at all, compared to ultima 7. 96% of them consisted of moving around in a line segment over and over.

Still, better than any other IE game and all recent kickstarter rpgs (LOL).

 

[AwesomeButton]

The thirty minutes to edit my post ran out, so I'm continuing the previous one here:

From the Guidebook:

This sprawling capital is the locus of trade, industry, and exploration for the entire country of Dyrwood. Nestled on the penin- sula between the Isce Úar River and the sea, Defiance Bay is perfectly positioned to receive raw materials from Loghome and export crafts around the world. While the city excels at producing ships, textiles, arms, and armor, its unique source of lucre is the trade of Glanfathan artifacts. Commerce of this sort is frowned upon and largely consigned to black-market dealings, but is also inextricable from the Dyrwoodan sense of ambition and entitlement.

It's simple. Where there is international trade, there are invariably money-changers. Where there are large-scale trade enterprises, there are invariably companies. Wherever large sums of money are needed for such an enterprise, there are always banks. That's how banks actually came to be! This was supposed to be a Renaissance-influenced setting, remember?

If Defiance Bay is a center of trade as the Guidebook claims, they are very good at concealing it. There is literally no sign of the listed industries and crafts existing anywhere within the city.

Normally there would have been a whole market district and the seats of various artisan guilds would have to be spread around the city. Not only there is no market district, but you actually have to unlock merchants by completing quests. The merchants themselves are spread out and hidden.

Obsidian have been cutting corners with Defiance Bay in a very overt manner which is very annoying to players who like city hubs in RPGs. I would have expected a criminal network prospering around the smuggling of Engwithan shit. Instead of that I've got a "noble family" which has apparently been hastily "converted" to be the sole center of illegal activity in Defiance Bay. With their manor proudly rising in the middle of the rich people's district and with everyone in the city apparently aware of the Doemenels' "shady" nature, one wonders how come they haven't been imprisoned by the "Duc" for breaking the laws and endangering the peace with the Glanfathan tribes by trading in Engwithan artifacts. Just how much of fools are Obsidian taking us for here?

Remember Cyseal as a counter-example. That was an actual big port city.

With a historian (who from time to time likes to point out that he is such) as a creative lead, and with the "more mature style" promises, I was expecting the setting to be more developed in the parts which make the societies and politics seem believable. What do I get instead -- mostly tales of 'hollowborn', communist cults, mad (as in insane) provincial nobles.

Even the obligatory "treacherous Italian city-state plotting" angle was a welcome sight when faced with Sawyer's vision of a "Renaissance-inspired setting". Duh.

 

[DeepOcean]

It's simple. Where there is international trade, there are invariably money-changers. Where there are large-scale trade enterprises, there are invariably companies. Wherever large sums of money are needed for such an enterprise, there are always banks. That's how banks actually came to be! This was supposed to be a Renaissance-influenced setting, remember?

Yeah... adding half a dozen merchants, some crates, bored workers going all over the place and some dirt on the streets would elevate Copperlane from its dull state.

 

[AwesomeButton]

It's simple. Where there is international trade, there are invariably money-changers. Where there are large-scale trade enterprises, there are invariably companies. Wherever large sums of money are needed for such an enterprise, there are always banks. That's how banks actually came to be! This was supposed to be a Renaissance-influenced setting, remember?

Yeah... adding half a dozen merchants, some crates, bored workers going all over the place and some dirt on the streets would elevate Copperlane from its dull state.

It would have conveyed the impression that there is some sort of economic activity in the city, as opposed to people just standing around, waiting to dispense quests or "comment on your reputation". I also find it very weird how everyone in the gift lives in such striking poverty as you are made aware when you enter their houses. Again, this isn't a fisher village, that's supposed to be the port area of a great city. It wouldn't be the best district, but people wouldn't be scraping for survival in run-down houses.

Instead of the docks area, the poorest part of town would have to be where the people from the inner areas of the country, who make their living from supplying the city, come to spend a night before turning back towards their villages, after they've sold their supplies at the market.

Historically, and this is regardless of whether we're talking about real history or fantasy (unless the fantasy is really childish stuff, which PoE isn't supposed to be), cities always mean a surplus of food is available in order to feed people who are not occupied with farming/producing food, but instead make a living off their artisan skills. Unless there are some crafts/industry, there would be nothing to hold the people in the city - if they can't feed themselves and their families through their labor, they would just revert to farming, because everyone has to eat. The city forms around a stronghold which is also the seat of political power, and in this case - also around the harbor - so a good position for engaging in commerce. The demand for industrial produce is there - the city needs masons, architects, workers, servants, woodworkers, smiths, cloth makers, tailors, weavers, jewelers, brewers, bakers, etc., the surplus of goods would have been sold to foreign buyers, everything looks fine, except the craftsmen themselves are nowhere to be seen and neither is a market of a sufficient size.

