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Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment (Kickstarter) [Up: Teaser]

Arulan

Member
I can't remember which video interview (I've seen too many of them on Pillars of Eternity) but he (Josh Sawyer) roughly stated that writing a normal conversation between two characters is already very difficult to get right and feel natural. Writing romantic conversations that feel natural is even harder and the time and resources required to do so weren't worth it and he didn't feel the backers would approve either.
 

dude

dude
BOO.

I would take any backer that wouldn't approve and strangle them.
Well, I didn't have any hopes regarding this, but it's still a bummer to know that romances are out.
 

Arulan

Member
BOO.

I would take any backer that wouldn't approve and strangle them.
Well, I didn't have any hopes regarding this, but it's still a bummer to know that romances are out.

You can strangle me then. I think it was the right decision to avoid romances. I don't inherently hate the idea but it's not worth the resources to get it done right, and could very likely turn out terrible. More so if they feel forced to cater to everyone and have to create several romantic interests to accommodate this, further increasing the problem.
 

adj_noun

Member
Hold on, I have a Josh Sawyer thingie on romances in Eternity somewhere.

Here, from a Dealspawn interview:

Dealspawn: One of the things that came out of the Kickstarter pitch: no romances in the game. Was that something that was decided very early on?



Sawyer: We know that it takes a long time to write companions. Period. To write romances takes much, much longer. Romances are a very sensitive thing. It's hard enough to write good dialogue. Just two people talking like normal human beings is very hard.

It's very, very difficult to write romantic interactions between people that come across as believable and that develop in a way that also feels real and believable that you feel as genuine and you can get into. So we looked at that and said "we're making eight companions, it's going to be a real challenge to write all their stuff, and on top of that having enough romance across those companions to feel like we're covering all the options that people would want". Like I want to romance this guy, I want to have same sex stuff, or I want to do this or I want to do that.

I think it's worth taking seriously that people want to have the option of, like I want it with this guy...

But then, we're looking at that and that's a huge amount of work. So we talked about it and none of us thought that we could do that logistically. It's too much work. It was less about our personal preferences...

I mean, I'm not a super huge fan of romances but I think it would be fun to write them. I just think it would require a lot of time to do well. I don't like writing shitty dialogue. That's what I don't like doing. And I know if we rushed it, it would come across as being half-assed.
 
You can strangle me then. I think it was the right decision to avoid romances. I don't inherently hate the idea but it's not worth the resources to get it done right, and could very likely turn out terrible. More so if they feel forced to cater to everyone and have to create several romantic interests to accommodate this, further increasing the problem.

Totally agree with you there. Sometimes romances in games are more trouble than they're worth. You end up in the situation that Bioware is in where it's expected of them to cater for every gamers romance needs in all their games now, and it ends up a unrealistic tragic mess.
 

xenist

Member
The solution is easy. Have the opening of the game be the villain breaking up a gangbang between every playable character. Romantic possibilities all taken care of.
 

Kieli

Member
Saw 10 minutes of Gamescom footage.

Jesus tap dancin' Christ.

I'm in.

Nothing gives me a bigger nerd boner than Knights 'n Dragons 'n Elves fantasy.
 

Lusankya

Member
Before we get access to the beta, what class will your PC (as of now) be and why?

First I need to know what classes my companions are going to be, then I choose a class not covered by them, and based on this I will choose a race which is suitable for this class.

Otherwise I usually love to pick the Paladin class, because they're natural leaders (which suits the PC), usually* good characters and I like that they can fight but also use some kind of spells.

*In PoE I read that some Paladin orders are actually kind of evil or cruel, so for my playstyle I need to actively choose a good and honest order.
 
Before we get access to the beta, what class will your PC (as of now) be and why?

I need to see EVERYTHING before I make a decision. Skills, spells, mechanics. I don't have a particular attachment to specific classes, but I do want an active class as my main(no bard click a song and afk kind of thing). Generally it's down to:

- Tank/2H warrior/deathknight/shadowknight/darkknight/evilknight/youknowtheknight so I run in first, get everything on me then beat the crap out of them. I tend to avoid the class when swords aren't viable/the best option since I dislike maces/axes as weapon types, only want to be using swords, one or two handed. Luckily swords are usually the best option, when they're not the ONLY option.

- Rogue so I can do the out of combat stuff directly on my main, stealing stuff, pickpocketting, sneaking around and what not and I like dagger+poison type of combat as well as displacement/control from the usual rogue skills(shadowstep, blind powder, crippling poison, silencing poison, that kind of stuff). Can play Ranger if there's interesting mechanics tied to it, like the D&D ranger with nature spells and stuff and being melee proficient is pretty nice, but the pure glass canon "mage with a bow" kind of ranger bores me.