Also, I can't begin to imagine the quest opportunities which the various guilds would have presented in their struggles for preferential treatment by the central authority...

Obsidian have done communities right in FNV for example, like this guy explains (9:19): https://youtu.be/wvwlt4FqmS0?list=PLF4UOVu5UKgiDCxJrZE7hydqaKNwd37bh&t=559 My guess is they were badly out of time, or badly mismanaged.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Torment schedules aren't impressive at all, compared to ultima 7. 96% of them consisted of moving around in a line segment over and over.

Still, better than any other IE game and all recent kickstarter rpgs (LOL).

To be honest RPG schedules aren't impressive compared to Ultima VII, or even V. There are Gothics with Ultima likes schedules, Bethesda with something like that and that's it. Bioware didn't do them despite releasing AAA games, Witcher 2 despite being Poland's greatest effort in RPGs didn't go further than NPCs going to sleep at night and guards walking here and there.

 

[Irenaeus]

I agree with this review but I still love the game, I think there is something wrong with me.

I disagree. Being able to like something despite its flaws isn't a bad thing. Being able to see the merit in a review which derides something you enjoy is a good thing too.

You are wrong. Liking or even reading this "review" automatically makes you a retard. Sorry Crescent Hawk

 

[felipepepe]

Defiance Bay, the trade capital surrounded by blocked roads.

Ooops, bridge to Gilded Vale is down...
Ooops, the other path to Gilded Vale is blocked by a ruined Barbican...
Ooops, the road south is populated by Dragons...
Ooops, the road to Twin Elms is flooded...

Yet "refugees just keep arriving every minute"...

 

[Irenaeus]

Defiance Bay, the trade capital surrounded by blocked roads.

Ooops, bridge to Gilded Vale is down...
Ooops, the other path to Gilded Vale is blocked by a ruined Barbican...
Ooops, the road south is populated by Dragons...
Ooops, the road to Twin Elms is flooded...

Yet "refugees just keep arriving every minute"...

There are other roads from other places to Defiance Bay, retard. Did you even play the game? If you did, you didn't look at the map.

 

[felipepepe]

I listed ALL the roads that exit Defiance Bay:

Madhmr Bridge is broken, Caed Nua is blocked until you fix the barbican, Stormwall Gorge is flooded and Searing Falls is inhabited by dozens of dragons. All Defiance Bay can do is trade with Dryford.

 

[Irenaeus]

There are several roads to Defiance Bay and that's how the refugees arrive. I'll treat you like the low-attention span kid that your generation produced by the dozen and only take into account the few ones that you mentioned.

Madhmr Bridge broke like 2 days ago, Caed Nua's barbican fell last month and the floods happened last moon. As for Searing Falls, refugees are not cowards like you and they can get past the dragons while the beasts are sleeping. You are so retard (a Brazilian communist) that you forgot the routs by sea!

This is the level of Obsyhaters, ladies and gentlemen. Can we say <100 IQ?

#PrendeDilmaVez

 

[Lhynn]

Guess its mostly maritime trading?

 

[TripJack]

can you say <100 percent white

 

[Lhynn]

Obsidian didnt fail at world building from a theoretical standpoint, most of it makes sense. Its just uninteresting, banal, grey. Its like they shot the dude that had the passion and creativity in obsidian and hid the body.
Its not a world im interested or invested in any way.

Obsidian failed at making an interesting world worth exploring, and thats one of PoEs biggest sins.

 

[Sensuki]

Yeah... adding half a dozen merchants, some crates, bored workers going all over the place and some dirt on the streets would elevate Copperlane from its dull state.

And then the game would run at like 10 FPS for everyone.

 

[DeepOcean]

Yeah... adding half a dozen merchants, some crates, bored workers going all over the place and some dirt on the streets would elevate Copperlane from its dull state.

And then the game would run at like 10 FPS for everyone.

Don't have faith on the Unity of the gods, brotha?

 

[Sensuki]

It's not really Unity (well, it kind of is) but the way they built characters is really taxing on the CPU. Since each character is made up of lots of different parts, I think the renderer eats way more CPU time trying to process them. I'm not exactly sure why but when I talked to Roby Atadero (one of their programmers) about the issue he just said that it's Unity's renderer that eats up the majority of the CPU time (and that's code they don't have access to).

I don't know whether this situation could have been avoided or not, but it's an issue they should probably re-visit during the pre-production of their sequel.

 

[Seari]

Give 2d characters in sequel and much is forgiven.