- Mage when it's done right, and by done right I mean fun to play. I want to be casting a bunch of different spells, not be an archer with a fireball skin on my "arrows". For example loved mages in Divinity, so many spells, a spell for each situation. I tend to leave those to NPCs quite often nowadays though, because it's hard to "lead" a group as a mage, you can't really be frontline and I like my PC to be in front of the group.

The char creation and char build seem so good in this I'll probably spend a real long time replaying the "tutorial" area over and over trying to find my favorite char. From the videos I've seen I'd say I'd be leaning towards rogue for now, warrior seems a bit passive while rogue looks like it has some cool tricks.
 

Kimaka

Member
Before we get access to the beta, what class will your PC (as of now) be and why?

I haven't read much about the classes yet but I'm thinking about starting with a Cipher. From what little I know about it, it sounds like it could be fun and I want to try something different than the warrior or mage class I usually pick.
 

Kieli

Member
When we pledge, does Obsidian store your CC info with no option to delete it?

I'll just buy from GoG if that's the case.
 

Deraldin

Unconfirmed Member
When we pledge, does Obsidian store your CC info with no option to delete it?

I'll just buy from GoG if that's the case.

Someone asked this same question earlier today on the official forum.

Darren Monahan said:
Nope. We use Stripe and PayPal for payment processing and they handle all of that kind of info. Stripe has a "remember me" option during checkout, but that's all handled on their servers.
 

Grayman

Member
Muscle wizard can't use a grimore and a sword though can they?

Splitting the conversation side of charisma amoung the main stats is a good move. Resolve probably needs some attractive quest design to make it worth picking up as it doesn't look to do a lot in combat.
 

dude

dude
Romances suck. I'm glad they are out.
Romances were awesome in BG2 and PS:T. They added a lot of flavor to those games and made the characters in the game feel even more alive.
I hope they reconsider romances for the expansion...

Anyway, I'm so ready for that beta, waiting this last day feels more difficult than I expected :(
 

Arulan

Member
TOMORROW

TOMORROW

I LOVE YA

TOMORROW

YOU'RE ONLY

A DAY

AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

This has been on my mind all weekend. I woke up today knowing I still had to wait another 24 hours. If only the codes would come at midnight, but I know it'll likely be 1PM EST. And to think I was originally going to skip the beta for fear of spoilers. Hahaha. I am glad they structured the beta to avoid as many spoilers as possible though.

I've been debating, thinking, and reading over old updates to have a better idea of what class I want my PC to be and have a rough idea of party composition. Of the front line classes I know I want to have a fighter in my party. I've always enjoyed using support/healer classes such as the priest and will want to have one in my party as well. The cipher is another class I was immediately interested. Ultimately my choice may depend a little on the confirmed companion classes assuming the three classes listed aren't represented (I probably won't be using hired Henchman for my first playthrough), but at the moment I'm leaning towards Cipher.
 

Labadal

Member
Will you be streaming? :p

Do post your impressions here if you get a chance! Of course, if we don't hear from you for 24 hours we'll take it as a very positive sign that the game rocks. :)
I will not be streaming, but I pity the fools that are on my STEAM friends list. I will be spamming screens all over the place.

If you want streams, it seems that lots of people on the Obsidian forum will be streaming.
 

Altazor

Member
hope you guys enjoy the beta tomorrow! I'll be here, watching from the sidelines, wishing I'd play the final game very soon.

And probably watching streams.
 

_DrMario_

Member
Can't wait to play the beta and see if it's going to change my opinion on the no XP for killing things. Cause right now I'm super fucking butt hurt about it.
 

dude

dude
Can't wait to play the beta and see if it's going to change my opinion on the no XP for killing things. Cause right now I'm super fucking butt hurt about it.

Really? I was super excited when he said it.
It's basically continuing on the XP system of the IE games - You earned some XP by killing stuff, but the XP from killing was very low, and it divided by six. You got the real XP from quests, which gave out a lot of XP over really anything, or killing dragons or other "boss" type stuff that could be categorized as sort of a quest. Removing the XP from kills further emphasizes these elements.
 

Arulan

Member
Really? I was super excited when he said it.
It's basically continuing on the XP system of the IE games - You earned some XP by killing stuff, but the XP from killing was very low, and it divided by six. You got the real XP from quests, which gave out a lot of XP over really anything, or killing dragons or other "boss" type stuff that could be categorized as sort of a quest. Removing the XP from kills further emphasizes these elements.

Oh no, it has spread to GAF.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66528-experience-point-mechanics-fighting-enemies/page-24

This topic has been debated a lot...
 

Grayman

Member
No kill xp equalizes the value of alternative solutions and prevents the gamey option of do everything for the big reward then rob and kill them too.
 
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